Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Twelve Years Ago, London
“Peter, I am supposed to be studying for finals, and I can’t do that if you’re kissing my neck.”
Sybil squirmed, but didn’t move away while Peter kissed her neck in an attempt to distract her from studying. It was working. She should’ve stayed at her own flat, where she could lock the door and focus, but the days they had left together could be counted on one hand and she was trying to soak up every spare minute she could.
Peter’s flat was cozy, in a very low-rent, cobbled together from charity shops, starving artist kind of way. It felt more like home than her pre-furnished university accommodations. Plus, his double bed offered slightly more space than her single, though either way they ended up tangled together like two shipwreck victims holding on for dear life.
“Fail and stay for the re-sit,” he said, and placed a shiver-inducing kiss on the tender spot behind her ear.
“I have to leave at the end of the week no matter what, so if I fail this exam, I’ll have wasted a lot of money.” Sybil caught his mouth with hers and kissed him until his bones became useless and he melted into the mattress, dragging her on top of him.
“You didn’t waste your money. You had really good sex,” he reminded her, nipping at her bottom lip.
“I think that makes you the world’s most expensive whore.” She forced herself into a sitting position to create some distance, though she was still straddling his hips. The solid ridge of his cock nestled between her lips and pressed against her clit. If she rocked back and forth, she could probably get off this way.
“I’ve been looking at places in Los Angeles,” Peter said.
That tossed a cold bucket of water over her.
He propped himself up on his elbows. “I get that it’s still long distance, but we’d be on the same continent. In the same time zone, even. Less than three hours of flight time and we could see each other.”
“Peter, we’ve been over this.” She smoothed his hair back from his beautiful, earnest face. “I don’t want to do long distance of any kind. I’ll drive myself nuts thinking you’re out meeting more interesting girls and forgetting about me. And you can’t uproot your life for me. We haven’t known each other long enough. We’re not old enough for that kind of commitment.”
“I’ve been in love with you since I met you. Being older or knowing you longer isn’t going to change my mind about that. What’s long enough? What’s old enough?”
“I don’t know!” Sybil threw her hands up. “Twenty-five? Thirty? Not twenty. If you follow me back to the States, you couldn’t go out and drink. No more pub quizzes.”
“I would happily be sober to be with you.”
She groaned in frustration. “What about your career?”
“Because no one has ever been able to act in Los Angeles,” he responded sardonically. “It’s not like I’m giving up some great job if I leave here. I’ve been auditioning, but I haven’t heard back from anyone.”
“You had those callbacks,” she reminded him.
“That doesn’t mean I’ve booked it,” he pointed out. “Why are you so resistant to me moving?”
Sybil hesitated. “Because if things don’t work out, between us or with your career or both, you’re going to resent me. And that’s a lot of pressure on a relationship. I can’t be that scared all the time, Peter.”
He pushed himself up into a fully seated position so they were nose to nose, forehead to forehead.
“I’m never going to resent you. Ever. I don’t want to be somewhere you’re not, and if I have to be, I don’t know if I could sleep knowing you’re not mine anymore.”
It was hard not to crack and nearly impossible not to cry, but she’d had a lot of practice pushing down her hurts. So she squared her jaw and swallowed the lump in her throat.
“You can’t know that you’re never going to resent me. If you’re going to move, it needs to be because it’s the right move for your career, not because you want to stay close to me. You don’t see me putting my life on hold to keep snuggling in this piece of crap.” She looked around his room. “Let’s enjoy the time we have left, okay?”
Two days later, Sybil walked out of her final exam feeling light as a feather. She was confident she had done well, and now she could enjoy her last few days in London unencumbered by school.
Peter had come with her to the exam because they were going to do some Christmas shopping once she was done. But when she got to the bench where she’d left him, he wasn’t there. Sybil turned in a slow circle, searching for him. Had he gone to the bathroom?
She waited awkwardly outside the men’s toilet for a few minutes, and when he didn’t appear, she opened the door and called his name. No answer.
Cold, sinking dread washed over her. He’d left without saying goodbye. She’d pushed him too hard and?—
“Darling, what are you doing hanging around the men’s?”
She whirled around. There was Peter. Relief flooded her, until she registered the grim expression on his face.
“I was looking for you,” she explained and frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“My agent rang,” he began, and looked up at the ceiling. Their voices echoed in the empty hall. “Let’s get going.”
Hand in hand, they exited into the chilly December air.
“What did your agent want?” Sybil asked as they walked in the direction of the shops.
“Turns out the reason there’s been a delay in hearing about any of those jobs I’ve auditioned for is that I got one, and then she went around and used that job as leverage to hear back about some others I was more interested in and—” He stopped so abruptly that Sybil was yanked backward when she didn’t stop, too. “She’s managed to book me for the next year and a half.”
“Peter! That’s incredible.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him. He didn’t hug her back. Frowning, she took a step back. “Why aren’t you excited about this?”
“Because all the jobs are here or involve travel. If I take them, I won’t be able to move to Los Angeles for a while.”
Her heart sank like a stone. Despite all her protestations, Peter had held firm that he would move to Los Angeles, and secretly, she’d started to come around to the idea.
“So you’re going to stay here.”
“I don’t have to?—”
“Yes, you do,” Sybil insisted. “You have multiple job offers on the table. Walking away from those would be giving up on yourself and your career. If you did that, I’d never forgive you.”
“How could I ever forgive myself if I walked away from you?” His voice caught on the last word.
Sybil closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to look into his.
“We’re at a point in our lives where we need to prioritize ourselves and our careers. We’re never going to go and accomplish all the things we want to accomplish if we’re twisting ourselves into knots trying to make this work.” She put her head on his chest and pressed her ear against his sternum, like she could memorize the beat of his heart. “If you ever wanted a sign from the universe, this is it. You’re supposed to stay here.”
The tube ride to Heathrow was silent. There was plenty of noise around them. Fellow travelers with luggage of all shapes and sizes strategizing their journeys home, families going to collect loved ones buzzing with excitement, and somewhere on the other end of their car, a baby crying. But Peter and Sybil rode in silence, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Sybil’s luggage bumping against their knees and shins.
Overhead, the speakers announced their arrival at Heathrow and advised riders to wait on the platform for a different train to take them to the terminals. Peter took possession of her large suitcase, she grabbed her carryon, and they exited the train, minding the gap as they’d been told.
The anxiety that had twisted her chest tighter and tighter with every stop threatened to grind her into dust as they waited on the platform. She couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t any room left for her lungs to expand. Tears pricked her eyes to the point of pain.
“You have to leave me here,” she blurted.
Peter looked at her with a blank, uncomprehending stare. “What?”
“You have to leave me here,” she repeated, “because if you go with me to the terminal, I’m going to beg you to get on that plane with me. And you’ll say yes because you love me and then I’ll hate myself for ruining your life.” Her chin trembled while her bottom lip quivered. “So you have to leave me here because I’m not strong enough to do the right thing if you go with me any further.”
“What if I want to get on the plane with you?” he asked softly, and she shook her head.
“That’s not an option.”
“So this is goodbye?”
The pain in her chest spread through her body like her veins were filled with pins and needles. Could she bleed out without a physical injury?
“Five years.” She didn’t know where she got the number, but saying it eased a smidgen of the tension inside of her. “If we still want this in five years, we go back to where we started. We can go be our own people and do our own things, and if in five years this still feels like it matters as much as it does right now, we try to find a way to make it work.”
Peter wrapped his arms around her and crushed her against him. She didn’t mind. If he broke all the bones in her body, she could stay a little longer.
“You expect me to survive five years without you?” he said against her hair, and she felt one of his hot tears slide down the shell of her ear.
“I expect you to be brilliant.”
He squeezed her tighter, and she clung to him in return. Somewhere in the outside world she heard the train to the terminal arrive and depart without her, but it didn’t matter.
Finally his hold on her slackened, but only so he could take her face in his hands. His thumbs caressed her cheeks, and a few tears slid down his own.
“I’m going to miss your stardust,” he whispered, and she suspected that was as loud as his voice would go at the moment. “How else will I get to hold a galaxy in my arms?”
“They’re just freckles,” she reminded him.
“They’re perfect. You’re perfect.”
Soft lips brushed hers, once, twice, three times before she gripped his jacket and rose on her tiptoes for a proper goodbye kiss. For the last time, his fingers sank into the hair at the base of her skull and they both tried to pour all the young, hopeless love they had leftover, all the love they didn’t have enough words or time to say, into that kiss.
Overhead, the arrival of the train to Terminal 5 was announced, and Sybil lowered her heels to the ground and released Peter’s jacket.
“It’s time,” she said around the unmovable lump in her throat.
“Five years,” he reminded her. “I’m coming to get you in five years.”
The train pulled into the station, and Sybil grabbed her bags and hurried aboard, not looking back. She couldn’t stand to see him alone on the platform, and she wouldn’t survive watching the train pull away from him.
She checked her large suitcase and had her passport verified, then she made her way through security. On the other side, she filled her water bottle, bought some overpriced snacks, and found her gate. She picked a seat as far away from her future planemates as she could, sat down, and opened her backpack.
Red wool spilled out the top.
She shouldn’t have taken it, but during the weeks she’d spent with Peter, it had practically become hers. Selfishly, she’d wanted to keep as much of him with her as she could.
Sybil took the sweater out of her backpack and slipped her arms through the sleeves. Something else red caught her eye. She reached into the depths of her backpack and took out the copy of Emma she’d allowed Peter to have the day they’d met. There was a yellow sticky note affixed to the cover.
You should have this.
All my love,
Peter