Chapter 22
22
He was purposefully quiet as they tramped back to the top of the chair lift, reminding him of their first two treks, where he’d tried so hard not to dwell on what she made him feel. He was dwelling, now – brooding, even.
She’d said one week. He had three months – perhaps four – before Manaslu and whatever came after that. He’d already started thinking of how he could spend more training time in Weymouth – or Bath. He wanted to meet her dog. He wanted to look Rory in the eye with the hint of a thousand broken bones.
‘You’re quiet,’ Sophie said warily as the rocky summit ridge gave way to rolling meadow.
He would rather have her teasing. ‘Aren’t I usually quiet?’
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘I suppose the past week was the anomaly, not this afternoon.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean the smiling, the… displays of affection.’
He snatched her hand mainly to make a point. ‘I can be quiet and display affection.’
‘So you can.’ She paused. ‘As long as everything’s okay.’
‘How can everything be okay when you’re leaving tomorrow?’ he blurted out. ‘ You seem pretty peaceful.’ She peered up at him in confusion and he bit his lip, wishing he hadn’t said anything. ‘Sorry, you didn’t deserve that. It’s my problem.’
‘Where have I heard that before?’ she said with a sigh. ‘Is this to do with the wedding? Have you decided you’re chickening out?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered woodenly.
‘If you are, it’s better to just tell me, Andreas. It’s called “planning” a wedding for a reason.’
‘I don’t know!’ he snapped. ‘I want to help you, but I’m committed to this expedition and there’s a chance they’ll decide on the September window. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.’
‘Okay, fair enough.’
That was also more grace than he deserved.
Over dinner at the same restaurant as the first evening, they casually discussed the drive to the airport the following morning while he tried desperately not to picture her walking through a set of departure gates without him and then called himself all kinds of hypocrite for putting his family through that exact scenario so many times – except worse, because of the chance that he’d never come back.
That was his real life, not lounging for an hour in bed with Sophie every morning, discovering new ways to make her laugh – and moan. He was a mountaineer, not a guide for a Sunday stroll with Aunt Frieda. It might be best for both of them if he didn’t do the wedding. He could suggest to the Polish team that early September would be a better time to depart for Nepal.
He could disappoint Sophie once and for all.
‘Andreas,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘I can see something’s bothering you.’
‘When we get back to England, do you want me to come up to Bath to meet Lily and Roman?’
She studied him. ‘If you like, but if you can’t commit to the wedding, I’m not sure if it would be worth the trip.’
‘If I was… in Bath…’ Now she was looking at him as though he had a screw loose and he wasn’t sure she was wrong. ‘I want to see you in Bath.’
She blinked. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘It’s a terrible idea, but I still want to.’
‘For what? More sex? Casual, the way you’re used to?’
‘No!’ He got as far as the denial, but then he hit problems. The conversation teetered on a precipice and gravity was tugging at him. ‘A week hasn’t been long enough. You’re… Sophie .’
‘Yes, I’m Sophie,’ she repeated doubtfully when he couldn’t get any further.
He ground the heel of his hand into his forehead. He wasn’t built for these conversations. He should have done it on a mountain. God, if he ever got married – which he wouldn’t – it would have to be at the top of a mountain where his head was clear.
‘I’ve never— You’re the only one I?—’
Her shoulders sagged and he saw as though in slow motion that there was no way for this conversation to end well. ‘You can’t finish that sentence,’ she said – too gently. ‘You couldn’t eight years ago and you can’t now. At least this time, I understand why you can’t but continuing to see each other is only delaying the inevitable. My feelings for you are real, too, but we want different things and maybe a clean break would be best for both of us.’
With a flash of memory, he saw her giddy smile, felt her arms draped around his neck and heard her soft voice. ‘ I’m in love with you. ’
His world had tilted when she’d said it, as though his centre of gravity had tried to shift. He’d almost felt himself falling – desperately falling.
Sophie hadn’t noticed. She’d just smiled widely, hopefully – naively – and continued, ‘ When you get back, will you marry me? ’
He’d never felt panic quite like that – until today. So, he’d laughed, as though her brave statement of feelings was something insignificant, when the opposite had been true. He’d covered his pounding, panicking heartbeat with the most casual tone he’d been able to muster and dashed her hopes to nothing.
‘You asked me to marry you eight years ago, but this time, you’re suggesting a clean break?’
Perhaps that pointed reminder was unfair of him, but it had the desired effect. She glanced up with resentment. ‘I was stupider – and stronger – back then. Can you imagine if you’d said yes out of responsibility – or guilt? How long do you think we would have been married? A year? A month?’
Ouch, they were both throwing punches. ‘Maybe we would have worked things out.’ He didn’t know where those defensive words had come from – or what he was defending. God knows, she was probably right.
‘Maybe we would have, except you would have been miserable. Either I would have asked you to stay home more often because the months were so long without you or you would have been distracted and guilty while you were away. You warned me of the consequences of that! You don’t belong in the valley.’
You make the valley more tolerable . ‘It worked the year we were together. I was away a lot, but you were always there when I got back.’ Until that last time, when he’d finally had to accept that it wasn’t fair to keep her in his life.
‘We weren’t much more than a year-long fling.’
He tried not to flinch.
‘I’ve been married. Marriage is a whole lot more than climbing lessons and going on holiday together. I spent all of my time and money that year chasing you and you never made a step in my direction. Afterwards, I thought the relationship had been all in my head. You didn’t exist in real life, no matter how much it felt like you did.’
His vision tunnelled, memories from that year tarnishing as he appreciated just how badly he’d screwed up back then.
‘I never imagined… I hurt you that much.’
‘I’d asked you to marry me! Of course it hurt. And then you never contacted me again!’
‘I… What? I contacted you – and you never replied, you never came. I understand that’s fair, now, but you’re the one who had the last word.’
* * *
Sophie gripped the tabletop tightly as the world seemed to start spinning. He thought she’d been the one to break contact?
‘I never came where?’ she asked, clinging to her understanding of what had happened before she lost her orientation.
His gaze snapped up, his eyes blazing. ‘To the airport – to Heathrow.’
‘To wave you off? You’d just suggested we go on a break. Why would I think you wanted to see me? I didn’t even know which flight you were on!’
‘I mean after the trip!’ he said, still staring at her as though she were being purposefully dense. ‘When I texted you – from Pakistan.’
Sophie’s muscles went slack. She managed to prop her elbows on the table and catch her head, but her body was rubber. His information didn’t compute, contradicted everything she’d convinced herself of over the past eight years.
‘You texted me?’ she managed to say, her voice mostly breath.
It was his turn to freeze. ‘Twice. Are you saying you didn’t get them?’
She nodded her head weakly. ‘I blocked your number. You’d just dumped me and it hurt. But you never mentioned it before now!’
‘I thought you knew, that you’d ignored my texts on purpose.’ Something in his strangled tone reminded Sophie of Miro’s death and dread settled in her stomach. Exactly what had he texted her?
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he assured her, settling a hand over hers. ‘I was… in a mess at the time. I probably would have made everything worse if you had come.’
She would have come; she wouldn’t have even hesitated. Her lungs were tight as she tried to work out what this meant for the future, but still couldn’t calculate the end of their relationship any differently.
‘You spent all this time thinking I never contacted you ever again?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I didn’t , after those two texts. How much difference can it make? I was oversensitive when you didn’t respond.’ He gave a humourless laugh.
‘I would always have responded, Andreas.’ The words were out before they scared her, but when they did, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for his response.
‘You would have answered, even if it was years later and you were with Rory? I can’t imagine he would have been happy for you to be contacting me.’
‘That’s an impossible question!’ she said, lashing out. ‘I didn’t know you’d texted me. I’m sorry I wasn’t there if you?—’
‘It was probably better the way it turned out,’ he said through gritted teeth.
He was right. They always circled back to the same place: no matter how much he meant to Sophie, the practicalities would crush their relationship sooner or later.
It still felt like she was losing something even more precious than that gemstone he’d recklessly wagered.
‘If you don’t want to help at the wedding, you don’t have to,’ she said, her shoulders slumped. ‘I hope you don’t feel I was manipulating you. I would have been glad of your help, but I do respect your position on marriage – and I know how important this expedition is to you.’
But instead of relief, her words seemed to agitate him even more. ‘Sophie,’ he said, his tone the same as earlier, as though she was supposed to understand something important merely because he said her name.
‘It’s all right?—’
‘It’s not all right. Nothing is all right,’ he growled, taking his wallet from his pocket and throwing a few notes onto the table. Grasping her hand, he hauled her up, calling a farewell to the restaurant owner.
As he stalked back to the apartment in such typical Andreas fashion, Sophie was pricked with the sensation of missing him already. One day, she’d find a way to move on, but today was not that day – especially when he pressed her into the front door as soon as it was closed and kissed her as though he were a long way underwater and she were the air.
He said things with his hands and his lips that her heart was too afraid to hear. The consuming physical sensations of being together were difficult enough to bear, but at least she could hide in her own desire, pretend he was just the most explosive lover she’d ever had, which muddied her thoughts.
But her cover slipped that evening, knowing it could be goodbye, at least for a while. She couldn’t hold his heart, so she held him everywhere else, her hands fisting in his hair, her mouth on his skin.
And when she awoke the following morning to see him sprawled out next to her, hogging the bed, she felt everything at once: annoyed, indulgent, needy and tender. She was so tender, so soft for him and so sore from trying not to hope.
She couldn’t stand it. She slipped quietly out of bed, dressed, and called a taxi. Sometimes, a person had to make their own clean break.