Chapter 18 #3
Inside I grab a selection of yogurts, crisps and the most premium sourdough bread I can find.
The line to pay is long and when I look out of the window, Cian is standing with a short woman in a khaki-green raincoat.
His head is slightly tipped and he’s nodding, but beyond that I can’t see much more.
‘Anything else?’ the cashier asks.
‘No. Thank you.’
I balance the shopping in my arms and make my way back, feeling I’m walking into something I shouldn’t be.
Cian’s expression when he sees me is weird, almost unwelcome.
The woman brings a hand up behind her head and pulls at her hood.
Her nails are dark blue and decorated with glitter, like jars of night sky.
‘Hi,’ I say, embarrassed that my sloth-like approach didn’t afford them enough time to wrap up whatever this is.
She turns towards me and if I didn’t know it from Cian’s reaction, I know it from hers. The way her eyes, which are light coloured and heavy with lashes, widen in surprise as they take me in, the way she forces a polite smile.
‘Hi,’ Vic says.
Thick auburn hair flows down her shoulders and beneath the jacket she’s got on something baby pink.
She’s not how I pictured. I guess I ran with the details of her being an accountant and sporty and had someone plainer in mind, the kind of efficient woman you see on the train in smart office wear, black tights and running shoes.
I hate how I’m auditing her clothes and body, her make-up and hair, so I turn away.
Cian shifts, and his body language makes me think of when you bump into someone, and you can’t introduce them to whoever you’re with because you’ve inevitably forgotten their name. Though it’s not that, of course it’s not. Unless I’m the person whose name he’s forgotten.
‘I’m Victoria,’ she says at the same time Cian says, ‘Sorry, this is Vic.’
‘Zoe.’ I snake an arm out from under the food to shake her hand and immediately a packet of crisps drops. ‘Oh, sorry,’ I say, as Vic reaches down for it, then steps forward to balance it back on the pile.
‘Thank you.’
‘No problem.’
There’s a second where I feel Cian is meant to fill something in. He doesn’t. It’s just me and Vic pleasantly smiling at each other until he snaps awake. ‘Zoe lives on Dickens Walk,’ he says. ‘The next road over from my dad’s.’
‘Nice,’ she says, probably unsure what this piece of information means. ‘Funny, I was thinking of Brendan the other day. My new PT is obsessed with the three-three-three rule.’
‘Get a new trainer,’ Cian says, ‘immediately.’
Vic laughs. ‘Brendan always swore by three-three-three. I’m coming around to it.’
‘He’ll be so happy when I tell him you said that. I don’t think I will tell him.’
As they laugh over something I don’t understand, yet will certainly google later, I swear to never use the term third wheel so casually ever again.
Cian remembers I’m there and, instead of ending this painfully awkward conversation, says, ‘Zoe and I work together at Chat.’
Vic smiles. ‘Network finally got some women.’
Cian and I both say no. Why is he answering for me? Does he not want me to talk to her?
Vic looks at me again, kind and perhaps curious. She has the sort of small, girlish face I imagine allows her to do whatever she pleases.
‘I work in marketing.’ I readjust the shopping in my arms. ‘Network is still all men.’
‘Marketing, cool.’
More pleasant smiling.
Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with Cian? Why is he letting this drag on? It’s his responsibility to wrap this up, to do the ‘great seeing you, must be going now’ bit. Yet he’s standing there, dumbfounded, then blurts out, ‘How’s work?’
‘Good,’ she says. ‘And you? I’m surprised you’re still at Chat. I thought you were going to leave.’
He marginally raises his shoulders. ‘I tried.’
Does no one else in the world need petrol right now?
‘I half expected to hear you’d gone abroad.’
‘Things don’t always go to plan.’
Why is it that in this moment, Cian’s typically difficult to decode feelings are being displayed so freely on his face. I can’t even pinpoint what it is, there’s just pure regret and sadness etched all over his features.
‘Anyway,’ Vic says, bringing her hands together, ‘crazy running into you here.’
‘Yeah,’ Cian responds.
‘I better get going. Tell Brendan I said hi.’
There’s a vulnerability in the way Cian purses his lips and nods at her. I’d like to turn away, though part of me needs this image stamped on my heart, so I can call it up whenever I start thinking Cian could be mine.
Finally, a car pulls up behind and I nearly shout, where have you been?
Cian and Vic step towards each other and hug briefly. It happens so fast I don’t know who initiated it or if that even matters.
‘Bye, Cian, and be careful. No more accidents,’ she adds as if it were an old joke she wasn’t sure she was still at liberty to make. ‘Nice to meet you, Zoe.’
Vic skips over to her car, and when I turn back, Cian is already getting in the passenger side of mine.
It takes four songs and one ad break to drive back, my knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as tension barges around my body.
It was almost easier to have a few bits and pieces of Vic, rather than seeing the whole person and knowing she’s real, beautiful in an easy, effortless way, and still capable after all these months of having a huge effect on him.
I park outside Brendan’s and wait for Cian to speak or make a move to get out.
Nothing.
Is he going to say something, or is he going to ignore it, the same way he does with our lingering looks and loaded touches?
Eventually he says, ‘That was, uh, not great?’
Is he really phrasing that as a question? His gaze is fixed on the glove compartment. ‘I’m sorry if I didn’t handle it well. I was thrown to see her.’
The sky has finally opened and the sun is making a full show of setting in smudges of pink and orange.
‘It was the first time I’ve seen her since. Since everything happened.’
In my head the happening between them was as simple as him proposing and her saying no. I’ve never allowed myself to imagine beyond that, the back and forth, the doubts, the brutal pulling apart of two lives.
‘I’m sure having me there didn’t make it any easier,’ I say. ‘Having to scramble around to explain who I was.’
‘I didn’t,’ he protests. ‘I introduced you.’
‘As a colleague.’
‘You’ve done the same.’
‘When?’
‘When I met your parents.’
It’s not the same thing because that was weeks ago, that was before he said he loved being with me.
‘I haven’t seen her in months,’ he says. ‘I haven’t heard a single thing about her. Then it’s like . . .’
‘What?’
‘I still follow her on socials,’ he admits. ‘It felt petty to unfollow her. I hid her and last week I looked. There were photos with some guy. A friend told me that Vic has been seeing someone. I was sort of waiting for her to mention it.’
This is why he’s been upset. This is also probably why he ignored my text. Because he was thinking about her. Of course she’s who he wants, who he’s always wanted.
‘How can she be in a relationship so quickly?’ he asks, and it’s so gentle, I feel it too, the hurt, the sensation of life trotting off ahead when you’re still reeling from something. Yet there’s an anger in me, a bitterness that causes me to say, ‘Maybe he’s holding her at gunpoint.’
Cian pulls a hand down his face and omits a sound of exasperation. ‘You think I’m taking too long to move on?’
‘I don’t get a say in that.’
‘You clearly have an opinion on it.’
‘You’re not going to get over her if you’re sitting around checking her out on social media.’
Now his face turns hard. ‘Zoe, what the fuck?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry? You say it so often I never know when you mean it or when you’re saying it on impulse.’
‘I’m sorry I’m not being understanding about this. I’m sorry that I can’t grasp why you’re not over her, especially when it sounded like neither of you were happy together.’
‘It’s not about getting over her,’ he says with force. ‘It’s about me trying to work out what now. Every plan I made was for us, for two people. Now it’s not and that takes some fucking adjustment. It takes time to get over stuff. You know that more than anyone else.’
We both stare out the front window, at the sun we wished for hours earlier.
‘I should go,’ he says. ‘Yeah, I’m going to go.’ He opens the car door and gets out.