Experienced

Chapter Twenty-Four

In the morning, they didn’t talk about it.

Bette slept poorly. She woke frequently, shuffling around in hopes of finding a more comfortable position. There was a distinct lack of space in the twin bed, but moving to the other bed wasn’t an option while Ruth slept beside her. It seemed too much like abandoning her. Like it could be read as a statement. At half-four she slipped out of bed and pulled her pajamas on, hoping they would make her feel cozier, that she might finally drop off. But what was worrying her wasn’t her back on an unfamiliar mattress or the pressure on her hip or the flat hotel pillows or even the presence of someone naked in the bed beside her. It was the churning in her stomach. They should have spoken before they fell asleep. Would Ruth pass the night off as nothing but a bit of tequila-influenced fun? Would she regret it entirely? Settling on her side, Bette looked at Ruth, her mascara smeared thanks to a cursory face-washing, her hair a mess, her mouth lax. She wouldn’t. Surely she wouldn’t. Ruth had made it clear she didn’t want anything casual, that she wasn’t interested in a one-night stand. But she’d also been pretty adamant about taking things slow. And last night didn’t feel particularly slow.

Sleep found her near dawn. When she woke, the sheets beside her were empty, the awful mattress still indented where Ruth had slept. There was no light creeping out from beneath the bathroom door, but Ruth’s suit for the wedding was still where she’d left it the day before, the hook of the hanger balanced precariously from a metal toad that protruded from the wall. Bette breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least (and it really was the very least, the worst of the scenarios that she’d spent the night panicking about), Ruth hadn’t left.

She was probably just getting a coffee. In fact, as soon as it had occurred to her, Bette realized what a great plan caffeine was. There was a tiny kettle, on a plastic tray patterned with horrible toads with bows around their necks, and she walked it to the bathroom to fill it. The sink was shallow, with an impossibly small tap, and Bette spent fruitless minutes trying to angle it under the running water. It was useless; any water that ended up in the kettle flowed straight back out again. She stepped into the shower instead and held the kettle up to the shower head, getting away with only a minimal spray to her face, feeling indecently pleased at her own cleverness. But by the time she had boiled the kettle and poured the water over an ancient tea bag, she had very much lost the will to live. Certainly for being up and out of bed. The teacup was absurdly small, but she took it back with her beneath the duvet. She would drink it, and do a crossword on her phone, and then Ruth would be back. She was sure of it. And then they could talk.

The next thing she knew, she was damp and groggy and something was shaking her arm.

“Hey, Bette. Bette, wake up, we’re late.” She blinked her eyes open. Her shoulder was wet. Oh god, the tea. It was everywhere. Oh god, the wedding. They were late for the wedding. Oh god, Ruth. Ruth was there, shaking her shoulder. She was back.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she said, which seemed to encapsulate it.

“Yeah,” Ruth agreed, looking frustratingly put together already.

“I need a shower,” Bette managed.

“You really do,” Ruth confirmed. “I had one earlier so the bathroom is all yours. I’m going to get ready here, but we really need to leave in the next twenty minutes? If we can? I went for a walk. I’m sorry, I thought you were up or—”

There was no time for Ruth’s polite worrying. “It’s not on you, not your fault. Should have set an alarm when I got back in bed,” Bette shouted over her shoulder as she turned the taps to their hottest possible setting, stripped off and squeezed an obscene amount of toothpaste onto her toothbrush before clasping it between her teeth. The water pressure was uneven, and Bette contorted herself in an effort to keep her hair out of the spray. Twenty minutes. Enough time to finish up in the shower, to dry off, to spray a can of dry shampoo over her head, to swoop it up or pin it back, to throw her outfit on, to try and cover up the circles under her eyes, to cram her feet into her shoes, to—

There was absolutely not enough time.

She turned off the water and jumped out, sliding a little on the bathmat. Fantastic. Smacking her head on the tiles and giving herself concussion would really set them back. Heart pounding, slightly more gingerly, she stepped over to the mirror and ran a hand through the condensation. She looked exhausted, her skin dull and her eyes glassy. Ideally, she’d spend the next thirty minutes pretending she knew what to do with makeup to disguise it all. Instead, she probably had four minutes to cover everything up and then paint it all back on.

It was only once her eyeliner was in place, her powder settled on her cheeks, that it occurred to her that she’d hurried into the bathroom without her knickers, without her dress, without anything she was supposed to be wearing. Her pajamas were hanging from the hook and she could put them back on, but then she’d have to navigate stripping off and redressing in front of Ruth. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen it all now, she supposed. But it was different in the morning light, shoulders still damp from a shower. She pulled back the bathroom door enough to speak through the crack.

“Ruth?” she called. Before she could step away from the door, Ruth pushed it open a little, and the hanger carrying her dress and bra were suddenly in her hand.

“Oh,” she said. “Thanks. I’m—”

“Three minutes,” Ruth said in a tone not to be negotiated with, and a thrill at the instruction ran through her. It was not at all the time for that. There was simply no time for—whatever that did for her.

Finally, almost dressed, she stepped out of the bathroom and made a beeline toward her overnight bag. She had packed high-waisted Spanx to wear under her dress, but she couldn’t put them on in front of Ruth. There was no sexy way of pulling Spanx on in front of someone. She stepped into a black-lace pair of knickers instead and pulled them up her thighs. It wasn’t until she was straightening the skirt that she looked up and caught sight of Ruth.

Ruth looked—Ruth was—

Ruth.

Her suit was cut wide at her hips and shoulders, soft and flowing, but was cinched in at her waist with a thick bow. She wore a cream silk top under the navy, and a pair of towering gold heels that meant Bette was, for the first time, looking up at her. There was a hickey at the base of her throat, just visible beneath the makeup Ruth had painted over it.

Yesterday, before the—before everything—she would have told her, unequivocally, entirely without thinking, how beautiful she looked. But they still hadn’t talked. She had no idea where they stood. And so, as it was, all Bette could do was nod and blush in approval and stutter out a “You look—yeah—” It was hopelessly inadequate. Absolutely not what she wanted to say.

“You too,” said Ruth, her voice caught in her throat, barely making it out past her teeth. Bette looked down, so distracted by Ruth that her conscious brain needed to be reminded of what she’d put on. The dress was velvet, tight, a red so dark it was nearly black, held her boobs up in a way she’d struggled to believe and was split up her thigh. She had worried about it, for weeks. Worried what Mei would think when she saw her. Hoped it ruined her life a bit.

The look on Ruth’s face told her it might. Just a bit.

“Should we—” Bette started, stepping toward her.

“Not—I mean, we don’t—” Ruth said, glancing down at her wrist, as though there were a watch there. She was right, Bette knew. They were so late. And if they got into everything now, for one reason or other, they’d never make it downstairs.

“Later?” Bette asked, wanting to make it known that, in her mind at least, there was a conversation to be had.

“Come on, let’s get downstairs,” Ruth replied, which wasn’t an answer at all. The nerves in Bette’s belly leaped, and she chewed at the inside of her cheek.

“Yep. Yeah, let’s,” she said, falsely bright, tucking her bank card, phone and the room key into her clutch.

Balloons filled the venue in a hundred shades of green and white. It made what was clearly an uninspiring multipurpose hall feel cozy and warm, fairy lights and festoons glowing through the translucent plastic of the balloons.

“Erin said their plan had been to fill the whole place with plants,” Bette remembered. “But someone quoted six grand, and then the next person said eight. So they went with balloons.”

“It’s really beautiful,” Ruth said, looking around the room as though determined not to meet Bette’s eye. Their cab ride to the venue had been torture; Ruth had made polite conversation with the driver and Bette had sat anxiously chewing at her lip until she could taste blood. And now that they were in the venue they were surrounded by people. There was no possible way to delve into the hey, we slept together last night and you don’t seem okay conversation they needed to have. And, of course, everyone at the wedding thought they were together. That had been the whole point. They’d been greeted by Louise, elegant in a black jumpsuit and perfectly defined eyeliner, whose winking welcome had reminded Bette that they had left the night before without saying goodbye to anyone. That they’d left mid-snog, their hands all over each other.

So she made small talk about balloons, trying to push through the strangeness between them. And then Ruth’s hand slipped into hers, a thumb brushing across her knuckles, fingers tangled together. Ruth took a step closer and Bette let out a sigh of relief that she felt to her toes. It felt like she’d been holding her breath since she’d woken up. It was going to be okay. Ruth was holding her hand.

“I think Mei just saw us and thought fuck,” Ruth muttered beside her. Bette looked up and met Mei’s surprised eyes across the room. Bette had worried for weeks about how it would feel to see Mei again. Imagined that her heart might leap, entirely out of her control. Imagined that the anger that had been simmering within her might bubble over. But though she looked over at her and felt a pang—a vague sort of longing, a mess of attraction and lust, smothered by tangible disappointment and sadness that it had all gone wrong—it was like trying to look at the moon when the sun stood beside her, holding her hand.

She thought again of the whole point of the fake relationship, thought of how she’d pitched it to Ruth back on the wharf. Remembered how preoccupied she had been twenty-four hours prior. It had worked. Mei looked entirely wrong-footed, and Bette had technically won. It couldn’t have mattered less. All she wanted was for Ruth to be holding her hand of her own accord.

“That’s the point, right?” Ruth said, her voice tight, her smile horribly fake, still holding tightly onto Bette’s hand. “Have someone—anyone—on your arm.”

It was awful, her forced tone. Belle and Sebastian were playing, one of the songs from the first album Bette could never remember the name of. She wanted to cry. Wanted to walk out of the wedding and fix whatever had gone wrong between the moment they had fallen asleep and now.

“It’s not—I mean. You know—you have to know. That’s not the point. Anymore. I want…”

Ruth took a breath that looked like an effort and met Bette’s gaze properly for the first time since the night before.

“Bette, I…” she started, but the tinkling of a glass reverberating through a speaker forced their attention toward the front of the room. Bette wanted to scream.

“If everyone could find somewhere where you can see,” Louise was saying, pointing them all toward the windows at one end of the room, where things were clearly set up for the ceremony. “I’ve been reliably informed that the brides are outside. If you’d prefer to be seated, take some space on the benches!”

“Ruth?” Bette said, squeezing her hand as they made their way over.

“Not now,” Ruth shook her head, and pulled her hand free. She met Bette’s eye again. “We’re okay. I just—not now, okay?”

Bette nodded, pathetically grateful for the reassurance, comforted by Ruth’s we’re okay as though it were her last 2 percent of phone battery, just barely keeping her going.

They found a spot somewhere near the back of the crowd, and the chattering around them quietened. The opening drum beats of a song Bette loved from Dirty Dancing started, and the doors at the back of the hall creaked open. Erin and Niamh were on the other side, hands clasped together, smiles stretching their faces so wide that Bette felt a sob bubble its way up her throat. It had been a lot, the morning, was all. She was hungry, and anxious, and tired, and probably in love with Ruth, and still, despite herself, mourning everything she’d had with Mei, and she couldn’t reasonably be expected to survive the happiness on display, as well as the lyrics of “Be My Baby.”

“Those suits,” Ruth breathed, and Bette nodded, blinking furiously. Erin was in sharply tailored white, her hair scraped back at the sides and a mess of curls on top. Niamh’s suit was softer, a pale green that matched some of the balloons overhead, the trousers wide and swishing as she walked. They looked so in love, gazing over at each other every couple of steps. Halfway up they got the giggles and Bette ached longingly, and by the time they reached the front of the room she had abandoned any pretense at being all right, staring up at the ceiling in an attempt to stem the tears, wishing she’d brought a proper handbag stuffed with tissues rather than cramming everything into a tiny clutch.

She got things under control by the time Erin and Niamh reached their vows, but the sincerity and list of promises threatened to take her under again. Finally they exchanged rings, and everyone cheered; once the guests reassembled around the bar at the other end of the room, Bette was able to catch her breath. She decided against checking on her face in the loos, took two glasses of something fizzy off a passing tray and handed one to Ruth.

“You okay?” Ruth asked.

“Oh just great. Really fantastic,” Bette replied, taking a drink so deep that she could feel the bubbles burning her throat. Ruth nodded, gulping from her own glass. Before either of them could say anything else they were joined by Maddy/Maggie and her partner, Simon, and someone arrived with a bottle to top them all up. It was easy, then, to slip into conversation, to gossip about the other guests, to chase the cute waitress carrying the haggis-filled sausage rolls.

It was easy, once it wasn’t just the two of them.

There was no seating chart, so when it came time for dinner they followed Simon and Maggie (thank god for Simon’s clear enunciation). They were introduced to Mike and Harry, two more of Erin’s university friends and, inevitably, just when Bette was looking at the two final seats on the table, Mei slid into one of them. Beside her, she heard Ruth cover up a resigned laugh with a cough.

“Mei,” said Bette, unsure what the next words that left her mouth might be, finally deciding against adding anything.

“It’s really nice to see you,” Mei replied.

They were going for polite friendship, then. It was reassuring to recognize that she did not agree with Mei. There was no latent part of her that thought it was nice to see Mei.

“This is Ruth,” Bette said, figuring it was worth getting the introductions over with.

“Mei, right? I think Bette mentioned you,” Ruth said, her voice easier than it had been all day. It was such a line from a film, such obvious bait, that Bette almost laughed out loud. But Mei looked shaken and flustered; the jibe had landed exactly where Ruth had aimed.

“Oh, right. Yes.” Mei looked around wildly and pointed to a woman at the bar. Bette realized she hadn’t even registered the woman who had been standing beside Mei earlier. A month of panic and anxiety and hating this stranger, and she’d not given her a second thought. “And that’s Tamara. I’ll introduce her properly when she comes back. I just—yeah, that’s Tamara. And you’re Ruth.”

“And I’m Maggie,” Maggie said, and Bette snorted out a relieved sort of laugh.

“Yes, this is Maggie. And Simon, and Mike and Harry,” Bette said. “Everyone, this is Mei.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow, like she could tell there was subtext, but the men were already too deep in conversation about someone from university to do much more than nod in Mei’s direction. The awkward silence that fell over their half of the table was broken by the arrival of Tamara, her short dress flipping around her toned thighs, a bottle of white in one hand and red in the other.

“Thought I’d get us started,” she said, in a voice that would have sounded most at home on Made in Chelsea. “Hi, I’m Tamara.”

Dinner was fine, mostly because Maggie, Harry and Mike filled any of the silences with stories about Erin from their first year at Hull. Tamara seemed entirely unaffected by the fact that she was sitting across the table from her girlfriend’s ex, and Bette couldn’t work out whether to be offended or relieved. Ruth was perfect. Charming and easy, an instant comrade to everyone on the table. It was all exactly as she had hoped, exactly as they’d planned. Ruth’s knees bumped occasionally against hers, and there was a moment when she linked her fingers through Bette’s on the table. It felt real, for those brief moments, and it was almost enough to balance out the panic Bette had been feeling since the early hours.

There were speeches—Louise did a rap that went down shockingly well, and Erin’s mum had Harry reaching for a serviette to wipe away his tears. And then there was a cake, and then a first dance to Taylor Swift’s “Stay” that Bette wished Ash had seen, and then she was standing next to Ruth as everyone else flooded the dance floor.

“Do you—?” Bette asked, holding out a hand.

Ruth looked down, and for a moment Bette was sure she was going to refuse. She wondered whether her heart could take it.

“Sure,” she replied, finally, and Bette’s whole body was flooded with relief. “Yes. Yes, let’s dance.”

The lights were still too bright, the dance floor nothing like the one they’d been on the night before. But Ruth’s body, pulled close to hers, the feeling of Ruth’s heart beating against her chest, was almost too much for her. She wanted to kiss her again. They had to talk, away from all these people. She had to figure out what was in Ruth’s head, find the root of the problem that had made Ruth pull her hand away from Bette’s on the table.

They danced for so many songs that Bette stopped counting them, lost track of everything that was happening around them. If they had danced for one song, Bette might have thought it was for the performance of the thing, purely for Mei’s sake. But they were still slow-dancing, Ruth’s cheek pressed to hers. She had stopped worrying after the first song that Ruth could feel the roll of flesh above her arse, that she should have put the Spanx on back in the hotel. Ruth was touching her, running her fingers back and forth over the line her knickers made where they pushed into her back, over the bits of her she’d wanted smoothed out. She was grateful for the lace, for the fact that it meant she could feel Ruth properly, for the distinct lack of Spanx between them.

Eventually Bette pulled back.

“I’m going to get a water,” she said. “Do you want something?”

“That’d be good,” Ruth nodded. “I’m going to go to the loo. Meet you at the bar?”

She stood on the dance floor and watched Ruth leave, kept an eye on her until she was out of the door, heart horrible with hope. There was a queue for drinks and Bette joined it, replying to a message from Ash with barest details; it wasn’t the time to get into the whole story. She had just opened a message from Carmen begging for wedding selfies when she felt the presence of someone far too close beside her. It was a someone who wasn’t wearing Ruth’s perfume, and Bette turned toward them.

It was Mei. Of course it was Mei.

“Are you having a nice night?”

There was no one they knew around, and Bette was too tired and too anxious to pretend.

“Are we really doing this?” she asked, her voice cold in her throat and between them. “We’re just pretending we’re friends who want to know how the other is?”

“No,” Mei said, her eyes focused and clear. “No, you’re right. I fucked up. Monumentally badly.”

“You really did,” Bette agreed.

“I can’t believe—I wasn’t thinking.”

“You weren’t thinking? You just—what? You accidentally got a new girlfriend? You accidentally invited someone else to Erin’s wedding? You accidentally turned a break into a breakup and forgot to tell me about it?”

“Look, I wish I could give you a reason. I went mad, I think. I texted you and you didn’t reply. And then I thought I’d see you at the office and instead you’d vanished somewhere and ignored all my texts. So I just assumed you didn’t want to see me at all. By then, I already regretted it. I regretted sending you off to have a good time with women who weren’t me. I wanted you to have a chance to leave me, if you were going to, before I got in too deep. But I was already in too deep. And then when you didn’t message me back that day—I just thought I should step aside. Do the right thing. Let you have what you wanted.”

Bette remembered it so clearly, remembered not knowing how to see Mei, remembered hiding on the toilet, heart pounding in her throat.

“Why didn’t you just say that? I was heartbroken. I was missing you so much I couldn’t handle seeing you and pretending everything was fine. I wanted you! That’s all I wanted. But the whole stupid scheme was your idea! I was just trying to do what you wanted!”

“I know, I know,” Mei said, looking around wildly. Her eyes begged. “I knew I’d messed up, that I was just scared. But I wanted to be generous, and give you time, and not pressure you into commitment. I wanted to know you chose me, that you felt what I did.”

It was so strange to know it, now. After everything. To know that Mei regretted it, to know too why she’d started it. The anger and resentment she’d felt, not just from the dreadful lunch with Erin, but from the very start, burst out of her.

“So you just—what? Pressured me into sleeping around? Made me think that if I didn’t, I wasn’t right for you? Or ready for you?”

It was impossible to imagine how she might be feeling now had she not fallen for Ruth. Had she come to the wedding alone, had she spent the past weeks hoping, longing maybe, to win Mei back. But instead it was so clear that she was done. If there was a decision to make here, she knew without a doubt what her answer was. She didn’t want Mei.

“I know. I know, and I’m so sorry. I convinced myself it was the right thing.”

Mei hung her head and scrubbed both hands through her hair. It was short, Bette thought, shorter than she had ever seen it. It suited her, looked beautiful with the wide, square neckline of her black dress.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I hope you’re very happy with Tamara. She seems great. I hope it was worth it.”

“It wasn’t,” Mei said, grasping Bette’s hand. Her touch felt hot on Bette’s skin. Electric. But not in the good, sparky, delicious way that tingled through her body. Not the way Mei’s touch used to feel. This kind of electricity felt dangerous. This kind could short everything out. This kind could, if she was being dramatic (which she absolutely was), blow everything apart. “It isn’t. I—I don’t want to be with Tamara. I want—I want this not to have happened. I want to go back to the way things were. I want you.”

Bette laughed, hollow and low. She regretted the impulse instantly, but the madness of the moment struck her. A month ago, this was exactly what she would have said she wanted. Exactly the outcome she longed for. And now she couldn’t imagine saying yes.

“I don’t know that you do, though. What you think you want is the type of girl you can call to a hospital at midnight. And I get it. I’m that type of girl. But I don’t actually think that you want me,” she said, squeezing Mei’s hand, searching for the right moment to let it go. Mei’s eyes were brimming with tears, and Bette felt strangely calm. She needed to say no. Her whole body was saying no. “I miss it. I miss what we had when it was good. But that’s—it’s not what I want anymore.”

Mei shook her head, short static little movements that seemed to be shaking Bette’s reply from her mind as she rejected it out of hand.

“I’m sorry,” Bette said, and let go of her hand. She looked up, across the moodily lit room, and into the eyes of the only person she wanted to see, who also happened to be the last one she wanted to have witnessed the conversation.

Ruth.

Ruth’s jaw tightened, resignation written clearly on her face. This was, Bette realized in a rush, exactly what Ruth had anticipated. She’d been preparing herself for this all day. And then across the room she’d seen Mei’s hand in Bette’s, the two of them deep in conversation, Mei’s face apologetic. Ruth was leaving the hall, and Bette had to explain. She ran across the room after her and out through the door to the car park, then regretted their impetuousness instantly. There was a hallway that might be better for this conversation, surely. It was almost November. It was Scotland. It was cold.

“So, yeah. I—I can’t do this,” Ruth said, turning toward her and looking so apologetic about it that Bette’s heart ached. The goose pimples that had erupted over her arms and chest were suddenly the least of her worries. “I just can’t. I can’t do it again, when you’re still hung up on your ex. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again.”

“I’m not still hung up on Mei,” Bette protested, and Ruth scoffed. It was so important that Ruth understood. Bette was tired of being told how she felt, of being told what she should want. “I promise I’m not. I’m angry with her. I’m angry with her for making me feel stupid. I’m angry with her for the stupid plan, and for not listening to what I wanted, and I’m angry with myself for going along with it. But I’m not hung up on her. I’m hung up on you. I’ve wanted this—wanted you—for months now. Since the start, probably. No, definitely. From the start.”

“I—I shouldn’t have kissed you back last night. I wanted you too. I want you. But…”

“No but!” Bette said, abandoning her desire not to draw an audience in favor of a sincere yell. “No but! I want you, you want me, what else is there?”

“I’m here at this wedding with you because you were so heartbroken over your ex that you couldn’t come alone. And now she clearly wants you back. And even if you don’t want that today, you might tomorrow. I can’t risk it again. I can’t jump. I can’t. It hurts too much.”

The worst thing, Bette realized, was that she had already known it. This wasn’t news. Ruth had told her, had been so clear about exactly where she was. She had taken things slowly, glacially slowly, with Gabe. That had been her whole thing. He was right for her, and they’d been taking it slow, and now…what had she said last night? Not to worry about it? That it wasn’t a problem? God. Why hadn’t Bette asked a single follow-up question?

Regardless of Gabe, Bette had ignored what Ruth said she wanted, ignored her going slow, and kissed her anyway. Hoping…what? That she’d be the exception? Hoping it wouldn’t matter? Hoping that Ruth would change her mind? But it felt, last night, like she had. The way Ruth had kissed her back wasn’t a performance. She felt it as much as Bette did. And suddenly, Bette was furious. Furious at everyone thinking they were making good, sensible decisions when they were actually just messing everything up.

“This is such bullshit. You can’t fall in love when it’s convenient to you. Sometimes it just happens! You’re just going to walk away from it because you’re scared? Because we didn’t do this in the way you planned out in your head?”

It was cold and quiet outside the hall, and her words rang out into the darkness. She looked at Ruth, sure this would be the moment she’d see just how ridiculous she was being. Sure that she’d kiss her, and they’d go back inside and dance, and kiss some more, and that things would be exactly as they should be.

But Ruth looked up and broke the long silence between them.

“Yes. I’m really sorry, but yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

And Ruth turned her back and did exactly what she’d promised. She walked away.