Chapter Forty-Eight
Jenna
The rest of summer isn't terrible. I soak up the good weather when we are blessed with it, join an outdoor CrossFit gym to try something new and I end up going for coffee and sometimes beers with the men I meet there.
Some of them catch my eye, and I see I catch others' attention, but sadly they don't quite align.
When September brings a modest but decent enough offer on my book, there’s now a deadline to complete the first draft.
I welcome the extra pressure and pour all my energy into it.
I find some purpose in my life and welcome the ease that brings even though the work itself exhausts me, not least because it requires me to get closer and closer to the core of what I feel – what I still think I feel - for Marty.
In late May, I board the plane to Crete with another man's hand in mine.
It fits well, not perfectly, but well enough.
Everything about him fits well enough. From how we met - the only people swimming in London Fields Lido on a sunny but chilly spring morning - through to how well we slotted into each other's empty lives.
Chris is a good kisser and a proficient lover.
He makes me laugh in a way that may not surprise or bedazzle me, but it does placate and reassure me.
He is the comfort I need after two years of heartache.
But on the first sunset there, as we sit at a table he reserved specifically for sundowner drinks after I had told him misty-eyed about how beautiful the sunsets were, I can't stop my eyes from travelling over to the stack of sun loungers.
My pupils then practically burn a hole in the spot where Marty and I sat two years ago, where I sank my teeth into a beautiful broken nose.
As the bottom curve of the sun kisses the horizon and Chris reaches for my fingers, I feel my heart break all over again when I look down and see his hand is not Marty's.
I retreat into a safe place inside myself for the rest of the holiday, moving through the motions Chris expects and it doesn't kill me to perform because he is a kind man whose company I enjoy and I hope he will be a friend in years to come. I break free on the fourth day, excuse myself for a walk alone to the resort’s shop, buy a postcard and write it while drinking a Greek coffee that is still too strong and bitter for me.
Dear Marty, Happy 26th Birthday! The sunsets still miss you. And I still promise you. Everything will be okay. Jenna x
I kiss his name twenty-six times.