Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty-Six
Over the next few days, I’m distracted, throwing myself into my job.
I chat with prospective clients, have a meeting with a new artist that’s moved here from Copenhagen and would love to contribute to the gallery.
It’s quiet at this time of year but I sit behind my desk and enjoy the view of the waves lapping at the stoney coastline.
I get back to my morning runs, waking early and taking on the coastal paths, breathing in the salty fresh air.
The weather is calm for the most part, if a little windy.
All the time, I imagine I’m running the same route with Freddie.
I wonder where he is and what he’s doing.
I type out messages to him about the weather.
I snap a shot of the sun rising above the sealine one morning. But I don’t send them.
I made a promise to myself. A rule. A whole year.
One day, Fliss comes by the gallery. She’s wearing a bright-blue sweaterdress that clashes with the calming pastel colours inside the gallery.
I make her a tea and she pretends to peruse the artwork as if she’s shopping.
Not that the owners are even around to see.
I’m sure they forget they own a gallery sometimes.
Luckily for them, I make it my business to run the place as if it were my own.
“I’ve booked an event in May,” Fliss says as I pass her drink to her.
“Oh yeah?”
“Mmm. A wedding.”
“Not Sara’s?”
She nods. “Yes, actually. Did you recommend me?”
“Absolutely. I said you were very intense, but get shit done. Sara liked the sound of you.”
“Well, at least you’re honest,” she says.
“She booked me to take control of things. And thank God she did. She has so many guests and hardly any of them have booked accommodation yet. She doesn’t have enough room for them all at the venue, so I made a deal with a hotel down the road.
And then I asked her to email me her itinerary, plans and stuff like that and she just blinked at me. ”
“You’re meant to have those things for a wedding?”
Fliss stares at me for a moment too long. “Hopeless. You’re both hopeless.”
I take a seat behind my desk, entirely unoffended. “I’m glad she reached out to you. She’s been quite stressed about it all.”
“Well, of course she is. She doesn’t even have any lists.. Not even a proper bloody guestlist! But it’s ok. I’ll handle it.”
“I have no doubt.”
“She told me something,” she adds, pressing her lips together.
I look up from sipping my tea. “Oh?”
“Just said something happened at your house party.”
I bite my lip, willing the heat away from my cheeks, but there’s no hiding it. “What did she say?” I ask guiltily.
“Nothing. Honestly. But I reckon I could give it a good guess. Did you actually get with Sam’s hot brother?”
There’s no point denying it. I feel like Fliss is trying to make it into something funny, something silly and exciting. And, in a way, that’s what it is. But I can’t fight the feeling that I’ve gone about it wrong and now he isn’t messaging me.
Oh God. He isn’t messaging me. What does that mean?
Fliss reads the horror on my face. She takes the seat at the other side of my desk and frowns. “Talk to me.”
“It was only meant to be… I don’t know.”
“You can say a shag. If that’s all it was meant to be. You can say that.”
“I hate that word.”
“Shag?”
“Yeah.”
“Shag. Shag. Shag. Shag. Shag.”
“Stop it!” I say, batting my hands at her. “Yes. Ok. That’s how it started but we have this weird, flirty history that nobody knew about except for us, and I don’t know… Getting physical sort of…”
“Brought the feelings to the surface?”
“I have no idea. But I feel bereft of him this week. It’s pathetic, honestly.
And it’s very frustrating because I set myself rules for the next year.
Which I’m sticking to because that’s what I do.
I’m a stringent rule follower. But it probably doesn’t matter anyway because after he left, he hasn’t messaged me once. ”
Fliss sighs heavily. “Do you still have the napkin?”
“The what?”
“The napkin with the rules on it?”
I lean across to my handbag and pull it out, laying it out in front of her. “It’s very clear. You, yourself, pointed out this might happen. That I’d fall into relationship territory right away.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She eyes the napkin. “You know, you can barely make that rule out and you’ve already completed the last one.”
“What are you saying?”
“That maybe these rules can be broken?”
I gasp at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Felicity Rainer?”
She shrugs. “I think sometimes, rules are bullshit. And if you made them, then you should be able to break them too.”
“Are you encouraging this? You know Sam was livid, right?”
She nods, her eyes wide. “I can imagine.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway. Sam and Freddie aren’t talking again because of me. And Freddie isn’t messaging so I guess this all just fell apart. He probably got home and realised he wasn’t that into me anyway.”
It’s a bitter pill to swallow saying that out loud. But maybe it’s true. Maybe I need to accept the fact that Freddie just can’t be for me.
“No. I don’t buy it,” Fliss says. “I bet you haven’t messaged him either. He probably feels the same way. Especially if he’s worried about your relationship with Sam too.”
Just then a client comes in and has so many questions about one of the larger canvasses of Brighton Pier that Fliss ends up waving goodbye before we can finish our discussion.
She sends me a message that evening just as Dylan arrives for dinner. I have him dicing onions as I put the oven on with one hand and hold my phone in the other.
I thought about it on the way home and I should have told you this at the gallery.
James and I sort of fell into a whirlwind romance too even though we’d known each other for years.
It all just suddenly fell into place like we found the lost puzzle piece, and everything finally made sense.
But me and you are thinkers. We’ve been tried and challenged by love, and it makes us question and overthink things which I don’t think want to be overthought.
This is becoming waaaay too profound. What I’m trying to say is, maybe we’re so used to using our heads that we forget to listen to our hearts.
My heart was right about James. I want you to follow your heart too.
Hopefully, it knows what to do. Speak soon. xx
“Why are you crying? Is it the onions?” Dylan asks, glancing at me with concern.
He’s right; my eyes are watering. It isn’t the onions. “Yes, this always happens. Hang on, I’ll go splash some water on my face.”
“Does that work?”
But I don’t answer, stepping into my bedroom and closing the door. I perch on my bed and think about what to message Freddie. What do I even say at this point?
I dare myself to type.
Screw my rules
I hit send.