Chapter 6 #2
‘Is there something you’ve always dreamt of doing but have never got round to? Tell me about it, then tell me why you haven’t done it yet.’
‘Hmm.’ This gave him pause. ‘I think I’m doing what I dreamt of. I wanted to run my own company and live in this house.’
‘Okay. Well… well done,’ she said with a smile. ‘What’s your biggest accomplishment?’
‘Same answer. My company and finding a way to live in this house.’ He looked particularly pleased with himself for that answer.
‘Tell me about a happy memory from your school days.’
Suddenly the buoyant atmosphere seemed to drop like a stone.
‘I can’t think of one right now,’ he said tersely, his gaze skimming away from hers now.
There was something heartbreakingly raw about the way he said this, but she didn’t press it.
From the way his shoulders had stiffened she got the impression he’d happily call an end to the session if she did and that was the last thing she wanted when he was finally starting to open up to her a little.
‘What has been your most embarrassing moment?’ she asked with a smile, hoping to flip the mood, but was a little taken aback to see the expression in his eyes harden at this. ‘It can be something really silly,’ she added quickly, desperately trying to rescue the lightness they’d had previously.
‘Pass. I can’t think of anything right now,’ he said again, his tone warning her not to push it. Clearly, she was treading on dodgy ground.
Okay. She could come back to that another time. She didn’t want to ruin the progress they’d made. But something still pushed her to ask the next question anyway.
‘What’s your relationship with your mother like now you’re grown up?’
The light went out of his eyes. She realised with a shiver of disappointment that she’d blown it and that he’d probably clam up completely now, but to her surprise he didn’t.
Instead, he hooked an arm across the back of the sofa again and looked directly into her eyes as if actively deciding not to dodge her interest in the question any more.
Perhaps he was hoping she’d leave him alone if he finally gave her an answer to it.
‘I don’t really know her, to be honest. We have very little contact these days.
She’s not exactly the maternal type. I think she fell pregnant with me by accident – at least, that’s what I overheard one day when my great-aunt and a friend of hers were chatting.
Apparently, my father convinced her to keep me, but she and I never really bonded.
Not that my relationship with my father was much better.
He was always being sent away overseas with work.
He was a foreign diplomat. My mother often went with him, but they kept me here in England at boarding school.
It was for my own good, apparently, so I wouldn’t feel unsettled. ’
From the expression on his face she gleaned that it had actually had the opposite effect.
No wonder he was so attached to this house.
It seemed to be the only place he’d ever felt secure.
She couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been not to be allowed to live with your family.
There were so many good memories from her own childhood, she’d be devastated not to have had the opportunity to experience them.
Some of them were only snatched, random moments in her memory, but they still held so much meaning for her.
They’d helped her grow and form as a person, and the knowledge that she’d be able to come home to her family and a safe, loving environment every day after school had kept her going through her most taxing years.
‘I suspect it was really because they thought I’d cramp their style if I was living with them,’ Xavier went on, his eyes taking on a faraway, troubled look now.
‘They were always big socialisers, according to my great-aunt…’ He paused, as if weighing up whether he wanted to say the next thing out loud, obviously deciding that he did when he added, ‘And not exactly faithful to each other.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been really unsettling for you,’ she said quietly.
He looked at her again, his expression softer now with what she thought might be appreciation for her understanding.
‘It wasn’t great, but then no one’s life is perfect, right?’
‘True,’ she said, giving him a supportive smile.
There was another heavy pause as they just looked at each other again and Soli felt a strange sort of pulse beat between them.
‘Any more?’ Xavier said, breaking the tension.
‘Any more what?’ she asked, a little shaken by the atmosphere that had formed.
‘Questions,’ he said pointedly.
‘Oh! Yes. Okay.’ Pulling herself together, she asked, ‘What would you regret not having said to someone if you were to unexpectedly die this evening?’
He raised a wry eyebrow, his eyes twinkling with mirth.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not thinking about doing you in,’ she added with a grin, then muttered, ‘yet,’ waggling her eyebrows in jest.
He came really close to properly smiling at that and her heart did a little dance of joy.
‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I guess I wish I’d had a chance to tell my great-aunt how much I appreciated her taking me under her wing like she did. I don’t know what would have happened to me if she hadn’t.’
Soli became aware of tears pooling in her eyes. ‘I’m glad you had her. She sounds like an amazing woman.’
‘She was.’
Blinking away her tears and pointing at her eyes, then wafting her hands at either side of them with a strained smile of embarrassment, she asked, ‘When did you last cry in front of someone?’
He frowned, but didn’t meet her eyes. ‘I’m not a crier.’
‘Really? You never cry?’
‘Not in front of other people, no.’ He shifted a little in his seat and crossed his arms. ‘And it’s been years since I cried on my own.’
‘Oh. Okay, then.’ There was something so heart-wrenching about this, it actually caused her physical pain deep in her chest. How awful that he didn’t feel he could express his sorrow in front of someone else.
‘I cry in front of people all the time,’ she said with a self-deprecating grin.
‘I find it cathartic. I always feel better afterwards, though sometimes I’m embarrassed by how easily I do it.
I cry at anything even remotely sad,’ she said, feeling tears pushing at the backs of her eyes again just from thinking about it.
His shoulders had stiffened as if he was really uncomfortable now and he glanced down at his watch, as if wanting to escape from the conversation.
This was confirmed when he said, ‘Anyway, Soli, it’s been an interesting exercise, but I really do have some work to do this evening, so I’m going to say goodnight.’
‘Okay,’ she said, watching him get up from the sofa, feeling a swell of satisfaction from getting as far as she had.
It was early days yet, but at least she knew a bit more about him now.
His emotional unavailability made more sense now she knew more about how he’d been ignored by his parents during his childhood.
She felt truly sorry for the poor, lonely little boy he must have been growing up, not having a family who loved him or a home to come back to during his breaks from school.
What must that do to a child? To not feel wanted by the people who were supposed to love you unconditionally?
It was a horrible thought.
Well, she’d make sure she did her very best to support him in the months to come.
She’d need to be careful not to get dragged into an emotional quicksand where Xavier was concerned – it wouldn’t be sensible to allow herself to actually fall for the guy, she reminded herself with a strange pulse of panic – but she could be a friend to him, as he’d suggested.
Yes, that was exactly what they both really needed at this juncture in their lives.
A good friend.