Chapter Two
Two
I try to keep thoughts of Freddie to a minimum.
It’s not that I don’t care. I do. But it’s distressing to dwell on just how close I came to happiness.
To companionship. That feeling of having someone there.
He always seemed to know when I’d had a long day, like we were connected by some invisible thread.
He’d put a bracing hand on my shoulder, just to let me know he cared, or send a thoughtful message: You OK?
I’m painfully aware, however, that rehashing every peak and trough of the relationship is not conducive to moving on.
That’s how you slip into bitterness. And, on the whole, I’m adept at keeping memories of Freddie at bay.
I keep busy and work hard. I avoid silence. When things get really tough, I clean.
It may not surprise you to hear that the one place I struggle with thoughts of Freddie is the grief group, though not for the reasons you might think.
It’s more of a pacing issue than any deep-buried emotion dredged up by someone else’s melancholic speech.
The truth is that bereavement groups are really quite slow.
So slow, there have been occasions when I have no doubt the corpse of those they’re mourning would get to the point faster.
And we are currently suffering through another painful silence from our least eloquent participant: Charlie. After my shock confession, it’s an abrupt return to the mundane, and—judging by the distant expressions—not a particularly welcome one.
Tonight, though, it’s not Freddie occupying my thoughts, but Jack.
My little speech went down better than I could have predicted.
Every so often, we catch each other’s eye.
Jack always looks away quickly, but not before I’ve clocked it.
We are an hour into the session, and he has looked at me twenty times already. That’s got to mean something.
The last time I felt excitement like this was at the start of my relationship with Freddie.
I was languishing then, too, stuck in the hellish normality of daily life.
Looking back, I think I was a bit lost. Floating through early adulthood without point or purpose.
Freddie changed that. He changed everything.
It’s all coming back to me now, like a rusty cog slotting into place.
The smile I gave Jack earlier was over-the-top.
I won’t make that mistake again. It’s crucial I don’t come across as too keen.
Take the game out of it, and they lose interest instantly.
A little nugget of advice that my brain has kept tucked away all these months, as though it knew I might need it again. Yes, it’s all returning to me now.
I pretend not to notice Jack taking me in.
I fight the urge to cover my hair. I haven’t washed it for three days.
My roots are an abomination. I’ll have to deal with them before next week.
I straighten my spine, square my shoulders, rest my hands softly in my lap.
I cock my head, gaze fixed firmly on Charlie, and pretend to be absorbed in his prevailing silence, which is no easy feat.
It never ceases to amaze me, the effect male attention can have.
I feel more alive tonight than I have in weeks, though I appreciate this is probably the wrong forum in which to boast about vitality.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone wrapping one’s entire sense of self around the male gaze, but we all know it feels good, even if it is taboo to admit it.
It’s nice to be looked at again. Particularly when it’s by someone like Jack. By someone like Freddie.
I was new to this game when I met Freddie.
Stuck in a dead-end job I was desperate to leave and still smarting from the labels I’d been branded with at university four years before: strange, intense, loner.
That last one hurt the most, because it implied complicity on my part.
I’d begun to wonder if I really was the issue, before Freddie showed an interest in me.
Then I realized the issue was everyone else.
We met in a coffee shop. I spotted him instantly: He was the most attractive man in there, and I was not the only one to notice.
The barista was giving him a strong side-eye, which, from what I’d observed, could work wonders on the unsuspecting male.
I had to move fast, find a way to get his attention, and so, as I walked toward the counter, I stumbled slightly and grabbed for his arm to steady myself.
“Whoa,” he’d said. “Careful. Are you OK?”
I’d blushed prettily (not something I can generally do on command, but everyone in the shop was staring at me) and looked up at him through my lashes. “Yes. So sorry. I don’t know what happened there.”
He smiled, and, though it was wide and open and honest, I thought I recognized something beneath: something sad, which he’d gone to great lengths to conceal. It chimed with something inside me. “I’m always half asleep before I have my morning coffee, too,” he’d said.
He was kind like that. Willing to put himself in others’ shoes.
It was one of the things I loved most about him.
I didn’t tell him that I was only in the café to pass the time before a covert interview for a job that I hoped might raise my frightful prospects.
That I thought coffee tasted like mud. “Exactly,” I said, mirroring his easy, casual stance.
Always the gentleman, he allowed me to go ahead of him. I knew he was listening, so I ordered a cappuccino, but when I went to pay he slipped round me, tapped his card on the machine, and winked. The rush of attraction was so strong, I can feel it even now.
“My good deed for the day,” he said. Men do love playing the hero.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I walked into the interview room—for a design job at a magazine publishing company—later that same morning, and he was sitting there. A coincidence too strange to be insignificant. I learned that—should I get the role—he would be my manager.
“Small world!” he’d said with a laugh when he saw me. Buoyed by his presence, I performed well in the interview, but I couldn’t help but feel that our encounter in the coffee shop clinched it for me. They offered me the job on the spot, and I started a month later.
See? Told you the group often sends me on a jaunty trip down memory lane.
We’re wrapping up now. Jack sends one final glance in my direction.
If I’ve played my cards right, he’ll try to talk to me at the end, prompted by my staunch refusal to engage with him.
It’s a delicious thought, a game I know how to play well.
Marcie’s magazines taught me the rules: To generate interest, play it cool.
Let him come to you. I hope I’m not too rusty conversationally.
Flirtatious looks are one thing. Dialogue is quite another.
But Jack doesn’t try to speak to me at the end.
He’s the first out of his chair, and he heads toward the exit without a second glance.
I’m momentarily dumbstruck, staring after him, open-mouthed.
I was sure I’d done it right. I’d gone by the book: stirring his interest before appearing indifferent to his response.
I set up the game flawlessly, laying the pieces carefully on the board, but now he’s refusing to play.
It must have been my hair. It really is bad. Thin, greasy, and brittle. I’ll book an appointment with the hairdresser. Then we’ll see if he can resist my charms.
I’m the last to leave. I pick up my coat, head through the door to the lobby, and catch sight of the sign-out book.
Fiona tries to insist we sign in and out in accordance with health and safety regulations, but most of us don’t bother.
A small act of rebellion, a middle finger to sadness. Jack doesn’t know that, though.
I run my finger down the list and there he is. Right at the bottom. The hasty scrawl of a man in a hurry.
Jack Reynolds