Chapter Forty-four
The next day comes and goes. And so do several more days.
I don’t see Osian except from a distance.
He is out very early in the morning, before our usual coffee time.
Sometimes he’s in the café but surrounded by a few of his new Perllans.
Or they’re on the stairs heading for the orchard on the east side where I can’t see them.
I, too, am busy. At least I pretend to be busy, writing up extensive handover instructions for running Hope Gardens; a list of jobs that must be completed before opening. I contact my solicitor to draft a legal settlement that transfers my ownership of the Hope Gardens Enterprise to Evan Kendric.
Of course, I desperately hope Osian will see sense so I won’t have to go.
I don’t want to give up my life here, and I tell myself it’s a ‘pretend’ plan B.
Even so, I’ve always been good at quick exits.
Once my mind recognises a dead end, turning around becomes easy.
Years ago, when school ended and Osian still wasn’t mine, it took me a few days to accept the offer from Queens College Belfast, apply for accommodation and book my flight.
Last January, after the fiasco at Styler TV, it took me a weekend to start looking for another job. I was gone in a fortnight.
It doesn’t mean I didn’t carry the wounds from each and every escape, only that the exits were quick and final. As long as it’s clear my road is a dead end.
Osian’s silence for the last three days is very clear. He must be struggling to find the right words to reject me. Yet I give it one last try. To prove to myself there’s no confusion, that I didn’t misunderstand his silence.
So at 6:15 on Friday morning, I make two coffees, go out on the balcony and knock on his French windows before sitting at the small table.
A minute later he appears behind the glass, shirtless and sleep ruffled.
Surprise and uncertainty flash across his face.
Then he sees the coffee cups and the small plate of biscotti, and a wide relieved smile breaks on his face.
He disappears back into the darkness of his rooms before coming back a few seconds later, pulling on a tee-shirt.
He’s covering up, taking care not to give me the wrong idea.
But it’s him who has the wrong idea. Because of the coffee, the biscotti, the early morning around the little table on the balcony.
They are all the things we did as friends, as neighbours.
He must think we’re picking up the old status quo, because when he joins me, relief shines in his eyes and he can’t stop smiling.
I wait for him to taste his coffee before saying, “I waited for you to come and tell me your answer.”
“I was going to.”
So I wait.
And wait.
He looks down at his coffee, at the table, at the sun climbing up into the sky; anywhere but at me.
Finally, when he meets my eyes, I put him out of his misery. “You want me to be your Beryl Kendric.”
His beautiful eyes darken with worry. “What does that mean?”
Oh, Osian.
“It means I’m going to leave Kendric Park.” I push my chair back and start to get up.
“No.” The word bursts from him like a yelp. He leans across and grabs my wrist in his strong hand and doesn’t let me pull away. “I don’t want you to go. I won’t let you.”
After a few more tugs to try and free myself, I settle back in my chair. He keeps his hold on my wrist.
“Evie. I wish…” His face twists with a difficult emotion; his eyes stay fixed on the vice-like grip he has on my wrist. “I wish we’d had that date back in school.
Maybe I’d have fallen in love with you, then.
We might have ended up together.” His gaze travels up and locks on my face. “A different life, a different world.”
We both hold our breaths for an instant.
“But,” he finally says, “we’re not in a different world, we’re here. And I cannot change who I am or the life I’ve had.”
I wish he’d stop talking. Every word is like a slash with sharp secateurs. Every time he draws breath to speak, I want to hold up my arms to ward off the next slash.
“It’s not that you don’t deserve to be loved.” He squeezes my hand as if begging me to believe him. “Please understand, just because I don’t feel about you the way I felt about Kirsten doesn’t mean you’re not special to me.”
Ouch.
“Evie, I’m asking you to be my dear friend, the bringer of good news who let joy and light back into my life. Please stay, and I promise to give you my friendship, my loyalty, my support. Always.”
Ouch. Ouch.
When he says ‘always’, it sounds like a life sentence. My fate if I accept his friendship.
“Osian, why would you wish to hurt me?”
He looks appalled. “Never! Don’t ever think that.”
“You want me to stay—”
“Of course,” he interrupts me.
But I go on, speaking over him. “To work side by side with you, all the time loving you, wanting you, but not allowed to touch you. You want me living next door, lying in bed trying not to hear if you have a woman in there.”
“I’d never do that. Not here.” His eyes burn with such passionate conviction. “Christ, Evie, is that what you think of me?”
I press on because even a tiny distraction would derail me and melt my resolution.
“I’d watch you, looking out for signs of sex.
Watching out for unexplained disappearances.
Always wondering if you’re really visiting your sister or in bed with someone off Tinder.
Growing paranoid when women like Nora make a play for you.
” I have to stop for a second and breathe through the memory of my sleepless nights when she was here.
The future has many more women falling for him. Even now, unshaven, hair messy from sleep, early sunlight catching the blond highlights near his temples, he still looks amazing.
“You’d ask me to live here for the rest of my life being tormented by this? Is that what you want for me?”
Osian’s Adam’s apple jerks up and down with every difficult swallow. He stares at me, opens his mouth as if about to offer a solution. Then his eyes slide away from mine, across my face then out towards the sky behind me. His brows scrunch together and stay that way for a long time.
When several minutes pass without answer, I pull my wrist away. His fingers loosen, and he lets me go.