Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
don’t mess up a second chance
Max
The front door to Ava’s flat opens and she walks in, swearing when her coat gets caught on the door handle. Her flatmate has
been away, which is both good and bad, because I don’t want to be around anyone, but also, she has a dog, and I really feel
like some canine energy would do a lot to revive me right about now. Because it’s rained all afternoon, and I feel it in my
hip, but it pales in comparison to the ache in my gut.
The second my sister spots me in the same position she left me in before work this morning, she says, ‘Nope.’ She hangs up
her jacket and strides over to the sofa bed. ‘This ends today. I need you out before Josie gets back. I don’t need your bad
vibes messing up her post-engagement bubble.’
‘Right, because you’re known for being a beacon of love and light.’
‘Big talk from a man looking like a sickly Victorian child, but sure.’
‘I really thought Finn was making you nicer,’ I grumble.
‘If anything, I’m worse. I need to let it out somehow, and you’re a safe target.
’ She pulls her hair out of its ponytail and asks, ‘Are you going to finally tell me why you’ve been taking up precious space in my living room for the past few days?
I’ve been holding Mum and Dad back from coming here and staging an intervention. ’
‘I just don’t want them to start needling. Although,’ I cast her a glare, ‘it seems I underestimated your capacity for that.’
‘The older I get, the more like them I become. It’s a curse. Now get up and let’s turn this back into a sofa.’
We work together to fold up the bed, and by the time we’re done, a tea for her and a coffee for me resting on the coffee table,
she looks at me pointedly and asks, ‘What’s going on?’
I let out a sigh. ‘We don’t need to talk about this. It’s not your problem.’
‘And yet . . . you’re moping around my flat, so you’re making it my problem. What have you been doing while I’ve been at work?’
I woke up this morning after she left, cocooned in a duvet, and all I could think about was Dylan existing somewhere else
in this city, how she’d probably worn her fluffy socks to bed. How I already miss going to sleep listening to those soft snuffling
sounds that turn into snores.
‘I’ve been doing . . . stuff.’
‘Such as?’
I tried what I always do to distract myself: figure out where to go next. My manager has forwarded me a bunch of trip offers
over the last month: another one to Scotland, a new hotel in the Cotswolds, a festival in Prague, and I had every intention
of agreeing to one of them without even reading through all of the details, the way I usually do. It’s always been a way to
keep things exciting.
But for the first time, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t mindlessly agree to go somewhere, not when it felt like I was leaving
something important behind.
And when I couldn’t decide which trip to accept, I spent a shameful amount of time scrolling through videos on my laptop,
far too many of which were of Dylan. Too many, but not enough.
I don’t answer, and Ava asks, ‘Does this mood, perchance, have anything to do with a tall, blonde woman with a heart of gold?’
I squirm under her stare. ‘We aren’t the type of siblings to talk about this sort of thing.’
‘Okay, well we’re not talking about this sort of thing; we’re talking about you.’
She pulls a blanket off the back of the sofa and wraps it around herself while she waits. With anyone else the silence would
be awkward, but it can’t be with Ava, because we grew up alongside each other every step of our lives. Where one of us went,
the other followed.
Maybe I need to follow her into this. Letting myself be vulnerable when all the warning signs are telling me to run.
‘I’m not built for someone like her,’ I admit. ‘She’s been clear this whole time about what she wants, and I’m not sure she
can get it from me. She already had someone waste years of her life with them. I don’t want her to waste more with me.’
‘Not being sure she can get it from you implies a possibility that she can. So what’s stopping you?’ When I don’t reply, she continues, ‘Look, between the two of us, the desire to self-sabotage when
things are going well must be coded in our DNA. But it doesn’t have to be that way.’ She lets out a long exhale. ‘Around this
time last year, you told me something. You said that I’d been living too small, ever since you got sick the first time, and
you were right. I’d trapped myself in one place because I was so scared things would be taken from me if I made any big moves.
But you’ve never had that issue. All you ever do is run.
‘You live your life as loudly and as vibrantly and as constantly as possible, because you think that’s what makes the pain of what happened to you worth it. But there’s value in standing
still too, you know. Lots of life happens in the quiet.’
I think about those in-between moments with Dylan. The way living with her felt like its own kind of adventure. How we could
spend hours experiencing adrenaline-fuelled activities, but coming home was the most thrilling part of the day.
‘Dylan is the most sensible person I know,’ she says, and her name sends an unexpected jolt to my heart.
‘She wouldn’t have envisioned something with you if she didn’t think it was possible.
She’d have weighed it all up and decided that the kind of life you two could have would be good for her.
’ I don’t meet her eyes. ‘That’s what happened, right?
She wants to be with you, and you told her no? ’
My coffee’s too hot still, but I drink it anyway. ‘How the hell did you figure that out?’
‘Because you’re frustrated with yourself, which means you’re the one at fault, and I know you’re not shitty enough to cheat,
but you are idiotic enough to make a stupid decision. In fact, I’d say that making bad decisions is kind of your MO.’
‘But that’s my point. I’m impulsive and rash because I can’t think ahead. I’m not built for . . . longevity.’
She gives me a flat look. ‘I think you’re making excuses.’
‘Of course I am,’ I say exasperatedly, scruff scratching the palm I drag down my face. ‘But I’ve never done this before. I
don’t know how to fix things.’
She sets her tea on the coffee table. ‘Stop moping, for one. It doesn’t suit you.’
‘I think I’ve fucked it with her, Ava.’
‘Bullshit. Since when have you been someone who gives up when things get hard? Be proactive and make it right. You’re allowed
to try again.’ She bumps her shoulder against mine. ‘You know better than anyone the value of a second chance.’
I cast her a sideways look. ‘That was good.’
‘I’ve been learning from my therapist. Thinking I should switch career paths.’
‘Please don’t do that to people who are already struggling.’
‘Rude.’ She shuffles away from me again and says, ‘Look, I don’t think it’s my place to get between the two of you with this,
but . . . I’m rooting for you. Always will.’
Warmth fills me, and it’s not just my coffee that does it. ‘You’ve gone soft.’
She clicks her tongue and says an uncharacteristically sentimental, ‘Love does that to a person.’
And then we turn on The Chase and Ava swears when someone gets an easy answer wrong, and then swears even more when someone takes the lower offer, and during the break she scrolls her phone with her near-constant furrowed brow.
‘I really like her, Ava,’ I admit quietly.
Finn’s face flashes on her lockscreen before it goes dark. ‘I know you do. So let’s hope you figure something out.’ She gives
me a rare grin that reaches all the way up to her eyes. Then she clears her throat, and I just know she’s about to mimic me. She deepens her voice to say, ‘Dylan this, Dylan that. Do you think Dylan would like that place we
went on holiday when we were ten? Just wondering, what was that song about the moon and tide we used to listen to? Isn’t the
composition of this shot of Dylan and only Dylan really good?’
‘Piss off,’ I mumble, but as I register her words, an idea begins to take shape. ‘You never replied about the holiday thing.
Do you think she’d like it? That place in France?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘I have a project I need to finish.’