Chapter 28 #2
What was she thinking? She’d got swept up in a fantasy. She’d led him on and got him to believe his dream of being with her on the island was achievable.
His mother would never forgive him. Was it really fair to rip him away from his family?
She’d seen close-up what rupturing a family could do.
She had a perfectly good life and a home waiting for her back in London.
It might be a bit lonely at times, but she had her hard-fought freedom, and she wasn’t ready to give it up.
It had worked well for her all these years, and it would again.
She got dressed in the dark and found a piece of paper and a pen.
Couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts in my head. I will ring you. Sofia x.
It was a coward’s way out, but it was too much to grapple with all at once. She’d go back to Britain with Charlotte as planned in the morning and take it from there. They could carry on as they always had, meeting every couple of months.
It was light by the time she’d carefully closed the flat door and gone down the steps in her bare feet, slinging her shoes over her shoulder.
The two hundred metres to the hotel were completed in the peace of a new morning.
Only the fishermen were awake, shouting over to each other as the boats pulled out of the port and onto the open sea.
They’d been given keys to the hotel’s main door, and she tiptoed in and went to her room, where she spent a dry-eyed restless few hours, longing for breakfast to begin and end, and for the car transporting them to the ferry to come and take her far away from the emotional maelstrom.
Over their breakfast coffee and cake, Charlotte was full of tales from the post-wedding partying and luckily didn’t notice straightaway that Sofia wasn’t her normal bouncy self. But it didn’t last long.
‘Is everything OK, Sof? You’re very quiet. Are you sad at leaving Adonis behind?’
The idea that she was sad about leaving him, rather than rejecting the whole other life she’d been offered, would just about cover it without having to reveal the truth. Plus, it was true: she was sad about leaving, but Charlotte didn’t need to know what she was saying no to.
The minutes until they could board the ferry seemed like hours, and even when they were finally on deck, they had to wait for all the cars and lorries to load, so it was hardly the quick getaway she’d hoped for.
At long last, she was standing with Charlotte at the front of the boat with the engines running, more than ready to watch the island disappear into the distance.
Just as they were about to leave, a commotion on the dock demanded her attention. A man in a black BMW had abandoned his car in the middle of the dockside and was pushing his way through the waiting crowd. He ran towards the boat like a madman.
Sofia’s heart turned over when she saw who it was.
Charlotte leant further over the rail.
‘Isn’t that Adonis?’
‘Oh, is it? Yes, you’re right.’ Sofia knew her nonchalant act wasn’t fooling her friend.
Of course he’d know what time her boat left. Any hopes of quietly slipping away had disappeared completely.
‘Sofia mou. Over here!’
Both women turned their head in the direction of his voice.
‘You cannot leave.’ Adonis spread his arms to the sky. ‘I love you, and I can’t live without you.’
Charlotte had heard those very same words from her own husband just two days earlier, but they’d failed to move her. Sofia had one big decision to make. She studied her friend, who had gone bright red, and gently pulled Sofia’s head round to face her.
‘OK, we only have a few moments to do this. You must answer me truthfully.’
Sofia’s eyes strayed again and again to the figure standing below her on the dock.
‘Do you love him?’
Sofia nodded miserably.
‘Could you make a life here on the island with him?’
Again, the sad nod.
‘Then stay, Sof, for once in your life, stay. Don’t leave like every other time. Gather up every ounce of courage you have and be brave, my friend.’
Charlotte pushed Sofia’s suitcase towards her.
‘Go on. Get the hell off this boat.’
Sofia hugged her friend tight.
‘Will you be OK on your own?’
Charlotte smiled into the sun.
‘I’m going to have to learn how to be on my own, but I think – no, I know – I’m going to be OK.
I’ve spent thirty years with the same man, and now I’m going to explore being me again.
You, on the other hand, have spent thirty years on your own, and now it’s your time to explore real love.
It could be your last chance. Go. And that’s an order! ’
The whistle sounded to warn any visitors to get off the boat before it departed, and Sofia dragged her case down the steps and off the ferry onto the dockside.
Adonis stood waiting quietly a few feet away. The look of joy on his face when he saw her was something she’d treasure forever.
Sofia dropped her case and ran into his arms. The crowd waiting on the dock and the passengers on the boat erupted in cheers.
Her lips met his, as he hugged her so tight she could barely breathe. But she pulled out of his embrace to look him in the eye. She needed to say it.
‘I love you too, Adoni mou. I’ve loved you almost from the moment I met you. I love you more than I’ve loved any other man in my life, ever. I was too scared to admit it until I saw you standing there, fighting so hard to give us a chance, a future together.’
Adonis went to speak, but she put her finger to his lips.
‘We both know it’s not going to be easy, but as long as we face everything together, anything is possible.’
She leaned into him and whispered in his ear.
‘What I can promise you is my love for the rest of our lives.’
Adonis’s soft lips on hers stopped any more talking.
Sofia let the demons fly out of her heart and up into the bluest of blue skies.
For the first time in her life, she really was going to stay.