Chapter 27
Aiden
Georgia perches on the edge of a metal foldaway chair outside a quaint little coffee shop in town.
The river runs right beside the cafe, and from the treetops all around, birds serenade us with their chatter.
The sun shines directly overhead, leaving the narrowest crescents of shadows below buildings and trees, and creating the illusion it’s hotter than it actually is.
It feels like summer’s nearby, even if the bite of the early April morning is already nipping through my base layer.
Georgia looks shell-shocked. Her skin is paler than usual, her face devoid of any emotion, and her eyes are fixed on the rushing water at the bank’s edge.
I’ve not seen or heard from her in a few weeks, and at first I figured she was just busy with work and her master’s, but she’d continually cancelled our plans to meet up, not returned any of my calls, and the length of time she’d wait before replying to my texts stretched into days instead of hours.
Until yesterday, when she rang me after the Cents’ home game.
“We need to talk,” she said.
I didn’t require any further clarification. I knew what this meant.
The chair legs scrape noisily over the patio slabs as I extract the seat across from Georgia and sit down.
She’s yanked out of her reverie, turns, and smiles at me. Actually smiles. I’m going to miss those.
“Hi,” she says. Her face is puffy, but her eyes aren’t red, like maybe she has a cold, or maybe it’s that she spent the night crying.
“Do you want a hot choccy?” I ask, but a second later a server comes outside with a silver tray bearing two mugs of steaming hot chocolate complete with cream and marshmallows.
“I ordered a while ago and told them to make the drinks when they saw the most Australian looking man they could imagine sitting in the seat opposite me.”
“Fair play.” I wait for the server to disappear back inside the cafe. “So?”
“So,” she says.
“Are we breaking up?” I ask, even though I already know the answer to that question.
But Georgia doesn’t respond. At least not right away. She inhales deeply and looks out over the river once again.
I don’t interrupt her thoughts. This is all my fault. Whatever she’s feeling now is because I’ve been a selfish cunt. The bare minimum I can do to atone for my guilt is let her say whatever she needs to say without me trying to defend myself.
Because I have no defence. The earful I’m about to get, I deserve. Every ounce of fury, every swear, every name call. I’m only thankful she chose somewhere public and quiet.
“This has been going on the entire time? Since we got together? Over a year?” she asks.
I nod. No point in lying or trying to deny anything now.
I’ve ruined everything. Our relationship, Eggo’s relationship, potentially Georgia’s friendship with Megan, my arrangement with Eggo, maybe even our friendship too.
Maybe I’ll need to leave Bath and play for a different team.
Maybe I’ve fucked up the squad dynamics so irrevocably that we lose our spot in the premiership.
She mirrors my nod. She already knows, though I’m not sure how, and waits an age before she asks, “Why?”
I don’t have an answer ready for her. It’s so un-me. Usually I’m drowning in thoughts and reasons and justifications, but I’ve spent the past year reflecting on Eggo and me and why I did what I did, and I’ve got no decent arguments to offer her. No real reason why.
Georgia spreads her fingers out over the tabletop and stares down at them. Her nails are blood red today, and the paint goes all the way to her cuticles. She must have had them done recently.
“If you . . .” She pauses, closes her eyes, and opens them again to look right at me. “If you had to choose between him and me, who would you pick?”
“You.” It’s the truth. The tension eases a little in her shoulders.
“But after all the lies I’ve subjected you to, you deserve full honesty.
I’ve always actively chosen you.” I suck in a deep breath to gather my thoughts.
“I don’t think a day has gone by where I haven’t said to myself, ‘Okay, Aiden, today is the day we break it off with Eggo.’ Like .
. . I’ve arranged to meet up with him and end things so many times, but every single time it doesn’t go to plan. I just wind up—”
“Sucking his cock?”
Wow, I really am that guy. “Yes.”
She drums her fingertips lightly against the metal table and looks away. There are swans on the river now. She’s looking at them, but I don’t think she sees them. “Do you regret it? Do you regret us?”
“No. I don’t regret us.” Full honesty remember, Pi, you owe her complete transparency. “I also don’t regret anything Eggs and I did. I only regret that you got hurt. I love you, but I’ve been a cunt. If I could go back in time, I would’ve done things differently.”
“You would never have started a relationship with me,” she says.
I can’t tell if it’s a question, but I nod regardless.
She closes her eyes and angles her head away from me. “Do you love him?”
“I can’t love him,” is my stilted reply.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“We don’t . . . It’s not . . .” I scrape a hand down my face.
I don’t know how to answer her question because I’m not sure there is an answer.
I’ve never let myself think beyond our immediate friends-with-benefits arrangement.
Circumstances being what they were never allowed for there to be a future for Eggo and me, so I had never imagined one.
We are, first of all, teammates. Then we are friends. Then lovers. But we can’t be a true couple, and we will never be in love with each other. Maybe in an alternate universe we could be together, but I can’t go letting myself get caught up in those daydreams again.
Georgia watches me, and I swear her expression shifts. The hardness seems to melt into something much sadder. Her lip does that wobbly thing it does just before she’s about to cry. She pats a knuckle under her eyes.
“Why the fuck I didn’t wear waterproof mascara today, I’ve got no idea.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m officially ‘one of those’ guys, and I wish I hadn’t dragged you into my mess.” I’m not sure what else to say or do to atone. Or if I can ever atone. I’ll carry this guilt and shame with me for the rest of my days.
“I’ll be honest with you, Aiden. I love you, but I never expected this relationship between us to be a forever thing.
” She places her hand on top of mine. It’s cold.
“Some people will meet the love of their life at eighteen, get married and have babies by twenty, and live happily ever after, but . . . I’m too young for that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had loads of fun with you and I’ve loved being with you, it’s just that even if I didn’t know you were fucking my best friend’s boyfriend behind my back, we wouldn’t have lasted much longer. ”
I get the sense that these words are Georgia’s way of making herself feel better about how badly I wronged her. That this is her coping.
“My head’s telling me to run so fucking far away from you, but my heart . . .” Her expression crumples and tears track down both cheeks. She drops my hand to dry her face. I pass her a napkin from the silver tray. “My heart’s saying you’re a big, stupid, selfish fucking pig.”
I simply nod along. “I am.”
“Fucking hell, Aiden. You’re impossible.
I wish you were a horrible guy. I wish you were like some red pill guzzling misogynist. No, I don’t.
But it would make hating you a lot easier.
I’m just . . . I’m fucking annoyed with myself because I want to hate you.
I want you to say dumb shit like it was all my fault or that you’re just an idiot fucking man who can’t help himself, so that I can storm out.
I want to storm out. But . . . I don’t. Agh! ”
The people at the table across the aisle are watching us. I’m beyond caring at this point.
“This isn’t something that can be fixed,” I say. Georgia peers at me through her tears. “I’ve fucked up in too many ways. It can’t be undone and . . . we can’t go forward as we are, knowing what we know.”
She picks up her mug of hot choccy. It’s probably cold now, but in standard Georgia fashion she demallows my drink and adds them to hers.
On the other bank of the river, there’s a young family feeding bread to the swans.
It’s attracted a whole flock of ducks and a couple of stray geese to join the frenzy.
“You’re going to think I’m such a fucking idiot, but I want to give us another try,” she says eventually.
I open my mouth to respond, perhaps to tell her I don’t think she’s an idiot, but she cuts me off.
“I know we aren’t going anywhere, but I love you. And I know . . .” she says, raising her voice so I’m aware I can’t interrupt. “I know you can’t give him up. I know you’ve tried and failed, and honestly, maybe I’m not asking you to give him up. You’re addicted to him—”
“I—”
“No,” she says, holding up her pointer finger. “You don’t get to talk right now, or make decisions. You make terrible, crappy decisions. You’ve held the monopoly on crappy decision making for over a year, so maybe it’s my turn to make them?”
I nod.
“He gives you something I can’t, and I’m not just talking about dick because dick is plentiful.
Anyone can give you good dick, including me.
I work out, I’ve got great stamina. Anyway, that’s not the point.
What I’m saying is that I should break up with you, but I’m not sure that’s what I want right now.
I need to think about it. I’m graduating in a couple of months, and I have no idea what I want to do after that.
Whether I want to get a job, or go travelling.
I’d love to go travelling, but . . .” She waves her hands as though dispersing the divergent thought bubbles. “I haven’t said anything to Megs yet.”
I don’t mean to, but I visibly react. My shoulders drop and a heavy breath is released. I might not have ruined my friend’s relationship yet.
“Can we just pretend, at least for a little while until I figure everything out, that things are as they were before I knew?”
“Whatever you want to do.” I hold my hand palm up on the table, and she slots hers on top of mine. “Like you’ve said, I’m the CEO of crappy decisions. I shouldn’t be allowed to decide shit any more.”
“Megs is going to Kent for a couple of weeks, so I’m gonna stay with my mum while I think about stuff. I just don’t want to be by myself right now.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Don’t say anything to Finn. Don’t tell him I know. Not yet, anyway.”
“Okay,” I say again. “Can I ask, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but how did you . . . find out?”
She actually smiles. “I hacked into your phone. I figured out your lock pin. One, seven, oh, one. You’re such a nerd. And when you were getting a massage last month, I went through Fern’s WhatsApps.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Now she’s laughing. “Oh, fuck, indeed.” Her smile drops, but doesn’t fade completely. “I read this thing on Threads once that people who have penises experience orgasms that are kinda comparatively similar to sneezes, like there’s a building pressure, and then a sudden burst of release.”
I glance across the path at the other table, but its occupants have left and only empty mugs and fluttering napkins litter the tabletop.
Georgia keeps talking. “I kept thinking to myself, why the fuck would he jeopardise everything we have for a fucking sneeze, but then I read your messages, and . . . I’m not saying I forgive you, but . . . I get it. Okay?”
I’ve got the sudden urge to trawl through the entire thread of texts from Eggo to see if I notice whatever it is Georgia seems to have noticed.
“So you saw all of Eggo’s dick pics, then?” I ask instead.
In answer to my question, she raises a brow. “I didn’t watch any of the videos, though.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, apologising not just for the photos and messages, but for everything.
“Me too.” She pushes to her feet. “I’m going to go now. I’m trying to get better at sticking to my boundaries. I’ll text you in a couple of days once I’ve had more time to consider things. I haven’t paid for the drinks yet, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Of course,” I say.
I watch her walk away. She checks back over her shoulder twice before disappearing out of view.
I push my now cold choccy aside and order a pot of tea, and I spend the next few hours scrolling through my messages and overanalysing anything and everything Finn Eggington has ever sent me.
I skim over my replies—I don’t need to read all the cringe things I’ve said to him—and focus all my attention on his messages.