Chapter 24
THEN
I had agreed to meet Alex at the Commemoration Ball on our final night in Oxford. I must have walked through the front gates of Trinity College hundreds of times over the last year, but this was the first time that my stomach writhed with excitement and anticipation.
Lily and I arrived together, flashing our nylon wristbands at the girls in gowns manning the entrance.
The courtyard was almost unrecognisable.
Circus performers, decked out in silver costumes, roamed around on stilts, enormous lanterns with real flames were dotted around, a string quartet played as trays of champagne circulated.
I’d barely had time to absorb it all when I saw him. Everything else disappeared – there were no violins, no fire, no swishes of satin. Just him. How did an Australian guy, who barely wore shoes most days, look so perfect in a tailcoat?
He saw me and smiled. Lily squeezed my hand and then peeled off to find her college friends.
I took one step towards him then stopped, my hands fluttering to my turquoise silk dress.
I’d bought it during my trip to London – I normally wore dark colours and I shouldn’t have been spending money, but for the first time in my life, I felt properly beautiful.
He grabbed my hand, like he’d done on the May Day morning, and silently led me through the crowd until we reached my staircase. I noticed that my nameplate had already been taken down – ready for someone else’s name to be put up at the end of the summer.
‘No one’s allowed back up to their rooms until the ball’s over,’ I said slowly.
‘No one’s allowed on our college roof either,’ he said with a teasing smile.
The climb to my room on the top floor took a long time. We kissed on the step where we’d made out weeks earlier. He tasted like champagne, and I was sure I would taste like juniper from the gin I’d had with Lily while we got ready.
Finally, he pulled away and stared at me with soft eyes.
I took his hand again and led him to my door. ‘Before I met you, I lived in my head,’ I said. ‘You make me feel like I live in my body too. Discuss.’
‘I think this is a subject for an equation rather than an essay,’ Alex replied, his voice huskier than usual. ‘Maybe we can work it out together?’
I wordlessly nodded.
‘I think we start with subtraction,’ he said, closing my door behind him.
‘Subtraction sounds good,’ I said, though any words could have been coming out of my mouth.
I turned around, facing away from him. He slowly unzipped the dress and let go. It fell to the floor. I wasn’t wearing a bra and my underwear was skimpy and sheer. But I didn’t feel self-conscious in the slightest. I turned back to face Alex and his eyes lit up.
The insides of my body felt like one of the electron diagrams you learned about at school – everything zipping around, bumping into each other.
Classical music wafted up through my open window, accompanied by a chorus of laughter and chatter. This night felt different from our other nights together. I felt out of time, like I didn’t exist in the real world. It wasn’t real life.
‘Now you,’ I said. He smiled, accepting the challenge. He wriggled out of his jacket, but then got stuck pulling off his white silk bow tie.
‘I had you down as a clip-on man,’ I said, laughing as the knot tightened as he tried to yank it off. ‘Let me.’ I slowly coaxed the silk knot apart, pulled it carefully from under his collar and handed it to him.
‘What should I do with this?’ he asked, holding the piece of fabric in his hands. I raised my hands up above my head and held my wrists together.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
I nodded. We’d never done anything like this. I’d never done anything like this. But I wanted to do everything, try everything, feel everything.
He carefully tied the material around my wrists, gently tightened the knot, and then, with much less care, pulled off all his clothes. He stood naked in front of me, and I felt woozy.
‘Can I do more subtraction?’ he asked.
‘Quickly,’ I said. He hooked his finger under the left side of my underwear.
‘Are you sure you’re ready?’ he asked. I nodded, and gasped as he picked me up and carried me to my bed. I wondered whether it was possible to die from desire.
An hour later, arguably less polished but both glowing, we sat at the top of a Ferris wheel, overlooking the ball.
It was as if the world had been created only for us in that moment, and I admired the view below, where everyone was young and glamorous, wearing dyed wool and silk.
In the morning, the suits would be returned to the rental companies, the dresses consigned to the back of cupboards.
It was easy to forget that the next day we’d be kicked out of our borrowed rooms – that over the summer they’d be home to executives doing short courses at the business school, and, after the summer break, they’d belong to new students. All I had tomorrow was Alex.
‘I got into Harvard,’ he said, interrupting my thoughts.
‘What?’ I turned away from the panoramic view to face him.
‘Harvard changed their mind about the post-doc place. They realised they shouldn’t have turned me down,’ he said.
I stared at him. There was a steeliness to his voice – it was the voice you used when you’d made up your mind about your life and now had to blow up someone else’s. I recognised it; I’d heard it before.
‘They were too late,’ I said. I could hear a pleading tone in my voice, which I resented. His expression turned to wounded, as if he was hurt because the first thing I’d said wasn’t ‘congratulations’.
‘I said yes.’ The Ferris wheel skirted the ground and rose for another spin. If I jumped off, would I land on the ground safely?
‘What do you mean? We’re moving to London together. Tomorrow.’
‘I reached out to Harvard a few days ago, asking them to reconsider their position. I only heard back from them last night,’ he said. ‘But I can’t say no.’
‘Of course you can. You say, “No.” Like I said, “I will no longer be taking up my very prestigious grad job.” You just say it.’
He didn’t reply. It was the same silence that had hung between me and Mum when I’d asked her to stay. It was the silence in which everything changed.
A few seconds before, I’d thrown my head and body back against the seat like a child on a swing. Now, I felt totally trapped, in a slippery polyester-blend dress and sweaty palms.
‘I gave up my job. You can go with your second choice of prestigious university,’ I said.
‘Your job and my work aren’t the same thing,’ he said. There was a hardness to his voice I’d never heard before. ‘I’m trying to fulfil a promise I made to my mum. You ticked things off a list!’
I stared at him, trying to understand if he really believed what he was saying or was only trying to justify his own decision. But his face had become an expressionless mask – one without a hint of remorse or guilt.
‘I’m saying this all wrong,’ Alex said, shaking his head as if he’d gone off-script. As if it was the delivery of what he was saying, not the substance that was the problem. ‘When you told me that you’d quit your job, I felt awful...’
‘Wait. You’d already asked Harvard for another chance when I told you I was moving here, and you didn’t say anything?’ He looked away from me for a moment and I knew the answer.
‘So, you’re not moving to London tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘No. I met the team there and everything was... all wrong for the project,’ he said. ‘I can’t, Rebecca. I have to go.’
I stared at him for a moment to make sure he wasn’t joking. Except his eyes had narrowed and his arms were now crossed.
The numbness I’d felt since he’d started talking wore off and a wave of anger crashed through me.
This wasn’t going to happen again. I wasn’t a naive teenage girl anymore.
I was not going to let the siren’s call of other people’s passions and the actions driven by other people’s selfishness bulldoze my life.
The Ferris wheel stopped at ground level. Our safety bar was lifted, and I jumped out of the seat. I ran. I could hear Alex calling my name, but I didn’t stop.
I pushed through the crowds until I made it to my room.
I took in the rumpled bedsheets. Then I looked at my suitcase and bags sitting next to my wardrobe.
Everything I owned in this country was in them.
Tomorrow I was meant to be zipping them up and starting a grand adventure.
I was meant to be moving to London with Alex tomorrow.
Except he was moving to America. To Harvard.
We’d rented a cheap flat until we could get access to his uni accommodation at the end of summer.
I couldn’t afford to live there on my own, not without begging my parents for a loan, something I knew both of them (in a rare show of unity) would disapprove of.
And I didn’t want to be in London on my own. There was nothing waiting for me there.
I gasped for a breath, then another. Was I? Yes, I was. I hadn’t had a panic attack for years, since I was seventeen, but I still recognised what was happening.
I ran to the bathroom and tried to take regular, deep breaths. My head was pounding now. I rifled through my washbag and pulled out an unopened packet of Xanax. I wasn’t meant to mix them with alcohol, but how else was I meant to manage what was happening?
I popped the small white pill out of the blister pack, swallowed it and finished a glass of water.
I breathed in, then out. I lay on my mussed-up bed until my breathing had almost returned to normal.
I had no idea how much time had passed – a few minutes or an hour.
I finally got up and I stared at my face in the mirror.
The girl who had never felt more beautiful in her life was gone; looking back at me was a heartbroken ghost.
I knew that I should lie back down. But it wouldn’t be long before Alex would bang on the door, looking for me. And he was absolutely the last person I wanted to see.
I made a plan. I’d go find Lily. But I just had to do one thing first.
I opened my laptop. My instinct was to make a Skype call, but I was in a ballgown and that would raise questions. Instead, I opened my emails.
Hi Dad. I know I told you that I was staying here, but I made a mistake. Could you please book me a flight home urgently? I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love, Rebecca.
I pressed send and shut the laptop lid.