Chapter 13
The first cold raindrop hits my forehead as I emerge from Archway tube station.
I don’t have an umbrella but I don’t care.
As I head up the hill towards Jonathan’s street, the clouds crack open and I practise what I’m going to say: ‘I’m so sorry for being so intense, I can do better, give you space, I will, I promise . . .’
I dodge the traffic, the red of taillights and the white of headlights reflecting off the wet tar as I run across the road and down his street, and now I’m breathless and my coat and hair are wet, and there is his house, just up ahead.
I wipe the rain from my face as I move towards it, searching the cars parked along the street for a red Kia. That’s Jonathan’s car. So beautifully understated, just like him. And there it is, raindrops glistening from the roof. He’s home.
What will he say when he sees me?
But ah shit, there Baxter’s white Audi, parked on the other side of the road. And he’s always home, so this shouldn’t surprise me, but I really don’t want an audience tonight . . . But it’s okay, I can do this.
Because now I’m here, right outside his house. My hair is so wet that it’s sticking to my head but this reminds me of that scene in The Vampire Diaries where Damon and Elena are kissing in the rain . . . It’s romantic.
I swallow hard, look up towards his front door, and then to the bay window to the left.
There’s a faint yellow glow seeping out from between the curtains.
I take a deep breath, move my hair out of my face and head up the path to the front door.
Butterflies flood my stomach as I reach for the doorbell, and I’m listening out for the familiar sound of his heartbeat when instead . . .
I hear a giggle.
A woman’s giggle.
My hand freezes in midair.
That’s not right.
I rush back down the stairs, step into the flowerbed in front of the window and move close to the glass. There’s a thin gap between the curtains. I peer inside.
I see Baxter first. He’s standing on the rug Jonathan and I slow-danced on, not far from the Christmas tree, its little lights blurred by the rain on the window.
I look to the right, searching for Jonathan.
And he’s right there, so close, on the sofa we sat on so many times.
And he’s beautiful, so beautiful—but one of those men who doesn’t know that he’s hot, which just makes him even hotter.
He’s wearing the same blue jumper he wore on our first date, and I reach out as though to touch him as a warmth moves through my veins.
But as my fingertips hit the glass, the world spins faster and now I’m struggling to breathe.
Because there, beside him, is a woman. I can’t see her face, she’s sitting with her back to me, but she’s wearing a bright red sweater and has dark curly hair, flowing down her back.
WHO THE FUCK IS SHE?
The rain is getting heavier, but I can’t tear myself away. Instead, I watch helplessly, my heels sinking into the mud, as she reaches over and tousles his fucking hair.
Then Jonathan says something I don’t quite catch because stupid Baxter is talking over him, and then the woman turns for just a moment to look at the Christmas tree, and I see a flash of her face.
Oh perfect. She’s pretty.
Pretty. Tousling his hair. And on the warm side of the window.
While here I stand, in the rain, two bags of blood in my bag.
This isn’t how tonight was meant to go.
I scan the scene, from Jonathan to her to Baxter to what I presume is her beige Chloe handbag on the table by the sofa.
Lying beside it, with a bunch of keys is a security badge from an investment bank.
I zoom in on it. Staring back at me, from just below a slightly pixelated version of her face, her long dark hair, is a name: Olivia Coombes.
I bristle as I mouth it silently. And I hate the way it feels in my mouth. Hate that she has a name someone gave to her, not like me.
But now they’re talking again, and I focus in, seeking out clues as to why Olivia fucking Coombes is there to start with.
‘He’s clearly lost,’ Baxter says. ‘I’ll go and stand outside so he can see me.’ And then he moves towards the front door.
And . . . oh no.
I can’t let them find me here, like this. Not with her all dry and normal in there. I’d look like a stalker.
So I turn and run back towards the gate, onto the street and jog towards the main road, my face angled down, not daring to look back in case Baxter sees me.
A car with an Uber sticker drives past me, the wipers quick in the rain, and I stand at the corner of his street, hugging myself and watching as it pulls up at Jonathan’s house.
An ache rings out beneath my ribs. An insane part of me wants to go back, give my little speech, do it in the rain.
But another, rational part, is not so sure.
Because now that I think about it, me turning up in the rain like this isn’t romantic, it’s positively unhinged.
Daphne was right, I need to reel it in. Now. Before I make things worse.
I rush back to the station, wet to the bone, as people move past me, huddling under umbrellas.
There’s a little corner store beside it, a neon ‘open’ sign hanging in the window and I go inside and up to the counter and scan for the strongest packet of cigarettes.
Because I need something right now, something to take the edge off.
‘A packet of Benson and Hedges, please,’ I say to the bored-looking shop clerk. ‘And a lighter,’ I add.
‘What colour?’ the clerk asks in a monotone voice, pointing to the tray of lighters behind him as he eyes my dripping hair.
I could choose pink, or blue, or yellow. But the only one I can see right now is: ‘Black.’
He hands me the cigarettes and the lighter and I pay him. Then, in a daze, I go back to the station and through the turnstiles and onto the platform. And now here I am, back at Archway, putting on my sunglasses just in case I cry.
Again.
Part of me wishes I’d never met him. That I didn’t know what it felt like to lie in his arms. That he’d never come to that pub on that Sunday afternoon, and I’d never looked into his blue-blue eyes . . .
But I’m lying now.
I don’t wish any of that.
The truth is, even if I could stop this feeling, go back to a time before him, I don’t think I would.
Because he took me closer to my humanity than I have ever been.
He gave me a reason to hope. And after wandering around like a shell for 150 years, with no idea who I was or what had happened to me, it was the first time I knew I wasn’t just some mistake of nature.
It was the first time I was sure that I . . . existed.