Chapter 26
Now
I used to spend Saturday nights in a small dress, in a dark bar, with a drink in my hand.
I used to drink till the point my body would loosen, then I’d dance, for hours, with anyone.
Now on Saturday nights I do this, cruise around the big Tesco in a sweater dress comparing prices of chipotle pastes and deliberating over Pyrex.
As I move into the home aisle, I spot Cian down the other end. He pulls a book from the shelf and switches his weight from foot to foot, in what could be a post-accident habit or something he’s always done.
It’s become easy to avoid him at work. Easier than I ever imagined it would be, which weirdly seems to hurt too. Yet now, he’s right in front of me.
After a few moments of watching, I walk towards him. ‘Hi.’
He does a double take. ‘Zoe.’
‘Hi,’ I say again. ‘I wasn’t sure if I should come over.’
‘No. No, I’m glad you did. How are you?’ he asks quickly.
‘Good.’
I pull my arm across my middle and fall into staring. I’ve missed Cian’s eyes, how they sometimes hold my own for unbearably long and other times dart away skittishly. ‘How have you been?’ I manage.
‘Good.’ He attempts to put the book back onto the shelf, but it falls. ‘Shit.’ He tips down to pick it up. His hair is short, probably the same length it was when we first met.
‘You finally made it to the big Tesco,’ I tease.
‘Yes and it’s better than I remembered. Bakery, electronics, magazines.’
‘Rotisserie chicken.’
‘Stuff of dreams.’ He blinks away, down to his basket. ‘I promised my dad I’d make him dinner tonight. I haven’t seen him in a while.’
‘Still weird to me that you don’t live with him.’
‘I think it’s weird for him as well. He got used to having me home.’ Cian turns towards the shelf. ‘I was looking for that cyber-terrorism book everyone’s talking about.’
‘Of course,’ I say. Then, ‘What?’
He ducks and starts moving things around. ‘Which sadist organised this place? I don’t remember what the book’s called. Something about the defensive web. Anyway.’ He folds his arms, then self-consciously unfolds them, and puts his hands in his pockets. ‘Sorry, I’m keeping you.’
‘No, I’m done. I was going to pay.’
‘Me too.’ He reaches down to grab his basket, and we walk together to the self-checkout.
‘What exactly are you planning to make tonight?’ I ask while nodding at the chicken breasts, bakery cookies, oyster sauce and meringue nests in his basket.
‘Something amazing,’ he says in that deadpan way of his I love so much.
I’m done quickly then I watch as he gets annoyed by the self-checkout, slamming the pads of his fingers on the screen and swearing at it before finally snapping away his receipt. He puts the shopping in a rucksack but keeps the bag of cookies in his hand.
We walk through the automatic doors and stop by the cash machines outside. It’s raining now.
Cian flips his hood up and indicates my feet. ‘Is there no in-between with your footwear?’
‘Pink suede is perfectly appropriate for rain,’ I say, gutted at how little use I seem to be getting out of my new autumn boots.
He turns away as if to hide his smile.
‘I’m prepared. I have an umbrella.’ I put it up and we step out onto the street, which is busy with trolleys and people running for cover. After a few awkward steps, Cian takes the umbrella from my hand and holds it high enough for us both to fit under.
‘Are you going home?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
He does that strange thing where it’s like he starts to nod but thinks better of it and keeps his head halfway there. ‘With me?’
The laugh releases the tension, and it feels good. He jumps to correct himself. ‘I was trying to ask if it’s okay if we travel together.’
We’ve shared nothing more than a look over the last few weeks, and here we are, acting as if there’s nothing between us. ‘Yes,’ I reply, because I can do this. ‘We can travel together.’
As we near the stop, the bus pulls in, the one that goes directly to the end of our roads. We watch as people push on with bags and buggies.
‘Get the next one,’ he says as we head under the bus shelter.
I sit on the red bench next to him. ‘Why are we getting the bus back?’
‘Because I’m assuming you don’t have your Mercedes here and it’s a fifteen-minute walk.’ He offers me a cookie, which I take then regret when I see the size of it.
‘I strained my hamstring at the gym the other day,’ he says. ‘I seem to get hurt easily now. One week it’s my wrist, the next my intercostals, now this. I’m so weak.’
‘It’ll take time to get back to normal.’
‘I worried so much about getting chubby when I wasn’t allowed to exercise properly, but it’s actually the opposite, I’m thin and feeble. It’s going to take ages to rebuild.’
‘Stop fishing for a compliment on your muscles.’
He laughs and sighs.
The rain splatters around my feet, sullying the baby pink suede. I look at Cian sideways, and he catches me, so I start talking before the nervousness settles in. ‘I hate retail parks. My parents used to take us to them when it was raining, and we were climbing the walls at home.’
‘Why didn’t they take you on a ten-mile cycle like my dad used to do with me and my sister?’
The cookie is way too sweet, almost gritty with sugar, though I finish it, and he immediately offers me another. ‘Not as good as it used to be.’
‘Hmm?’
‘These cookies,’ he clarifies. ‘I think they changed the recipe.’
‘I could definitely make better.’
‘That’s a wild claim.’
An old couple join us on the bench, so I move up to make space and as I do, Cian’s proximity scratches away at the defence system I’ve built around myself.
I want to tell him how I think about him all the time, how I imagine his face and voice, how I go over and over our conversations and wish I was having them again, this time saying the right things. Instead, I say nothing and neither does he.
We stare ahead as buses go past.
‘Should we get the next one?’ I ask.
He takes my hand, links our fingers, and puts them on his thigh. Blood thumps around my body and I imagine he feels the pulse of it in my fingertips.
‘I miss you,’ he says.
What I want is for my feelings for him to sink, for them to plunge so deeply I can tell myself they never existed at all. I can’t do that when he says things like this to me. Why is he saying things like this to me?
‘Zoe, I said I miss you.’
I unthread my fingers, grab the umbrella and stand up. ‘I’m going to walk home. I should walk. I’m trying to, like, do my steps.’
He holds my eyes for a few seconds and nods.
There’s enough wind to whip my umbrella back and forth and I end up putting it down, not caring that I get battered by rain on the seemingly endless fifteen-minute walk home.
Once in, I pull my damp dress off and hang it over the chair in my bedroom.
With work so manic, I’ve fallen behind on washing, but find a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts.
I untie my hair and towel off what I can, then decide to focus on what I can control.
Boring, practical things, like finally washing the casserole dish Eric left in the sink two nights ago, and checking I’ve paid the TV licence.
I need to keep occupied or I’m going to lose my mind.
There’s a knock at the front door, and I assume it’s one of the chuggers who have been targeting the area. All week I’ve been dreading them reaching my door because I don’t have the brazenness to pretend I’m not in, nor do I have the heart to tell them I’m not interested in their cause.
I stand in the hallway, channel Nicole and practise mouthing the words ‘no thank you’. It’s okay to say no, if I’m polite and maybe offer up a few excuses as to why I can’t help in the fight against multiple sclerosis.
When I open the door, it’s Cian with his head down as if ready to confess something. His eyes flick up at me. ‘Hi?’ he says, slightly unsure, his shoulders lifted against the rain.
I step back.
Once he’s on the mat, he removes his coat and hangs it up.
‘I stepped in a puddle,’ he says as he reaches down to take off his trainers and socks.
He follows me into the living room, and a part of me melts when I catch him in my line of sight, in his dark-grey sweatshirt, rain-dampened hair and bare feet.
He comes over and stops in front of me.
I want to ask him why he’s here, more than that I want to touch him. He steps closer and I know if I did the same, our bodies would make contact. I can’t do it. I can’t want him this much and be rejected again.
‘My dad threw me out.’
‘What?’
‘He said I shouldn’t come back till I sort things out with you. And I want to sort things out.’
‘What do we need to sort out?’
Cian pushes a handful of my hair behind my shoulder and cups the side of my face in his hand. I lean into his touch, my body acting on instructions from my heart, rather than my head.
There’s a slight furrow in his brow as he searches my expression for something, and I close my eyes because looking at him makes me stress about the thoughts going on in his head.
It’s not even a kiss, it’s more the suggestion of one, as both of us breathe into each other, not moving.
Then, slowly, painfully slowly, we allow it to happen.
It’s so different from the frantic grabbing of last time.
This time it’s careful and cautious, as if we’re both considering each move and how it feels before going further.
Is this okay?
I still don’t know.
It feels good, kissing him, finally, but my head’s still going a hundred miles an hour.
It’s only when he puts both hands on me and the kiss deepens that I stop thinking, that I respond fully and put my hands on him too.
I’m needy when I touch him, because each touch needs to bridge the distance between us, all the weeks we’ve not been together and all the times before that when I’ve wanted to reach out and couldn’t.