Chapter 31 #2
‘I’m not comparing. I’m telling you what it was.
’ Another step. ‘Nina. I’ve driven through the night to stand in this room and tell you the truth.
If you think I’d be willing to gamble what we found the other week, those moments between us, Nina, I’ve waited my whole life for those moments we shared.
I meant every word I said to you. I love you, Nina. ’
‘People lie.’
‘I don’t. Not to you. Not about this.’ I’m close enough now to see her hands gripping her knees, knuckles white. Holding on. ‘You know me. You’ve known me for eleven years. Have I ever lied to you?’
Her chin trembles. ‘You kept the ring from me.’
It lands. Of course it does. The one lie I did tell, the one secret I did keep.
‘I kept the ring from you,’ I say. ‘And it was wrong. And I’ve spent every day since regretting it. But this isn’t that. This is a hug, Nina. A goodbye hug with a colleague. And you’re sitting here treating it like a betrayal because you’re scared.’
‘Don’t tell me what I’m—’
‘You’re scared. You drove eleven hours because you were brave enough to come and then you saw one thing through a window and you ran.
’ I kneel in front of her. Not planned – my legs just give out, the exhaustion and the fear and the need to be at her eye level.
‘You think I’m going to leave, that one day I won’t come back.
And I know that’s your deepest fear, that one snatched goodbye might be a last, but I swear to you, Nina, on every breath in my body, I will never leave. Never. Ever. Again.’
Her eyes fill. Her jaw works. ‘I thought you chose the easy thing. The simple thing. The one that doesn’t come with all the damage.’
The words gut me.
‘There is no easy thing,’ I say. ‘There’s no simple thing. There’s just you. There’s only ever been you.’
She’s shaking. Her whole body – hands, shoulders, the breath coming in short, ragged pulls.
‘How do I know?’ she whispers. ‘How do I know it’s real?’
‘Because I’m here. Because I’m kneeling on your floor at half nine in the morning after driving through the night. Because I quit my job. Because I packed every single thing I own into that Land Rover and the only address in my satnav is this one.’
She looks at me. The fight is going out of her – not because she’s convinced, but because she’s too tired to hold the wall up any longer. The exhaustion and the want are pulling in the same direction, and the wall is crumbling.
‘Believe me, Nina.’
Silence.
The longest silence of my life.
I can hear the harbour through the window. The gulls. The halyards. The sounds of home, carrying on, holding the space while two people decide if they’re going to survive what they’ve done to each other.
Nina’s hands turn in mine. Her fingers lace through mine. Slowly. Deliberately.
‘I believe you,’ she says.
I exhale. The breath comes out shuddering, uneven, and I realise I’ve been holding it – not just now, not just tonight, but for weeks, months, years. Holding my breath against the possibility that this would never happen. That I’d never be here, holding her hands, hearing those words.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I saw you with her and I just—’
‘I know.’
‘I thought I’d lost you too.’
‘You can’t lose me.’ I press my forehead to hers. ‘I’ve been trying to be lost for eleven years. It doesn’t work. I just keep ending up here.’
A sound comes out of her – half laugh, half sob. Her hands tighten on mine.
‘You look terrible,’ she says.
‘I feel terrible.’
‘Good.’ But she’s leaning into me now, her forehead against mine, her breath warm on my face. ‘You should suffer a bit. For making me drive to Scotland.’
‘I didn’t make you drive to Scotland.’
‘You made me love you. That’s the same thing.’
I pull her off the sofa. She comes without resistance – slides onto the floor beside me, into my arms, her face against my neck.
I hold her and feel the last of the tension leave her body, the wall coming down not in pieces but all at once, the full weight of her settling against me like she’s finally stopped carrying herself.
We stay like that for a long time. On the floor of her flat, tangled together, the morning light moving slowly across the walls. Her breathing evens out. Her grip loosens. Not letting go – just holding on with less desperation.
‘Stay,’ she says into my collar.
‘I’m staying.’
‘Don’t go anywhere.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Promise.’
‘I promise.’
She pulls back and looks at me. Her face is blotchy, tear-stained, exhausted and it makes me fucking adore her even more. Her eyes are swollen. There’s a crease on her cheek from my shirt and I want to leave little imprints everywhere if it’s a sign of her holding me tight.
‘I need to sleep,’ she says. ‘I’ve been awake for thirty hours.’
‘Me too.’
‘Stay with me?’
‘Always.’
We get up from the floor. Stumble to the bedroom. Fall onto the bed fully clothed, too wrung out to care about shoes or covers or anything except being horizontal and close.
Nina curls against my side. Her head on my shoulder. Her hand on my chest, fingers spread over my heartbeat.
‘Tom?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Her breathing slows. Her hand goes heavy on my chest. She’s asleep in under a minute – the sudden, absolute sleep of a body that’s been running on fear for too long and has finally been given permission to stop.
I lie there. The sunlight moves across the ceiling. The harbour sounds come through the window – the gulls, the waves, the fishermen’s voices. Downstairs, the coffee machine finishes its cycle and clicks off.
Nina’s breath on my neck. Her heartbeat against my ribs. The weight of her, solid and warm and here.
I close my eyes.