Just friends
Leaving work earlier than usual, Max started off towards The British Museum.
He had told his manager that he had a dentist appointment, and he had been allowed to leave an hour earlier than usual.
This meant that after the twenty-minute walk through Fitzrovia, he was outside The British Museum, with plenty of time to spare.
In a previous conversation, she had mentioned that she worked from nine-to-five, and so at four-thirty, Max stationed himself outside of The British Museum, with a flat white he had purchased on the way.
He nervously sipped it, while trying to work-out exactly what he might say to Bethan.
Max stood across the road from the main exit, watching the tourists flood out as the museum closed at five o’clock.
It only occurred to Max as he nervously waited for Bethan, that it was entirely possible she might leave from a completely different exit from the one he was standing outside and he might miss her altogether.
He had a sudden panic, wondering the best way to handle the situation.
If he didn’t see her then the whole plan was pointless, but if he tried calling her or texting, would she ignore him?
At just after five, he knew he needed to do something, and so he took out his phone and carefully composed a text.
Bethan, don’t freak out but I’m outside the main entrance to The British Museum. I want to talk and explain something I should have already told you. It’s important. I hope you can meet me.
Max looked down at the text, decided it was the best he could do, and pushed send.
Then he waited. He looked at his phone, hoping the message changed from ‘delivered’ to ‘read’ because that would mean she had at least read it, and then the ball was in her court.
Max waited and watched his phone, and then finally after about five minutes the text changed to say that it had been read.
Bethan knew he was there. The only negative was that she didn’t reply, and he was forced to wait in hope.
At five-thirty, as the last of the tourists dispersed, Max saw the familiar figure of Bethan walking across towards him.
It was a warm evening, and she was in a pretty green dress, a black bag over her shoulder, and she looked beautiful.
Max smiled as she walked towards him, but she didn’t look quite so pleased to see him.
‘Stalking me now are we, Max?’
‘I’m sorry, but I thought it was the only way you’d speak to me. Look, I know this is a bit weird, and potentially creepy—’
‘Agreed.’
‘But please just hear me out, and if afterwards you don’t want to speak to me again, I’ll leave you alone. Promise.’
He looked at her, and he saw her expression soften slightly, and it was clear she was prepared to hear him out.
‘You have one drink. Follow me.’
Max smiled, and followed her about twenty feet until they arrived at the Museum Tavern pub.
It was busy, but Bethan grabbed the last remaining table outside as another couple left, while Max went inside and bought them drinks.
He was feeling quite anxious as he walked outside with a glass of wine for Bethan, and a non-alcoholic beer for himself.
‘Thanks,’ said Bethan as he placed her drink down on the table.
‘You’re welcome,’ replied Max, who sat down, had a nervous sip of his beer, before he started.
‘Firstly, I’m sorry if I said anything to upset you, Bethan.
I really like you and the last thing I would ever want to do is upset you.
Secondly, I need to tell you the real reason why I joined Common People.
’ Max took another sip of his beer, and then a deep breath.
He looked at Bethan, who looked at him, a neutral, almost ambivalent expression slapped across her face.
He really wasn’t sure what she was thinking.
He also hoped he could get through telling her about his parents without breaking down into tears.
The thing was, he hadn’t told anyone about it for such a long time because everyone in his life already knew, and he hadn’t made any new friends or dated since Emma, and so Bethan was the first new person he had told in a long time.
‘The truth, Bethan, is that at the beginning of last year, my parents were killed in a car crash on the M4, and it completely destroyed my entire world.’
As Max said the words, he saw Bethan's entire face contort into something else entirely. From the blank, neutral expression of someone who was trying to remain aloof, she went as white as a sheet, and her eyes suddenly glossed over with tears.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, suddenly not concerned with this own emotional fragility.
‘I just, I can’t believe it,’ said Bethan after a moment, as a tear leaked out and down her cheek. ‘Your parents were killed in a car crash?’
‘They were coming back from a holiday in Cornwall. They had stopped as they always did at Leigh Delamere services, and Mum left me a voicemail. They left there and just before Swindon, they were struck by a lorry and they veered off the road. According to the police, they died almost straight away. Being an only child in a small family, we were really close, and it changed my entire life. I went completely off the rails, started drinking too much, lost my girlfriend, almost my job, and the one person who kept me sane was Robbie. Then I saw the flyer for Common People.’
Max stopped speaking, and when he looked at Bethan, she had tears streaming down her face. ‘I’m sorry, Max. I’m really sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I wanted to tell you before, but even now, it’s still hard to talk about.
’ Max looked at Bethan, and it seemed like there was something else going on.
He knew his story was sad, but it seemed to impact her on a deeper level than he could have imagined.
She looked devastated. Whatever had happened to her, whatever her story was, there was something about his parents dying that hit her hard.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, I—’
‘It’s not you, Max, but something happened to me that only Hope knows about at run club. It’s something I’m still processing, and it’s why when you mentioned my boyfriend, I sort of lost it because it was almost a year to the day when it happened.’
‘What happened?’ asked Max, feeling his own anxiety and fears lurking beneath the surface rise up, and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck, and his skin broke out with goosebumps.
‘My fiancé, Jake, was coming back from a weekend in Manchester, when he was killed in a car crash on the M1,’ said Bethan between the tears.
‘Oh my God, Bethan, I’m so sorry,’ said Max, reaching a hand across the table and placing it over hers. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Jake and I had been together since the first week at uni, and we had only been engaged for a few months. We had just started planning our wedding when he was killed. It broke me, and I started running just after because Jake loved to run, and it helped me feel closer to him somehow. So, when you mentioned about me having a boyfriend, on almost the one-year anniversary of his death, I lost it. I’m sorry, Max, it really wasn’t about you. ’
‘I’m sorry too,’ Max replied, and he was holding her hand, and he felt a few tears slip out and down his face too.
People nearby must have been thinking they were breaking-up or something, because they were both in floods, holding hands across the table, but Max didn’t care.
He couldn’t believe that she had lost the love of her life in a car crash on the M1, just like he had lost his parents six months before.
It was no wonder she had freaked out when he mentioned a boyfriend so close to the anniversary of his death.
It was no wonder she cried when he had told her about his parents.
They had both lost important people to them, people they loved, in car crashes.
It felt impossible, but perhaps they had ended up at Common People for a reason.
Max wasn’t sure he believed in fate, but it was hard to ignore that they had become friends when perhaps they needed someone in their lives who understood better than anyone what they were going through.
Max and Bethan sat at that table, finishing their drinks, before they began the slow walk towards the tube station together.
They could get the same tube home, and it gave them a chance to keep talking.
Bethan explained how she hadn’t told anyone at run club about Jake because she didn’t want to be the girl with a dead fiancé.
She only told certain people in her life because it was a way of protecting herself.
Max explained how he didn’t tell people because he still found it so hard to talk about, and because he didn’t want people to know he was so broken inside.
They took the tube all the way to Balham, where Bethan lived and he walked her back to her flat.
They stood outside, the noise of traffic passing them, both in a daze at what had just happened.
‘Thanks for telling me about your parents,’ said Bethan.
‘And you about Jake.’
‘I’m probably not going to tell anyone else just yet. I just, I know everyone will be great about it, and they’ll try and help and offer words of encouragement, but I like going there where no-one knows about Jake. I’m just a girl who works at The British Museum, who likes to run.’
‘Your secret is safe with me.’
‘And Max, I’m sorry if I was mean to you before. It really wasn’t about you.’
‘I’m just glad we’re OK now.’
Bethan paused for a moment, before she looked at Max with a different sort of expression on her face. One that he definitely hadn’t seen before.
‘The thing is, Max, is that I also felt a spark of attraction with you that I haven’t felt for such a long time, and it scared me.
The idea of being with someone else after Jake, it feels terrifying and wrong, like I’m moving on from him.
I saw the way you looked at me, I felt it too, and with the anniversary of his death, I just couldn’t be around you. I’m sorry. I hope you understand.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Max, stepping a little closer to her. His cheeks had already reddened with the knowledge that she felt a spark between them, which delighted him and made him happy, but clearly nothing was going to happen. Bethan was nowhere near ready. ‘I completely understand.’
‘So, just friends because I’d really like that?’
Max smiled at her. ‘Friends.’
Bethan returned his smile, they hugged, and Max couldn’t help but feel a little drop of sadness while he felt her body in his arms. He was happy to just be her friend, it was infinitely better than nothing, but there was a part of him that longed for more.
He didn’t know if he was even ready for a proper relationship with all the bells and whistles, but he also couldn’t control the feelings he had for Bethan.
After they had said goodbye, Max walked home, in shock at how the evening had unfolded.
He had gone there, hoping that she would hear him out, but he couldn’t have imagined how her story and heartbreak would overlap with his to such a degree.
He would just have to make peace with the fact that she wasn’t ready for a relationship, and probably wouldn’t be for quite some time.
In the meantime, they could remain friends and perhaps help each other to move on.
It did make his rather fortuitous discovery of Common People, feel even more pivotal in his life.
Since he had started, he had made new friends, decided to go into business with Robbie, and now he had discovered that Bethan had lost someone in a car crash too.
Life often felt to Max, especially after the accident, like this random, meaningless place where we all existed without a plan, where events happened, births, deaths, but all of it was haphazard, accidental.
However, run club felt like this fixed, solid thing, where things did make sense, where a community of people gathered, and gave each other meaning.
Now he had Bethan in his life, and it felt like she had been put there for a reason. Maybe there was a plan, after all.