Chapter Twenty-Four
Jake
I mute the TV as Belle slumps next to me.
She kicks off her heels, curls her feet up under her like one of Arthur’s cats and pulls a cushion onto her lap.
With her head resting back against the sofa, she holds out her hand.
I pass her the whisky and look to the TV instead.
I watch images of a movie I’ve already seen.
When I got up here, I spent ten minutes staring at her dress hung on the door of the wardrobe, without meaning to. Then I paced around until I noticed a half-drunk glass of water on the bedside table. Her side. The same side she slept on when we were together.
I also turned on all the lamps. I’m one of those lamp people.
Aggressive in my confidence that they make a room cosier, more atmospheric.
Romantic even. I look to the ceiling. What the hell am I doing?
A ghost, trying to create a passionate vibe with my very much alive ex?
Do I really think I’m gonna be the one to comfort her about her abusive exes? Pull it together, Jake.
Anyway, she seems off. Quieter. She doesn’t appear to be her new bouncy self. She’s flatter now. She takes a second swig as I push my heels into the carpet. It’s thick and scratchy beneath my feet. I pick up the remote, change the channel. Yet another film. One of my faves.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got strong opinions on whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not?’ I ask, grinning as I nod to the TV. She smiles without looking at me and hands me back the bottle. I look into it, sitting awkwardly in the silence.
Then, to do something, I take a swig.
This film always reminded me of our first Christmas holidays together.
We hadn’t spent the actual day together, to my dismay – she’d wanted to make the most of Grandma Juliet being down for Christmas – but we had spent all of New Year’s Eve at my house, watching Christmas films in between fumbling around under each other’s clothes.
We’d pulled my bedroom mattress onto the floor and set up a fort with bedsheets hanging over an ironing board.
I’d spent forty minutes trying to get the sheets to hang right, weighing them down with a stack of books, including a dictionary I’d never actually used.
Belle had watched, sitting cross-legged on the mattress, directing me while eating cereal straight from the box.
We’d drunk cheap Asti from the bottle, fizz running down our chin as we laughed.
I’d joked about whether or not I could make her orgasm as the clock struck midnight.
Her reaction was one of pure shock, then a mischievous grin, then a squeeze of my leg as she bet yes.
I remember waking up still inside the fort, Belle asleep on my chest. The sheets had half-collapsed in the night and neither of us had noticed.
She brought out a playful side in me. A side of me so different to my usual grumpy self – the kind of guy who built forts. I don’t know what happened to that guy. He died in more ways than one after we broke up.
I turn back to the TV. Then to her. Her makeup is slightly smudged, lipstick gone, freckles on full show.
I know her well enough to know that that’s significant.
The woman in front of me looks nothing like the one downstairs.
Her eyes are so sad. I notice my foot thumping the floor, jittery, restless.
I’m craving the sound of her laugh. How can I make her laugh?
I look at the whisky in my hand. Not quite as cheap and cheerful as the Asti we used to neck from the bottle on my bedroom floor. I don’t say that.
She sits next to me, still and silent. I must have really upset her earlier. I’ve ruined this weekend for her. And she’ll never forgive me for it. Even after I’m long gone, this is the memory she’ll have of me. Dead ex ruining her magical wedding, calling her uptight and robotic.
I was just desperate to have the old Belle back. Prove to her in some twisted way that she was settling for boring.
‘Look, Belle …’ I say into my lap. She shuffles closer and turns to face me, head resting on the cushions.
‘Earlier, what I said—’
‘Stop!’ She closes her eyes.
I turn to her now, moving my whole body around to face her. I watch as her chest rises and falls, and study her lips, which are trying to form words. ‘You were right,’ she says softly, eyes shut.
I scan her face – the curl of her Cupid’s bow, how there’s a bit of hair caught in one of her lashes – and it catches me off guard. She’s saying I’m right. So why do I feel crushed? Why did I push it?
‘No, Belle—’ I try to find the words to apologise but she cuts me off again.
‘Jake. You were right,’ she says, looking at me now.
I look away, catch myself focusing on the patterns in the table in front of us, the swirls from the bark of the tree, now glossy and polished into something that no longer resembles what it came from.
Belle continues, ‘This … This isn’t me. It’s just annoying how you, of all people, have been the one to spot that.’ She huffs out a laugh, rolling her eyes. I feel myself sinking a little, into the sofa, into a void.
She continues, ‘I’ve been performing a version of me for so long that I don’t know who I really am anymore. I don’t know what the original me looks like.’ She pauses, rubs a temple with her fingers, sighs.
I rack my brain for something to say, try to arrange a sentence to change the subject, but my brain can’t focus.
‘I pretend that I’m together because I have to. For my job, for my relationships. So that people think I’m okay. More than okay. Perfect.’
‘That’s not …’ I stop. Then start again, ‘Belle, you’re perfect without even trying.’
‘You’re so wrong, Jake.’
I sink lower. The fact I’ve been lying to her is starting to eat away at me. This whole thing – the tour, the exes, the time travel – it was never about saving her soul. It’s mine that needs saving. And I’m putting her through this the night before her wedding.
Right now she’s wrung out and she’d probably forgive me, and the worst thing is that I’m aware of that. Which means I’m still doing it – manipulating her.
I want to do what’s best for her, which at this moment is keeping quiet. The last thing she needs is me making this about my soul, my deadline, my mess. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
Belle leans her head back, closes her eyes again. I watch her hands hold on tight to her arms, hugging herself.
‘When Timothy listed the reasons he loves me in that speech, I felt proud. But then, I don’t know … Something in me felt off. It felt like he was talking about someone else. It felt like he was describing someone I’d worked very hard to become, rather than someone I actually am.’
All I can think is that she wouldn’t be saying this if she knew why I was really here. I can’t tell her. I can’t have her hate me. Because even with her imperfections, to me, that’s what makes her so perfect. And after all this, I’m going to have to leave her again – and I’m not ready for that.
I look at my hands – there are two things I could say right now, and I fight against the urge to say the first.
‘He loves you, Belle. The real you.’ I feel something shift in my chest as I say it. It feels like putting down a heavy backpack that you’ve been carrying for too long and immediately wishing you hadn’t, because you won’t be able to pick it back up again.
He’s a better man than I am. That’s not a hard conclusion to reach, and I was never competing for the title.
But sitting here now, I think about Timothy making that speech and meaning every word of it.
All that certainty. I had that feeling with Belle, but never the steadiness.
I always felt like I was one step from losing her.
When you’re frightened of something walking out of the door, you start slowly making the door smaller.
And calling it love. I got good at that. And she noticed before I did.
When I look up, Belle is looking at me, her eyes hazy.
She reaches out for my arm and strokes it now.
The feel of her skin on mine almost makes me feel alive again.
Ten years of nothing and then this – her thumb moving across my forearm.
It’s barely anything but it feels like everything so I don’t move, in case she stops.
‘Thanks for being here with me through this.’
I give her a small, curt nod.
‘Fuck … Revisiting Sebastian was a trip. It was worse than I remembered.’ She pulls away, rubbing her forehead.
I feel my jaw clench harder. I look out the window. There’s nothing useful out there, just darkness and the faint sound of the sea. I want to say something that fixes it, but there’s nothing.
‘He was a … I can’t believe …’ I stumble over my words. Then I try saying the only true thing I’ve got. ‘I’m proud of you for leaving, Belle. You’re stronger than you think.’
She’s quiet, looking into her lap, tracing the lines of her palm with her finger. Her engagement ring catches the light.
‘You know, the next one … It won’t be easy. You might need to pick me up like a sack of potatoes from the floor afterwards.’ She looks at me, smiles.
‘I’ll be right next to you.’
We look at each other for a long while. Neither of us moves. Sitting side by side on the sofa, silence surrounding us, I stretch my leg out slightly, so it hits her thigh. She doesn’t pull away.
‘Do you fancy a cuppa, before the next one? Two sugars?’ I ask.
‘I don’t take sugar anymore.’ She reaches for the whisky instead.
I nod and look at the TV, which is still on. A building is detonating. Erupting in flames and crumbling to the ground, as people run in the distance.
Her breathing is steady. My leg against hers. I give it one more second, then I reach out, desperate to feel her hands in mine. She shuffles to the edge of the sofa, smiles a sad smile with sad eyes, just for me.
‘We’ve got this, Belle,’ I say as she puts the bottle down, placing her palms in mine. I curl my fingers around her hands and force myself to look away to avoid noticing how perfectly they fit. I watch her face. Count her freckles. And she shuts her eyes.