Chapter Twenty-Six
Jake
I dig my hands into my pockets and look around nervously.
I’m expecting the worst, obviously. This time, we’re standing outside a row of houses, and everything is grey.
I can’t tell if that’s because I’m losing my colour again, or because London this time of year is really that miserable.
I can feel the cold in the way I can feel most things now, and I can tell it’s freezing.
And if I weren’t a ghost, my hot breath would cloud against the chill. But I can’t. I try. Still can’t.
There’s a very dead Christmas tree on the pavement, a trail of pine needles leading back to a house a few doors down, like blood leading you to a crime scene. I always thought forensics would be a great job to get into. Shame I never got the chance.
The house we’re outside of is … quite nice, actually. A terraced house on a quiet street. Brown brick, black door, cement paving. A dead plant in a pot. The neighbour next door has Christmas lights still up and canned snow sprayed on the window, smudged with grubby fingerprints.
Turning towards Belle is like looking at the sun on a winter’s day. She is glowing. The pale pink dress clings to her curves, hair dancing in the breeze. She, too, is looking at the pine needles on the ground, tracing them back like I just did. I know she’s thinking the same CSI thoughts.
That moment we had just then in that bar.
Was I imagining the tension? The heat between us?
I can still feel the softness of her dress under my hands.
The smell of her hair – fresh apples, always, and even now.
I pinch my skin but can’t feel it, because I’m still a ghost. With a crush … more than that.
‘Where are we?’ I ask to break the ice.
‘Outside Joe’s,’ she says.
Right. That creepy guy with the posh voice and tailored clothes.
The shaved head, presumably an attempt to hide the fact he was balding at a young age.
You know when you look at someone and you just get bad vibes?
Well, I definitely felt that with Sebastian.
But this guy, Joe? I didn’t even really see his face and I still got bad vibes, just from the back of his head.
Never trust a guy who looks like the back of Jason Statham, that’s what I say.
‘Things get better now,’ Belle says, before chewing the inside of her lip.
The door to the house opens. And young Belle exits, makeup free, a ringing phone in her hand, twirling a set of keys on her fingers.
She’s wearing an oversized cable-knit jumper, pulled up to her neck.
I can tell she’s still frail underneath.
She shuts the door behind her, walks out of the front garden, and perches on the front brick wall.
‘Belle speaking,’ she answers the phone. Her voice is confident, but her body tells another story – arms wrapped around her chest, phone pressed to her ear.
She nods. Straightens. Smiles. Twizzles the keyring a few times more. There’s just one key on it and a metal fob from an estate agent I’ve never heard of. She looks back towards the house, then down at her feet. ‘Wow, this is fantastic news. I’m so thrilled to join you and your team!’
Belle, next to me, smiles softly. ‘I was headhunted and found out I got the job. Head of PR for an up-and-coming alcohol brand. It felt like everything was falling into place.’
‘So that’s what you do for work.’ I smile. Head of a division, of course – I wouldn’t expect anything else. She was always destined for greatness. I swallow, knowing that I tried to hold her back from that.
‘This moment: the fresh air, the good news, the start of a new year. It felt like a lightning bolt. My first hit of clarity. An opportunity for a fresh start. It made clear that I was still holding myself back in my dating life. Still punishing myself. Things needed to change. This new role gave me the confidence.’
Belle finishes her call and hangs up. She laughs, shimmies her shoulders, and places her head in her palms, elbows resting on her knees. After a few moments, she stands, takes a deep breath, and turns back towards the house.
We follow her as she walks up the front garden, turns the key in the lock, and enters, through the narrow hallway, lined with smart men’s shoes.
A shoehorn hangs on a hook. A waft of bitter coffee hits me as we follow Belle into the kitchen.
It’s a big room – there’s been a renovation, a wall knocked down – but apart from that, there’s absolutely no character.
No frames up, no personality, just white walls. A grey kitchen. Asylum vibes. Very much like the in-between I’ve been living in – a huge lump of ‘meh’.
Except, this guy seems to have purposefully built this for himself. It’s a huge contrast to Belle. Sure, her little trinkets looked like clutter, but they were proof of a life built, of her, showing care for a room lived in.
Joe is wearing a dressing gown and sitting at the kitchen island, empty apart from a sink, tapping away on a laptop. He doesn’t look up when Belle enters the room, and now I’m here, I make out his face clearly.
I was right. Bad vibes. A plain man, but smarmy, like a lizard … or a snake. His bald head is glistening. Skin so glassy, it looks like a snake right before it sheds its snake-y skin.
Belle packs up her laptop from the dining table behind the kitchen island and puts it in a tote bag.
I don’t recognise the brand name printed in a bold font on the front, but I pay close attention – if this is her job, and therefore a part of her new life, there’s a part of me that wants to remember it.
It’s only as Belle pulls a scarf – a grey, long, woolly thing – from the back of a chair, that Joe actually looks up from his computer and to her.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks – no warmth, just questioning.
Her tone is similar to his. Blunt, direct, monotone. ‘I’m getting out of here. I won’t be coming back.’
He laughs, a snooty, awful sound. ‘You’re joking, right?’
‘I’m serious,’ she says, not looking at him, but at the scarf in her hand. ‘I don’t want to see you again.’ I notice that the top of her lip is curled up slightly in disgust.
‘Fine. Go then,’ he says, nasally.
Belle doesn’t respond; it’s like she’s in a trance. Like the scarf isn’t a scarf but a looking glass instead.
‘Doesn’t matter to me. Fuck off back to Clapham, love.’ He turns back to his laptop, muttering to himself. Nonsense I can’t hear and don’t want to.
Young Belle huffs out a small laugh, shakes her head.
She blinks a few times, still focused on the scarf, then places it back on the chair.
She pulls the tote bag on her arm, lands the handles in the crook of her shoulder and walks back out to the hallway.
Belle and I follow her as she grabs her coat from the banister.
Behind us, Joe’s stool squeaks as he pushes it back on the floor.
‘Think you’re better than me? You slag. You were a shit shag anyway.’
The words hit me before the moment does. Shit shag. I’ve said that too. I’ve said those exact words. I look at Belle beside me, and I can tell from her face she knows it too.
Something happens in that moment, something I haven’t felt since …
who knows. I look back to the kitchen, see Joe standing there – his robe falling open at his chest, weedy legs, barefoot on the grey vinyl floor, gesturing in the air – and all of a sudden the colour drains out of everything.
The bleak walls somehow go whiter, the grey kitchen goes greyer, and it all narrows down to this man.
My knuckles go white as I squeeze my fists, nails digging into my palms, and my heart races. The urge to walk back towards this guy has a specific tang to it. I can almost taste the satisfaction of a dressing gown collar grabbed from behind, taut in my hand. The feel of jaw, nose, against knuckle.
But I know I can’t make him pay. I’m a useless ghost.
So instead, I stand in the hallway and vibrate.
I know that the best that’ll happen, if I try, is that I’ll walk through him. What kind of torture is this, where I can’t stand up for someone, where the best I can do is make a man shiver. The full extent of what I’m able to offer is a mild drop in temperature, like I’m a draught under the door.
Young Belle is already pulling on her coat.
She’s done. I force myself to watch her instead of him.
I focus on the line of the shoulders under the padding of her waterproof.
Head high. The Belle that has found the courage to stand up for herself.
She doesn’t even shake until she’s outside, her fingers trembling as she pulls the door closed.
It slams. A dog starts barking somewhere down the road.
We follow her through the gate, which she leaves open, but she’s fast. We slow to a halt and watch her go.
She’s not running, but something’s different.
Like a gear shifting. She pulls her coat tighter around the neck and doesn’t look back.
We stand there for a moment after she’s gone around the corner.
I look down and kick a bit of gravel off the kerb. I’d called her a robot – said it like it was a fact – and made her feel bad for acting so forced.
But she didn’t even flinch. When he was yelling at her, she didn’t even move. That’s the bit I can’t stop thinking about. She either just absorbed it, the way she’s clearly learned to, or she built a shell around herself.
I think it’s the latter. She’s not a robot, she’s just hardened.
It’s not that she’s emotionless or lost herself – she’s protecting herself.
And I’d said that to her because it was easier than directly asking what happened.
It was easier than admitting that I didn’t recognise her anymore, and that scared me.
She didn’t go cold and heartless. She just stopped leaving the door open for strangers to get in.
‘Fuck, Belles. I shouldn’t have said that. The robot thing.’
And not just that. I can still hear it – shit shag – coming out of his mouth like it came out of mine. But one thing at a time.
She goes quiet for a moment. ‘You weren’t wrong.’ She’s squeezing her lips together so they go white around the edges.
‘I’m so—’
‘Jake—’
‘I didn’t get it. But I do now. I’m sorry, really.’
She looks at me, her head tilted to the side. Not forgiving, but understanding. ‘I don’t want to be like that anymore,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m so tired of holding everyone, everything, at arm’s length.’
I know that feeling, though I’m not going to say so.
She breathes out, pushes her hair back off her face with both hands and holds them to her temples for just a moment, looking up at the sky.
She used to do that when we were together.
When she was thinking or trying to make a decision.
I haven’t seen her do it since I’ve come back.
Without thinking, I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She doesn’t flinch.
My mouth opens as if to say something. What comes out is: ‘You know I’m rubbish at this.’
‘I know.’
I’ve never been great at words, like, ever, but one thing I am adept at is gestures and big romantic actions. We can’t have it all.
‘You’re …’ I stop, shake my head. ‘I’m glad I got to see this bit, Belle.’
A grin, just there. She knows what I’m trying to say, or rather, I hope she knows, because what I’m really thinking is that she is brave.
I’ve been watching her all evening, trying to find the girl I knew in this woman, and that hasn’t been fair on either of us.
She was here the whole time – she just stopped leaving the door open.
Also, she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and, somehow, there’s a Belle-shaped hole embedded in my chest and there always will be.
I’ve been trying to find the right moment for ages and now I’m running out of road.
‘Belle, I need to tell you something.’
Her eyes widen a little, and my reflection in her pupils looks lame.
‘I should have said this earlier, not left it so late …’ I say, running my hands through my hair.
Her hand moves towards me, palm outstretched. It hovers in the air between us, then she shakes it a little, like washing grime off a window.
‘The thing is—’
‘No, Jake.’ She nods, takes a step towards me, and puts both hands on my chest. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
‘Not yet. Not now,’ she says.
I look down and meet her eyes. ‘Can we chat back at the hotel?’ she pleads. ‘I want to be done with this chapter of my life now. I’m ready to move on.’
She drags her hands down my chest and finds my palms with hers. We interlock fingers, and she closes her eyes.