23
If I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, by the afternoon I’ve been proved wrong.
My skiing’s been shaky at best, and dangerous for everyone else around me at its worst. Tilly and Meghan haven’t left my side, one of them going in front and the other behind on every run like my own loyal bodyguards.
Every time we’ve taken a break, they’ve talked non-stop, doing everything they can think of to keep my mind far away from the man who won’t stop glaring at me. That is, until I try to meet his stare, and he looks away. Way to treat me like any other student.
Not that I can blame him, I haven’t said a word to him since class started either, counting down the minutes until I can escape back to my own bed.
But cocooning myself in its covers after class is going to have to wait a little longer, because once I hang up my skis, I’m finally going to meet with Adam.
When I texted him yesterday to arrange this long-awaited chat, I thought it would be to make sure everything was settled in light of what’s been happening with Rory.
Only now, he’s the last thing I want to be talking about.
Regardless of Rory, my decision to end things for good with Adam remains the same. Now I just want my life to go back to being as normal as it can be. For this holiday to fade into a bad dream and to draw a blank slate. The idea of that terrifies me, but I know it’s what I need to do.
One positive to come out of this situation is that I’ve managed to wiggle more details out of Tilly about her and David, now that they aren’t hiding the fact they’ve slept together from everyone.
‘He made me coffee this morning.’
‘Okay, but doesn’t he always end up making extra coffee in the morning?’ I ask, because I’m normally the one who ends up stealing his breakfast leftovers.
‘Yes, but he doesn’t normally bring it to me in bed with a latte art flower and a plate of my favourite biscuits.’
My mouth drops. ‘He didn’t.’
Meghan nods enthusiastically next to me. ‘Oh yes, he did. What’s even better is I was in the kitchen and watched him getting Lucas to try and teach him. He made three coffees, but he kept messing up the flower. Only by the fourth attempt did he take it in for her.’
I blink and shake my head, trying to compute David doing something sweet like that. I didn’t think he had a chivalrous bone in his body based on how he’s acted around people he’s dated in the past. This is huge.
‘And it didn’t make you want to throw up and tell him he could shove those digestives up his own ass?’ I ask, using a direct quote I’ve heard Tilly shoot him multiple times.
‘No, I smiled and said thank you, and not even sarcastically. I think my personality is broken.’
Meghan and I both laugh, and for a second I do forget about my own boy issues.
I’m relieved when we make it down the final run, a blue I’ve done perfectly many times already over the last week but unintentionally went off-piste on today and ended up stuck in a mound of snow that came up to my thighs.
The group lingers after Rory rounds off the class, and I can feel him behind me talking with Penny about her afternoon plans, but I stay focused on my friends.
We chat idly until the rest of our group walks towards us, Adam at the front.
When they reach us, Lucas pulls Meghan into a hug, while David offers to get Tilly a hot chocolate and I get to witness the newfound civility between them with my own eyes.
‘You ready to go?’ I hear Adam’s voice as he comes up to my side, and the rest of the group pairs off.
‘Let me take those for you,’ he says, gesturing towards my poles and the skis still attached to my boots.
‘Thanks,’ I say, sensing Rory stiffening behind me, clearly keeping tabs on our interaction. I use my poles to unclick my boots, but one keeps slipping out of the circular hole. I go to try again, only for a foot to appear, heel pressing down on the clasp and freeing my boot.
I look up, Rory’s body temptingly close to mine and I get the bizarre feeling that he might kiss me. Instead, his eyes flick to Adam, his voice so quiet only the two of us can hear it when he speaks.
‘That was fast.’
I try to keep the shock from my face at the way he spits the words out, accusing me of something he surely knows isn’t true. I want to tell him nothing’s going on with Adam, that this meeting is about putting a lid on things, and not restarting anything.
But the fact he’s even had those thoughts and thinks it’s such an inevitability shows he doesn’t know anything about me at all.
For someone who I thought was so good at reading me, I’m hurt he can get things so wrong.
I reach down and scoop up my skis, handing them to Adam and turning away from Rory without giving him a response.
Let him think what he likes, it shouldn’t matter to me anyway.
I follow Adam to one of the bars on the slope, and we snake through the tables full of groups drinking and toasting to another good day until we reach a quiet corner.
‘Cider?’
I nod, and he disappears to the bar while I try and get my thoughts together.
It’s clear after the tussle between him and Rory two days ago that he still loves me.
The last few weeks haven’t been easy, and I’ve often found myself trying not to think about our relationship at all to avoid coming to terms with the state it’s in.
But the more I’ve reflected on it, the more I’ve come to realise the writing was on the wall long before the day I found him in bed with his colleague.
He returns from the bar, a pint glass in each hand, and he places the lighter-coloured one in front of me. Both of us take long sips, neither eager to be the one to start this off, but I take the plunge. ‘How are you doing?’
A simple question on the surface, but he knows I mean more than how he’s doing in this moment.
‘Could be better,’ he says with a sad smile, and I wait, encouraging him to go on. Today is about laying everything out on the table, and I know we need to allow each other time.
‘It’s hard… to accept that it’s over?’ His voice goes up at the end, like he’s questioning if that’s the truth.
My stomach twists as I take another sip from my glass, trying to delay having to respond. ‘I know. But I think if we’re being honest with ourselves, it was over a long time ago.’
His shoulders slump, that hope he’d held that there was a chance of something more happening between us again gone. But I know if he really thinks about it, he’ll see that I’m right.
‘Why do you think it didn’t work out? Why did I fuck it up?’ He tries to say that last bit jokily, but I can tell he really thinks he did.
I shake my head and reach across the table to squeeze his hands as I watch the emotions play out across his face. ‘It wasn’t all on you. It was me, too.’
Until now, I felt like I was in the dark about why things hadn’t worked out, when I’d thought it was all I wanted. But I’ve been going over and over some of the things Rory said this morning, and Tilly earlier in the week, and it’s made me realise some things about myself.
‘I was so set on making our relationship work, I don’t think I let myself stop and wonder if ours was really the right relationship.
I think I was trying to jam us together into something long-term, when maybe what we had was only supposed to be temporary.
A little wild, chaotic, wonderful too, but fleeting.
Something we’d both grow from, not something that we’d be stunted by. ’
It took Tilly telling me plainly that I need to loosen up, and Rory asking me what I’m so afraid of, to realise the cycle I was stuck in.
I may not be at the point to throw it all away like he wants me to, but I am at the point to realise I don’t need to hold onto everything if it’s only out of fear of disrupting the status quo.
Adam squeezes my hands back, drawing me back to our conversation. ‘I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I handled things so badly after we ended. You didn’t deserve that.’
An image flashes in my mind of that night, of opening the door and discovering him with her, and it still makes my heart twist.
‘I never wanted to be like him, but the way I treated you then, and at times on this trip—’
‘Look at me,’ I cut him off, reaching forward to rest my hand against his cheek and lifting his gaze back in line with mine. ‘You’re nothing like him.’
I watch as he tries to believe me, but the doubts are still flickering there.
I wonder if another reason why I tried so hard to make us work was because I wanted to show him good relationships could happen. But now I worry that in doing so even when the relationship wasn’t right, I’ve done the opposite.
‘But maybe I am. The things I did, and how I didn’t fight for you—’
‘But maybe I fought too hard,’ I say, interrupting him again before he spirals.
Neither of us says anything else for a long time. Instead, we remain just as we are, hands still held tightly. Both of us sensing the ending of something, but also a new beginning. When that feeling of finality settles, I find myself smiling.
‘We had a good run, didn’t we? Final weeks aside.’
Adam smiles back, a glossiness to his eyes. ‘You know I really loved you, don’t you?’
I nod.
‘And I want you to be happy. Even if it’s with him.’
I resist the urge to look out of the window towards the instructors’ hut, or at the trees which I know lead to the place Rory took me for our first official date.
Instead, I bat my hand through the air and try to keep back the tears that are already threatening to fall.
‘You don’t have to worry about that. It’s over. ’
He looks confused, mouth opening and closing as he tries to catch up with my words. ‘From the way he was giving me a death glare when I came to pick you up after class today, it doesn’t strike me as over.’
I groan, downing the rest of my pint in two gulps and hoping that will dull the sharp pain that comes when I think about Rory.
‘With all due respect, please don’t get involved.’
I rub my hand over my chest, breathing through the cidery bubbles that are sliding down my throat and ignoring the way Adam’s assessing me with his arms folded.
‘With all due respect, I think you’re being an idiot.’
Laughter bursts out of me at his bluntness. ‘Jeez, where was all this honesty during our relationship?’
‘Don’t deflect,’ he says, clearing the empty glasses so he can lean forward, his weight resting on his forearms as he prepares for an interrogation. ‘I know you were with him last night.’
His jaw twitches briefly, but then his face returns to its perfect composure. ‘And I was actually hoping he’d be making an appearance back at the house to drop you off so I could apologise in person for how I acted. So, what happened?’
I throw both my hands up, gesturing around me. ‘I don’t know, life happened. Real life.’
‘Fuck real life!’
I look over at our empty glasses and sigh. ‘If we had any alcohol left, I would cheers to that. Not that it changes anything.’
He leans further forward then, tone serious as he ignores my half-hearted attempt at humour. ‘Will you promise me something?’
I hesitate, curious to find out where he’s going with this. I nod.
‘When we leave this table, I’m going to try and do better. Work through my shit, figure out how I can be a better partner for someone. And a good friend to you, if you’d like me to be?’
His voice hesitates on the word ‘friend’, like it’s an effort to say it. But the sentiment is there, and I’m glad he’s suggesting that even after all this, there might be a way we can keep each other in our lives. A way our group can stay whole, even if we’re apart.
‘But that goes for you too. You’re going to leave the old you here, and give the new Lottie a try. The Lottie who lets herself make stupid decisions, because whatever happens, she knows she’ll bounce back from it.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Is this your way of telling me I’m boring too, because this sounds weirdly like the speech Tilly gave me the other day. Does everyone seriously secretly think I’m dull?’
‘You’re not dull, Lotts. Or maybe a little.’
I scowl at him, and he laughs back and kicks my feet under the table.
‘But can you promise me that? That you’ll give yourself the chance to at least try and be a little crazy. What else are our twenties for anyway?’
I don’t know what to say, because I know what he’s saying is true. That there’s a part of me I’ve kept hidden away, maybe as far back as when I made the decision not to pursue art. Adam sees it. Tilly sees it. Even Rory saw it. I just can’t work out what to do with that.
Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, salty droplets falling down my cheeks and I hate that I’m crying again today. I bring my hands up to wipe them away before pressing my palms against the sides of my head. ‘I can’t let everyone down.’
Adam’s face softens like he was anticipating that response, knowing enough about my life to put two and two together and know by ‘everyone’, I mean two specific people.
His own fingers caress my cheek as he catches a tear I hadn’t felt fall.
‘Sometimes it’s fear that gives us the push to do the things that end up bringing us the most joy. ’
I raise my hand from my lap and place it atop his.
‘Besides, you could never let your family down. And maybe you need to accept that they’re adults, and they’ll be able to cope without you fishing them out of their troubles all the time. They’d want you to live your life for you, not them.’
I don’t know if I can take all these deep thoughts right now, but I take in his words as we stay still, and it’s a moment I know my brain will come back to again and again. There is a new lightness in my chest, and a tiny spark of hope is finally given the chance to grow into something more.
‘I should call my mum.’
Our conversation from this morning comes back to me, and I know that if I really am going to try and make a change in my life, I need to talk to her first.
But at the same time as I pull my phone out of my pocket to dial her number, it starts to vibrate in my hand. I flip it over and Meghan’s name flashes in the middle of the screen. I swipe across to accept the call and bring the phone to my ear.
‘Hey, everything okay?’
‘Thank god you picked up,’ she says, her voice breathless on the other side.
‘What’s going on?’ Adam whispers across from me as I wait for Meghan’s reply.
‘We’re all here at the hospital. Penny’s had an accident.’