Chapter Twenty-Five
Seven years ago
Aurora
I hold Liv tightly as we meet each other by Borough Market. ‘I can’t believe it’s been a year since we saw each other. How has it been so long?’
‘Life,’ Liv says with a warm smile, as people step round us. ‘Just … life. It’s been a crazy year.’ She looks at me fondly and I realise in that split second how much I’ve missed her – how much I’ve missed them all.
At first it felt like the best idea to keep a low profile with everyone, after that dreadful time. We were going in different directions, falling apart. Liv was following me out of the house; Ben was a wreck; and Ollie … good old Ollie was keeping a close eye on him.
I wanted the dust to settle, for everything to calm down; but I realise it’s been too long. Any longer and it would have been more than awkward. Ollie and I have messaged a bit here and there; but we haven’t met in person.
I didn’t want to hurt Ben by meeting up with Ollie and, after Liv broke up with him, putting Ollie back on the market, I knew that Ben’s health would unravel if he caught wind of Ollie and me seeing each other.
It wasn’t worth it for anyone – especially Ollie, who would have to pick up the pieces by default, living with Ben.
I felt so cut off from Liv and from Ollie.
So alone from my friends who were like family and then, suddenly, they weren’t.
But I did it to myself. I moved back to my mum’s and kept my head down, worked as much as possible, ignored the fact that I had no social life, hardly any friends.
Our lives went in such different directions.
At least my career has improved, because it’s not like I had anything else to do.
Liv, meanwhile, has graduated and is smashing it. ‘I got a first,’ she tells me, with more than a hint of pride in her voice when we discuss how everyone’s getting on.
‘Congratulations. I knew you would. What now?’
‘I’m at a solicitor’s for now while I complete my additional training, and then maybe one day …’
‘Olivia Taylor, Barrister?’
‘I hope so. I really want it.’
‘You got a first: you must be in demand.’
She blushes. ‘I’m set up with a good law firm, but I’m so new and so junior that I’ve definitely got to stick to my hour for lunch. This is the only lunch break I’ve had since I started. I’ve been too scared to take any. No one else does.’
‘I’m sorry your working hours are so hard, but I’m so proud of you. So proud. Imagine me being friends with a barrister.’
‘Maybe one day a barrister. Imagine me being friends with a supermodel.’
‘Not remotely “super”. But chugging along nicely,’ I tell her.
‘You’re doing amazingly,’ she coos. ‘I saw you in Elle magazine in an advert. I made this oh-oh-oh noise and coughed on my coffee, I was so excited. I kept it. It’s on the coffee table in my new flat.’
‘Thanks. It’s the only glossy magazine advert I’ve done, so I love it when I see it in print.’
We make our way towards a niche Italian coffee bar and get in the queue.
As Liv’s so short on time we’ve decided to make it quick, grab some items from the individual vendors in the market and go and sit on the brick walls surrounding Southwark Cathedral and try to catch up on months of everything we haven’t said by text message, which I’m guessing from her side is going to be loads.
We stand to one side, sipping our flat whites while waiting for our paninis to be warmed up.
‘Tell me about your new flat,’ I instruct as we try to shuffle into a ray of sunlight streaking towards us. It’s so warm outside today. A perfect early-autumn day.
‘It’s in Spitalfields.’
‘Swish,’ I say.
‘Yeah. Swish but small. Like, super-small. Studio flat. I can practically touch all four walls at once. But it’s only me and it’s sort of handy for my new work, but it’s also very good for restaurants. Have you been to Galvin?’
I shake my head.
‘We should go one day.’
‘I’d love that. It’s a date.’
‘What about real dates?’ Liv enquires after we’ve collected our sandwiches and started walking. ‘Anything since Ben?’
I shake my head. It’s no longer quite as raw as it was.
It’s about a year. It’s true what they say: time does heal.
‘No. I have no idea why not. The odd flirtation, but … if I’m honest, I think I needed some recovery time.
I didn’t have the headspace or the time to date seriously after that.
And before you know it, a year has gone by. ’
‘It’s been too long,’ Liv says. ‘Since …’ She trails off.
‘The house-party from my worst nightmare,’ I comment. ‘And the crash.’
I look at her head, where a white scar runs across her temple, and she touches it automatically.
‘It doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past,’ she says, but I’m not convinced.
We’re silent for a moment as we sit in full sun by the cathedral, the road before us with cyclists having to pause every few seconds as pedestrians walk out in front of them. The Shard is behind us, reflecting bright sunlight like a mirror.
‘Do you ever hear from Ben?’ I ask when I can’t keep it in a moment longer.
She shakes her head a bit. ‘Not really. After we both left hospital and went back to the house, my parents helped me pack and I left. I hear he scraped a third.’
It feels weird that I didn’t know this. We’ve been moving in different directions, but this simply confirms it. ‘At least he got something.’
‘Yeah. Still drinking, though. Or he was the last time I spoke to Ollie. He told me it’s got worse, but it’s odd how Ben can cope so well with it.
High functioning to the extreme, although not high functioning enough to get more than a third.
I’d be puking my guts up if I put away the amount he does. ’
This depresses me more than it should. I still love Ben, just maybe not like that.
It’s funny how Liv talks to her ex every now and again, but won’t talk to Ben.
But then Ben crashed a car with her in it and although it was an accident, she’s holding a grudge.
I can’t blame her. I wasn’t there. I can’t know how it all feels.
I only know how I feel, and as I’m not talking to Ben, either – I get it. I do.
The sun goes behind a cloud and I shiver through cold and … something else. Liv lifts the lid of her coffee to blow on it, as if the fragmentation of our foursome doesn’t really affect her. Maybe it doesn’t. Or maybe she’s dealt with it so much better than I have over the past year.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I ruined everything. I blame myself. I wish I hadn’t broken up with Ben like that.
I didn’t think about any repercussions when I did it.
I just needed to get away. Ben crashing the car – I can’t help thinking that if I hadn’t broken up with him, he wouldn’t have done it.
He would have been in a better headspace. ’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re allowed to leave a toxic relationship.’
A toxic relationship. I don’t think I ever put a label on it, but Liv’s right. It wasn’t healthy.
Liv pulls her sunglasses from her bag and puts them on as the sun comes back out from behind the cloud, bringing with it brightness and much-needed heat. I dive into my panini.
‘You leaving right when you did made me re-evaluate what I was doing there. Why I was living there. And it was because we were a four. And then we were a three, and then I thought about me living there without you, but with Ben …’ She makes a face.
‘And Ollie. And I knew I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want to be with Ollie any more.
I don’t think I ever did. I didn’t know what I wanted.
But being in Ben’s range was unhealthy. I wasn’t handling the partying as well as you were.
I didn’t see anything wrong with it until it was far too late.
So when a space became available in a flat-share with a girl from my course, I jumped on it. ’
‘And Ollie and Ben ended up living together in a two-bed flat in Seven Sisters,’ I comment.
‘And they’re still there?’
‘I think so, last time I checked in with Ollie.’
‘You obviously speak to him more than I do then,’ Liv says in a tone I can’t place.
‘I doubt that. Are you still friends? Do you still speak?’
‘Not so much. Once I’ve slept with you and I’ve dumped you, you need to be gone from my life.’
I cough-laugh so inappropriately on my coffee and then Liv laughs too, pulling us both from a potentially icy situation.
I think about her words. ‘I can’t imagine that.
I can’t imagine having such a connection to someone that you’re so in love with them and then …
the next day you’re not and you never see them again. ’
‘That’s exactly what you did, though,’ Liv points out.
‘I will see Ben again, though. I can’t not see him again.’
‘Why?’ she asks, totally not on the same wavelength as me on this. ‘Do you love him?’
I remember Ben’s face, his laugh, how he made me feel when it was good. ‘Yeah. But it’s different. A different kind of love. A raw love. I feel sad, mainly. Working so hard has been a good distraction. The pain was so real and now the pain is a lot less.’
‘Work’s obviously going really well?’ Liv asks.
‘It is. I can’t complain. I just work, work, work. It’s all I do. Mum and I are thinking about moving house. That’s my big news.’
‘That is big news. Where to?’
‘No idea yet. But I want a view of … something. Anything. I’m sick of staring out at the wheelie bins outside the chicken shop. If I can buy us something where we’re at least looking out over a park or – I don’t know – then that’ll be perfect.’
‘Wow! Things are obviously going really well if you’re buying.’
I smile modestly. ‘Mum and I are only at the thinking-about-it stage. I’ve honestly worked so much this year I’ve hardly had time for friends, for family, for anyone.
I’ve travelled so much I’ve missed whole days flying back and forth from Asia, the US, Europe.
Jet lag and I are best friends, and I don’t spend any money because there’s no time to go shopping. ’
‘I’d miss shopping. All I want to do is shop. Remember our Topshop binges?’
‘I miss those days. My credit card doesn’t miss them, though,’ I reply conspiratorially.
‘Want to go shopping now?’ Liv asks. ‘I’ve got half an hour before I have to be back. Let’s go shopping now. Come on,’ she says, rising and grabbing my hand. ‘It’ll be like the old days.’
‘There’s no way we can make it to Topshop and back, though,’ I lament.
‘No,’ she confirms. ‘But there is a Whistles nearby.’
I stand up immediately, and Liv and I giggle on the way to Whistles. She and I have been apart for so long, but have fallen back into friendship as if we’ve never been apart. Some things never change.