Chapter Fifty-Seven
‘How’s Pilates training going?’ Liv asks a few weeks after I return from Antigua, as if I’m in preparation for some kind of Pilates-based marathon rather than doing a course to become an instructor.
We’re at a bar near her work and we are two drinks in.
My lifestyle has always been pretty healthy, barring my mum’s reliance on frozen beige items in a dinner-based emergency, which I always give in to, because I don’t want to offend.
But I’m usually a one-drink kinda girl before moving on to bottled water.
Liv, tonight, seems to want a session, and I figure one night swapping Evian for wine isn’t going to topple me.
‘My Pilates course is going well,’ I reply. ‘I’ve got about fifty hours left of training and I’ve started working in a gym part-time too, to take some classes and get more of a feel for the environment. And then …’ I leave that sentence there, because I’m not really sure what next.
‘You’re working in a gym?’
‘Yes. A friend of a friend is opening up a new gym inside a hotel and needed a bit of help supervising rotas, and I thought … why not?’
Liv asks in disbelief, ‘Are you really going to give up modelling to become a Pilates instructor?’
‘Not give up. Not just yet. But maybe the two jobs can coexist for a while before I decide. I’m ready for another challenge,’ I remind her. ‘I haven’t got any qualifications, unlike you, Brainbox. But I’ve got to work with what I’ve got. So I’m going with it.’
‘Good for you,’ she says softly.
‘I need to be watched while I conduct a Pilates class,’ I tell her. ‘Do you fancy letting me practise on you a few times before that?’
‘Absolutely,’ Liv agrees. ‘Free Pilates class? Count me in.’
‘Thanks. You’re a fab friend.’
She sips her drink and then shifts in her chair. ‘I’m not sure how fabulous you’re going to think me in a minute,’ she says, not making eye contact.
‘OK …’ I say worriedly. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about this, so I’m just going to say it.’
For a tiny moment I wonder if Liv has had a change of heart about Ollie and wants to make a play for him.
Or, worse, they’ve already got back together and not told me.
And then I wonder why I’m wondering that, and why it is Liv would imagine that would undo our friendship.
Is it because she knows? She knows I like him.
More than like him. I can’t take the pressure. ‘Say it then.’
‘Do you still talk to Sam?’
I feel my head jolt in surprise. ‘Sam?’
She nods.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘It ended well. Friendly, or as friendly as it can be when you’re breaking up with someone. But we don’t speak. I like his posts on his social media, but so do about twelve million other people, so I doubt he knows I do it.’
‘He knows,’ Liv replies.
‘Does he?’ And then something strikes me. ‘How do you know he knows?’
Liv looks at me sheepishly. ‘I need to know: do you still have feelings for him?’
‘For Sam?’ I ask, still at some level of disbelief.
She nods again. ‘It’s important I know this. It’s important you’re honest with me.’
‘No,’ I reply in total and utter confusion, although slowly, gently, my mind is unravelling what might be happening here. I’m going to be the first one to say it. ‘Are you and Sam … are you and Sam together?’
Liv scratches her neck, where a small red flush has appeared, like hives. Is she nervous? She is. She’s nervous about this.
‘If I said we were, is that our friendship over?’ I start to speak, but she continues on, at speed. ‘Because if so, I won’t take it any further. I’ll drop him. Because our friendship isn’t worth risking.’
I’m not sure what to say, so I stare at her. Then I find my voice. ‘How did it start? When did it start?’
‘A few months ago. Not long at all. Sam was coming to London and he knows a lot of industry people here, but he says he doesn’t feel like he has any real friends here any more, and he wanted to meet a friendly face and wondered if I’d like a drink and—’
‘It’s OK, Liv. You can take a breath.’
She inhales deeply into empty lungs, paces out her next few sentences. ‘I thought it was just friendly. I didn’t think he’d be interested in me like that. But he was, and Sam’s single and I’m single and we got to know each other and that’s tricky, because he doesn’t live here.’
‘I know,’ I reply, remembering very well how hard it was to get to know Sam.
Maybe if we’d been living in the same time-zone we might have made it work.
But it wouldn’t have been fair, as I’ve been hankering after someone I can’t have for the past few years.
So I would have been stringing Sam along, although I don’t think I realised it at the time – not in those early stages.
‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d approve,’ Liv goes on. ‘Because I didn’t think you’d want me spending time with your ex, and I knew it was wrong and I still did it anyway, because … I like him. And I know that makes me a really shit person—’
‘It doesn’t,’ I say honestly.
‘But I thought it would be one drink and then he’d realise how boring it is trying to be friends with a low-level lawyer from London, but at the end of it he asked me on “another date”, and I asked if that first one was a date …
because I’m so cool like that,’ Liv deadpans and I can’t help but laugh.
‘And we’ve been on a few dates since, when Sam’s been here, and I thought: Any second now this is going to fizzle out and I won’t be in too deep, and then Aurora won’t snap my head off when I tell her I had a couple of drinks with Sam.
But those couple of drinks are about to turn into a trip to Paris and—’
‘Paris?’ I cut in. ‘Really?’ I’m quite excited for her.
She nods. ‘And it’s going well, and a huge part of me is so happy and the other part of me is pissed off that Sam and I get on so well, because now I have to tell you. And if you say you’re not happy, I will totally understand and I’ll call things off.’
‘Liv,’ I reach out and take her hand across the table. ‘Liv … I want you to be happy. Does Sam make you happy?’
She nods enthusiastically. ‘It may still all go horribly wrong, but I want to try. What do you think?’
Liv is one of the most powerful, strong women I know.
Perhaps, actually, she is the strongest. I think of her on that first day at uni when she was the last to arrive, but we weren’t complete until she joined us.
We just didn’t know it. She was so vulnerable, entering the room full of strangers. Now look at her.
‘I think you should go for it,’ I say.
Relief floods her face and she squeezes my hand. ‘Do you? Honestly.’
‘Honestly,’ I reply.
‘Aurora, I know it’s going to be weird dating your ex. I was so worried about telling you.’
‘There was no need to worry. But if you feel the need to make it up to me, I want to be chief bridesmaid at your wedding, please.’
‘Ha,’ Liv laughs and I love seeing her face light up like that. I love seeing her happy. She deserves it. ‘I think that would be even weirder.’
‘Probably. OK, we can scrap bridesmaid. I’ll settle for godparent to your firstborn.’
‘Consider it done.’