Chapter 36
Returning to the UK provided none of the clarity Rhys had hoped for.
His latest short-term rental in Weymouth had already ended, so he headed home to Wales, sleeping in his mam’s spare room under a coral bedspread.
The balance of his fee from I Do landed in his account the next business day, so he could have afforded to stay somewhere else until he left.
He couldn’t complain about the rates for wedding photography, although he wondered why they’d paid early, when he hadn’t delivered the photos yet.
Maybe Ginny remembered him working behind the bar at the Admiral and had taken pity on him.
That would be like her. He hoped she at least had fond memories of their affair, despite the sudden ending.
He understood why she’d been angry at him for not mentioning his imminent – and permanent – departure, but he hadn’t expected her to ignore him so completely after she found out.
She’d left the hotel on the lake without saying goodbye.
It had pulled the rug out from under him, although he’d been tied in knots wondering what to say to her anyway.
He would have liked to have apologised. He might have found the courage to tell her how special she was and that she shouldn’t change herself for anyone.
He wanted to tell her she should believe in soulmates, because if anyone in the world should have one, it was her.
He probably wouldn’t have said any of that.
Wading through the thousands of photos from wedding week was a colossal task, more difficult than taking them by at least a factor of five.
He forced himself to sit down and start before he forgot what everyone had been wearing, but even with fresh memories of Petra’s bronze silk mother-of-the-groom outfit and Tash’s outlandish hat, the faces were a jumble.
It was almost a relief that Ginny’s face was just as anonymous as all of the others.
He unfortunately remembered every one of her outfits, so he could pick her out in a crowd, but if he zoomed in far enough, her features didn’t mean anything to him.
He’d never thought his face blindness would become a blessing.
When this wedding was a distant memory, he’d lose all recognition of her entirely.
Except that thought didn’t comfort him. And even though her features were foreign to him, her shoulders weren’t. Her ears. The little gold chain in her top piercing at the wedding would be difficult to forget – like the feel of her waist under his hands.
Strange, how much he could miss her, when he couldn’t picture her face.
He knew his mam was worried about him keeping to himself even more than usual, but she accepted his explanation at first, that he had a lot of work to do, sorting through the pictures and editing the best ones.
But he lost a lot of time moving the photos of Ginny into their own folder, partly because there were so many and partly because he paused on nearly every shot.
Most of them, she hadn’t realised he’d taken, like the one at the waterfall.
It was a profile shot, in high contrast with the dark greens and greys in the background, the line of her face perfectly defined.
He could almost believe it was an abstract image, except her face was tipped up, gently reflecting the silver light near the waterfall, her jaw and cheekbone highlighted and her lips slightly open, and she was unmistakably, beautifully human.
There was a candid shot of her in her fluffy sweater the evening they’d danced the waltz.
He wouldn’t forget that, because she’d felt like a hug in human form wearing it.
In the photo, she had a finger pressed thoughtfully to her lips, her eyes squinting.
Probably, she’d been worried about not having a partner.
It annoyed him that seeing her with Laurie had spoiled the memory of dancing with her himself, being the one to step in and make her smile when she’d been self-conscious.
The photos from the climbing park were unbearable. Her ears stuck out below the helmet as though designed that way, her lips were thin with stress as she clung to the wall, but her eyes were huge as she reached the top of the line, where he’d been waiting for her.
The floodgates opened in the photos from the day visiting the chapel, when she’d been his test subject.
His favourite subject. He struggled to tell which facial expressions looked best, but he had his personal favourites: Ginny reaching up to touch the golden leaves of the old chestnut; her hair blowing in her face up in the meadow, one prominent ear emerging from the dark red strands.
She probably wouldn’t like that one, but he did. He’d kissed her shortly after that.
‘Ahhhhhh.’
He jumped and snapped his gaze away from the computer, as though that could help him hide what he’d been doing, which was simply staring and not editing.
Lesley approached, leaning on his shoulder and ruffling his hair as though he were still ten years old. ‘She’s the one.’
Her choice of words made his thoughts shudder to a halt.
Sometimes it felt that way, as though Ginny were the only person in the world who could accept him as he was.
But she’d accepted him only for a few days and that was fair enough.
She should have everything she dreamed of and not a reserved thirty-nine-year-old grouch.
He had no energy to argue with his mother, so he nodded, rubbing his thumb along his brow as a headache threatened there. God, next year he’d be forty and Ginny would still be only twenty-nine.
‘She looks… young.’
‘She is. Too young.’
Her hand on his shoulder squeezed. ‘But that’s a lovely smile. I like her and I’ve only seen a picture.’
‘Everyone likes her. She’s that kind of person.’
But she wanted someone to love her. Staring at the light bathing her neck and remembering his lips there, the way she softened in his arms, he couldn’t help thinking that would be no problem for him.
‘She’s smiling at you,’ Lesley pointed out, ‘assuming you took the picture.’
‘I did,’ he confirmed, but he couldn’t credit what she said. Ginny smiled at everyone.
‘It’s a beautiful portrait of a beautiful girl,’ his mam declared warmly. ‘Do you have any other photos?’
‘Too many,’ he mumbled. ‘She’s the wedding planner, so we… spent some time together.’
It was probably a poor idea to let his mother glimpse the incriminating folder, but he flicked back to it and skimmed the thumbnails until he found a photo and he clicked on it.
She was wearing her maroon cocktail dress at the farm, under the willow trees.
He could still feel the texture of the material under his fingers, remembered the barbed exchange she’d classed as an argument – and ended stubbornly with a kiss.
He craved her attention, those gentle words. It wasn’t anything to do with her prominent ears or the piercing below her lip – the little things that had drawn his attention at first. It was what he’d discovered when he’d started paying attention.
He couldn’t imagine loving anyone the way he loved Ginny.
‘Oh, cariad,’ Mam said, her tone pained. ‘I thought it might be a good thing that you were interested in someone again, but this is… Oh dear. She doesn’t feel the same?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s okay. I knew she never would. She’s younger, got some things to work out in her life. And I’m going to Canada.’ He glanced up at Lesley with a tight smile.
‘That’s not an excuse, you know. You could pull out if you wanted to.’
‘It’s not an excuse,’ he agreed. ‘It’s my way to move on and… a consolation, at least.’ He mumbled the last part.
Lesley sighed. ‘Well, what are you going to do with all of these? Torture yourself?’
He thought about the hard drive of photos he’d kept of Annie. Those photos had tortured him six years ago, tangled up with his adjustment period – grieving for the way he’d used to see her.
These photos would be a different kind of torture.
‘I bet she’d like a copy of that one,’ his mam pointed out. ‘And this other one. Go back to the folder? There – that one. It’s gorgeous.’
Ginny was laughing at something and holding up a hand to smooth her hair back.
Glancing up at his mam, he asked, ‘Do you think you could help me? I’m going to touch up some of the photos from the wedding, but I’d like a second opinion on which ones are best – and you’ll have to reassure me that the faces still look right after I’ve applied the fixes.’
‘Of course! I’d love to. Let me grab a chair.’
He should have gone through these photos with Ginny, but Lesley was a diligent replacement and he was glad to be spending time with her before he left.
As though she could read his mind, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze an hour later when they’d picked out the best shots.
‘I’ll miss you, Rhys bach. I hope you find everything you want in Canada.’
He’d need to know what he wanted for that to happen.
‘This girl doesn’t know what she’s missing out on,’ she said as she left the room.
He couldn’t agree with that statement, but his eyes were drawn back to the wedding photo on the screen, the image of the young woman in the shiny olive-green dress, her head tilted up as it so often was.
That was before she’d found out he was moving to Canada.
He should have told her earlier – told her that was the reason he wanted to keep their relationship short and casual.
There had been a thousand reasons why the two of them would never work, but, staring at the light on her skin, he suspected none of them would have mattered. He had to remind himself that she’d insisted they keep things casual as well.
With a gulp, he realised that if he’d had the slightest idea that she might return his feelings, he would have tried to make it work with her – dates and gifts, long-term planning and romance and all of that stuff he thought he didn’t want.
They were supposed to have a moment, nothing more.
But there had been more intimacy in those moments than in the past six years of his life.
Restless, he took himself off to the photography studio where he sometimes rented the darkroom. The canister of film from the Minolta was an unremarkable little object to inspire so much excitement in him, but he couldn’t help thinking these photos would reveal something he needed to see.
Working blind in the dark to cut the film off the cassette was second nature to him now, as was setting the timer and shaking the tub of developing chemicals.
There was a film dryer at the studio, so he didn’t have to wait long to peer at the negatives on the light table.
With the loupe to his eye, he skipped straight to that day in the meadow at San Valentino.
The photo she’d taken of the village and the mountains was nice, although he would have brought out the background more sharply. The shot of the vulture was miserable – little more than an out-of-focus smudge against a pale sky with a wonky hint of forest in one corner.
So much for perfect moments.
But he stilled when he reached the reckless close-up he’d shot of her.
Her eyes and lips glowed in the negative and the framing was even stranger than he remembered.
Only half of one eye visible and mostly blurred.
The focal point was the angle of her jaw, leading to her earlobe with all of those earrings.
Just from looking at the image with opposite colours, the surge of memories was disconcerting – tactile memories.
It made him think of Ginny naked, even though they hadn’t reached that stage of intimacy until the evening.
Hesitantly, he moved the loupe to the next photo, the one she’d snapped of him. The stranger looking back at him wasn’t a surprise. He looked scruffy, with a day or two of stubble and his hair windswept. His skin was weather-worn.
He wondered what she’d think of her portrait of him.
With a sense of urgency, he scanned the negatives so he’d have a digital copy. He’d develop physical photos as well, but negatives were prone to damage and these were shots he wanted to preserve, although what he would ever use them for, he didn’t know.
He’d give them to Ginny, although the prospect made him pause.
She didn’t need him, would find her way to happiness soon enough, he was certain.
He would never do anything to make her feel guilty or obligated to him.
But perhaps there was one gift he could give her: herself.
She didn’t need everyone to like her to be special.
She already was. With no expectation of ever hearing from her again, he could show her how he saw her.