Chapter 23
The next morning, I wake with a deep, painful longing to call my mother. I reach for my phone immediately, then stop myself. What would I say? Plus, I feel like somehow she’d be able to tell I wasn’t in the country just by the sound of my voice.
Light is trickling in through the shutters but I have no concept of what time it is.
After our heated moment last night we put our tops back on, drank wine, and watched French TV, never again referring to said moment.
Ostensibly, we hung out like we normally would, with a giant elephant sitting in between us.
Max’s jokes were a little try-hard. My laugh was a little forced.
We went to sleep and Max pretended being crumpled up on the tiny sofa was comfortable.
Max is in the bathroom and I’m grateful for the second it gives me to collect myself before coming face-to-face with him. I hastily wipe the sleep out of my eyes and mentally prepare myself.
I can’t believe I came all the way to Paris and didn’t even get an orgasm out of it because of my stupid conscience.
Why are you showing up now, Conscience? Where were you when I thought it was a great idea to copy Gemma Lee’s maths exam in year 12 and ended up getting stuck in the mathletes?
Or when I was supposed to be babysitting little Freddie Patterson and his parents came home to find him locked in his room while I made out with Fit John on their bed?
WHERE WERE YOU THEN?
But of course, I know that I was right to stop it. Even if on some level she must know it’s over, given that it’s clearly over for Max, it wouldn’t be OK to do anything before he’s spoken to her. There will be plenty of time for us once that’s happened. We don’t need to rush anything.
The toilet flushes. There’s the sound of taps running, and he emerges. He’s already dressed, which makes me aware of how little I’m wearing.
“All right, Becky.” He flashes me a quick smile and moves toward his camera bag, crouching down to rummage for something.
“Are you off?” I ask.
“Yep, got to be on set in half an hour.”
“Cool.” I don’t really know what to say. “Big day?”
“Yuh.” He’s still rummaging. “What are you gonna do?”
“Oh . . . I’m not sure. Wander around. Buy a baguette. Stare at some French people working out how to hold said baguette in a way that seems natural.”
“They’ll love that.” Max laughs.
“What time do you think you’ll be finished?”
“Not sure,” he says. Max has never been good at specific time commitments.
I guess that’s why being a photographer suits him.
His schedule is all over the place and he’s never quite certain how long a job is going to take.
It’s usually fine because he’ll just message me for a drink on days that he finishes early enough and check whether I’m still in town.
But the prospect of sitting around in a strange city with nothing to do but wait for him, without being sure what time he’ll be able to meet me, feels different.
“Oh,” I say, wanting to pin him down but not wanting to seem like a nag.
“I’ll message you later?” Max adds.
“OK, yeah.” I smile. I’m being stupid. It’s not like Max isn’t telling me because he doesn’t want to. How is he supposed to know?
I smile at how much we sound like a regular couple. It fades when I remind myself that we’re not. We haven’t been a couple in years and Max has a different girlfriend at home who he just moved in with. Guilt starts clawing its way into my stomach again. I wonder if Max is feeling guilty?
Ugh, shut up, Conscience. WE HAVE HEARD ENOUGH FROM YOU. It’s fine. Nothing happened. He’s going to speak to her when he gets back to the UK.
“All right, then.” He stands up, hooking his bag over his shoulder.
He hesitates before moving toward me. It’s only for a second, but it’s there.
Max never likes to seem wrong-footed by anything but I can tell he’s unsure how to behave around me, unsure whether to act like we’re together or not.
He leans over the bed and . . . pats me on the shoulder?
“See you, Becky.”
“Bye,” I reply quietly. He strides quickly out of the room.
Did he just . . . pat me on the shoulder?
The door closes and I am alone. I don’t usually mind Max’s inability to express himself.
I pride myself on my ability to read him.
But in this moment, sitting in my pajamas in a hotel room in a different country with no one I can call, the fact that I have no idea what he’s thinking leaves me feeling profoundly lonely.
What am I thinking?
I sit in the bed, trying to work it out.
Only, it’s difficult in the void of knowing how Max is feeling.
If I knew he was planning on breaking up with Fran this evening and declaring his undying love for me then I’d be on top of the world.
I’d do a little dance along the Seine. If I knew he was feeling confused or, worse, like inviting me here was a huge mistake .
. . well, then I’d probably want to fling myself into the Seine.
Oh God. Is that a possibility? That I’m a mistake?
I replay every interaction between us this morning.
He didn’t wake me. I’d assumed it was because we went to bed late and he wanted to let me rest but what if he was trying to avoid me?
If I hadn’t woken up would he have said goodbye or slipped out without a word?
He wasn’t holding eye contact . . . It was all brief, short glances.
I’d figured he was preoccupied and focused on getting to his shoot but what if he just couldn’t bear to look at me—the giant, lumbering mistake lying erroneously in his bed?
What if he only kissed me at all because he was confused by the letter but now he realizes it’s Fran he loves? Oh God.
I breathe. The kiss. He kissed me. I did not ask to come here .
. . He invited me. Of course I wasn’t a mistake.
Mistakes are made with random people in a bar, or a colleague you barely know and drunkenly snog at the office Christmas party.
You don’t make mistakes with people you’ve known and loved for seven years.
He was hesitant, but of course he was; you’re hardly going to start acting like a happy couple when you haven’t broken up with your girlfriend yet, are you?
That wouldn’t be right. He must be feeling terrible, but of course he is.
He might regret the way it happened, but it doesn’t mean he will regret it happening.
You can feel guilty about the way lots of things happen .
. . like buying a book from . I might hate myself for giving my money to Jeff Bezos, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want the book.
I think about last night. The way his lips pressed against mine hungrily, kissing softly and biting fiercely, his hands exploring foreign yet familiar territory. It was so natural.
That is . . . until it wasn’t. But that’s completely understandable under the circumstances. It will feel normal once he’s broken up with Fran and we’re not in this weird situation anymore.
It’s OK, I tell myself. I am not the Other Woman.
I met Max first, so, I categorically cannot be the Other Woman.
I have always been here and he met Fran way after me.
If anything Fran is the Other Woman. That’s just how time works.
And who are we to argue with the mighty nonspatial continuum measured in events that succeed one another from past through present to future? ! Look, I don’t make the rules.
I check my phone. Twenty minutes have passed since Max left.
He hasn’t messaged me. No one has. Not for the first time in the past week I long to hear what Angie and Dami would think.
My fingers itch to tell them what’s happened but, with the bitter aftertaste of my fight with Angie still lingering, I remind myself they don’t want to hear from me right now.
I decide the best thing to do is not overthink the situation any more than I have done and try to just enjoy the day in Paris. I mean . . . I’m in Paris, after all.
I order a huge breakfast to the room. I get an omelet AND croissants, because why not? Thank you, Max’s boss.
I get dressed and head out into the sunshine.
I don’t make a plan and just meander through the streets to see what I might stumble across.
I find a quaint little bookshop and spend ages riffling through its shelves.
I buy a coffee from a cute little café and rich dark chocolate-raspberry profiteroles from a chocolaterie.
I window-shop all the fancy stores on the Champs-élysées and wish I had enough money to buy something.
I start off having fun, or at least, I’m doing things that seem like they would be fun.
But I can’t help constantly checking my phone to see how much time has passed and whether Max has messaged me yet.
My feet get tired from the constant walking, but I don’t want to sit for too long in case I think too much.
The day feels slow and time seems to inch by.
Then I begin to fluctuate wildly between feeling giddy, like I’m possibly having the time of my life, and feeling lower than the sewer rats running beneath the city.
I am like an unmoored boat that’s drifted out to sea, being battered around by feelings coming in random waves.
I can’t decide if I’m excited and free or pointless and lost.
At around four I sit down on a bench outside the Louvre beside a cluster of pigeons.
It crosses my mind that things don’t feel all that different here than they did two days ago, sitting on my childhood park bench beside London pigeons.
Then I roll my eyes. Of course things are different .
. . What is wrong with me? This is what I wanted.
I am in Paris. With Max. Something finally happened with him, like it was always meant to.
He’s going to speak to Fran. I message him, Hey, do you think you’ll be finished soon?
But as the day drags on and Max still doesn’t contact me, it gets harder and harder to hold on to that positivity.
Eventually, when it gets to 6 p.m. and Max still hasn’t replied, I decide to head back to the hotel to get my things. It’s starting to get dark and there’s a chill in the air and I don’t care if I’m in an exciting new city or not, I’m hungry and tired and lonely and bored.
When I find my way back, they won’t let me in the room because I’m not on the booking and I don’t have a key. It’s a massive, humiliating hassle involving multiple staff and managers, but eventually someone is sent to the room to retrieve my case for me.
I walk super slowly to the station, checking my phone every five seconds.
There’s a faint ray of denial still glimmering.
Maybe he got caught up? Maybe he left his phone somewhere and he can’t message?
Or it ran out of battery? He wouldn’t leave me wandering around Paris alone for this long without a good reason, would he?
Surely if he had a working phone on him he would at least keep me posted?
The train is pulling back into London before my phone lights up with a message from Max. It says, Hey, sorry, where you at? By that point I’ve gone beyond caring. I’m full of warm relief at the sight of my familiar city welcoming me home.