Chapter 30 #2
“Max . . .” I look straight at him. “Can I ask . . . when you said it’s always been me . . .”
“Yeah?”
“What did you mean by that?”
“I mean, it feels pretty self-explanatory.” He laughs.
“Sure. It’s just, after Paris I had no idea what you were thinking .
. . I never have any idea what you’re thinking.
And I want to know. Did you know that you still had feelings for me when you were with Fran but didn’t think I felt the same?
Did you not know it and then realize it suddenly when you read the letter? I just . . . I want to know more.”
He knits his eyebrows together. “What letter?” Max asks.
I blink slowly. “What do you mean . . . what letter?! THE letter.”
Heat rapidly travels up my neck. I essentially did the emotional equivalent of jumping up and down naked on a trampoline and he is having trouble remembering it? How can that be?
Max shakes his head. “Still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The letter where I . . . well. The letter where I tell you . . . you know. About my feelings for you.”
Max continues to look blank.
Oh my God.
He didn’t get the letter. I can see it in his face. He really has no idea what I’m talking about. Somehow, my words never reached him.
This entire time I’ve been working on the assumption that I confessed my feelings, which brought him to realize his own, that my letter was what instigated change . . . and he never even received it?
My mind starts turning things over at a million miles an hour. I was working so hard trying to read between the lines, spot the clues, figure out the hints, that I found something that wasn’t even there. HE NEVER EVEN READ THE STUPID LETTER.
So what happened to it?! Did it get lost in the mail?
Max’s building has a lot of people in it .
. . I suddenly remember the number of pigeonholes there are in the mail room.
I faintly recall him complaining once about post going to a Max Martin on the second floor.
Oh my God . . . was my hideously embarrassing soul-bearing opened by some random dude? ? I bet he had a great laugh!!
But then why this massive shift in Max’s behavior? Why did he suddenly start acting differently? Why did he do the hug?! And the invite to Paris? If he didn’t get my letter, then how did he know how I felt?
Oh.
OH.
The truth starts falling into place. I’m an idiot. A colossal idiot. Suddenly all the pieces start coming together and I feel a million times more humiliated than when I thought Max read it.
Max didn’t need to read it. He didn’t need me to tell him how I felt. He already knew.
“Max, how long have you known that I’m in love with you?” I ask. I’m past feeling embarrassed about it now.
He looks uncomfortable. “Well . . . ,” he says.
The look on his face tells me everything. He’s always known. And if he’s always known, that means he can’t really want to be with me now, because otherwise, he could have been with me at any moment over the past three years, since he came back to London.
I think of his hurt about me flying to the other side of the world.
What if it wasn’t really that he realized he loves me and was going to miss me?
What if he just didn’t want me to be the one doing something exciting for once?
The invite to Paris . . . What if it wasn’t that he was desperate to see me?
What if it was to put himself back in the driver’s seat?
Taking pity on me, splashing the cash on expensive tickets to his exciting trip?
What if he didn’t bail the next day and stop speaking to me because he was feeling guilty about Fran—what if he just felt he’d got me back where he wanted me?
And then, once he felt me slipping away again, he knew in order to keep me where I was he had to break up with her and show up here in some big romantic gesture?
Except . . . it’s not romantic. Not even slightly.
It’s control, it’s ego, it’s clinging on to something that makes him feel good about himself.
I race frantically through all my memories.
Even Max saying it’s always been me felt slightly half-hearted, if I’m really, painfully honest with myself.
If it had always been me, and he knew how I felt about him, then it would have been me a long time ago.
We haven’t even kissed since. Again, I assumed it was because he felt guilty about Fran, but is that really why? Maybe we just don’t belong together in the present. Maybe, together, all we have is the past.
“Max,” I ask, “why are you here? Is it because you want to be with me? Genuinely?” It physically hurts me to say this. To finally put this niggling feeling into words and then actually say them out loud.
“Why else would I be here?” He’s in full defensive mode now. His jaw is clenched. He’s pulling at his hair, massaging his temples, avoiding eye contact.
“Well . . .” I’ve never challenged Max on anything and it’s not easy.
I can’t remember us ever having a confrontation, but then, why would I have done?
Our entire relationship is exchanging memes and bizarre facts and bitching about other people over drinks.
Joking. Laughing. Not talking about anything real.
And when we went out in our early twenties we were so .
. . young. We had no life, we just rolled around in bed and in bars.
But if we have any hope of dating each other as adults, we need to be able to say hard things to each other, surely?
“I suppose, I’m wondering if you could be here .
. . because you felt me moving on, and you don’t want that to happen.
You don’t really love me, but you love that I love you.
You love having me waiting there, hanging on for you, like some kind of sad, adoring .
. . backup option.” There. I’ve said it.
There’s no taking it back. It’s out there in the world.
Max makes a spluttering sound.
“If you were just a backup, why would I have broken up with Fran for you?” he asks.
I bite my lip. “Because you don’t want to lose me. But . . . you don’t really want me either.”
I wait for a denial, but it’s not forthcoming.
“How often do you go out with Fran and our friends from Scintilla, without me?” I hold up my phone and point at the message. “I guess my invite got lost in the mail.”
Max makes another indistinguishable sound. “I mean, Fran was my girlfriend. Obviously I’d bring her out with my friends.”
“But why lie to me about it?” I ask. “You always made out like you barely saw her, quite frankly. Like you weren’t that involved. That’s partly why you moving in together came as such a shock to me.”
I’m going over everything and rewriting it.
I always thought that I was the one making sure Fran and I were never in the same room .
. . which I was, but now that I think about it, he must have been too.
He never suggested she come along to any of our drinks.
And he’s clearly been involving her in group situations and conveniently forgetting to invite me.
The only times we’ve met is when he absolutely couldn’t avoid it.
“I didn’t lie about it. I don’t tell you, or Fran, everything. Look, I’m sorry you haven’t been in any real relationships, so you wouldn’t understand, but people don’t need to track each other’s every move,” he retorts.
Ouch. That stings. “I haven’t had any real relationships because I was pining after you.” I’m incredulous. “And you knew that, didn’t you?”
“Don’t blame me for your complete inability to function, Becky,” Max retaliates.
Wow.
WOW.
I can’t believe how quickly this has degenerated. Five minutes ago he was talking about mimosas in bed. This doesn’t feel real. Part of me wants to stop fighting and just go get the champagne. That would be so much easier.
But part of me knows this moment was coming for me. If not today, if not tomorrow, it was on its way. Our relationship is flimsy. Under any sort of real pressure it was always going to fold. I think I’ve been becoming aware of it for a while now.
It suited me to think I was in love with Max, because dating was so difficult and scary that I wouldn’t have to try and fall in love with anyone else.
It suited him to have me waiting in the wings like some second, supplementary pseudo-girlfriend.
Clearly he’s known how I felt, or thought I felt, for a long time.
This isn’t some great, novel-worthy romance that never got its chance to shine. We were both just overly invested in keeping a foot in the past—him for the ego boost and me for the shield from reality.
At that moment, I think of the Death card and its real meaning. An impactful ending of sorts; the death of a relationship, a friendship, an identity, an era, in order that new life can take root.
It really does feel like everything is ending now, hopefully in order that everything can begin again.
“Becky, I’m sorry.” Max softens and moves toward me. “I didn’t mean that. Fuck this. Can we stop arguing? Let’s just rewind, yeah?”
I desperately want to, but I can’t. I can’t unknow what I know now.
“Max, I think you should leave,” I say.
My heart is broken. But it’s not really broken for Max. It’s broken for the idea of Max and knowing that I can never hide behind him again.