45. I Choose Him
I CHOOSE HIM
ANNELISA
After spending the entire day out, I’d finally noticed a thin layer of dust coating every surface of my bedroom when I returned to the flat.
Although my bed remained unmade, the rest of the room had a distinct emptiness to it, and any previous attachment I’d felt to the place and everything inside seems to have disappeared.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been eleven weeks since I was last here.
So much has changed in that time, and while my reflection in the mirror remains unaltered, everything inside me says that this chapter of my life is over.
It’s become clear to me since I’ve been away that the friendship I thought I’d had with my flatmates was nothing more than transactional for them.
They are happy with or without me, and while that knowledge stings, it’s just further proof that I need to face up to the reality that my life in London is over.
Not that it was much of a life to begin with.
When I’d booked my flight back here, it wasn’t a one-way ticket this time.
I was giving myself a week to pack up my life here, meet one more time with my agent in person and go back home.
It was meant to be a stealthy visit, and one that no one in Brisbane would notice until I returned.
It wasn’t like it was hard for me to disappear for a week, given that I’d existed for a month seeing no one there other than Tara, and she would have just assumed I was busy writing.
I hadn’t counted on Will following me this time. I hadn’t expected my sister to figure out that I’d left and have everyone assume that I was running away again.
That version of Annelisa is gone now. I’m not running away from anything this time. I’m running towards it.
I just have to hope handing that manuscript over to Will was the right thing to do and he’ll understand that, this time, he’s my answer. He’s my home.
He always was.
After sitting down with Sebastian and Maggie this morning to let them know I was moving out, I knew I needed to start going through all my belongings.
But instead, I took myself for a walk, stopping off at the hotel that Tara and Kylie had booked Will into, to drop off the manuscript.
When I’d walked back out, I’d wondered what he would think of the rather over the top expensive feel about the place. It definitely didn’t seem like something he’d pick for himself, so I assumed the girls had gotten swept up in the romantic gesture they’d talked him into when they’d picked it out.
Instead of turning back towards the flat, I turn and keep going down the street.
When I’d first moved to London, I had barely left the room in the cramped share house I’d moved into.
Weighed down with grief and regret, I hadn’t felt like I could try to settle in here.
It had taken me two years to crawl out of the black pit I’d fallen into.
And then my father had died, and a whole new wave of despair had descended.
But that time, instead of wallowing, I’d forced myself to experience life.
I’d moved into the new flat, started travelling and attempted to find myself again.
But it was only after I returned to Brisbane that I realised that the person I was searching for could only exist there.
Surrounded by the friends and family I’d thought would be better off without me.
So the walk had been my way of saying goodbye to the version of myself I thought I’d wanted. Letting her go and accepting that what I’d once run away from was what I needed all along.
I spent hours getting lost in the city that I’d spent my childhood obsessing about.
Growing up, I’d imagined all the authors I’d loved that were based here, sitting in tea houses while writing the books that I’d devoured.
While the reality was far different for me, it’s still an amazing city.
My grandparents had left it behind for a new life in Brisbane, which I could never understand when I was younger, even when Granny told me that everyone she loved was in Australia now.
But I get it now. London isn’t the centre of the universe that I’d built it up to be in my mind. It was never about the place. It’s about the people. And the people I need… Well, they aren’t here.
I eventually found myself on Hampstead Heath.
I’d often gone there on my longer runs, and it had become my favourite place in the city.
My feet took me up Parliament Hill of their own volition.
Almost as though my body knew it was where I needed to be.
I’d sat on a bench overlooking the city skyline and finally allowed myself to let go of the last pieces of myself that were holding on to the idea that I could ever return here for good.
Even before Will’s unexpected arrival, I’d known this was a goodbye trip. But I thought I’d needed to be able to do it on my own terms, and feel completely at peace with the decision I’d made.
Now that I’m back in my room and staring at the empty boxes ready to be filled, I realise just how selfish my actions were when I got on the plane this time.
I’d gotten so used to no one noticing my comings and goings in the last few years that I’d not considered that my absence would set alarm bells off for everyone back home.
Now I’ve gone and made an even bigger mess than I’d realised.
Wondering if Will has arrived at his room by now, I have to fight the urge to run back to the hotel and throw myself at his feet. He needs time to read the book and understand that I’m done running now. That I choose him.
I choose us.
Every single piece of us.
It takes me less than three hours to pack up the remnants of my life in London, and it’s after midnight by the time I crawl into bed.
The boxes are stacked against the wall, ready to be donated tomorrow.
There’s very little here that I want to take back with me.
Most of what I do want will fit in my suitcase, and the extra I’ll pay to ship over.
I wonder if Will is asleep right now, in his hotel only a few streets away. Or is he sitting up reading the pages I left him?
The answers to those questions will come in the morning, but now… All I can do is try and get some sleep.