Theo - Ten
It was freezing. That kind of sharp, dry cold that made your hands ache no matter how deep you shoved them into your pockets. Celia walked beside me, cradling a takeaway cup, her scarf twisted loose around her neck and cheeks flushed with cold.
The pub was behind us, laughter echoing from the doorway as we turned down the road. Her hair clung to her cheeks from the damp drizzle, and yet somehow, she looked breathtaking.
She always took my breath away.
Not in the obvious way. Celia had never needed to try. She was just... radiant. There was this warmth to her, this light that made people orbit her without realising. I’d noticed it the first time we met. I’d just never let myself stare too long.
Until now.
The past few weeks had felt different in our friendship, as if something had shifted between us. I couldn’t put my finger on it but felt as if we were orbiting one another and we were bound to collide sooner rather than later.
“Still think you’re fine to walk?” I asked, half a smile tugging at my mouth as she sipped from the cup.
“I’m not that drunk,” she said, and then laughed. “ Okay. Maybe a little.”
My shoulder brushed hers. She didn’t move away.
We kept walking in silence for a moment, the buzz of traffic in the distance and the wet slap of our shoes against the pavement filling the quiet. The streetlamp above flickered, casting a golden glow that bounced off puddles and damp tarmac.
She looked up at me, eyes soft, mouth slightly parted like she was about to say something, but the words didn’t come. Her gaze dropped to my lips.
“You’re sure?” I asked and she gave the tiniest nod.
And that was it.
I leaned in.
She didn’t stop me.
My fingers skimmed her jaw, slipping through the ends of her damp hair as I kissed her — slow, unsure, sweet. Her lips met mine like they’d been waiting, tentative and warm. I felt her hands slide up to grip the front of my coat, steadying herself.
God, she felt like everything I hadn’t realised I needed.
But just as we were pulling apart, her foot slid. Her heel skated against the pavement and she went down hard, landing on her side with a muffled yelp.
“Shit—Celia.” I dropped beside her instantly. “Are you okay?”
She blinked at me, shock pooling behind her lashes, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. One hand clutched her elbow and I knew without her rolling her sleeve up that her skin underneath was now scraped and already reddening.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, trying to laugh but it broke halfway through. “That was so stupid.”
“No. No, it’s not.” I reached for her, gently checking her arm. “It’s just a scrape. You scared me. ”
Her mouth wobbled and I saw it again — that flash of vulnerability she rarely let out. It made my chest squeeze.
“You’re alright,” I said, voice low, coaxing. “I’ve got you.”
I helped her sit upright, her hair falling forward as she winced and tucked her arm in. Even like this, blinking through tears, she was beautiful. So bloody beautiful it hurt.
And I’d kissed her.
And she’d kissed me back.
And now... I didn’t know what the hell to do.
I wanted to say something about the kiss, the way it made my skin feel like it was humming, the way it made everything shift but the words stayed lodged behind my teeth.
Instead, I helped her to her feet.
We started walking again, more slowly this time. Her arm was tucked against her side, but every few steps she looked over at me, lips parting like she wanted to say something too.
She didn’t.
Neither did I.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, exactly. It was charged. Brimming with questions neither of us were ready to ask.
When we eventually got to her house, I walked her to her door, just as I had done so many times before. I knew she would be overthinking and that I would need to say something, otherwise she would start spiralling.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she beat me to it.
“I’m mortified,” she groaned and buried her head in her hands.
I froze, even though I tried not to show it .
She peeked at me through the gaps in her fingers and I said her name to try to coax her out from behind her hands; she didn’t need to hide from me.
“Celia –”
“Can we please pretend nothing happened?” she said, her voice breaking and sounding desperate. I wasn’t sure if she was referring to her slipping off the pavement or our kiss, but I didn’t want to ask in case the answer was both and then I’d be mortified too.
I managed a smile. “Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you,” she replied and I couldn’t just see, but I could feel the relief that flooded across her face and a part of my heart sank at the expression.
She gave me a quick hug and then softly closed the front door behind her.
I stood standing in the darkness as the overhead light of her porch turned off and as I turned around to start the walk back to my house, all I could think about was how I didn’t want to pretend it didn’t happen, because it had happened.
This thing that had been building between us had come to a head and I hadn’t imagined her lips pressing against mine – even if it was brief.
My head had a hundred and one things spiralling through it and despite every part of me wanting to shake Celia and tell her that we could make something of this, of us – I knew I wouldn’t do that to her.
If she needed time to get over her embarrassment of falling, I could wait for her.
She deserved to have somebody who waited for her.
I carried on to my house, stripping my clothes haphazardly as I fell onto my bed, letting out an internal groan.
That night, I lay in bed and replayed it over and over. The way her breath had caught. The press of her body against mine. The look in her eyes just before I leaned in. But then I heard her words, “I’m mortified,” and suddenly cold water plunged back over me, throwing reality into my face.
The past peeled away and the present flooded all my senses. My hands curled into fists at my sides as I stood just beyond the edge of the party crowd, half-shielded by the shadows of the palm trees strung with lights.
I found Natalie sitting alone on the low stone wall at the edge of the boardwalk, her bare feet resting in the sand, the heels of her sandals swinging lazily from the crook of her fingers.
She was staring out at the dark horizon where the sea met the sky, the soft glow of the moon giving her hair a kind of chocolate brown sheen.
She didn’t look at me when I approached. Just said, in that quiet, almost absent tone of hers, “I was wondering when you’d come find me.”
I sat beside her, leaving a careful gap between us.
“I saw you talking to Celia,” I said eventually, because neither of us seemed ready to fill the silence with anything easier.
“I figured you did,” she replied softly, her gaze still fixed on the waves.
I watched her for a moment, the way her profile caught the light, the way she blinked slowly, like she was holding back more than she’d ever say aloud.
“What did she say?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer .
“She said nothing’s going on between you.” Natalie’s lips curved slightly, but it wasn’t a smile. “She’s right, isn’t she?”
I hesitated, not because the answer was complicated, but because it wasn’t. “Yeah,” I said. “Nothing’s happened.”
She nodded slowly, and for a moment it felt like she accepted that, like it was enough. But then she turned to me, and I saw the ache in her expression, quiet and knowing.
“But you like her and please don’t insult my intelligence by saying it’s just in a friend way.”
The words weren’t harsh, they were simply the truth and I wasn’t going to belittle Natalie by pretending otherwise.
“Natalie,” I said, my voice low, but she held up her hand gently, like she didn’t need me to try to soften anything.
“It’s okay,” she said, finally turning to face me properly. Truthfully my heart hasn’t been in this. I just didn’t want to admit it. Maybe I thought if we came here, if we gave it one more shot, things would start to feel easy again.”
She brushed a speck of sand off her knee; her fingers slow and distracted.
“I heard you the other night,” she said. “Talking to Nate.”
That stopped me cold.
“You were drunk. You thought I was asleep. But I heard you say that seeing her again made you feel like yourself for the first time in years. That she looked at you like she still knew you. And you missed that.”
I turned to face her. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know,” she said gently. “You’re not cruel. You never have been. But this… isn’t working, Theo. It hasn’t been for a long time. And I think we’ve both been trying to fix something that was never really right in the first place.”
A knot formed low in my chest. I closed my eyes for a second, breathing through the weight of it.
“I cared about you,” I said, turning to face her fully now. “And I still do. You’ve been a huge part of my life this past year.”
“I know,” she said. “But we don’t fit anymore.
We’ve been trying to pretend we do, but we don’t bring out the best in each other.
And I think, deep down, we’ve both known that for a while.
Honestly, I think we’ve been more friends than anything the last few months.
One of us probably should have said something a lot earlier," she let out an awkward laugh.
She stood then, slow and graceful, brushing the sand from the back of her dress. Her eyes looked tired, not from the night but from months of trying to hold something together that neither of us could fix.
“I’m not angry,” she said, and it surprised me how calm she sounded. “Just a little sad. And maybe relieved. This trip was supposed to be a last shot, and I think we both knew that.”
I stood too, unsure what to do with my hands. I wanted to offer something — reassurance, kindness, an apology that could carry all the weight of what we’d just unravelled — but there was nothing left to say that could change the truth.
“Do you want me to walk you back?” I asked.
She shook her head gently. “I’ll be okay. You should go wherever you need to be.”
She leaned in and kissed my cheek. It was soft, steady, a kind of goodbye that didn’t need fanfare. Then she turned and walked away down the beach, her silhouette slowly fading into the dark.
I stayed standing there, staring after her, the sound of the waves folding into the quiet, and somewhere not far away, people were still dancing and laughing like nothing had changed.
But something had. Something had ended.
And maybe now, something else could begin.
As the thought entered my mind a flick of golden blonde hair caught my attention and I watched as Celia and Siena made their way off the beach, arms linked together.
I knew I needed to talk to her, but tonight wasn’t the right time, so with a deep exhale I hailed a taxi and made my way back to the apartment, hoping things would be clearer in the morning.