Chapter 24
I walk so fast, my calves scream at me to slow down.
My lungs don’t know how to deal with the uncustomary exercise, and my breath comes out ragged and too fast. But if I stop, there’s a chance Elliot will catch up with me, and I can’t have that.
There’s no conversation that makes any of this better, no way of convincing ourselves we’re not terrible people.
Tears stream down my face at what I’ve done and when I finally spot In Fair Verona, I launch myself towards it, desperate to be alone in my room.
I throw myself on the bed, but it’s the wrong place to be. I’m too restless, too consumed with guilt to stay still, so I end up pacing the tiny floor space. There’s a knock on the door about ten minutes after I get back, and Elliot calls out my name, but I ignore him and eventually he goes away.
I know what I should do. I should get out my phone and call Teddy.
I should be honest with her and beg for her forgiveness because it’s the only way I’ll have a chance of holding on to our relationship.
Not that I’d expect her to give it to me.
Teddy has been treated like shit by men so many times, and the first time she finds a decent one – the first time I set her up with one – I follow it up by doing this to her. It’s the last thing she deserves.
Teddy’s never been anything but loyal to me since we were teenagers.
She always puts Karina and me first, and this is how I repay her.
I don’t deserve forgiveness, but even so, I need her to know how much I regret that kiss, how I feel sick thinking of what I’ve done.
I need to let her anger and hurt come at me full force.
It’s what I deserve, but it’s not what I do.
What I’ve done has blown up our friendship.
I’ll never be able to take it back and telling her might just be the hardest thing I’ll ever do, and I’m not strong enough to do it yet.
Of course, the decision of when Teddy finds out what I’ve done isn’t entirely mine. Elliot could call Teddy and confess to her himself, but something tells me he won’t, not until he’s spoken to me first which isn’t going to be anytime soon if I can help it.
It’s only when I’ve convinced myself to tell her when I get back from the weekend, to see her in person when I’m a little more prepared that I stop pacing, sit down on the edge of the bed and finally, for the first time since we kissed, let myself think about Elliot.
Kissing him has ruined our friendship too.
If I wasn’t so painful, I’d laugh at myself for it.
All the effort I’ve put into not liking Elliot, all the times I’ve talked myself out of being honest with how I feel about him – even before Teddy – because I haven’t wanted to risk our friendship, haven’t wanted to follow in my mum and dad’s footsteps and risk losing someone I care so much about, and I’ve ended up here.
Failing in the worst, most spectacularly awful way.
‘Lizzie?’ A voice calls out on the other side of the door an hour or so after I’ve arrived back. I’m still sitting on the edge of the bed, my mind whirling, but I get up and open the door, thankful it’s not Elliot.
‘You are in here!’ Len looks pleased with himself. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’ He looks me up and down, his eyebrows knotting together in a puzzled expression. ‘We’re meeting downstairs in half an hour. You’ll be ready, won’t you?’
Oh God. The last thing I want to do is spend a long evening with my department at a restaurant and then the theatre, but watching a Shakespeare play is the highlight of the trip, the part Len would absolutely expect all his department to go to.
I’m torn between lying to Len and telling him I’m ill and accepting my fate.
‘I’ll be ready,’ I say.
I’m a terrible liar, and besides, given how much this weekend has ended up costing me, not adding to it by pissing off my head of department seems like a good idea.
By ten to six, I’ve had a shower, got dressed and am ready to go.
I wish I’d have packed something for tonight other than my new black dress with the spaghetti straps and my leather jacket.
I put the outfit together thinking that I’d want to be dressed up tonight, that after a few afternoon wines with Katie and Alice, I’d look forward to getting ready for the rest of the evening.
Now what I really want to do is put on the biggest hoody I own and hide away.
Reluctantly, I lock my room and make my way down the narrow corridor praying that tonight isn’t going to be as awful as I’ve convinced myself it’s going to be.
Great.
Elliot is standing at the bottom of the stairs in a white shirt and dark chinos, holding a blazer over his arm.
He looks impossibly handsome which is impossible to ignore because there is absolutely no one else around.
Where the hell is everyone? I expected to come down to my loud, tipsy English department, to Len telling me to get a bloody move on, not to Elliot standing on his own, watching me make my way downstairs.
He waits until I’ve managed to get to the bottom without going over on the ill-advised black stiletto heels I’m wearing before he starts.
‘Don’t,’ I beg him before he’s managed to get a sound out.
He looks wounded, but I can’t consider hurting his feelings right now.
There’s no room for that, so I carry on.
‘The only way I can get through tonight is if we pretend nothing happened between us. Please don’t keep trying to catch me on my own, and please don’t try to make me talk about any of this because I can’t Elliot, I just can’t. ’
There’s a moment when it looks like he’s about to object before his eyes drop and he gives me what I need. A single nod.
‘There you are,’ Katie says, bounding out of the lounge.
‘We’d just about given up all hope of ever seeing you again.
’ The rest of the team are hot on our heels, and in seconds the entrance hall of In Fair Verona is loud and bustling.
Elliot lets himself be taken charge of by Len, and I walk down to the restaurant with Katie and Alice, pretending to listen to them moaning about their tiny room and the thin walls that Alice swore shook with Len’s snoring earlier this afternoon, but really only focusing on the horrible ache in my stomach and wishing I could be anywhere but here.
If there’s one small mercy to come from this weekend, it’s that Glenda not coming has at least allowed me to have a room to myself since I’ve given my twin room to Elliot and Len and taken Len’s double.
Although, given that Glenda not being here has led to kissing Elliot, it’s hard to be too thankful.
Unfortunately, The Vintner, the restaurant Len has booked us into before the theatre, is cosy and dark and intimate, the perfect setting for a date.
I arrange myself so I definitely won’t be sitting next to Elliot but find myself opposite instead which is worse.
If I was to have any luck tonight, it would involve being as far away from him as possible and not having to look at him in soft candlelight, but clearly luck isn’t coming my way.
Len sits on my right, and I’m grateful for his full-blown review on the café the rest of the group found this afternoon.
It was, as Len tells me three times, the best hidden gem he’s ever found.
I’m even more grateful that he gets out his phone and pulls up all the Trip Advisor reviews, as I can focus on that instead of Elliot.
I try my best to be engaged, but it’s hard when Elliot is next to Alice and loud, barking laughter erupts out of her every few minutes.
I don’t know how he can be cracking jokes after what we did, and it pisses me off that he’s not feeling at least partly as guilty as I am.
Eventually, even Len grows distracted by it, puts his phone away and asks her what’s so funny.
‘No, nothing,’ Alice tells him. ‘We were just talking about school stuff. El has the funniest stories.’
‘He does. Tell me, is your girlfriend a teacher, too?’ Len asks, giving Alice a pointed stare.
‘No,’ I jump in before Elliot answers. ‘Elliot’s going out with my best friend, Teddy. She’s an estate agent.’
Elliot stiffens in his seat. ‘Actually, no, I don’t have a girlfriend.’
‘What?’ I blurt out.
‘We broke up,’ he says in a quiet voice, directed at me.
‘So sorry, El,’ Alice coos, putting her hand on his arm and using her other to take a giant swig of her white wine.
‘Yes, sorry, Elliot. That’s a shame. Now are we all ready to order? I’ll call the waitress over,’ Len says.
Everyone turns their attention to their menus, but I don’t. I stare at Elliot. He must feel the intensity of my glare as he looks up a few seconds later.
What the fuck? I mouth at him.
Later, he mouths back.
The meal is excruciating. Len tries to make conversation with me throughout, but all I can think about is what Elliot said.
Not just that he’s no longer with Teddy but the fact I’ve found out about it by Elliot announcing it to a table of people he barely knows.
If it’s true, why wouldn’t Teddy tell me?
Why didn’t she call me straight after it had happened so we could talk it through like she usually would?
And why wouldn’t Elliot have mentioned it, oh, I don’t know, before he kissed me, or, if not then, the second he pulled his lips away from mine?
What if he’s only just ended it with her and that kiss was the reason why?
Maybe Teddy already knows everything already and that’s exactly the reason she’s not called.
Not that it excuses it because I kissed Elliot when I thought he was with Teddy, and that is my fault entirely, but if they had broken up beforehand, Elliot letting me know he’s not still with my best friend would have helped a little.
At least then I could have spent the last few hours telling myself that technically I haven’t just kissed my best friend’s boyfriend instead of hating myself as intently as I have.
I can’t understand why Elliot wouldn’t have let me know, why this whole trip he’s had me believe nothing has changed with him and Teddy.
By the time the meal is over, and we arrive at the surprisingly industrial looking Royal Shakespeare Theatre, my head is swimming.
We pass through the stark interior and the bright lights of the foyer into the theatre itself which is beautiful with golden lighting, art deco features and a warm, intimate atmosphere.
I’m glad my seat is next to Katie, not Elliot.
I want to focus on Othello. I want to lose myself in the terrible fate of Othello and Desdemona instead of spending the next few hours focusing on what could have happened between Teddy and Elliot when I thought they were getting so close, and why it hurts so much that neither of them told me.
It’s no good. The play passes by in a whirl.
Len catches my eye to give me a thumbs up a few times, and I return the gesture, but really, I’m too busy reassessing everything I thought I knew about my favourite Shakespeare play to enjoy it.
When I teach Othello, I always make sure my class know what an evil, jealous, insecure git Iago is for manipulating everyone to his will the way he does.
He’s the villain of the piece, and I go to town painting him that way.
But now, I feel a new solidarity with the puppet master of the play, because that’s exactly what I am.
I’ve been pulling the strings with Elliot and Teddy, bringing them together so I could carry out my best ex-boyfriend plan, planting us all in each other’s love lives, and like with Iago, it’s gone completely wrong.
It doesn’t matter that Teddy and Elliot aren’t together now, only that they were.
In setting them up, I’ve made Elliot off-limits forever.
Now I’ve got to live with that, with the distant memory of the night we spent together and the very new memory of kissing him. Being the puppet master sucks.
After the play, there’s talk of drinks, but I can’t.
I’m done with sitting in a group with Elliot and pointedly not talking to him about what I’m desperate to know.
I’m done with being around him, knowing how well we’ve fit together at points today, how he might be single now, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s too late for us, despite how much I wish it could be different.
In a bid to protect myself, I conjure up that headache I faked earlier and call it a night.