Chapter Twenty-Seven
Heathrow is busy, the airport bustling with people jetting off on their holidays, excitement palpable in the air around us. My overly analytical brain has now dissected this plan and decided it’s stupid and reckless and we absolutely shouldn’t be heading off to New York on a whim.
‘We have to listen to other Tyler,’ this world’s Tyler tells me with a shrug. ‘Perhaps he knew something you didn’t, maybe he thought this would help?’
‘How exactly is going to New York going to help?’ I demand, the beginnings of a headache starting to pulse behind my right cheekbone.
I poke my tongue into the top corner of my mouth and feel for the smooth crown capping the root canal I finally plucked up the courage to have just over a year ago.
But instead my tongue finds a jagged edge of tooth.
This Bethany hasn’t been to the dentist. She needs to.
Tyler turns back to face me and does that thing that all Tylers do where they tilt their heads a little. It shouldn’t thaw my frosty heart. It should make me irritated and give me the ick. But there we are. ‘You know what I think?’ he asks.
I sigh under my breath. This isn’t his fault.
Tyler isn’t the one – in this universe or in any of them – who’s doing this to me.
He’s just a guy who objectively disliked me in each world until we realized it was a misunderstanding and has since then been an absolute gentleman.
And if anyone can help, then it’s him. I feel my face soften and lift my eyes to his.
‘Go on then,’ I say, keeping my tone playful as I desperately will all the bad feelings and anger and stress to dissipate into the airport crowds.
‘I think we should go and check out that nice champagne bar. Other me – which is a weird thing to say, FYI, but it has a kind of ring to it – obviously thought you needed a break.’
I allow myself to be steered towards the bar, which turns out not to sell champagne but an array of English sparkling wines, which is far better in my humble opinion.
We have access to the airline lounge but Tyler prefers to stay in the main waiting area and who am I to argue.
We sit at the curved wooden bar, the finish shining in the artificial lights of the departure lounge.
A triple-stacked shelf of brightly coloured bottles containing every conceivable flavour of gin winks at me.
I sip the delicious gooseberry undertones of a glass of chilled Nyetimber.
‘So this is just a holiday?’ I ask eventually.
Tyler puts his glass down and swivels on his stool to look at me. ‘Yep. Just a holiday. A distraction. A chance for you to rest and recharge.’
I think back to Spain. That was barely a week ago and those four days of rest did absolutely nothing to help.
Although I do have to admit all I did for that time was think about my predicament and wallow in self-pity and self-loathing.
It was hardly relaxing. I swivel my own chair round so Tyler and I are face to face, our knees touching, and pick up my flute.
‘Well, if that’s what the doctor is ordering … ’ I say with a grin and raise my glass.
‘You know I am a doctor, right?’
He sounds serious. Like I might not have realized he has a PhD. But practically everyone I know has a PhD. In the words of Shania Twain – who Cesca is obsessed with – that don’t impress me much. I roll my eyes. He blushes and I can’t help but giggle.
We order a charcuterie platter to share and have another glass of wine.
I’m starting to relax, the edges turning pleasantly fuzzy.
Not in an I-think-I-might-be-getting-drunk way, but in an I-think-I-might-be-stopping-spiralling way and I allow myself to ride the wave.
I even do something I never do and allow Tyler to take over the airport admin.
You know, the checking for a gate number and holding on to the passports and making sure we have plane snacks and a book for the flight.
In WHSmith, he helps me pick a novel, something I would never have chosen.
‘It’s about computer game developers,’ he tells me, slipping a copy of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow into my hands. ‘But it’s also a love story and a tragedy and an ode to friendship and I promise you’ll adore it.’
When our gate is called, he slips his hand into mine as we walk down the long corridor and I squeeze it in reply. Perhaps other Tyler did have a point about needing a break.
I hadn’t even looked at the boarding passes, but now I do. ‘Umm … is that my seat number?’ I ask and motion to the large 9A printed on it.
‘I took the liberty of using some of my frequent flyer miles.’ He says it like it’s nothing. I guess maybe it is nothing to him. But this will be the first time I’ve ever flown and not been in cattle class at the back of the plane.
There’s one thing that always fascinates me about long-haul travel and that’s the time difference.
Now, I have a PhD in theoretical physics so I understand why there are time zones and how they’re calculated and all that.
But there is still something that feels like magic about leaving London at ten in the morning, spending eight hours in the sky, and then the plane touches down and it’s only one in the afternoon.
I explain this to Tyler as we stand in the queue for border control and he gives me this funny half smile.
‘What?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing, it’s just …’ His smile widens.
‘What?’ I repeat.
‘It’s just that I always thought you were so aloof and so …
’ He grasps for a word but then doesn’t find one and continues anyway.
‘But here you are, and you’re excited about time zones and it’s just …
well … you aren’t the Bethany I thought you were, that’s all. ’ He makes it sound like a good thing.
‘You thought I was a bitch, didn’t you?’ There’s a hint of a joke there, just so he knows I’m not being wholly serious.
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ He chooses his words carefully.
‘Perhaps I’d say you were a bit of an ice queen.
’ His inflection rises on ‘ice queen’, as if he’s testing out my reaction to the moniker.
Not that it’s the first time someone’s called me that.
I don’t mean to be aloof, but sometimes I know that’s how I come across.
I’m a classic extroverted introvert; which sounds like a contradiction in terms but really just means I sit in both camps.
I love parties and can chat the hind legs off a donkey, but I also like to be alone and struggle with maintaining lots of relationships.
So people often think I’m outgoing but just don’t like them, which isn’t the case but I can understand why they might think that.
But there is one thing about me that always surprises people when they get to know me better.
I’m goofy. And – even though it sometimes pains me to admit it – a bit childish and absolutely not cool by any metric.
I love bad puns and stuffed animals and you should see how excited I get about Christmas with all the lights and mulled wine and turkey sandwiches – Pret’s is the best in case you were wondering.
But normally I tuck all my dorkiness away and pretend to the world that I’m calm and sophisticated and you know, like an actual functioning human adult.
And I’ve got better – or worse, depending on how you want to look at it, it probably isn’t a healthy way to live – at hiding the weird.
It’s only really Cesca who actually sees me, the real unadulterated me.
And now apparently I’m showing Tyler and it feels … well it feels good and he seems to find me almost endearing.