Chapter 23
R osie finished her day at the flower market and trudged home.
After cooking herself a delicious meal in an attempt to make herself feel better, she sat out on the deck.
Voices sounded from Max’s boat: his deep baritone and a higher, lighter one prone to giggling.
She’d rapidly decided she hated that voice and knew it must be the woman she’d seen Max with earlier.
The image of them together had stayed in her mind all afternoon, no matter how she tried to get rid of it.
Through the evening, Max had been laughing– actually laughing– and every time she’d caught the sound, her heart had shrivelled just a little bit more.
She wasn’t sure it actually existed anymore and there wasn’t just an empty hole where her heart had previously been.
Though Rosie was facing away from him, she heard the galley door open an d Max and his guest step onto the deck.
Unable to stop herself, she glanced over her shoulder and again saw the beautiful brunette who’d been with Max earlier that day.
They’d spent the whole day together? She swallowed her wine, willing it to soothe the burning in her throat. Catching Max’s eye, she spun back to hear him say: ‘Goodnight, Johanna. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Hearing his ex’s name, she had to choke down a sob. He was back with the woman who’d broken his heart? The woman who hadn’t wanted to be with an artist, on an artist’s pay. How? How could this have happened? She hadn’t thought they were in touch.
‘Goodnight, Max,’ Johanna replied. There was silence and the sound of her kissing his cheek. ‘Sleep tight.’
Johanna walked down the road, her heels tapping a rhythm on the pavement.
Fire began to burn in Rosie’s belly, reaching up and igniting in her lungs so she felt as if she were actually breathing fire.
She knew it was none of her business, that they’d barely been an item and she should keep her nose out and just move on.
But she’d never been very good at doing that, and to think that only days ago he’d slept with her.
Then, in the days between doing that and pushing her away, he’d started bedding his ex again?
All of that was enough to force her from her seat. She turned and stared at Max.
‘How did it go at the—’
‘Don’t bother acting is if you care, Max. We both know you don’t.’
His features froze. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that a few days ago we were making love and then as soon as you had some bad news you pushed me away and started shagging your ex.’
‘Rosie, I—’
‘It’s fine,’ she said, holding up her hands to stop him. His eyes widened as she hit the mark. ‘As you said, we barely know each other. Maybe I was an idiot for falling for you so quickly.’ She watched his mouth close, his jaw working hard.
‘You were falling in love with me?’
She suddenly realised that in her anger she’d blurted out the true extent of her feelings.
Her breath hitched, her lungs fluttering as if they had no idea what they should be doing.
Rosie ignored his question. What was the point in admitting it again when he’d only say how sorry he was?
Give her meaningless platitudes. ‘You know the thing that makes me so mad I can hardly breathe?’ She clenched her fists to her sides.
‘What annoys me most is that you said that she didn’t like the life you could give her.
She never really believed in you, but I did from the moment I saw your paintings.
From the moment I met you and you talked about what you did, I believed in you and I still do. ’
‘Rosie, I appreciate you saying—’
‘But actually...’ She gave a sad, angry laugh as the thought crystallised in her mind.
‘The thing that actually annoys me beyond all of that. Beyond you pushing me away and racing back to your ex, is that even now, you don’t believe in yourself.
You’re so busy caring what one gallery owner in too-short trousers says that you let that knock you. ’
A slight hardness came to his features. ‘You don’t understand.
When you put your work– your creation, a part of yourself– out there, and people reject it, it.
.. it hurts. It’s not always easy to pick yourself up and see everything in a positive light.
Some of us aren’t built for seeing the rainbows in the world. ’
‘Oh, because that’s what I do, isn’t it?
’ She felt like a firework about to catch light and explode into the air.
Her anger was on the verge of boiling over, tumbling out of her and hitting everything around.
‘I just tootle around looking at rainbows and baby birds and fluffy clouds, thinking how wonderful life is and how lucky I am to be alive. I might try and be positive, but I’m not a robot.
It isn’t always easy for me either, Max.
Don’t you think I get hurt sometimes too?
Having to tell you about the gallery’s decision hurt me as much as it did you.
You hurt me the other day when you pushed me away.
Losing my mum nearly destroyed me.’ He had the good grace to drop his eyes, shame-faced, but she had to get these final words out.
If she didn’t, they’d sit inside her and fester.
‘I was a child when she died and I miss her every damn day. Just because I try and keep my chin up doesn’t mean I’m bulletproof and you know what else? ’
‘What?’ he asked, his chin lifting but his voice trembling.
‘These boat repairs might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The council won’t give me an extension on the d eadline because they sent useless Piet so many letters before he deigned to deliver this one. So it looks like the only thing I can do is pack it all in and move back to England.’
Rosie gulped in a breath on this final word, it all hitting home one more time. Her emotions were spent, and she felt like her favourite old T-shirt. The one that had once been a bright vibrant red and was now faded and worn out. She’d lost her colour, her enthusiasm, and her hope.
‘Isn’t there something we can do?’ His use of the word ‘we’ stung instead of giving her hope.
If there was, she had no idea what. She stood and picked up her glass. ‘I don’t think so. It’s been nice knowing you, Max.’
She knew she sounded melodramatic given that she was going to work at the flower market until the very last moment– until she was forcibly evicted and had no other choice but to get on a plane home– so she’d be seeing him every day for the next few weeks at least. But hey, every girl was allowed a moment of drama now and again.
After sweeping inside and closing the door on him, she pulled the curtains.
The only thing she could do now was enjoy the days she had left until it was time to say goodbye.