Chapter 17
I was supposed to be getting coffee. One black drip coffee for me.
One flat white for Luca. Luca, who I’d left in a delicious tangle of warm bed sheets with the promise that I’d be right back, the prospect of coffee and freshly baked pastries the only reason he had eventually let me wiggle out from beneath him, reluctantly unhooking my leg from around his hip bone, allowing his wandering fingers to slip from the curve of my waist. But my phone told me that was almost three hours ago.
And that I had five missed calls and two voicemails from Luca.
I’d walked the two streets over to Drew’s Brews as intended, my hands swallowed up by the sleeves of Luca’s sweatshirt, which brushed gently against my bare legs, the skirt of last night’s dress dancing in the breeze.
I’d closed my eyes, angling my face up towards the late morning sun as I stood patiently in the late Sunday morning queue, flashbacks of last night playing on repeat.
Last night.
It had been – well, no single word existed that came close to describing how I’d felt in that moment.
How Luca had made me feel. And I’d felt everything, everywhere, all at once.
My toes curled in recollection as I remembered waking up when it was still dark out to the feeling of Luca’s hand tracing the length of my thigh, past the tiny birthmark by my belly button, the tip of his finger brushing the underside of my breast which appeared to have been moulded to fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.
The way he’d breathed my name against my lips, his tongue doing magical things as I felt the weight of him hovering over me.
A man collided with me on his way out, a wayward elbow catching my arm and sending us both flying.
I saw his shoes first. Brown suede Chelsea boots righting themselves against the uneven cobblestones, a splash of spilt liquid darkening the left toe.
My eyes travelled up his jeans, which were slightly faded in that way that told you they were his favourite pair, overworn and under-washed.
But it was the jumper, navy blue and hoicked up at the sleeves, that had my heart in my mouth.
‘Joe?’ His name tumbled so readily out of my mouth that I realised on some level I must have been expecting, hoping even, to see him today. A pair of unfamiliar green eyes frowned back at me from a glasses-less face.
‘Sorry, love,’ the stranger mumbled in a thick northern accent before hurrying off down the street.
I shuffled forwards in the queue, my mind now racing with a single thought.
When was the last time I’d seen Joe? I’d not seen him yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that.
Had it been .?.?. ? No. What about .?.?.
? No, not then either. I started to panic, sifting back through the events of the past few weeks, my heart beating faster the further back I went.
Aha, on the bus on the way to Luca’s gig.
I’d seen him on the bus on the way to Luca’s gig!
But that was three weeks ago. Surely it hadn’t been that long?
I glanced over my shoulder, searching for Joe’s face in the line of caffeine-hungry millennials that snaked behind me, pressing my face to the window of the shop to see if he was inside.
‘It’s Drew’s,’ I reminded myself quietly, taking a deep, calming breath in through my nose as I scrunched the sleeves of Luca’s sweatshirt into a tight fist. ‘He always shows at Drew’s.’
But he didn’t show by the time I reached the entrance, my foot taking over from the person’s in front to wedge the door open. Nor did he appear when I’d inched to the front of the queue.
‘One black coffee and an oat milk hazelnut mocha with extra whipped cream, right?’
I blinked at the barista, a sharp pain piercing my chest at the sound of mine and Joe’s regular order rolling off her tongue, her hand already reaching for the hazelnut syrup.
Like we were a package deal. Neither making sense without the other.
But I was here buying coffee for another man.
A man who was waiting for me, naked and warm in the bed that not so long ago I used to share with Joe.
The thought made my stomach tighten. Someone sighed impatiently behind me, the barista’s smile fading as I stood frozen to the spot.
‘Umm, no,’ I managed eventually, my voice cracking with the effort. ‘Just a black coffee and a flat white today.’
I had a sudden urge to sit at our normal table in the back, me facing Joe, Joe facing me, like always.
But another couple were already there, mugs to one side, heads bent over The Sunday Times crossword puzzle in a way that screamed routine.
I paid for the coffees and left, but instead of heading back to the flat, my feet took me in the opposite direction, striding purposefully towards the farmer’s market along the seafront.
It was another place that I could always count on Joe appearing, falling into step beside me as we walked up and down the promenade, perusing stalls selling buckets of fresh olives and signs made from old pieces of driftwood that said things like sandy toes & salty kisses.
My skin buzzed with that anxious need to keep moving, panic coursing through my veins like hot, molten lava.
It was busy along the seafront. The sun was out, shining down on the neat rows of stalls that magically appeared along the upper promenade every Sunday, and it had brought half the population of Hove out with it.
I pushed through the crowds, my head snapping this way and that, desperately searching for that familiar mop of sandy-brown hair amidst the kids with butterflies painted on their faces and the couples walking arm in arm at that leisurely Sunday pace, string bags filled with sourdough and olive oil the price of a house deposit swinging from their shoulders.
He’s not here.
I ran my hand through my hair, triggering a flashback of Luca’s fingers twisting their way around the strands at the nape of my neck, coaxing my head back as his lips murmured hot, delicious things against the bare skin between my breasts.
I shook my head, screwing my eyes tightly shut as I tried to push the memory from my mind, to make room for Joe.
What if I never see him again?
I ground my teeth together, my jaw throbbing from the effort of keeping this heart-wrenching pain inside. Hot coffee sloshed down my front as my grip tightened around the takeaway cups, both lids flying off as a brown patch bloomed like a dead rose across the fabric of Luca’s jumper.
And now, somehow, I was here. Sat on the pebbles of Brighton Beach, my dress growing cold and wet beneath me whilst I stared out at the West Pier, as I had a thousand times before.
Only this time I was alone. There was no Joe, camera pressed against his face as he skittered across the stones, the click click click of his shutter as he took photograph after photograph of the burnt-out metal skeleton of a pier.
I never could understand how something so broken, a shell of its former self, could still be standing.
How it could look so beautiful, with its now-useless metal beams standing tall and proud as the mist swirled around them.
‘Come on, Joe,’ I muttered, hugging my knees tightly to my chest as I looked around the empty beach.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly thick with panic.
My eyes stung with tears as I tried to block out the voice inside my head, the one that kept saying it’s your fault he’s not here, you let him fade away.
The voice was so loud that it took up all the space in my head, no room left for anything else.
It was only then that I noticed my tears had turned to sobs, tearing raggedly through me.
The seagulls joined in with my cries, bringing their high notes to the gentle melody of the waves against the shore, and I watched as a bird landed on a stretch of beach.
It pottered around for a moment, its tiny feet performing a rain dance on the wet sand, trying to entice any signs of life to the surface before flying off again, an incoming wave wiping the beach clean.
As if the seagull and its pattering feet never existed.
‘Where are you, Joe?’ I whispered, a single tear rolling down my cheek as I closed my eyes, wishing, willing him to appear.
My phone buzzed against the stones beside me, Luca’s name flashing across the top.
That thing in the pit of my stomach constantly pulling me between the past and the present stretched taut, like the moment of stalemate in a tug of war.
I knew I couldn’t stay on this beach forever, but equally, I didn’t want to leave.
Leaving felt so final, like giving up, and I just wasn’t ready to admit that I might never see Joe again.
And so I waited, watching the sun rise with a casual elegance to its highest point, teetering at its apex in the sky before it ultimately succumbed to its inevitable descent.
My phone buzzed again and I sighed, heaving myself to my feet.
My joints were cold and stiff from sitting for so long, but something else was weighing them down as I trudged slowly back up the beach, something heavy and absolute.
I paused at the bottom of the steps, unable to resist the temptation to glance once more over my shoulder, a fresh wave of disappointment my only reward.
‘Leaving so soon? Personally, I thought I was worth at least five more minutes.’