Chapter Twenty-Five
Allie
After dinner, I take what feels like the longest, steamiest, soapiest shower I have ever taken.
And the whole time in the glass cubicle, a watermelon and coconut scent washing away the salt and sulphur, I think of Milo.
I think of that moment in the common room, the way he’d said, softly, ‘Before we leave.’ I think about the last few days.
I think about the way he kissed me and how it felt like home.
The way he read to me back then. Bunty’s.
Ice packs. Ankle baths. Holding me on a cliffside.
All of it amalgamates into one glowing orb.
And I don’t know what on earth to do with it.
I take myself to my room, and although I am now lying down in my bed, soft mattress and clean, brushed cotton sheets, I feel rigid. Uncomfortable. Like I’m a magnet walking the wrong way from the thing I am most drawn to in the world.
I stare at the ceiling.
Is this it?
Is this . . . falling in love? How do people continue to walk around like sane human beings while this is happening to them?
You’re telling me, I want to say to some sort of authority, that people experience this and then have to go into work?
They have to get an eyebrow wax, go and do a food shop while they feel like they’re being reborn and tortured all at once?
There should be some sort of law against it.
You should be allowed to pace in agony and talk for hours to your friends, unencumbered and without responsibility.
You should be able to play Spotify Love playlists and look for philosophical answers.
They should give you annual leave for falling in love.
I sit up in bed.
Milo is leaving tomorrow.
Milo’s leaving.
He’s leaving, and once he has, there’re no more planes until next week.
He’s leaving, and I have to stay.
And when he leaves, do I really – really – want it to be forever?
I know he didn’t leak the messages. Don’t I?
I know he did the stupid TV show and magazine covers and memes because, like me, he was heartbroken. He wanted his say; a reclaiming of control over a situation he had no part in. Like I did.
Maybe the real us doesn’t look like I think it does. Who says it has to be photos and spotlights?
I know the real Milo is the Milo who looked after me in that cabin.
The real Milo kisses me like he’s savouring every second, folding it away, slotting it like a note, in his memory.
The real Milo reads to me until I fall asleep.
The real Milo celebrates what I do. He remembers it all, retains it, has made it important to him. He’s here.
What’s the alternative? To live a life not worth watching?
I jump up and push through my bedroom door, walk fast down the corridor towards his and Jameson’s room. A text message sound dings distantly somewhere – ah. It’s six. The internet can be used and radio silence, lifted, just for two hours. The mad clamour for a little digital respite.
We’ll have to meet Iris and Jameson in the computer room soon, but until then, there’s still time.
I knock on the door.
Three hard knocks.
‘Hold up,’ comes Milo’s voice. ‘I’m just . . . getting some pants on.’
It makes me smile. It makes me blush. It makes excited heat zip through me. This makes no sense. This makes no sense. At all. But, somehow, it makes all the sense in the world. What I feel makes sense. And I can’t have him leave forever. I cannot let this be the last time I see Milo Ford.
Milo throws opens the door. His long wavy hair clumps in wet chunks, like thick blades of grass. He’s topless and wearing grey jogging bottoms, with a black cord of a necklace around his tanned neck, the sort a surfer wears. He is – objectively – gorgeous.
‘Hey.’ He smiles widely. ‘Sorry, I . . . just showered and I’m enjoying some kinda naked heater action? It’s good. Really recommend.’
I say nothing. I now feel totally frozen by the sight of him.
And by a knowing that regardless, Milo is .
. . that person. My person. A person that will forever be a story of mine.
These are the moments people write love stories about.
Tragedies. Agony aunt letters. Love songs.
Heartbreak songs for that matter. And I’m not even sure what comes next for me.
A tragedy or love story. But right in this moment, not finding out is simply not an option.
‘Wanna come in?’ he asks.
I nod. ‘Yes, please.’
He whips away a T-shirt and a wet towel from his bed.
‘Take a seat,’ he says. ‘And I’ll, um . . .’ He looks around. ‘Fix us absolutely nothing.’
I laugh, slowly sit down. Beneath me, the mattress springs squeak.
‘From the man who made me dinner and an ankle bath out of nothing but sheer will?’
He smiles, a wonky boyish smile. ‘’Fraid so, Captain. I can only work with what I’ve got, and what I’ve got here is . . . less than minimal.’
The air is thick between our bodies, like heavy static. I fidget on the bed. Stiff limbs and tight breaths. Milo stands, eyes on me, hands on lean, tanned hips.
‘So. Tomorrow.’
He releases a long breath, and it ruffles his hair. ‘Tomorrow,’ he says. His voice is low and croaky again, and there’s something sexy about it. I think it reminds me of his bedtime voice. That deep, gruff, familiar sound that kept me company, through the phone . . .
Milo carefully lowers himself down next to me. He draws a big, heavy breath in and I meet his eyes. His Adam’s apple contracts in his neck. I can smell him, and the man smells incredible. Apples. That spicy, intense deodorant. That smell that is totally Milo’s warm, shower-dappled skin . . .
‘Allie, I don’t want to leave you,’ he says, finally.
My entire body stiffens.
‘You might not want to hear this, or you might be apprehensive or suspicious that I’m saying this,’ he speaks carefully, ‘but – I mean it. I don’t want to leave you.
Can’t. And the truth is. I’ve never been the same.
Since you. Like . . .’ He laughs. ‘After all of it. The mess, the stupid mistakes, the different versions of myself I’ve had to shed since .
. . what hasn’t changed is that I have never, ever gotten over you. ’ He looks up at me. ‘Come with me.’
‘Leave with you?’ I feel disorientated. I came here to tell him how I feel and hadn’t quite expected this – a solid, clear proposition.
‘Yeah. Just – come with me tomorrow.’
I laugh. ‘I would love to, Milo, but I can’t. I . . . have things to do here for the next three weeks . . .’
‘Then meet me in three weeks,’ he says, softly.
He takes my hand, gently, envelops it between his.
‘I’ve actually got an awards thing? I’m up for one.
Best Male Lead. For a play I was in on Broadway.
They say there’s a good chance I’ll get it which .
. .’ He looks up and meets my eyes. ‘Come with me.’
‘Milo, that’s amazing.’
‘Be there with me,’ he says, almost whispering. ‘Please.’
The beat after the please feels heavy. A ‘what if’ balancing in my palm. Me. At an awards ceremony? Crowds and cameras and social media and thousands of judging eyes. With Milo. Could I? Could I? Right here, in an arctic research station, it feels absurd such a thing awaits him.
‘Really? God, I don’t know. What would I . . . How does it all work? Where?’
He shrugs. ‘Manhattan, Four Seasons. The fourteenth, 4 p.m. All the fours. Only reason I remembered.’ He gives a low, almost bashful laugh. ‘It’s black tie, but, personally, I’m requesting these pyjamas . . .’ He thumbs the fabric of my sleeve, fingers resting at the skin on my wrist.
‘I . . . I don’t know what to say.’
‘I know.’ He swallows. ‘And listen, there’s no pressure. You know that. But – this can’t end here.’
‘Milo—’
‘I know you want to say I’m crazy and too much shit has happened. But today I had this realisation.’
‘Milo . . .’
‘That I am mostly always something to everyone,’ he says. ‘I’m so rarely just me to someone. Someone who sees me as just Milo. I can be a meal-ticket. An ass. A story. A commodity. An asshole. But so rarely just me to someone. But I am with you, Allie. With you, I’m not something, I’m me.’
‘Milo.’
‘Don’t say it.’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I was going to say I don’t know how this will work, or what will come next, or what I’m even doing.’
‘No and I neither do I, but—’
‘I don’t care.’ And we both say that at the exact same time.
In perfect synchrony. And then we laugh.
A laugh that means ‘are we really doing this?’ and ‘what’re we even doing?
’ and ‘I’ve missed you’ and ‘I’m falling in love with you’ and ‘I’ve never been so scared’ and ‘I’ve never been so hopeful’.
Then our lips are colliding.
And we’re kissing.
It’s hotter, hungrier, than that night in the cabin, but slow, like he’s savouring me; remembering me. His hand holds the side of my face, thumb hovering at my chin. I pull myself closer to him, lay a hand on his hard, shower-damp chest.
‘God, Allie . . .’ he whispers into my mouth, hot and wet, his tongue touching mine, slow and deft, and I feel everything. I pull back and hold his face. His beautiful face. And I drink it in. This Milo is real. He has to be.
‘Don’t ever stop kissing me,’ I whisper to him, before pressing my mouth against his again.
‘Now or ever?’ he smiles into my mouth.
And I take the last step, to fly or fall.
‘Ever,’ I say.