We Were on a Break

Chapter 10

10

EMMA

‘Ouch, ouch, ouch.’ My sides are properly aching and I definitely have tears in my eyes.

I haven’t laughed this hard for a long time.

I think I might have been a bit hysterical.

Which would not be surprising.

Because.

Earlier this evening I was effectively told by the man who I have always believed was the love of my life that, after I said you have to sort your life out or we have to split up because I can’t do this wildness any more, he immediately cleaned himself up – immediately – and… stayed away from me. He did not come back. He did not say thank you for the ultimatum and you were right and I love you and let’s be together happily ever after. He stayed away.

That begs some questions.

Like: did he not love me as much as I loved him; did he not love me at all; did he think I was the cause of the wildness and that he needed to stay away? Did he only love me when he was drunk? Did he…

Okay, no, I’m not going there now.

I think I’ll be going there later, when I’m alone.

But now would be a very bad idea because I don’t want to be crying from sadness instead of laughter in front of him.

Callum’s also calming down. He’s just looking at me with a half-smile on his face. I really can’t tell what’s in his mind. Is he thinking about us? Or is he just thinking that that’s the nicest lemon tart he’s ever had and wondering whether his Italian’s good enough to ask for the recipe?

I have no idea. I don’t know anything about him at all. And I didn’t even know him when we were together and I thought we told each other everything and were everything to each other.

I’m so far from laughing now it’s like our mirth happened in a different century. I actually don’t know how I’ve managed to suck my misery inside me during our dinner and hold off on just bawling my eyes out.

I’ve always imagined that perhaps he never did fully get his act together, or that he did but that he was unhappy. I thought alcoholism might have played a part in his struggles. I’m very happy for him, of course, that he was able to improve things so quickly.

But.

It hurts. Very much. That he never got in touch with me again.

Why were we laughing just now, actually? Oh yes. Memories. The most inappropriate song possible for us to have to listen to this evening.

I think it’s time to go. I take my cross-body bag from the back of my chair and put it over my head.

‘I’ll get the bill,’ Callum says.

‘That’s very kind,’ I say very politely. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course.’

We sit there in horrible silence while the bill paying happens, and then stand – still in excruciating silence – to go.

I turn in the direction we came from. Obviously we’re going to walk straight back to the hotel and I’m going to cry a lot and then…

Crap, then we’re going to sit in the camper van together all the way back to England.

Maybe I’ll actually just do what Callum would like and drive as far as possible each day on the fastest route, so that we get back as quickly as possible. Never having to see each other again cannot come too soon for me.

‘Emma.’ Callum’s voice comes from just behind my head and I jump. ‘You wanted to sightsee when you got to Florence. Let’s walk around the centre.’ He comes next to me and holds up his phone. ‘I’ve googled. Here are the Tripadvisor top-ten sights. We could walk round and look at some of the beautiful buildings and go across the Ponte Vecchio.’

I shake my head. ‘That’s very kind, thank you, but I think we should probably just get back. I’m thinking you’re right. We should go straight home as fast as possible. I have a long way to drive tomorrow and I need my sleep.’

‘Emma, no. You can’t cut short your trip because of me.’

I start walking. ‘I can come to Florence another time. It’s totally fine. I’ve been away for ages. I’m feeling kind of homesick anyway now. I actually really just want to get home.’

‘Emma, obviously I don’t want to tell you what you’re thinking or second-guess you. And I don’t want to presume to think that I just landed a difficult-to-hear bombshell on you. But if your change of plans is anything to do with me, please let me change my plans instead. I can switch hotels now. And I can happily stay in Florence until I find different transport. So you can carry on the way you were going before you gave me the lift yesterday.’

I shake my head again. ‘No, I offered you a lift and I am of course happy to carry on.’

I’m not happy. I’m very unhappy.

‘I don’t want a lift any more, then. I’m not going to continue the journey with you.’

Oh. I feel unhappy about that too. I slow my pace while I think.

I don’t want to be the person who consigns him to a week or two in Florence when he needs to get home. And, selfishly, I don’t, I suddenly realise, want to say goodbye to him – probably forever – without having some kind of further proper conversation, because I feel like that’s been hanging over me for the past twelve years. I also, however, do not feel strong enough – ever – to have that conversation, now that I know it will hurt .

I’m also not really going to enjoy my sightseeing any more, because if I’m on my own for hours on end I’m just going to be thinking about Callum the whole time.

One positive thing is that I can’t really be bothered to pretend any more. I don’t think I have any pride left to lose.

‘I don’t feel very happy now,’ I conclude out loud. ‘And I’m not going to feel that happy whether you stay or go. And I don’t really feel like carrying on with the sightseeing aspect of the trip; I just want to go home now. So if you said you wanted to stop travelling in the van with me to be kind or polite, then please continue on with me. Obviously if you said it because you don’t want to travel with me any more, then fair enough.’

There’s a long pause and then Callum says, ‘Emma, I’d like to explain something to you if I may.’

Oh my God .

I think this is it . The conversation. About why he didn’t come back to me. Should I choose to have it.

‘Explain?’ I ask cautiously, while my brain whirrs.

‘Yes. About… us… from my side. If I may? Could we perhaps go for a walk? Not just straight back.’

I make a split-second decision and say, ‘Okay.’

I should let him explain. I’ll regret it forever if I don’t. I don’t need to spend any more time wondering.

And oh my goodness, we’re doing this.

My heart’s racing like nobody’s business now.

There’s a road off to our left and we begin to wander down there. Callum begins to speak.

‘First off,’ he says, ‘I loved you more than words can say. I loved being with you, I loved talking to you, listening to you, walking with you, making love to you. I loved everything about you. I loved that you cared so much about me and tried so hard to make me live in a less self-destructive way. There were so many little things. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear to give yourself time to think. The way you can’t get out of bed in the morning but when you do you throw yourself into your day. The way you talk to everyone. Although that is also scary when you’re travelling alone in Europe. Anyway. I never got a chance to tell you that like that. It all happened so fast at the end.’

‘I didn’t think it was the end,’ I mumble, wondering if it means anything that somewhere in the middle of his gorgeous words he switched from past to present tense.

It’s actually starting to feel like a huge relief that I might finally be able to tell him how I felt, because he was the only person who could ever have understood properly.

‘Nor did I,’ he says.

Oh.

I think I feel my heart physically crack.

We keep walking. Ahead of us there’s a square with some beautiful buildings in it.

I wave my hand around. ‘This is all lovely.’

I don’t have anything to say about our actual conversation.

‘Yep, beautiful. Anyway. If it’s okay, I’d like to explain why I…’ He stops and there’s an annoyingly long pause.

‘Why you…?’ Now my cracked heart’s beating very, very fast.

‘Why I didn’t get in touch again.’

I feel sick. I think I’m genuinely going to throw up.

It was all so awful. He passed his driving test. He got drunk and tried to drive someone’s car. I stopped him. The next day, he proposed. He said he felt like passing his test was a sign that he was moving into the next phase of his life. I wanted so much to say yes but I couldn’t imagine a lifetime of watching him do so many insane things. So I gave him my ultimatum: start drinking sensibly or split up. He promised me he’d get clean and come back to me. And then I didn’t see him again for twelve years.

‘I need to sit down,’ I say very suddenly. We’ve reached the square and I make my way over to a marble statue on a stone plinth. I lower myself onto it and suck in air. We’re in the shade and the plinth is cold under my legs, which helps me get my light-headedness under control.

Callum sits down next to me. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, sorry, I’m fine.’ I suddenly just want to get it over with. ‘So… you?’

‘Yes. The reason that I didn’t get in touch is that I didn’t want to hurt you.’ He’s speaking slowly, as though he’s trying really hard to choose the right words. ‘I felt that I had already hurt you a lot. I felt that you wouldn’t have said what you said if you didn’t care deeply and that it must have hurt a lot to say it. I also knew pretty much immediately that it was the right thing for you to say and I’m very lucky that you did say it. I should thank you for saying it. I thought I’d stop living like an idiot and tell you I’d stopped and that would be that; we’d carry on where we left off. But then I worried that you wouldn’t believe me – that it would sound like empty words – so I felt that I needed to prove myself. That there had to be a period of time that I was sensible for before I got back in touch with you.’

He stops talking and I nod, because I suppose the time thing makes sense.

Then he continues, ‘And during that time I began quite a lot of self-analysis. And obviously, as you know, my family were tricky.’

I nod. His parents basically never really had any time for him and his siblings and when they did pay them any attention it was only when they achieved highly. Callum rebelled against that and his siblings (when I knew them) were obsessed with success (and had the most amazing high-powered jobs, one in medicine and one in the City), which I always thought was as unhealthy for them as Callum’s rebellion was for him.

‘So then I worried that it was me and that I’d somehow destroyed my relationship with my parents and that I’d somehow do that with you and that if I didn’t do it with alcohol and stupidity I’d do it with something else.’

I nod again. I suppose that makes sense in a confusing kind of way.

Then he says, ‘So the micro timeline is that, after you made your ultimatum and walked away, I drafted and then deleted a million messages to you and then sat and thought for a bit. Thinking hurt so I went and got very drunk and at the end of the evening decided to drive myself home. Fortunately, someone called the police while I was still sitting in the driving seat trying and failing to get my keys into the ignition. My parents hired a very good lawyer, who got me off as scot-free as possible, which was to lose my licence but to have no criminal conviction. And I got interested in the legal side of things and decided I’d like to go to law school myself. So that’s how I turned into a corporate lawyer. And, yeah, maybe I was influenced as well by wanting to impress my parents but that’s well and truly in the past.’

He’s silent for a moment while I mumble meaningless words and then he says, ‘You know my parents ended up in a very, very nasty divorce?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. I realise that I’m not at all surprised. They never really seemed to care about each other (or about their children).

‘Yeah. Thanks. Honestly, it affected me way less than it would have done if I’d thought we were a happy family.’ He pauses and then says, ‘Okay, I just heard what I said. That sounds so bitter. I’m not bitter. It’s just… I’m not used to saying this stuff out loud.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For saying it out loud to me now.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I owe you the explanation.’

If I’m honest, I agree, and, while what he just said was genuinely interesting to hear, the big ‘why did you never get back in touch’ question is still unanswered.

‘Are you feeling better?’ he asks. ‘I mean, from when you were feeling faint?’

‘Yes.’

Better but getting really irritated . Just tell me what made you not ever get in touch again.

He stands up and holds his hand out to pull me up.

I put my hand into his and immediately regret it because all I can think is that we used to hold hands and he told me a few minutes ago that he really, really loved me when we were young and now… we’re holding hands. I can feel the strength in his arm as he momentarily takes my weight when I stand up and now my hand is still in his. I’m looking up at him and I just want to drink in everything about him with my eyes. His wide chest. His square chin. The way he looks deeply into my eyes when he’s about to say something important, which I think he is now. His hair’s dark so the few grey ones scattered through are very obvious. I like his new more grown-up look.

His lips curve into a smile and I swallow and smile back at him. I don’t think I could look away if you paid me.

And then I remember. I’m waiting for him to tell me why he never got in touch again after that last horrible conversation.

And my hand is still in his. I snatch it away.

There’s a not-very-nice pause and then Callum clears his throat and says, ‘Sorry.’

I point to a little road on the opposite side of the square, and say, ‘That way?’ in a voice that sounds very high-pitched.

‘Good idea.’ Callum begins to march far too fast for me in my flip-flops.

After a moment he realises that I’m struggling to keep up and slows down.

‘Sorry,’ he says again. ‘I should continue.’

I nod as I trot somewhat pathetically along next to him. He should carry on; I want to hear it all now, even if I’m not going to like it.

He begins again. ‘While I was waiting to see what would happen with the court case, I didn’t want to contact you. I was too ashamed. And by the time it was all sorted, several months had passed, and I’d spent a lot of time thinking. I felt as though I needed concrete proof that I was doing something good with my life. I was also very busy studying and didn’t feel as though I had the time to be a very attentive boyfriend. And I was scared that I’d mess up again somehow. So basically I was too cowardly. I can’t really explain it in hindsight. It was fear. And the more I thought about you, the more I remembered the look on your face when you gave me the ultimatum. You just looked so sad and so hurt, because you’d asked me before, several times, to stop, and I’d said yes and then I’d just carried on. I felt as though I’d let you down then and I gradually got really scared that I’d let you down again and then hurt you again if we got back together. And I kept thinking that maybe it was me, that there was something about me that meant I just wasn’t right for you, or for any serious relationship. And then, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain but I suppose as time went on, life happened, and the more time that elapsed the more I felt as though if we did see each other again and get back together I’d definitely hurt you, and I just… never called.’

I nod. I’m reeling inside my head, and I can’t speak.

‘And one day.’ Callum’s voice is all raspy now. ‘One day, after a long time, someone asked me if I was seeing anyone and I said no, and something inside me clicked into a certainty that it had been so long since I’d seen you that we had de facto broken up, and that was that. And then I… Then I drank more than usual and I met someone else. We split up but…’

I have hot tears forming and I still can’t speak.

Callum isn’t talking any more either.

Eventually, he stops and turns to face me. We’re standing in front of a large and beautiful church.

He reaches for my hands and I let him take them, and this time I’m so numb that his touch doesn’t even really get to me.

‘In summary—’ his continued lawyerliness is beginning to seem very endearing somehow ‘—I loved you, I felt that I’d hurt you, and once I’d sorted my life out I was scared to see you again in case I hurt you again, because I thought I was a disaster waiting to happen, and then once I’d had a brief relationship with someone else it felt as though there was no going back.’

‘You did hurt me,’ I say. ‘And it hurt so, so much that you never came back.’ I swallow and then continue. ‘I met… other people… too. Eventually.’

And I’ve never loved any of them the way I loved Callum.

And I’m scared that I never will.

And suddenly I want to be properly, fully honest.

‘I can’t actually describe how much you hurt me,’ I say. ‘And it was a killer, a complete killer, seeing you yesterday morning.’

I pull my hands away to wipe my face because apparently I have a lot of tears running down my cheeks.

‘Same,’ Callum replies. ‘I was so pissed off I nearly turned round and walked the three miles straight back to the hotel and just hunkered down there for the foreseeable.’

I nod.

‘Except by then we’d already seen each other, hadn’t we,’ he says.

‘Yep.’ I realise that it’s a relief to tell him how bad it was to see him yesterday. Like I’ve always wanted to be able to talk to him about him and my feelings for him, ever since we split. I still haven’t actually told Samira that I’m with Callum, despite us obviously messaging back and forth since she got worried about me being in the forest. I know that when I do tell her she’ll understand, but I don’t think talking to her – or anyone else – can be as good as talking to Callum. Or, equally, as utterly heartbreaking.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Callum says yet again. He visibly takes a deep breath and says, ‘For the sake of full disclosure, I…’

I sniff hard. What? What’s he going to say?

‘You?’ I say when the silence has gone on frustratingly long.

‘It’s difficult,’ he says.

He looks truly tortured. I take pity on him.

‘I do now kind of understand why you didn’t get back in touch,’ I say. ‘Thank you for telling me, for being honest with me.’

‘Yeah, no, I…’ He’s still almost wincing.

‘There’s something I should tell you too,’ I interrupt, not wanting him to feel the full burden of guilt. ‘I missed you for a long time. So long. And because we never split up formally, it was like we were “on a break” but not. I felt for a long time that I would be being unfaithful to you if I dated anyone else. But one day, like you, I just did.’

Callum tries to interject but I’m determined now. I want to tell him.

‘And I did get engaged,’ I say. ‘To someone called Dev. We broke it off a few months ago and that’s why I took this trip. And you were part of me taking the trip. Because when I… split up with him—’ it turns out that I can’t admit to Callum now that he was kind of the reason I broke up with Dev, because when he proposed I realised that I didn’t love him as much as I used to love Callum ‘—he said I was always kind of careful with my decision-making, not very spontaneous, and that always made me think of you. I always used to feel that I was kind of holding you back from your fun in a way, that I should maybe have been less uptight in some ways. Seize the day. And that was kind of what this trip was about.’

I shiver, remembering how I’d thought about Callum then: that, even though it was probably just the first-love phenomenon, it didn’t feel right to marry Dev when Callum was the person who entered my thoughts at that moment. And then after that it was Callum who I couldn’t stop thinking about, not Dev.

‘Oh.’ Callum shakes his head. ‘I know I keep saying it but I’m so sorry. You were perfect when we were together. You weren’t holding me back. You didn’t need to seize the day any more than you already had.’ He looks at me. ‘Have you enjoyed the trip though?’

He has this eager, questioning, eyebrows-raised, eyes-wide-open look, like he can’t bear the answer to be no.

‘Yes. I have.’ The last couple of days, with him, have been kind of tricky and really not what I was expecting, obviously, but yes, I really have enjoyed it.

‘Well… good, then.’

‘Yeah. You know, I think this trip has made me kind of contented, happy. And seeing you has been really good too, actually.’ I realise that overall I do very much mean it. ‘Having this conversation has been great. I feel as though I’ve finally got closure. Thank you. It was very kind of you to tell me that.’

‘Well, no, I…’

‘Honestly, there’s no need to say anything else.’ I smile at him and he presses his lips together for a second and then smiles back. ‘Thank you again.’

‘Really, really stop thanking me,’ he says.

‘Okay.’ I feel suddenly kind of giddy, like I’ve just heard some very exciting and happy news. I feel just lighter . ‘Shall we go and see the Ponte Vecchio?’

Callum hesitates and then smiles again. ‘Good idea. I think we continue down this road and then right.’

As we walk, I say, ‘Obviously I totally understand if you don’t want to continue in the van with me, and maybe you’ll be able to get a train or a coach or something from Florence—’ there’s no sign of flights being back on any time soon according to the news ‘—but if you would like to continue you’re very welcome to come with me. And I can easily go straight back to London so it doesn’t take you too long.’

And then we won’t see each other again, I imagine, but right now I’d be happy to have him along.

‘I’d love to continue with you but please, please don’t change your plans,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’d be very happy to amble across France with you.’

‘You’re saying I amble when I drive?’

‘I mean, yes? It’s like we’re going up the motorway on a very slow-moving and not hugely comfortable sofa?’

‘Rude,’ I gasp, and elbow him hard in his side.

He laughs. ‘You know what, I’m genuinely fond of Miranda now. And, yes, I really would love to continue in the van if that’s alright.’

‘Great,’ I say. And I mean it.