Page 12 of You Were Always the One

Her face changes. ‘I’m a cancer care nurse.’

I get it – completely. It’s the perfect job for her. ‘I’m so pleased,’ I say. ‘I bet your patients love you.’

She smiles. ‘I love it,’ she says simply. ‘My patients are amazing. They inspire me every day.’ Then she rests her head in her hands, her eyes gazing into mine. ‘I shouldn’t say this. But I’ve so missed talking to you.’

My heart seems to flip flop as she says that. ‘Me too,’ I say huskily. ‘You really shouldn’t look at me that way,’ I say, half-jokingly.

‘Like this?’ She pulls a face, a comical look.

Jesus. I’m as lost as I ever was. Positively floundering, in every sense. Meanwhile, here in front of me is this woman. My home. But I can’t say that. Jesus. I shouldn’t even be thinking that.

‘What about you?’ she asks. ‘What do you do?’

‘You are looking at a published author,’ I say, watching her eyes widen.

‘That’s brilliant, Riggs. It’s what you always wanted.’ She smiles. ‘What have you written? And how many? I want to buy them!’

I frown, trying to think which of them I’d like her to read. When I tell her the title, she makes a note, shaking her head.

‘I still can’t believe you’ve done this!’

After lunch, we head for the park. The sky has clouded over and as we walk, the first spots of rain start to fall.

‘Shit.’ They rapidly intensify; this isn’t what I had in mind for our first sort of date. Except this isn’t a date, I remind myself. We’re just two old friends, catching up. ‘Let’s head for the trees.’

We hurry across the grass to a clump of cherry trees covered in blossom. As we stand underneath, petals drift into Holly’s hair. Picking them out, I have an overwhelming urge to kiss her.

‘Kind of weird, isn’t it?’ Reaching out a hand, I gently stroke a lock of hair off her face. ‘You and me, our paths crossing again – like somehow, we’re meant to be together.’ In the silence between us, my heart is soaring. Having missed our chance the first time around, is there a reason we’ve been brought back together? ‘What happened to us?’ I say, suddenly serious.

Her eyes are wide as she turns to look at me. And it’s like the years have been stripped back. ‘I don’t know.’ She glances towards the rain. ‘It was after I was ill – remember I had food poisoning? You ended up going to that bloody party. I suppose that was when I knew we wanted different things. After that…’ She’s silent for a moment. ‘This is going to sound so shallow, Riggs. But I felt like we were kids. We were fun… But I wanted to grow up. To have a home, and a family. I suppose I couldn’t see us doing that together. It was horrible, leaving you. I was hoping…’ She breaks off. ‘Never mind.’

I remember Holly was really ill; how I was selfish enough to go to the party, when I should have stayed with her. ‘Go on,’ I say.

She stares into the distance. ‘I suppose a part of me wondered if my leaving would make you try to persuade me to change my mind. But you didn’t. It told me all I needed to know.’

‘Ouch.’ If only she knew how wrong she was. ‘I wanted to,’ I say. I’d battled with myself not to go running after her. ‘I thought you’d made a decision.’ I stare at her. ‘What if I had? Come after you, I mean?’

Her face is troubled. ‘I don’t know.’

I sigh. OK, if we’re being honest, I was a bit terrified of us. Not of Holly, though. It was the intensity of what I felt. The thought of forever, rather than living in the eternal moment. And it’s still here. Powerful enough that I have to tell her. ‘I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but I always loved you, Holls,’ I say tentatively. ‘I loved the way you made me feel.’ I put my cards on the table. I mean, what do I have to lose? ‘You felt like a wave, Holls. A beautiful, barrelling surfer’s wave. Only I didn’t have a board. I wasn’t ready.’ I’m fully expecting her to laugh at my terrible attempt to be poetic.

But when she looks at me, there are tears in her eyes. ‘Pathetic,’ she says, trying not to smile. ‘Sorry. That’s simply not good enough.’

‘I loved you.’ I hold up my hands. ‘What more can I say? We should have worked things out.’

Holly gazes at me. ‘But we didn’t.’

Holy fuck, I’m thinking as I drive home. Then simultaneously, Thank you, universe. For the rain, for the cherry blossom, for bringing Holly back into my life.

I feel like a kid: my heart is singing, my mind in overdrive. But it all grinds to a halt – that needle scratching on vinyl again – as I park outside the house and come back down to earth. It doesn’t matter how I feel. Holly has a life. The reality is this is going nowhere.

5

HOLLY

After seeing Riggs, I can’t stop thinking about him, my mind filling with memories of that afternoon together. The rain, the cherry blossom. The closeness of him. His words: What happened to us?

It was just a moment, Holly, I tell myself. But the trouble is, it felt like so much more, while it’s confirmed it hasn’t gone away, the connection between us. But maybe that’s what happens, when you’ve had what we had. Maybe it never will. But I’ve always believed love is elemental. Maybe that’s how I feel about Riggs. Love is a force we have no control over; the way the moon exerts its pull on the tides.