If.
‘It’s been lovely. Just what I needed. A holiday romance.’
‘We both know it’s more than that. You’re not the type for a quick fling. Life’s too short, Anna. You know that. Don’t let him slip through your fingers.’
‘It’s a rebound. I should have been married now.’ But she knew me better than that.
‘Anna.’ Nell waited until I put the mascara wand back in its tube. My gaze met hers. ‘I never once saw you look at that tosser the way you look at Adam. It’s the first time I’ve seen you smile properly since you lost your dad.’
In the mirror her eyes glistened with tears. Mine did too.
Dinner was paella for old times’ sake. During the meal I turned over Nell’s words in my mind. Should I fight for Adam? For us? I just didn’t know if he felt the same. He was quieter than usual on our walk to the cove. We both were.
‘Anna,’ he said as we reached the fence. ‘I’ve got something for you. For us.’ He pulled a padlock out of his pocket.
‘A love lock!’
‘A friendship lock.’ He said and then I understood. He was letting me go. Disappointment was a bitter pill but I forced a smile, imprinting our names upon the padlock before clicking it onto the fence. I felt him watching me. I raised my head. He was standing in front of a backdrop of sea. The setting sun casting a burned orange halo around his head. No matter what, I would never forget him. No matter what happened tomorrow and everything after this August, I still had this. Him. Now. I was going to savour every last painful minute. It wasn’t an evening for sadness. One thing I’d learned during my time with Adam was that it felt good to be happy. We’d laughed so much together and I was grateful for that. Suddenly I was thankful for the time we’d had, the time we still had, rather than dwelling on the ending of us.
‘Last one on the beach buys breakfast tomorrow at the airport,’ I called out, racing ahead, trailing my joy behind me like a kite.
Once I’d let him catch me, we sat drinking cheap wine that tasted like vinegar. As the sun dipped and the sky darkened, I was comfortably drunk.
We lay entwined, my fingers creeping under his T-shirt, feeling the softness of his stomach. Tracing the birthmark on his forearm that resembled a map. Wanting to remember it all.
Everything.
Eventually, we dozed on the damp sand. Our bodies always tangled together; even when we rolled over, we automatically adjusted ourselves so we were never apart. His hand on my hip. My arm stretched backwards, touching his thigh.
Adam was still asleep when I woke up. I studied him. Committing his features to memory, an image I could revisit at any time.
The pale sun rose, diluting the darkness, threading pink and gold through the muted sky as night leached silently into day.
Our last day.
Time to say goodbye.
Chapter Eight
Adam
The driver hefted our suitcases into the coach hold. I took a last, lingering look at the hotel. Its whitewashed facade, the brightly coloured flowers in terracotta pots. It didn’t seem possible I’d been here for two weeks. I could barely remember the first four days without Anna. My holiday started when she had arrived.
It felt like my life had started when she had arrived.
I watched her climb onto the coach with Nell, and I followed with Josh. Already there seemed a distance between us. If my last memory of us had been me watching her as she had gazed in wonder at the rising sun, it would have been a lovely memory to hold on to.
The airport was light and bright and full of too many people. We queued for check-in. We queued for passport control. We queued for coffee. Nobody was hungry.
We sat, the four of us, until the tannoy announced the gate was open for me and Josh.
‘Time to go, Ad.’ Josh stood, scraping his chair back. We all rose and then there was a flurry of elbows and noses that bumped as we hugged and kissed, wishing each other a safe trip.
‘It doesn’t have to be goodbye,’ Nell unexpectedly whispered into my ear.
‘Adam. We need to shift,’ Josh said but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. What had Nell meant? Had Anna said something?
The desire to sweep Anna into my arms and declare eternal love was overpowering. I could feel Josh glaring at me and I knew what he was thinking.
He was thinking I was a twat.
‘Anna…’
Her eyes met mine. Her lashes coated with unshed tears. There was nothing I could say to make it easier.
The realization that I would never again feel the shape of her name on my tongue made my throat close.
I couldn’t let her go.
I wouldn’t.
The announcer was calling for us to board but it sounded so far away because now the world was only made up of her and me. Josh was swatting our boarding passes against his thigh impatiently, but everything felt inconsequential.
Everything but her.
The thought that I could stand back and watch her walk out of my life seemed as ludicrous as trying to fight against the tide, so instead I let go of rational thought and allowed myself to sink into the possibility of what might be.
I took her hand.
‘I’d like to see you. Again. I’d like to see you again very much.’ My voice cracked with nerves. ‘What I’m trying to say is that this should be the end but I don’t want it to be. The end, I mean.’
‘But what about your plans? Travelling?’ She searched my eyes for clarity.
‘The world will still be there if I don’t go for another month, another year even. Or you could come with me? It would be an adventure.’
I held my breath while I waited for her answer.
Chapter Nine
Anna
The heat hit me. I climbed out of the air-conditioned coach, jealousy twisting in my gut as a clutch of new arrivals spilled pasty and hopeful from the airport, exclaiming how gorgeous the weather was. It was unfair to the other tourists to wish that it was raining but it would have felt fitting. As though some higher force greater than Adam and me was feeling the same sorrow I felt. But above us blue skies stretched lazily; the only black cloud was the knowing it had come: the inevitability of goodbye.
We perched on hard chairs, our carry-on luggage shoved under the table, and sipped at bitter coffee.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. The past ten days had been the best ten days of my life. The thought that my time with Adam, which had felt like everything to me, might someday fade to nothing was excruciating.
The tannoy called for Adam and Josh to board. He stood. Soon he’d be walking away from me. In my head I tried out the idea of a life without him but it was too painful. I blinked back unshed tears. I wouldn’t cry.
I wouldn’t.
There was a round of hugs. Kisses. And then something else.
Amongst the symphony of airport sounds – the tinny speakers, the wheeling of suitcases, the whine of tired children – I heard it. The whisper of possibility.
‘I’d like to see you. Again,’ Adam said. ‘I’d like to see you again very much.’ His palm was damp in mine. ‘What I’m trying to say is that this should be the end but I don’t want it to be. The end, I mean.’
‘But what about your plans? Travelling?’ Did he mean after he’d returned? I wasn’t sure.