Part 25 (1/2)
Elise's face fell. ”I don't get it,” she said. ”I can't keep my hands off you, you know that.”
I shook my head. ”It's awesome when we're alone,” I said. ”Then I feel like I'm the most special person in the world.” I sat on the floor, my knees hugged to my chest. ”But you don't want to be seen out with me. That makes me feel like you're ashamed of me or something.”
”You know why.” Elise inhaled deeply. ”We don't need to keep going over it.”
”But when we got together, I told you nothing had to change,” I said. ”But everything's changed.” I looked at her. ”This doesn't feel like a relations.h.i.+p, Elise. It feels like, I don't know!” I buried my head in my hands. ”It feels like an affair with a married person. I love you and I'm desperate to be with you all the time,” I said, ”but it's always on your terms, not mine. It's not fair.”
She looked at me, crestfallen.
”You only come round when you want to,” I said. ”We have s.e.x, it's great, then I suggest we hang out somewhere together and do normal things that couples do, but you don't want to because you're scared.” I took a deep breath. ”Can you see why I'm constantly having a fight with myself?”
”Do you want to end it?” Elise spoke slowly and carefully.
”No, of course I don't,” I said, panicked. ”I just want us to be like we were before we got together, you know? Going out, having a blast. Not hiding ourselves away in my apartment all the time.”
”I don't know if I can give you what you want,” Elise said quietly. ”You knew the score right from the start. Why have you started thinking all this stuff now?”
”I suppose it's just that when I was with Grace...” I began.
”Grace?” Elise's voice rose. ”What's she got to do with anything?”
”It felt different with her,” I mumbled. ”That's all I meant.”
”Better?” Elise asked.
”No,” I lied. ”Not better. Just normal.” I pulled my hands through my hair. ”Probably because she wasn't a star in the biggest soap on TV, who was terrified that her public image would be tarnished if anyone found out she was dating me.” I stopped myself when I saw the look on Elise's face. ”Sorry,” I said, ”that just came out.”
Slowly, and without a word, Elise got to her feet and pulled her trousers back on. She held a hand out to me, getting me to my feet, and watched as I padded over to retrieve my sweatpants.
”Everything you've said is true, though, isn't it?” she said.
I pulled my sweatpants back up over my hips and nodded slowly.
”So where does this leave us?” Elise held her hand out to me and I went obediently back to her, letting her draw me in to her again.
I melted into her arms, the familiar feeling of comfort and security enveloping me. ”It leaves us still without pizza,” I said.
”I do want to be with you, you must believe me when I tell you that.” Elise wrapped her arms tighter around me. ”Do you trust me?”
”I do,” I murmured into her hair. ”Always.” I leant up and kissed her cheek. ”Now ring for the pizza, will you? I'm ravenous.”
Elise left again early the next morning, saying something about how her staying over was becoming a habit, and about how she was worried that her neighbours in her apartment block would notice she wasn't there as often as she used to be. I didn't argue with her, but now she'd gone, I was alone and lonely. I wandered to my window, shrugging my arms tight around me. Elise's hoodie was still hanging off the sofa where it had been flung earlier. I put it on, zipping it up and wrapping it around myself, loving how it held her scent, knowing that it was the closest thing I had to her right now, and that it would have to be my reminder of her until I saw her again.
Hugging her hoodie tight around me, I stared out over the river, looking across town, watching people scurrying to and fro on the streets below me, wis.h.i.+ng one of those people was Elise coming back to see me. A fine rain was falling. Spots of water gathered silently on the windowpane, pausing for a moment before pooling together, then quickly slithering down the gla.s.s. I watched the soft rain for a while, feeling confused and lonely and scared and a thousand other wretched emotions, wis.h.i.+ng there was someone with me in my apartment right at that moment that I could talk to about everything.
Instinctively I picked my phone up, punching in a number. ”Bella?”
”Hey you!”
I immediately felt better at the sound of Bella's familiar, warm voice at the other end.
”What you up to?” I hugged my arm across my chest and cradled my phone under my chin, reaching down to pick up two cups that were still on the coffee table. I stared at the one Elise had drunk from, just half an hour earlier, and wished again that she was still with me.
”Well, it's Sunday, so that means I'm doing precisely nothing!” Bella laughed. ”Tom's taken the boys to the football, so I'm putting up my feet, home alone.” She paused. ”You okay?”
”Yeah, I think so.” I wandered into the kitchen, putting the cups into the sink and running some water over them. ”Not really, Bella, if I'm honest.” I'm not sure what it was that made me say that, but it's hard to tell someone you're okay and sound convincing when inside you know you're not okay, isn't it?
”You want to come over and have a girly afternoon?” Bella asked. ”Football doesn't start until four, so we'll be alone until at least eight tonight. If you want to talk, I mean. No chance of being disturbed.”
Bella knew I needed to talk, but then, I knew that she'd know that. After all, that's why I'd rung her in the first place, wasn't it? ”Would you mind?” I asked, already walking to the door and fetching my keys.
”Of course not.” Bella spoke gently. ”It's what mothers are for, isn't it?”
I arrived at Bella's, a neat Edwardian terraced house a half-hour train ride from London, around forty minutes after our phone conversation. Although I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say to her, I did know that I needed to speak to someone about how I was feeling about Elise and me. Bella was just the person I needed to see to both cheer me up and give me some much-needed motherly advice.
Her house was a scene of chaos-as it had been on the few other occasions I'd been there-but I would have expected nothing less. As I picked my way through an untidy hall, cluttered with muddy football boots, wellies, school bags and at least three cats (there could have been more, but to be honest, it was difficult to see anything through the mess), I suddenly wondered if I should have told Elise I was coming to see Bella, in case she went back to my apartment and couldn't get hold of me.
The thought left my head as quickly as it had entered it as Bella ushered me into her large lounge, shooing yet another cat from the sofa and hastily sweeping some loose fur from the seat before gesturing to me to sit down. I plonked myself down on the sofa, feeling-as I always did-instantly relaxed in Bella's company. While her disorganised and messy house wasn't especially my kind of place, I had to admit there was something comforting about the untidiness and chaos and Bella's wide, friendly smile that made any visitor feel instantly at home.
I sat as Bella made coffees in her kitchen, listening to her clattering cups around and occasionally speaking in a sing-song voice to what I presumed-hoped-was a cat, then pulled myself up straighter as she returned to the lounge with two cups clasped in one hand and a packet of biscuits in the other.
”You sounded down on the phone.” Bella handed me a coffee and sat on a chair to the side of me. ”Not your usual chirpy self.”
I reached over for the offered packet of biscuits and took one, biting into it and wiping a crumb from my chin. ”Just a bit low today, tha.s.sall,” I said. ”Fancied some company.” I paused. ”You didn't mind me coming over, did you?”
Bella laughed loudly. ”Good grief, no!” she said. ”All I had planned for today was a pile of ironing the size of Mount Everest and, let's face it, who wants to do housework on a Sunday?”
I flushed, remembering Elise's quip about housework at weekends and how my ch.o.r.es had eventually ended up being abandoned...
”Actually, who the heck wants to do housework on any day, come to that?” she said, her voice jolting me from my thoughts of Elise. Bella turned and looked at me. ”Enough about me,” she said. ”What about you? What's up?” She leaned forwards in her chair. ”More to the point, why are you hanging out with an old fossil like me when you have a stunning girlfriend you could be hanging out with?”
”You're forty-eight, Bella.” I took another bite of my biscuit. ”Hardly an old fossil.”
”So why aren't you with Elise today?” Bella asked, offering a biscuit crumb to a waiting cat, then tutting when it decided it didn't want it and dropped it on the floor. She kicked the crumb away with her foot. ”I'm a.s.suming that's why you're here. To talk about her?”
”I'm having the dilemma of all dilemmas,” I began.
”Oh, I hate those.” Bella waved a hand in the air. ”I usually just have a gla.s.s of wine and hope that it'll disappear.”
”I don't think it's going to be that easy with this one,” I said glumly.
”You know what you tell me will go no further than these four walls, don't you?” Bella said. ”If you want to offload-and I'm guessing you do-then you know you can talk to me, okay? A problem shared and all that.”
”I know,” I said, staring down into my cup.