Page 7 of You Belong With Me

‘What time are you leaving?’

‘Er. Pick up at half five in the morning.’

‘Pfffft.Take another chance on me, we can make it work and see loads of each other! Oh, wait, actually that was a one-night stand – there’s my luxury sedan transfer to Heathrow. Toodle-oo, bitch, thanks for letting me rearrange your guts,’ Edie said, listening to the laughter vibrating in his ribs.

‘You’re gross.Four-night stand. My timings would be better if I’d planned to come round yesterday instead of having suddenly reached my absolute limit in missing you.’

Edie was glowing again. She wouldn’t have guessed it was spontaneous. Bloody actors.

‘You did pretty well to find a florist’s open on Christmas Day then?’

‘No comment. Some perks to being the sort of prick who has a personal assistant. I should go and see my family when I can get out of this bed and apologise for Brexiting their Christmas Day. Do you want to visit? I could suggest going out to dinner? There’s not tons of privacy if you stay, but no different to here.’

True that. Edie hoped what they’d imagined was stealthy quiet actually had been. Luckily, Meg slept like she’d been entombed. She’d be at work now, an early shift at the homethat ended by lunchtime. Meg could be a salty customer, but she’d found her calling as a care worker, and Edie was very proud of her.

‘I promised today I’d go on a walk round Wollaton Hall with my sister and Nick and Hannah, when Meg’s shift ends. Feels a bit shabby sayingoh, I’ve got a better offer.’

As was the way of life’s complex psychosocial web over thirty, the walk wasn’t simply a walk. It was keeping Nick busy on a day he couldn’t see his young son, Max. It was something Hannah’s mum could no longer do with her MS. It was brightening Meg having to work holidays.

‘Do you want to come along? Then we can go to dinner at your parents’ tomorrow night?’ Edie said.

‘Great. I’ll head back and meet you there later.’

‘Sounds good, apart from the saying goodbye at dawn in three days bit,’ Edie said.

‘The way I see it, the agony of parting was considerably worse when the idea was we’d never see each other again.’

‘I didn’t say never – I said never say never.’

For the first time since Elliot had been here, the temperature in the room fell by a few degrees.

After a moment, he said: ‘The only thing that spooks me about you is the way you were so matter-of-fact about ending it. It was, hands down, the most painful thing to ever happen to me, and I didn’t see it coming. The memory of that conversation was the number one inhibitor to me trying again. The only way I could make sense of your steely certainty was that itwasn’tas painful to you. I thought we were at least going to agonise about how to make it work. But no.’

Edie gathered thatI’ve thought about nothing else but you since I last saw youdidn’t mean all the thoughts were positive.

‘… I didn’t come back because I thought I had a good chance,’ Elliot said. ‘I’d decided I’d take any chance.’

After the dizziness and declarations of the previous day, she could see his point. He’d had to have enough optimism for both of them, both times.

Edie took a deep breath that gave her a sharp little pang. ‘I think you’ve confused my superficial coping mechanisms and capacity for emotional self-harm for a lack of giving a shit about a situation. Easily done. I fool myself, too.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I wasn’t blasé about ending it with you. Not at all. If it came across that way, it’s because my control was for my self-respect and your benefit. I was trying to make it less difficult. My friends were put on notice that whenever paparazzi photos of you with your new girlfriend dropped, I’d need a whole weekend of palliative care. Deliveroo McDonald’s nugs and six bottles of Whispering Angel. Ask them. It was called Operation Crankshaft.’

‘Why Crankshaft?’

‘It was the military code name for bin Laden.’

‘Wow, thanks. Am I the terrorist?’

‘The terror chieftain of my heart, and a mission I probably wouldn’t survive.’

Elliot laughed, but the mood was still clouded. Flattery about jealousy wasn’t enough.

‘My boss once said I don’t want good things to happento me,’ Edie continued. ‘Subconsciously. He might be right.’

‘Why not?’ Elliot said.

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