Page 42 of Date with Destiny

I nod slowly and he nods too, encouraged by my agreement.

‘See, I thought I was fine, even then. I laughed it off and cheered you up, and then I went off to get some work done.’ He pauses. ‘But I couldn’t focus. What you said kept going around and around in my brain. I started getting more and more freaked out. And I was meant to be going on my stag do the next week and suddenly that was terrifying, too. I started packing and kept finding myself putting things I didn’t need into my suitcase. My old teddy, mementoes, stuff I definitely didn’t need for a weekend in Amsterdam.’ Hisbreath is coming out in ragged short bursts. ‘And then, when you went to work that Wednesday, I found myself packing up the rest of it. I couldn’t stop myself.’ He sounds like he might cry. ‘And then I left.’ He throws his hands up in the air, like he was helpless in all of it.

And I feel sorry for him.

I don’t feel angry, I feel sad. He’s clearly genuinely devastated by all this. He hurt me so badly and made awful choices that made everything so much worse than they had to be. I want to be angry with him, but I don’t have it in me, I just feel sad that all of this has happened. I feel sad that heletall of this happen when he didn’t have to.

He looks at me now, waiting.

‘Well, that’s what I wanted to say,’ he hesitates, still waiting for me to say something. ‘I guess I better go,’ he says limply after another minute.

‘OK,’ I reply simply. And then, because I cannot stop myself: ‘I get it, I understand.’

He looks up at me with shining eyes. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ I say, trying to smile. In this moment, making him feel better, letting him off the hook – I hate myself.I hate myself.

Because Idon’tget it, I don’t understand. I can see he is upset and I feel for him, but I still don’t understand why and how he could do all that to me. He did all of this. He let all this awfulness happen,knowingwhat it would do to me. He ripped apart my life and my heart, and he put his own fears ahead of how much it would destroy me.

He could’ve talked to me, he could’ve been honest at any stage of this, and he chose not to be. He chose to be scared and cowardly instead of being honest, knowing full well how much worse it would make everything for me.

‘Thank you, Gin.’ His voice is full of emotion and I smile at him as nicely as I can.

I hate myself. I hate this! I hate that I’m still trying to make other people feel better in a moment like this; still putting their hurt ahead of my own. I am a pathetic loser.

I picture how Myfanwy would react in this moment. She would shout and scream and tell him the full extent of how much he’d hurt her. She’d order him out of the house and out of her life, calling him a bunch of cool rude names. She wouldn’t feel sorry for him or pity him. She’d put her own pain ahead of his self-inflicted agonies.

But I can’t.

I walk out with him to a seemingly empty hallway, but I know with absolute certainty that Celeste is within earshot. And probably eyeshot too. We stand together in silence, face-to-face at the top of the stairs and I think aboutourhallway, back in our old flat. Someone else will be living there by now. There will be another person or maybe another couple in there. They’ll stand like this in that hallway, in what was once our hallway, talking about their day or kissing or arguing. Maybe they’ll want to paint the walls, like we did. Maybe they’ll have more imagination than us. We went with an ordinary, boring white. Cotton white, the tinsaid. But it was an ordinary boring, cotton white that we chose together.

‘I wish…’ he trails off, looking at me with intense longing.

He doesn’t continue and I don’t ask him what he wishes. If he wants to say what I think he wants to say, I’m not sure I can hear it.

Do I wish it too? Everything I’ve been through since he left me, everything I’ve done and realized – would I wish all of that away to go back?

A big part of me still wants him. Desperately. There’s no denying I still love him. He’s the same handsome and fun Daniel I wanted to be with forever. He still has an energy that can so easily brighten up a room. And getting back together would solve everything, wouldn’t it? I could get out of Celeste’s house and we could get a new flat. We’d get those two dogs, Kirstie and Phil. We could have the life I envisioned for myself, together.

We could have our lives back and forget about those six silly predictions that have taken over my life this year.

‘Can we – can I…’ He pauses, his eyes searching for mine. ‘Can I see you again? Soon?’ he pleads, taking my hands in his.

My hand crackles at the touch of his skin. There is so much warm, comforting familiarity there. I look up at him and for a moment I think he will kiss me.

It’s too much and I take a step away, letting his hands drop away from mine.

‘I need a bit more time, Daniel,’ I say simply. I don’t wantto hurt him but I don’t know if I can forgive him for any of it, never mind everything. I don’t know if I could ever forget that he left me the way he did, right before the wedding, without a word. He hurt me so badly and left me to go through everything on my own. I don’t know if we can get back to where we were, or anywhere near it.

‘I understand,’ he nods, hope still lighting his eyes. ‘But I’ll be in touch, if that’s OK? Thank you so much for seeing me again.’ He moves closer again and it sets something off in me, low down in my stomach. I really do want him to kiss me, I realize, so deeply disappointed in myself. I thought I had more strength of character than this. How can my body be so ready to forgive and forget everything he did, so easily? But it’s not reallymereacting, not my brain, not the me that gets the final say. Just because parts of my body still fancy and want Daniel, it doesn’t matter. My head is in control, not my heart – or any other body parts.

I walk him to the door and close it on him as he turns for a hug. I know too well that my body parts might well win the day if we touch again.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The door to the store jingles, snapping me out of my daydream.

I was thinking about the woman outside our house. I saw her again this morning. She was just standing out there, her top half visible above the wooden fence at the front. I watched her for a few minutes as she stood there, looking at the house. At one point she seemed to be looking directly into the kitchen where I was, so I hid.

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