Page 79 of Weekends with You

“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said. “This wasn’t how any of it was supposed to go.”

“You did warn me that you lot were a bit of a mess,” he said. “Seems par for the course after all.” That was a fine thing for me to say, but hearing it from an outsider made me defensive in a way I didn’t have time to entertain. One more feeling would have put me over the edge, so it was best to let it go.

“Let me at least walk you out,” I said, mostly because I had nothing else to say. There was no salvaging this, and I was as much to blame as Henry.

“Ah, I know the way. Be well, Lucy. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” He kissed me on the cheek, then tiptoed down the stairs and into the elevator, disappearing from the apartment entirely.

I was hardly face down in my bed before I heard a knock on my door. I still hadn’t even taken off my shoes.

“I’m sleeping,” I said.

“Just a minute, Lucy, that’s all I’m asking.”

Henry.

“Why, so you can gloat?” I asked, swinging open the door. “Congratulations, Hen. You got what you wanted.”

“You think this is what I wanted?”

“You spent the whole night being a right wanker to Oliver, and now he’s gone, so what else am I to think?”

“Please,” he said, reaching out to touch me, then pulling his hand back as if he’d realized he was reaching for fire. “The last thing I wanted was for you to be unhappy.”

“And yet here we are,” I said. “I really can’t do this again. First you, then Oliver, now you again. Something’s got to give. I can’t go back and forth all night, Henry. I’m tired, and I have nothing left to say, and if everyone seems to know how I feel already, then why can’t we all just get on with it?”

He grabbed the edge of the door before I had a chance to slam it, his body blocking all the light from the corridor.

“I have no idea how you feel,” he whispered. Quite frankly, neither did I.

“Look, Hen,” I started, just to buy myself time. “I really don’t want to talk anymore tonight, and I’m—”

“Then just listen, please.” A single tear carved a path from my eye to my chin, but I said nothing. Just waited for him to continue. He didn’t deserve it, but I was too tired to fight. “I didn’t mean to reject you when you came to Amsterdam. I was surprised, and I was also having a weird day, and I handled it terribly. Which is why I wish we just could have talked first. I was scared, and I know that’s a cop-out, and I won’t use it as an excuse for being an arsehole, but it’s the truth. I wasn’t ready for things to be moving so fast because I was feeling so strongly about you and also about Amsterdam and I knew I was in over my head. You’d been saying the whole time that we were bound to crash and burn, that whatever we were had an expiry date, and I let it get to me. But I don’t want that to be true, Lucy. I’ve never had something like this. Something I was afraid of losing.”

“Why did you wait until now to say it, then?” I asked. “Talk about communication, Hen. Why didn’t you tell me any of this then? Or in the long weeks since?”

“I was trying to respect your space,” he said, opening and closing his hands like he might reach out for me. “I don’t know where the line is between fighting for you and disrespecting your choice, and I’m afraid I’m always on the wrong side.”

I let this wash over me, studying his face as I did. Had he reached out, come after me, tried to bridge the gap, would I have thought he was disrespecting me? Disregarding my choice to leave? I hadn’t considered that before, and it was a lot to consider right now.

“What’s the plan, then?” I said eventually. I needed something concrete to bring this conversation to a close so I could get into bed, alone, and let this whole night burn away.

“The plan?”

“Yeah, Hen. The plan. Because so far nothing we’ve tried has worked. We’re never on the same page, and I never know which version of you to expect or what your intentions are, and I need clarity to move forward. I need a plan.”

“I just need time,” he said, almost as if he knew that wasn’t enough. “I need to figure this out. This has been a crazy year, and I still have a few more months of being on the road, and I need to sort things for myself. But I like you. I really do. And I know I have a lot of work to do to regain your trust, but I’m prepared to do it, Luce. I don’t think we should write this off before giving it a proper try.”

“Didn’t we give it a proper try?” I said. “Or is that not what we were doing before I came to Amsterdam? Please, Hen, tell me what a proper try looks like for you, because I can’t risk embarrassing myself again.”

“Can we just, I don’t know, take things slow? Go back to our FaceTime dates when I’m on the road, spend some time together just the two of us when I’m home, tell each other before surprising each other in foreign countries?” It sounded so absurd, I actually laughed. “I don’t know how to manage this, but I know I want to try.”

“That means you have to talk to me,” I said. “I meanreallycommunicate. I’m not a mind reader, you know.”

“Would be easier if you were, though, wouldn’t it?” He flashed a shadow of a grin, which made me have to fight back my own.

“I’m serious, Henry.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m serious, too. And if communication is what it’s going to take, then I’m going to work at it.”

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