Page 54 of The Layover
‘I know it’s mad, mate, but you didn’tseeher. Nah, nah, I know what Jammy says, but she wasallover me. Trust me, this is going to work. She’s not like them other girls … What have I got to lose? She waswellinto me …’
The speaker bumps into me, half turning to apologise before he carries on, wandering agitatedly around the terminal as he gestures with one hand and clutches his phone to his ear with the other. It’s the young man with glitter in his hair, from earlier, who dropped all that stuff in duty free. He sounds so wistful, talking about the girl he must be on his way to see.
I almost want to wish him luck.
Aren’t I here doing the same thing, after all?
And isn’t it so exciting, so romantic, so intoxicating?
A few hours ago, I could hardly contain myself. But now, all I can think about is how disparaging Leon and Gemma have been about Marcus; how all those fond memories I have of the two of us now seem trivial – and tainted.
He’s breadcrumbing you.
Stringing me along, using me, won’t pick me, would never pick me. What they said about him mocking me – calling me sad, pathetic … I didn’t want to believe it, brushed it off, but now it gnaws at me.
I suddenly feel like a prize idiot for spending all that money on a lipstick and underwear. As if that’s going to change anything …
But he did pick me, once, didn’t he? We spent that night together. The way he kissed me … I feltcherished. And then I threw it all away because I panicked …
But there’s Gemma’s voice, again, mentioning that coffee shop he told her he was checking out, how Kayleigh went and met him there. I huddle smaller inside his jacket, the one he left behind that morning.
I don’t want to ask her about it, want to hope that I’m wrong, but the mental image plays out anyway, memory warping into … something else.
I remember the sun pouring in from behind the curtains, how late we’d slept in, and the weight of the bed shifting as Marcus dragged himself out from under the covers. He smiled when he saw me stir, and leant down to press a kiss to my mouth. It was feather-light, and left my lips tingling. I’d have drawn him in for a deeper kiss, but was suddenly terrified of what horrific morning-breath I must have; we’d had a couple of drinks last night at the party, and I’d never brushed my teeth before we fell into bed. I hadn’t even taken off my makeup! The state I must be in …
I was only too happy to burrow deeper under the covers, pulling the duvet up to try to hide as much of my face as I could – and hopefully smother my morning-breath.
Marcus said, ‘I’m going to step out for a coffee. Maybe grab some breakfast.’
I nodded from inside my little duvet-cocoon, heart racing. ‘Okay. Sounds good.’
It was like a movie, like the sort of thing that happened to other people but never to you, never in real life. A handsome boy, the one you’d flirted with back and forth for so long at work,staying the night and waking you up with a kiss and going out to get breakfast. I had some bagels and cereal in the kitchen, and I’d gotten a Nespresso machine for my birthday off my parents, but I didn’t tell him any of that.
It was so much more romantic this way. So easy to picture him coming back, letting himself in as if he felt right at home here with me. How we would sit in the rumpled bedsheets (and I would have had a chance to freshen up and make myself look presentable) and carry on talking like we’d talked all night, sipping our drinks and eating flaky pastries, and then he would lean in for another kiss – to kiss some chocolate off the edge of my mouth, maybe – and we would fall back into bed again but this time it would go further, and we’d spend the entire weekend wrapped up in each other …
Except I kept sitting there, in the bed, half-wondering if I should make it so we didn’t get greasy crumbs of pastry inside the sheets, or if that was going to suggest I didn’t want us to go back to bed and send the wrong message.
I kept sitting there, my hair pulled up into a messy bun, saved with a little dry shampoo, my mouth minty-fresh.
AndI kept sitting there.
It was two hours before I had to accept that Marcus wasn’t coming back.
He’d never said he was gettingusa coffee, my friends reasoned when I told them about it. He’d never said he was going to grab breakfast tobring it back here, to share.
Maybe I should have asked him to? Maybe it wasn’t clear enough that I wanted him to come back, so he thought I’d rebuffed him and he was supposed to stay away.
He left his jacket, though. It was tossed over the back of my sofa. Was that a sign he would come back, or had he simply forgotten?
I texted him to ask what he was up to the rest of his day; where he’d ended up getting a coffee. I was angling to suggest we could do something together, that maybe I could join him for whatever plans he had that afternoon.
But he never responded.
I texted him later that evening – something blithe and casual, not mentioning our night together or the jacket, but again, silence.
It ate at me.God, how it ate at me.
But Monday, he apologised that his phone had died, and later, I learned that he’d met Kayleigh, and I hated that he didn’t see my messages sooner; that I’d accidentally turned him away by something I’d not said, a cue I’d missed in the course of our brief morning conversation. So of course he was hurt and was flattered by this new interest.
