I look at my reflection, see the heartache and hope and sorrow etched into my expression that I know oh so well, and … And I wish I didn’t. I wish I could look in that mirror and see a different girl.
I wishshecould see that she’s worth more.
Leon begins to say something else but stops abruptly as I jerk away from him, tearing off my jacket. Some of my hair snags on one of my brooches and I yelp, fighting my way free.
‘What are you doing? Fran—’
‘Ihatethis jacket. I hate – I hate …’ I hate the person who clung to it for almost two years like a talisman, a promise. I hate that it suddenly feels like some sort of a claim Marcus has on me,when the reality is he probably never even noticed that it’s his, all those times he’s seen me wear it.
I wrench my arms free, hurling the jacket onto the floor and breathing hard. My cheeks are wet all over again, and I’m surprised I have any tears left to cry.
‘Are you—’
There’s theclack!of heels on the floor as someone approaches, and Leon turns pale, alarm flitting over his face as he looks towards the entrance, mortified at being found in the ladies’ toilets.
He makes a snap decision, snatching my wrist to haul me with him, locking both of us inside a toilet stall just as someone comes into the bathroom. One of his hands presses into the door beside my head and my brain catches up all at once, realising that his body isn’t just crowding mine against the door but is almost flush against me. My hips are pressed into his thigh. His cheek rests against the side of my head. When I breathe in, my chest grazes his torso.
I tilt my head back to look at him, and Leon shifts only slightly back, enough to look down at me. There’s a question written on his face; his attention is still on the other person in the bathroom, listening, waiting for them to leave.
‘I don’t think I needed to hide, too,’ I whisper. ‘I’m allowed to be in here.’
He flushes, and I bite down a giggle. It turns into a sort of hiccup in my throat, which is still thick and raw from crying, but my reaction has him relax, a bit of a smile curving at his mouth. As some of the tension eases out of him, I feel his body sink a little more against mine.
It’s strange, if only for how pleasant it feels.
‘Shh,’ he whispers back, ‘before we get caught.’
I turn my face to reach his ear, so I can whisper even more quietly, ‘I think hiding in a toilet stall with a girl is alotmorecompromising than handing her tissues because she’s crying by the sink.’
I misjudge it a bit, because my mouth ends up grazing the edge of his earlobe when I speak, and this time it’s Leon’s turn to sputter out a choked sound and my turn to shush him, which threatens to set me off into a whole new fit of giggles. This whole situation is so absurd, I can’t even feel shy about the implications of us hiding out in here like this.
‘Do you think peopleactuallyhave sex in these?’ I whisper.
Leon glances around. ‘Well theyarebig enough. Look, there’s even a mirror on the door. Kinky.’
I glance to my left to see the thin, full-length panel of mirror on the door just behind me – which is quite thoughtful decorating, given the limited facilities of an airport. I’ve seen hotel rooms with less. But Leon catches my eye and waggles his eyebrows, and I have to look away, shaking with silent laughter now.
Then he jokes, ‘Do you think it counts as the mile high club, if it’s just an airport?’
I can’t contain myself then, but no sooner has a squeal of laughter left my mouth than he’s pressing two fingers to my lips and shushing me.
Which works – a bit too well, because I’m startled into silence by the feeling of his calloused fingertips against my mouth, and I know the absolute absurdity of this situation has just gotten the better of us and he didn’t mean anything by it, but it’s so oddly intimate, even without the fact our bodies are still pressed up against each other, and I can only stare at him, my breathing suddenly so loud in the confined space, and his eyes are so impossibly dark and so impossibly intent on me that it feels like his gaze could swallow me whole.
As if catching himself, he moves his hand away.
I’m holding onto his sleeve, not quite sure when I reached for it.
I don’t know which of us prompts it to happen, but his hand settles on the side of my neck, large and solid and warm, winding his fingers through some of my hair, and again, so oddly intimate – it’s only my neck, but when was the last time someone touched me there, held me this tenderly? It’s so much more intimate than a hug, or even maybe a kiss. My emotions all feel too close to the surface right now, and I’m absolutely powerless to resist the full-body shiver that ripples down my spine at the intensity of such a small, simple touch.
His breath fans across my face. Sweet, like blackcurrant, like apples.
We’re both caught completely in the moment, barely breathing. Is his heart thundering the way mine is? Is he leaning in just a little, or is that me?
Are we really about to –?
Someone smacks the flat of their palm against the door right behind my head and I yelp, jolting away from it, stepping on Leon’s feet. He stumbles back, falling almost onto the toilet and barely catching himself, a hand flung out to each wall of the stall.
His eyes are blown wide and his cheeks are bright pink, the blush spreading all the way down his neck from the embarrassment of being caught (as if it would be from anything else …) and he’s stuck with his legs bent in front of him and arms akimbo, squatting barely above the toilet bowl.