Page 22 of The Life We Almost Had

‘I turned it down,’ he said quietly.

‘Why?’ My voice was a whisper.

‘Because travelwasmy dream but sometimes we have different dreams and now, Anna, it’s you. You’re all I ever wanted.Dowant.’

‘But you said… you can’t do this anymore.’

‘No.’ He rose from his chair and walked to me. Crouched down and took my hand between his. ‘I don’t want a long-distance relationship anymore, Anna. I want your face to be the last thing I see before I go to sleep at night. Your voice to be the last thing I hear. I want you. Properly.’ He dropped one knee to the floor and before he had even pulled a ring out of his pocket, I was crying.

‘Anna Adlington, will you do me the greatest honour of becoming my wife?’

Perhaps if I could have frozen one perfect moment in time, it would have been that.

‘Yes.’ I launched myself into his arms and he fell backwards. ‘Yes!’ I covered his face in kisses. His hands were in my hair, his lips found mine. My fingers fumbled to undo his belt as he unzipped my dress. It was a good job Mum wasn’t coming home.

Later, upstairs, I snuggled under my quilt, raising my hand and splaying my fingers, smiling as the small diamond on my ring finger glinted under the lamplight.

‘Here.’ Adam passed me a plate of lemon meringue pie and climbed into bed beside me. ‘I’m afraid it’s cold, future Mrs Curtis.’

‘That’s okay. You’re pretty hot, future husband.’

I took a bite but I still didn’t have much of an appetite. I thought about the way my period was late. The sickness I felt. Adam and me hadn’t talked about having children, a family of our own. Our long-distance relationship had been so draining we hadn’t looked properly towards the future.

I stole a glance at him as he forked a slab of pie into his mouth. I hadn’t taken a test yet. Should I say anything?

If I was pregnant, he would be happy, wouldn’t he?

Chapter Twelve

Adam

When I proposed to Anna that night, I didn’t expect that six months later we’d be actually getting married, but then I hadn’t expected her to tell me she thought that she was pregnant.

‘Please say something,’ she had urged as she’d twisted the corner of the duvet cover round and round her finger.

‘I… I…’It’s the best news I’ve ever received. We’re going to be better at this than my parents. I’m going to love you forever, but ‘Holy fuck,’ was all I actually managed to say.

‘Adam!’

‘Sorry, it’s… brilliant, Anna. Really. Brilliant.’ I hadn’t realized just how happy the thought of being a dad made me until the following day when we bought a test from Boots, giggling like teenagers, before finding out it was a false alarm.

‘Oh.’ Anna couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice. ‘It must have been stress that was making me feel sick and messing up my cycle.’

I had hugged her closely to me, feeling like a heel. The worry of me going AWOL had caused this. But later we had talked. Properly talked. We now knew undoubtedly that we wanted children.

‘We should get married first,’ Anna said.

‘The sooner the better. This year.’

So a winter wedding it was. Initially we had worried about possible snow and ice but then British summers are never predictable. You can’t book the sunshine and I didn’t need it to be perfect – I was marrying the perfect woman and everything else came second to that.

‘Nervous?’ Josh handed me a can of Fosters. It was only ten o’clock in the morning but I couldn’t resist cracking it open. There were a few hours to kill until we had to be at the church.

‘Yeah. A bit. It’s mad, isn’t it, how much has changed.’

‘Totally. Who’d have thought one holiday would lead to this.’ Josh gestured around his new flat.

‘You don’t regret moving?’ Me and Anna had bought a two-bedroom starter house near to her mum. Josh had stayed in our old place for a few weeks but then decided to move up north too.

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