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‘It’ll .?.?. be okay,’ Owen says, softly, and it disarms me a bit. There’s familiarity in those eyes. Memories. Someone who stayed up late on Christmas Eves with Dad, doing father-and-son things. Someone who knows Mum and Dad; knowsme.
‘Your parents are meant to be. Through everything, they’re just solid. You know? The dream.’
He’d always say that about Mum and Dad; look at them, holding hands ahead of us as we left a country pub on a Sunday late afternoon, say it would be us one day. To be what he never had. He’d planned everything; he even named our imaginary babies. Owen mapped our whole futures. And then – he just left, acting as though he never had. It’s why it didn’t feel like just a boyfriend I’d lost. At the time, it felt like everything.
‘I keep thinking about you,’ Owen suddenly says, crossing the floor. I’m stretching up for the next scroll, and I freeze, his presence behind me.Oh, no no no.
I turn to look at him; move away.
He presses something on his earpiece again. ‘Those emails. I mean – they’ve essentially ruined my fucking life.’ He gives a scoff of a laugh.
My heart bangs and bangs, my hair sticks to my cheek. Why is this room so hot, why is it so small? ‘Owen, I never wanted anything to ruin your life. I would never—’
‘But .?.?. Tell me you haven’t thought about it. About, like, how good it was. The plans we had, our place, our little flat. Remember how we called it, thecube?’ He smiles, fiddles again with his earpiece.
‘Of course I’ve thought about .?.?. things,’ I say, swallowing, but it feels like my throat is corked with marshmallows. ‘But you left. We did have those plans, and you .?.?.youwere the one who left.’
‘I know, I .?.?.’ Owen’s eyes close, thick, dark lashes, bristling ‘But we couldn’t have done long distance, Millie.Icouldn’t have done it and been away from you.’
‘But it wasn’t .?.?. it wasn’t just that.’
‘Ofcourseit was,’ counters Owen, eyes widening, as if we’re disagreeing on which salad dressing goes best, and not the ending of our relationship. ‘I said I didn’t want to hold you back and that’s what would’ve happened if you’d have been here waiting—’
‘I was willing to leave my job and come with you,’ I say, as if he even needs reminding. ‘You know that. I bought a plane ticket, Owen. Petra convinced work to let me help you set up over there for a month, despite havingzerotraining, and you just—’
‘Millie.’ He shakes his head, as if I’m way, way off. ‘It could never have been that simple.’
And this is typical Owen. He makes it all sound so cut and dry; like it wasn’thisdecision. When it was .?.?. Wasn’t it?
‘OK.OK. Look.’ Owen sighs, a hand waving in the air, like he’s trying to cut a deal. ‘Maybe I was just a dumb, fucking, stupid idiot.’
‘Owen—’
‘Actually, there’s no maybe about it,’ he says. ‘I’ll hold my hands up. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I can’t stop, to be honest. I know when I’ve been wrong. And IknowI messed up.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, you did.’
‘And I know I was a prick to you.’
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘You reallywere—’
And like the Gods above StoneX Stadium have taken pity on me, gazed down from their seats in the nose-bleeds, the door swings open and Owen turns quickly, and in unison, through panic, I stand up, as if to attention, as if I’ve just been caught doing something I shouldn’t be, and as I stand, I let go of the scroll, andoh my God– the panelled set is .?.?. falling.Actuallyfalling. I freeze, the panels leaning on me, like a house of cards, and only stopped mid topple by my sweaty back.
‘Shit!’ bursts out of me.
A hand grabs the screen above my head, pushes ‘BELIEVE YOU CAN!’ off of me, stops it slowly crushing me, and when I look up, I see Chloe, stone-faced, headset on, Petra, a man holding an enormous boomer mic, and that the hand that is saving me from the screen is attached to Jack.
*
Jack is still laughing when we’re outside in the empty stadium stands, on the back row, overlooking the vast stretch of green pitch, the sky one giant sheet of endless sea-glass blue. It’s infectious, Jack’s laughter. As much as my face is like a ball of fire and I ambeyondembarrassed, I can’t stop myself from laughing either. It all happened so fast. That door opening, me suddenly standing, like someone electrocuted, and the slow-motion collapse of the screen, my shriek, Jack’s arm shooting out, a man standing there with a microphone that looked like Marge Simpson’s unkempt, greying head .?.?.
‘I can’t actually believe that happened,’ I say. ‘Your arm .?.?. it was like – Edward Cullen or something?’
‘As in, the teenage vampire?’ Jack puts a trainered foot up on the back of the seat in front of him, casually.
‘Yes, the teenage vampire. I actually can’t believe that just happened.’
‘Well, I for one feel honoured,’ Jack says. ‘To be able to witness it happen in real time. An organic, unexpected event.’
