He’s interrupted by the arrival of our food. My breakfast is so huge it barely fits on the table and I’m starving but I can’t bring myself to start eating. Zach is definitely being off and it’s making me worried.
‘What is it then?’ I ask as Zach takes a slow sip of coffee.
‘That treasure hunt last week? It didn’t end how I’d planned it to end,’ he says, picking up his cutlery and piercing a poached egg. Yolk runs down and into a pool around the toasted muffin.
‘You mean you had something else in mind?’ I ask, racking my brains as to what that might be.
‘Well, yeah. I didn’t mean for the key to be just an open invitation for you to come round whenever. I would love for you to come around whenever, obviously. But it was going to be more than that.’
‘In what way?’
‘I was going to ask you to move in with me, Alice.’
My breath catches in my throat. The plate of food I’d been so looking forward to devouring is now the last thing on my mind.
‘You want me to move in with you?’
‘Yes. But then you were talking about what a big step it was to have a key to my place and I froze. I didn’t know what to do. So I hid the last envelope and just went along with it.’
‘I feel like an idiot. I just assumed it was a key for, like, getting into the house more easily?’ I scratch my forehead uneasily, feeling stupid for jumping to the wrong conclusions. Things had been going so well between us, too. ‘I had no idea that’s what you had planned.’
Zach runs a hand through his dark, wild hair and gives me an awkward look.
‘I think that’s the problem,’ he says. ‘Will we ever want the same things?’
I lean back in my chair, suddenly exhausted.
‘I want you,’ I say simply.
‘Is that enough, though?’
‘I will never be the person with the five year plan, Zach. I don’t have the kind of agenda so many other people do. I can’t tell you where we will be in the future and I hate that that hurts you, but I just can’t make any promises right now. I love you. Surely that’s all we need to know.’
Zach breaks eye contact and looks down at his breakfast. I do the same.
‘I actually need to head off,’ he says.
‘But we haven’t finished breakfast,’ I point out, noticing how downcast he looks and feeling like I could cry.
‘Have some for me?’ he suggests with forced joviality as he gets up to leave.
Zucchini
Zach
All that’s left to do is unpack a box of books and fix a few paintings to the freshly painted walls. It’s been a long time in the making but I’m so close to feeling like my house is now a home. I thought I’d be elated walking around here now that the renovations are finally finished. And I do, in a sense. I’m proud of how it looks and for all of the hard work I’ve put in but there’s an Alice-shaped piece of the jigsaw missing in here. I’m so annoyed with myself for bringing up the moving in thing after yoga yesterday. She didn’t need to know that I was planning to ask her to live with me and I went and told her anyway. How many times do I need to remind myself that Alice likes to move at a slow pace? How many more times will I put my foot in it? I was so frustrated with myself that I had to get out of there.
The morning passes with all of the little jobs I’ve been putting off. Unloading the dishwasher. Sticking a load in the washing machine. Unpeeling masking tape from the skirting board in my living room. Finally, I’m ripping open the box of books and about to stack my bookshelf when the doorbell rings. I go to answer it, vaguely wondering whether it’s the toaster I ordered online arriving early. I’m pretty hungry so a slice of buttered toast wouldn’t go amiss.
A crisp, autumnal breeze blows in through the front door and I wrap my arms around myself as I stare outside to find no one there. The only thing on my doorstep is a familiar-looking plant. I kneel down to take a closer look.
‘Saskia?’ I say out loud, before glancing up and down the street. What will the neighbours think if they see me talking to a plant? It does look a lot like Alice’s favourite plant but it can’t be.
Can it?
Then Alice steps into my vision. She’s pulled a hat down over her long, wavy hair and the fluffy pompom on top wobbles as she moves onto my doorstep.
‘Were you hiding?’ I ask tentatively.
