I almost skip on my way to the bathroom, ready for the evening ahead. God, I’ve missed having a friend.
Chapter Fourteen
WILL
Day One
So, this is how the rich live. At least, anyone with more disposable income than me. Bountiful colours of tan and gold contrast with the sun streaming through the large floor to ceiling windows. I lay my suitcase on the oak floor, and my bag on the crisp white bed sheets, feeling the soft fabric under my fingertips. Plump pillows call to me with the promise of a beautiful slumber.
I check my reflection in a gold-gilded mirror, and attempt to right the wrongs of my windswept hair. Giving up, I unlock the balcony door and slide it to the left, stepping out onto a spotless balcony with a swinging egg chair. The Acropolis, Athens’ most famous tourist attraction, and atop it the Parthenon, bask in the rays.
The balcony overlooks a courtyard with trees and a manicured garden below me. While the space is private, the hotel curves and there are balconies opposite me, belonging to other guests of the hotel.
Walking back into the room that will be home for the next twenty-five days, I check out the bathroom. White marble with gold finishings worthy of a picture. The overhead shower beats my electric one at home, and desperate to wash the morning off, I undress and step under it, embracing the running water.
Feeling fresher than ever, I don’t bother to wrap myself with a towel once I’m dry.
Yamas!
I stare at the view, listening to the outside world, thinking of Ollie. I can’t wait to see him again, make some new memories, ones which could replace the night we broke up.
‘This isn’t working anymore,’ Ollie said to me,Bridget Joneson TV, his wine glass still full. I remember that detail, and every other detail of that night. I was wearing a tatty T-shirt with holes in and Nike shorts, a glass of red in my hand, and everything felt good. The second proposal only just behind us.
Looking back, I should have gripped the wine glass until it smashed and cut me into pieces.
‘What?’
‘We want different things,’ Ollie had said to me. ‘You’re happy with… this. And I…’
He’d let the sentence hang, but it left me feeling cold. He’d gestured around the apartment when he’d said that. Who wouldn’t be happy with this? Wine. Takeaway.Bridget Jones. A cheap apartment in Cardiff city, with plants at the window.
‘And you what?’
‘Playing video games on our weekends isn’t what I want to be doing.’ He’d nodded to my Nintendo Switch controllers. ‘I don’t want takeaways every night, or to sit here unemployed, waiting for the right job. I want to do something with my life. It’s time we grew up, Will.’
‘Is this about the proposal?’
He’d looked at me then, sad, and it has stayed with me every time I close my eyes. I’d hurt him.
‘I’m ready for marriage. A home. A career.’
‘So am I,’ I’d said, knowing I should say more. ‘Not marriage. Not yet. But we can buy a home, a different place. What’s the rush?’
He’d covered his face with his hands and sighed.
‘Will, this doesn’t work anymore,’ he’d said, and I’d hoped for a laugh, a joke, or confirmation that this was a wind-up so he could see how I reacted. A more extreme version of the ‘would you still love me if I were a worm’ question. But no laugh came, no change of expression.
He’d left me that night, because I no longer suited him.
I remember staring at his wine glass and crying.
I’d always imagined a break-up to be a night of blazing rows, glasses smashing and fraught emotions.
Instead, I was steamrolled into oblivion.
The sun has moved, casting my room in shadows. That flattened feeling makes me lurch, as if Ollie was here, breaking up with me again.
Checking my phone, I see it’s 5 pm. Fuck. I fell asleep.
