Page 45 of The Ghost of Exes Past

‘Hmm.’

‘This was the night he told me about losing his mum. And I told him about losing you. It bonded us, I guess.’

I feel something in me jolt. Like an elastic band flicked hard to my chest. The classic ‘Dead Ex Sympathy Play’. Bound to connect. She used my death – not cruelly … She just carried it somewhere and it helped her to get closer to someone else. What do I do with that?

I look away, focus on the old couple and their scampi instead. The fish is almost demolished, leaving a wash of grease on the bottom of the plate, their empty ketchup sachets abandoned on the table. I change the subject.

‘So when did you get crazy about him?’ I say, nodding towards Arthur. ‘Did the kimchi do it for you in the end, or …?’

She doesn’t laugh. Tilts her head to the side and looks to the noose swinging in the breeze outside. Slowly, she says, ‘I don’t know if I ever really was. I was never really mad about him.’

My eyes wander back to Arthur, his bracelet. ‘No fireworks?’ I question.

‘No fireworks. Not like with us …’ She looks away. A flush starts at her neck and works its way up, slow and involuntary.

She continues, ‘But it was love … A safe love. A vanilla love. A deep connection. But I was never mad about him. I think I was still scared of being crazed. I moved in with him shortly after this, when I got kicked out of my last flat. That was about as crazy as we got. Just as well, too, with Covid. It made sense, really.’

I watch young Belle talk to this guy. They’re leaning towards each other, one elbow up on the table, heads resting in their palms, staring into each other’s eyes. They’re mirroring each other and they look very in love, despite her downplaying it. She tips her head back as he makes her laugh. I used to love getting that reaction from her.

Why is this getting to me? I run through the options – nostalgia, FOMO, some general existential sadness about being dead – until I land, reluctantly, where I always do. It’s jealousy. Obviously, it’s jealousy, and also something else underneath that I don’t want to name but that keeps bubbling to the surface. Regret.

Why couldn’t we have had fireworks without setting ourselves on fire? I used to think that was what passion looked like. That real love involved getting burned in some way. That arguing was proof of something real. But what if that tension we had – the arguments, the fire – wasn’t inevitable? What if it was because we were young and stupid? Neither of us knew how to love someone without making it a war.

Would it have been possible to keep the fireworks in the bedroom and find something steadier everywhere else? Is that even something that exists?

I look up to the ceiling. Tempted to swig some flat shandy from the table next to me.

Can’t change it now, which is a convenient thing to tell yourself when you’re dead – I’m ten years too late and she’s marrying the ‘love of her life’ tomorrow.

‘Do you have both with Timothy?’ I ask quietly. ‘The fireworks and the love?’

She meets my gaze and smiles. She blinks slowly and I watch as her eyes flicker just for a second to my lips. I resist the urge to reach down and cup her chin.

‘I do,’ she says.

For a moment we hold that look. It’s like everything around us has stopped. Two words to change a life, to bind someone to you. Two words meant for someone else, not for me.

‘Ignore the pun.’ She smiles.

She’s happy now. She’s got the best of both and I’m happy for her. I shuffle, loosening the collar of my T-shirt with a finger, while simultaneously rolling my neck.

‘I’m glad.’ It takes all my strength to resist the temptation to pull her closer towards me. I want to feel the warmth of her skin. Have her warm me up. Make me feel something other than grey.

Almost as if she’s read my mind, she leans in and rests her head on my arm. We stand there, surrounded by people walking past us, in the middle of this pub, but I can’t focus on anything else. Only the sound of her breathing next to me, the rise and fall of her shoulder against my arm.

Next to us, the scampi couple get up to leave. I curse them under my breath as Belle straightens.

‘To the end?’ she asks.

‘Let’s do it,’ I reply, opening my palm.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Belle

‘God, you’re so good at this,’ Jake says next to me.

We watch as younger Belle is holding hands with a teary Arthur on the sagging sofa of the home we shared. She’s wearing a trench coat, part buttoned, ready to make her exit. Her eyes are empathetic but her tone is confident. It’s not doing that wobbly, quiet thing that it used to do when I got emotional.