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I pull some work out and try to focus on it, but by four o’clock in the afternoon my brain is fried. I pull on my jacket and beanie, make a hot chocolate in a takeaway cup and step out of my apartment. It’s bitterly cold, the wind freezing my cheeks; the night’s snow has turned into an ice wind and a hint of sleet. I drop my head forward and walk fast, sipping my hot chocolate as I go, ignoring the buzzing of the world. Hyde Park is better—quieter, especially at this time of day. There’s a man selling chestnuts near Speakers’ Corner. I nod in his general direction as I pass, then keep walking. I don’t have a destination in mind, I just need to stretch my legs and put my mind into abeyance.
At the Knightsbridge entrance I pause, looking at the wide horse paths here, then back towards the rose gardens. In a few months, the bracken shrubs will be covered with new growth, fresh green buds and promise. The desolation of winter always gives way to spring, doesn’t it? I walk back towards the rose garden, reaching out and brushing my fingertip over one of the branches. I’m almost disappointed when a thorn doesn’t jab me.
I don’t know if spring will come for me.
I really don’t.
I know that I’ve lived my life so confident that I don’t want a relationship, that I sure as hell don’t want a man, and now I realise I’ve been generalising. I’ve put all men into one box, lumping them in with Dad’s sins, Simon’s sins, my lukewarm feelings for Patrick. I’ve avoided relationships but it turns out you can’t avoid love, no matter how hard you try. It’s part of the human condition, hardwired into our brains.
A tear escapes from the corner of my eye. I dab at it with a gloved thumb then start to walk again, back through the middle of the park this time, taking the path that cuts at a diagonal angle towards Oxford Street.
It’s not a long walk and I move quickly, cold now and exhausted. I tell myself it’s jet lag but I know it’s more than that—it’s heartsickness. Weariness from grief and the sting of rejection.
I replay the things he said on that last night, late on Christmas Eve, as I walk. The way he trivialised the idea of a relationship, assuring me he doesn’t care about me beyond sex. I think about the way he took such pains to make sure I understood that, and my heart breaks all over again, because it took hearing him say those things for me to finally understand how I feel, and what I want.
I want the dream.
I want everything he’ll never give me.
I want everything I’ve always derided.
Tears sting my eyes. Impatiently, I wipe them away, angrier still that I can’t get a grip of my emotions. It’s not like me. Before I reach the corner I cut through the park, to the gate nearest my street. There’s a pedestrian crossing with lights here. I wait until they turn green then zip across. The sky is now dark, the headlights taking on that streaky red light they get. At the steps to my building, I reach into my pocket, pulling out my keys then dropping them to the ground by accident. I bend down to pick them up as someone approaches me, presumably walking past. I stand, looking automatically in their direction only to have my heart squeezed tight, my whole body frozen in shock.
‘Zach?’ I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. I take a step back and blink, ascertaining he’s not a figment of my imagination.
‘Hey.’ His hands are shoved in his pockets and his expression is impossible to read. My heart is twisting and thumping, my tummy is in knots and my eyes are still wet with tears. I swallow hard and look down the street. There’s no one around. It’s the day after Christmas and it’s dark out. Shoppers will have gone home.
‘What are you doing here?’
He nods, as if I’ve asked a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. I stare at him, waiting, my throat raw.
‘You’re in London,’ I prompt, with a hint of disbelief.
‘I came to talk to you.’ He frowns, shakes his head. ‘This morning, in Singapore, I came to talk to you. But you were gone.’
Something trembles in my chest; I recognise it as a relic of hope. ‘I left yesterday.’
‘Jemima told me.’
I’m freezing, but I don’t want to go inside. More than that, I don’t want to invite him inside. I can’t be alone with him—it’s asking too much.
‘Why did you want to talk to me?’
His Adam’s apple jerks as he swallows. ‘I guess I wanted to make sure you were okay,’ he says gently. Sympathy will be my undoing.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Really? Because I’m not.’ His lips twist into a grimace. ‘Except when I realised you were gone, I had this feeling in my chest that I can’t describe. I couldn’t breathe, Jessica. I felt like... I felt like all the light had gone out of my world. I felt like I still thought, up until that moment, you might change your mind. I thought things weren’t over between us. And then you were gone, and it was all so final, and I realised something I should have seen much sooner.’
My stomach is in loops. ‘What?’ Just a whisper—barely a sound.
‘The idea of going a day without seeing you is unbearable.’ He moves closer and I freak out, flinching away from him, because I’m definitely not strong enough to be that close to him and to hear him say lovely things. ‘The idea of you being in London and me being in Singapore is anathema to me. It runs contrary to everything I want.’
He’s offering me more than he did before, but it’s still not enough. I refuse to be damned with faint praise, faint affection. I won’t settle.
I tilt my chin angrily, glaring up at him, glad to have that emotion to rely on.
‘You want two more weeks of meaningless, hot sex. I remember.’
