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‘This is just because I’m leaving and you’re used to this now; you’re used to me. If I was staying, if we didn’t have this deadline in place from the minute
this started, you’d have fucked me and walked away. You could be relaxed with me because you knew this was temporary. My leaving was your escape clause.’
‘Maybe,’ I say, shrugging. ‘Maybe that’s true. At least, maybe it was. But falling in love with you happened anyway.’
‘I guarantee if I stay, you’d change your mind.’
‘Do I strike you as someone who doesn’t know my own mind? My own fucking heart? I’m offering you all that I am, I’m asking you to share your life with me. Not a dirty weekend. I want this. For real.’
She stares at me then and her tears fall down her cheeks and she keeps dashing them away, impatient with them, angry with me. ‘I don’t.’
She’s so emphatic, so certain. But I don’t believe her. I can’t. I cup her cheeks, holding her face beneath mine and I kiss her gently, with love, all my love. I kiss her and she groans, kissing me back, her body fusing to mine, her hands curving around behind me, running the length of my spine. She kisses me and I kiss her because when we kiss everything makes sense again, and I know she can’t resist this, me, us.
But she sobs and I can’t do this. I can’t hurt her and I am hurting her.
‘What do you want?’ I ask, but she’s told me, she’s said, and it’s so obvious.
She sweeps her eyes shut and for a second I have hope. ‘I want to go to Paris and I want you to go back to your life.’
‘You want me to go back to my life? Like this never happened?’
‘No, not like it never happened.’ She lifts a hand to my chest. ‘It did happen and we’re both...different because of it. You’re right about that. Maybe you’ll stop sleeping with anyone in a skirt. Maybe you’ll meet someone and date them. Grow up and be in a relationship.’
‘Jesus. That is spectacularly unreasonable. This is a relationship.’
Her jaw clenches. ‘This is a mirage. A safe space. You want me because you know you can’t have me.’
‘Not once have I given you any reason to think that of me,’ I refute immediately. ‘Not once.’ I take a step back from her. ‘You’re trying to justify pushing me away. Don’t. Don’t make yourself feel better by putting the blame on me.’
‘I’m not...’
‘This—’ I gesture from her to me, cutting her off mid-sentence ‘—this is a real relationship. Sure, we skipped the dating part, and everything went fast, so fast, because we’ve had this deadline on it all, but none of that makes it less real. None of that makes a damned bit of difference.’
She shakes her head but doesn’t dispute anything I’ve said.
‘I’ve slept with lots of beautiful, intelligent, interesting women, Millie. Women who make me laugh, women I have a heap in common with. And not once have I wanted more than that. Not once have I wanted to keep sleeping with them, to know everything about their lives, their futures and their hopes the way I do with you. I want all of you, Millie.’
‘This is the final boarding call for Air France flight eighteen-seventeen to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Would all remaining passengers please board the flight?’
She looks towards the gate and panic flashes inside me. I lift her hand to my lips, kissing it, kissing her. ‘Look at me,’ I murmur, holding her hand there.
Slowly, she turns her face to mine, her expression wary and raw at the same time.
‘Look at me and tell me you don’t ever want to see me again. Tell me some idea you had before you met me means more than this.’
She sweeps her eyes shut and then pins me with her angry, defiant, desperate gaze. ‘The fact you can belittle my plans so easily shows exactly why I’m right to go.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
‘I’m not belittling your plans...’
‘You’re implying they have no merit now I’ve met you. Like whoever I was before the great Michael Brophy doesn’t matter...’
‘No, I’m not. You’re doing it again—trying to find fault with me because you don’t want to bear the burden of making this decision.’
She grinds her teeth, her frustration palpable. She’s not the only one.
‘You had a great plan; you promised your mum you’d see the world. You promised her you’d live your life, explore, have a grand adventure. And then you met me. Do you think this isn’t an adventure? You had a plan, but this happened, and now you need to look at what you want. Ask yourself if you really feel the same as you did when you left Australia.’
