AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Felix held her away from him and gave her a once-over. “Your nose is peeling, and you look knackered. And there’s been no sequins stuck to the bottom of my socks for weeks.”
Evie went to the fridge and grabbed a can of cider. “And I haven’t had to remove glitter from my cocoa pops. Want a drink?”
Felicity couldn’t help laughing. “A cup of Earl Grey would be lovely.” As Felix made her tea, she took her bag to her room.
“Oh, hello you.” She sighed as Digby, in the middle of her duvet, stretched and yawned and, when she bent down close to smell his warm-fur scent, graciously reached out and patted her face with a paw as if to say, “Well, look who the cat dragged in,” then graciously rolled onto his back. Felicity gave his tummy a rub and after another yawn, he curled into a ball and went back to sleep.
Typical selfish fur bag.
A while later, changed into tracksuit pants and slippers, Felicity sat at the kitchen table and listened to news of Evie’s upcoming exhibition. “I move all the pieces into place tomorrow. Gluttony will have to be taken in three parts, he’s so big.”
“Well, that fits.” Felicity sipped her tea.
Felix added more smoked paprika to his stew. “And I got the grant funding for the men’s group for another year.”
“Yay!”
Once they were all seated round the kitchen table and the aromatic stew and a big salad served, Evie said, “We can workshop this, or you can tell us to sod off.”
She could lie, and they’d see right through her. When you’d shared experiences at your most raw and vulnerable moments like they had, there was no point even trying.
So she explained in brief about the reason she’d come home early. The conversation with Leonie about the baby issue, and how she’d decided not to tell Oliver about it. Not too many details, because the tears were so near the surface that if she let them start she’d sink like a leaking boat and probably never resurface.
After she’d finished, Felix put his fork down and thoughtfully rubbed his beard. “So I’m still not quite clear why you said you were leaving?”
“I said I wanted to remember us as perfect. And he didn’t try and stop me which speaks volumes.”
Evie crumpled her empty can with her fist. “Well, essentially you didn’t give him a chance, did you? You just turned up, said I don’t want to continue this, Oliver. And if we meet again you’re firmly friend zoned. Did he put up any fight at all?”
I’m not ready to say goodbye.
She winced. “He might have intimated he wasn’t ready for me to go. I did kind of leave the door open for him to visit if he was ever in London.”
Evie snorted. “Encouraging.”
Felicity looked to Felix for support, but he merely compressed his lips and said, “I’d say that probably didn’t give him much to go on.”
Damn the both of them.
Evie pulled up a stool and put her bare feet on it. “Think about it, from Oliver’s perspective. First his fiancée leaves him, no explanation, just scarpers on their wedding day, then you have this passionate thing happening—okay so agreed, no discussion about futures—but like, seriously it’s mega intense by all the messages and photos you sent, and then… you go and do the same as her. No viable reason given, off you scoot.”
“I said we were too different. We lived too far away. That I never wash my undies.”
Two pairs of eyebrows shot up. “It made sense in context,” Felicity added lamely.
“He’s going to think you just made up a lot of excuses for dumping him.”
She’d thought they’d be on her side, that they’d reassure her she’d done the right thing, even if just to make her feel better. Instead, she realised, Evie and Felix were doing what she should have expected. They were challenging her. Like they always had.
Her two moral compasses.
Evie continued, “He’ll be fucking hurt, you can guarantee it. If you want to move on and you want him to, you at least owe him a proper explanation.”
“And if you don’t want him to move on and neither does he, how will you ever know what could be, if you don’t tell him the truth?” Felix reasoned. “Besides, he has a right to know. Fertility isn’t just your issue here, Pumpkin Seed, it’s his too if he cares about you.”
Felicity dumped her fork into her bowl with a clang. Her lower lip wobbled dangerously as Felix continued. “Supposing he wants to be with you, babies or no babies. Is that too hard to believe?”
Was it?
