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They stared at each other for a moment, the air heavy with unsaid things. Rob looked away first, and Hannah knew it was time to go.
‘You know where I am,’ he said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. In another version of this story she would have fallen into Rob’s arms and kissed him, but that wasn’t how their story was supposed to end. Hannah had been hiding from that truth all week, but she knew it now.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the time with your parents.’ She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car, then lowered the window. ‘It’s been a really fun week,’ she said.
Rob smiled and nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s been amazing.’
‘I’ll see you soon,’ said Hannah, pressing her lips together as she drove away. The tears were already rolling down her face before she reached the exit to the car park, and when she looked in her rear-view mirror Rob was still there.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Hannah sat on the dry, brittle grass that formed a natural step at the base of the mountain, trying to imagine what this would look like covered in snow. The pylons of the ski lift stretched away into the distance, the metal chairs presumably stored somewhere for the winter. Dry, stony paths down the hillside showed her where the pistes would usually be, scattered with metal arrows and striped poles that she guessed had some kind of job during the ski season, but in summer just made the hillside look like a busy road junction. Hannah had never been skiing before, so she had no useful point of reference.
She turned to look the other way, but the view was no better. Huge machines covered with tarpaulins were parked next to a long plastic tunnel that stretched from the lift station to the car park, like the kind of structure Sainsbury’s used to store shopping trolleys. Presumably when the owner of her B&B said ‘the Sierra Nevada ski resort is beautiful for walking in summer’, she hadn’t meant this particular bit that looked like a B&Q delivery yard.
Her eyes followed the line of the ski lift up into the distant peaks, trying to gauge how far it was. A mile to the top, maybe? Half an hour of hard uphill walking if she followed the dusty path that ran parallel to the pylons. Her trainers would be fine, and she had plenty of water in her rucksack. She could see the scars of other paths at the top that would bring her back via a different route – presumably they all ended up back here eventually. Pity her legs felt like lead.
Get it together, she chided herself. She’d made the decision to leave Rob at Club Colina three days ago, and it had definitely felt like the right thing to do. So why was her head still full of him? Why had she spent pretty much every minute since she’d left reliving every conversation, every glance, every moment spent in his company? It felt like everything had conspired against them from the beginning, and the universe had offered up precisely zero signs that they were meant to be together.
And yet. There was still thisfeeling, this hot, tangled weight in her chest whenever she thought about the way Rob had looked at her as she drove away. She’d felt it when he held her hand at her dad’s house, even though that was just pretend, and she’d felt it in bed when she put her hand on his warm back and they’d nearly kissed. That definitely wasn’t pretend, was it? It was hard to pick apart the real moments from the fake ones, or at least what had been fake for Rob. For her it had felt like they’d ALL been real, albeit weighed down by doubt and uncertainty. She’d gone out of her way to avoid getting hurt, and yet here she was on the side of an ugly mountain in Spain feeling nothing but pain.
She’d walked countless miles in the past two days, through scrubby forests and shadeless vineyards and sweltering canyons and tiny villages, pushing up hills like her heavy heart could be healed by burning thighs and a sweaty back. But it just dulled the feeling into something more like sadness. Hannah didn’t really do sadness; she’d never been one to wallow in self-pity. Which was a miracle, really, considering her mother hadn’t smiled for the best part of two decades.
She unzipped the front pocket of her rucksack and pulled out Rob’s note, which she’d found in her bag when she checked into her B&B late on Friday night. It had obviously been scribbled in a hurry when he collected her stuff from their room, with each letter slanted so far forward it looked like it was tumbling into the next one like a row of dominoes. A left-handed thing, presumably.
I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out and I hope your trip gets better now. Thanks for letting me tag along. Rob x
It was hardly Shakespeare, but Hannah could feel the pain and sadness there too. She’d analysed the words for hours, trying to work out if the first sentence meant he was sorry the trip hadn’t worked out, or whether he was referring to things between them. A comma would have helped, but just because Rob hadn’t included one didn’t mean it wasn’t there in spirit. He was dyslexic and in a hurry, right?
But there were other things that he could have written that were notably not there.I’ll miss you. I wish you weren’t leaving. I’ll be here when you get back. I don’t want this to be the last time I ever put a note in your bag, and I want us to trust ourselves and the power of the universe that we can make this work.Hannah snorted with hollow laughter at her desperate need for a Disney ending and stuffed the note back in her rucksack, feeling the rough fuzz of the tennis ball against the tips of her fingers. She pulled it out and looked at the smiley face Rob had drawn on it in the same scribbled biro.Huge wide eyes with long lashes, a round nose like a clown, and a huge half-moon of a smile, with the words ‘HAVE A BALL’ written in capital letters underneath. It was kind of adorable; a reminder that even in a moment of sadness, he could still be the playful, cute Rob she’d been drawn to in the first place.
She pulled out her phone and opened WhatsApp. Rob had an account; she could see from the annoyingly upbeatHey There! I am using WhatsAppin her contacts list. But they’d never exchanged a message so it was just a blank page with a timecode at the top.Last seen today at 03:42.What was he doing looking at his phone at that time? Couldn’t sleep? Or just got in from a night with some other woman? For a second the pain in her chest felt like a knife, then subsided to a dull ache again. This wasn’t the first time she’d looked at the tiny timecode since she’d left on Friday, which definitely wasn’t healthy behaviour. She should delete his number really, so she couldn’t look at it any more. He still had hers, so he knew how to get in touch. Surely even he could write a text message if the occasion really called for it?
She hadn’t spoken to anyone for two whole days, she realised. Other than the couple who ran her B&B, who didn’t speak much English, and a young woman in a local supermarket who’d asked her if she’d wanted a bag for her pathetic selection of cheese and meat and bread and wine. In Spanish at first, because presumably Hannah’s olive skin and dark hair made her look like a local. But then the woman had clocked Hannah’s UK bank card and switched to English, to which Hannah had nodded and smiled in thanks, so actually that didn’t even count as a conversation.
Hannah logged out of Rob’s page and scrolled through her WhatsApp chats. A message from Luke, saying they’d arrived at Dad’s and all was fine, and that he’d call her in a day or two. Nothing from her mother – she’d still be angry and judgemental about her storming off. Nothing from Graham either; she had no idea if he’d gone home or was still dragging his emotional baggage around Spain. Her dad had sent a message two days ago sayingLuke, Dan and Elena here, Scrumpy fine, hope you’re OK.Clearly Luke had filled him in on the Club Colina drama, so she’d replied withAll good,sorry I’m not there but this is your show now.He was probably still reeling from a visit from his ex-wife, a son he hadn’t seen in seventeen years, and his son’s largely mute-but-extremely-fit boyfriend.
Who else could she talk to? Sam? She’d never burdened him with the heavy stuff, and she’d have to fill him in on all the background to the situation with Graham, which felt too exhausting. Hannah had never cultivated strong friendships; she’d always been happier alone. Until the trip to Club Colina, anyway – drink-spiking incident aside, that had been one of the best weeks of her life.
I need you guys, she typed into the TITS On Tour WhatsApp group.Got myself in a bit of a mess, anyone around for some poolside therapy?
A minute went by before Jess replied.I can talk now? Just out of yoga.
Me too, added Trish.Am in Waitrose car park but nothing frozen.
Don’t you dare fucking start without me, typed Gaynor.I’m in a meeting will tell them it’s a family emergency give me 5 mins.
Hannah smiled and turned her face to the sun while she waited, taking slow breaths and trying to get her thoughts in order. What did she want from them, exactly? She waited for the ringtone that invited her to a video call, then smiled for the first time in days at their collection of beaming faces.
‘Where are you?’ asked Jess, scanning the backdrop of blue sky and rocky grass behind Hannah for clues. ‘Is Rob there?’
‘No, it’s just me. I’m on a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada. I’m actually in the ski resort right now.’ She turned her phone around and gave them a full 360 of the car park and the pylons.
‘Looks like Woking,’ said Trish.
‘Why are you alone on a mountain, like Maria inThe Sound of Music?’ asked Gaynor. ‘Where’s Captain Von Rob?’
Hannah took a deep breath. ‘He’s with his parents, back at Club Colina. Hopefully not beating the shit out of Graham.’
