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“It isn’t gullible. It’s just scared of making a fool of itself over a famous fucking footballer who probably says that sort of thing to every person he meets.”
“But you know I don’t say it to every person I meet, is the thing.”
Okay,nowhe had a point. And so much of one that it made her cheeks heat.
She had to look away, embarrassed by how much she’d missed such easy things. Things she knew about him, things she understood, but had bypassed anyway in favor of what she always thought: that she was nothing. That she was not enough.
Even though she clearly was.
She absolutely was, and not just when it came to love.
When it came to other things, too.
Lots of things that she’d gone far too long without.
For almost no reason at all.I don’t know why I let things be this way for almost no reason at all, she wanted to say. Yet somehow, she still found herself pressing him about it. “All right, I’ll give you that. But the thing is, I needed more than that. I couldn’t have gotten it with that one thing.”
“So what about when I held your hand?”
“That was just for show,” she protested. “It was pretend.”
“Yeah. But the look I gave you after I brushed your hair wasn’t.”
“I didn’t even know what that look meant. I thought I just startled you.”
She glanced back at him then. Just to see how ridiculous he was finding her now. Only somehow, that wasn’t what she saw when she took in his expression. It was all softness, all understanding, in a way that made her ache.
And that wasbeforehe spoke.
“You did. Because for a second your face was so full of unabashed affection for me that I didn’t know how to deal with it,” he said. Then more, there was more, oh, there was so much. “Honestly, do you have any idea what it was like for me, to see you look at me like I’d touched your heart? Like I meant something to you, like you could see softness in me, like you likedit, like you loved it, like all you wanted to do was ask me for more?”
Because I did, she thought.
All along I did, even if I didn’t know it.
Though the more remarkable thing to her was that he had, too.
“I can’t believe you felt that for me all the way back then. All that time ago.”
“I felt something for you before that, Mabel. I felt it when you cradled my face in your hands. When you first talked to me like you enjoyed all the strange things I had to say. Even all the way back to when I first saw you in that office, so soft and earnest and lovely. Like everything I’d always longed for, but never been worthy of.” He looked away, like he was remembering. And what he saw was so much more than she could ever have known. “Only youdidthink I was worthy of you—even if it was just for a little while, even if it was all just half pretend. And I want you to know, love, that I will always, always be so grateful to you for that. Because I swear, one second of whatever that was with you is worth a thousand years of anything I’ve ever known, from anyone else.”
And then there was just silence.
A long, long silence.
That was only broken when he looked back and saw why she wasn’t saying anything at all. “What are you crying for? Oh love, I don’t want you to cry.”
“I’m crying because I didn’t know, Alfie. Don’t you get it? I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t understand, not even deep down, I didn’t, I just didn’t. It seemed too mad, too impossible, too like something that happens in a bloody movie. And not just because I thought I was everything you didn’t want—not just because I’m fluffy and silly, and you’re serious and practical. Because I’m just so ordinary, and you’re this beloved handsome rich icon. Who is also somehow funny and charismatic and interesting, god, you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met. Yet somehow, I’m supposed to believe you love me? It’s absurd.”
“Well yeah, if you put it like that.”
“What other way would you put it?”
“That the love of my life might like me more than I thought.”
He said it like he thought it would stop her being upset.
But of course all it did was just make it worse.
