Prologue
Seven years. It’s been seven years since that night on the beach. I had laid on the damp sand with Adam, his thumb stroking mine. Dawn smudged the sky with its pink fingers while the rising sun flung glitter across the sea. We’d faced each other curled onto our sides, our bodies speech marks, unspoken words passing hesitantly between us; an illusory dream. Don’t ever leave me, I had silently asked him. I won’t, his eyes had silently replied.
But he did.
He has.
My memories are both painful and pleasurable to recall. We were blissfully happy until gradually we weren’t. Every cross word, every hard stare, each time we turned our backs on each other in bed gathered like storm clouds hanging over us, ready to burst, drenching us with doubt and uncertainty until we questioned what we once thought was unquestionable.
Can love really be eternal?
I can answer that now because the inequitable truth is that I am hopelessly, irrevocably, lost without him.
But does he feel the same?
I turn over the possibility of life without Adam, but each time I think of myself without him, no longer an us, my heart breaks all over again.
If only we hadn’t…
My chest tightens.
Breathe.
Breathe, Anna. You’re okay.
It’s a lie I tell myself, but gradually the horror of that day begins to dissipate with every slow inhale, with every measured exhale. It takes several minutes to calm myself. My fingers furling and unfurling, my nails biting into the tender skin of my palms until my burning sorrow subsides.
Focus.
I am running out of time. I’ve been trying to write a letter but the words won’t come. My notepaper is still stark white. My pen once again poised, ink waiting to stain the blank page with my tenuous excuses.
My secrets.
But not my lies. There’s been enough of those. Too many.
I am desperate to see him once more and make it right.
All of it.
I wish I knew what he wanted. My eyes flutter closed. I try to conjure his voice, imagining he might tell me what to do. Past conversations echo in my mind as I search for a clue.
If you love someone, set them free, he had once told me, but I brush the thought of this away. I don’t think it can apply to this awful situation we have found ourselves in. Instead I recall the feel of his body spooned around mine, warm breath on the back of my neck, promises drifting into my ear.
Forever.
I cling on to that one word as tightly as I’d once clung on to his hand.
I loved him completely. I still do. Whatever happens now, after, my heart will still belong to him.
Will always belong to him.
I must hurry if I’m going to reach him before it’s too late. There’s a tremble in my fingers as I begin the letter, which will be both an apology and an explanation, but it seems impossible to put it all into words – the story of us. I really don’t have time to think of the life we had – the life we almost had – but I allow myself the indulgence. Memories gather: we’re on the beach, watching the sunrise; I’m introducing him to my mum – his voice shaking with nerves as he said hello; we’re meeting for the first time in that shabby bar. Out of order and back to front and more than anything I wish I could live it all again. Except that day. Never that day.
Again, the vice around my lungs tightens. In my mind I see it all unfold and I feel it. I feel it all: fear, panic, despair.
Breathe, Anna.
In and out. In and out. Until I am here again, pen gripped too tightly in my hand.
Focus.
I made a mistake.
I stare so intently at the words I have written that they jump around on the page. I’m at a loss to know how to carry on, when I remember one of the first things Adam had said to me: ‘Start at the beginning, Anna.’
And so I do.
Speedily, the nib of my pen scratches over the paper. I let it all pour out.
This is not a typical love story, but it’s our love story.
Mine and Adam’s.
And despite that day, despite everything, I’m not yet ready for it to end.
Is he?
Part One
‘This will be the adventure of a lifetime.’
NELL STEVENS – ANNA’S BEST FRIEND
Chapter One
Anna
Seven years before
The date I met Adam is forever etched onto my mind; it should have been my wedding day. I tucked my hair behind my ears; rather than being strewn with confetti, it was greasy and limp. Unwashed and unloved.
The plane taxied down the runway before it rose sharply into the sky, a frothy white tail in its wake. Out of the window was nothing but cloud, as thick and woolly as my thoughts. Each time I remembered the way I’d been dumped, virtually at the altar, my face burned with the shame of it.
Goodbye.
I wasn’t sure if I was saying farewell to England or to the man who had broken my heart.
Fingers threaded through mine and squeezed. Tears threatened to fall as I gazed down at my ringless hand. Ridiculously, one of the things that had excited me most about my honeymoon had been the anticipation of the sun tanning my skin around the plain gold band I’d chosen. Knowing that even if I removed my jewellery to go into the sea, the thin, pale strip of skin circling the second finger of my left hand would act as a clear indicator that I was married.
That I was loved.
‘Stop thinking about him.’ Nell clicked open her seatbelt as the safety light went out, and signalled to the cabin crew for a drink. I smoothed out the creases in my floaty linen dress and it struck me I was wearing white. Miserably I fiddled with the neckline, not embroidered with tiny pearls that shimmered from cream to lilac to pink under the lights, like the dress I had picked out. It was hard not to cry again remembering the perfectness of that day. Mum covering her mouth with both hands when I glided out of the changing rooms and twirled in front of the many mirrors. Everywhere I looked I had beamed back at myself.
‘That’s the one,’ Mum had whispered like we were in a church, not a bridal shop, but I didn’t need her to tell me that. I knew it was the one.
It was such a shame he wasn’t the one.
‘It won’t always hurt this much,’ Nell said; not that she’d know. She was usually the one breaking hearts, hers was still intact. ‘You’ve had a lucky escape. He wasn’t good enough for you. Besides, twenty-four is too young to be married. This isn’t the 1950s.’
‘If it were the 1950s, I’d have been married years ago and popped out a couple of kids by now.’ My throat swelled at the thought. I might have been young but I couldn’t wait to be a mother. Would I ever have children? I’d thought my future was mapped out, but now all I had was doubts and fears and a mountain of wedding gifts to return.
‘I can’t see you slicking on lipstick and tying a ribbon in your hair five minutes before your husband gets home. And that’s after a day cleaning windows with vinegar and beating carpets.’
‘I know who I’d like to beat,’ I muttered darkly.
‘I’ll drink to that.’ She flashed a smile. ‘And from now on, the only vinegar will be on the chips he told you that you shouldn’t eat.’
‘He was worried about my health.’
‘Bollocks was he. He was worried you’d realize you’re a normal-sized, goddess of a woman and leave him for somebody who didn’t keep calling you chubby. Anyway, let’s not give him a second thought. I’m ready to get this party started—’