‘Nell—’
‘I know, I know.’ She caught sight of my expression. ‘This isn’t what you wanted. I’m not the one who should be here and you’ve no chance of joining the mile-high club now—’
‘Nell—’
‘But. You can either spend the next ten days crying by the pool or try and make the best of it. I know you loved him, Anna—’
‘Nell Stevens.’ Her concerned eyes met mine and I knew she was worried she’d pushed it too far. ‘I just want to say… thank you. Not just for persuading me to come but… for all of it.’ Nell had dropped everything when I had called her at work, sobbing uncontrollably two weeks before my big day. She had kept me stocked up on vodka and ice cream while she phoned around the guests, explaining it was me who had had a change of heart. It was Nell who had talked me out of confronting Sonia Skelton when the rumours about her and my fiancé surfaced, and her who confiscated my phone at night so I couldn’t drunk-text the cheating scumbag at 3 a.m. She allowed me to retain some dignity, on the outside at least. Humiliation still stung each time I thought of him, and I thought of him often, but oddly my feelings around him were tangled in a mass of embarrassment and regret, underpinned with a slow, simmering anger. I’d wasted three years of my life. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it was him I actually missed or the idea of him. If you have to ask yourself ‘is it love’, it probably isn’t, is it?
Our foreheads touched and again her fingers entwined with mine. There was no need for words until our drinks were delivered. Nell dived on the miniature bottles with a ‘woo hoo’.
‘You’ve a lot to be grateful for.’ She unscrewed the gin and fizzed tonic into my glass.
‘Alcohol?’
‘That goes without saying. But the travel agent didn’t have to let you change the name on the ticket. Now you’ve got someone to rub sun cream on your back without expecting to get laid, and someone to hold your hair back when too much Sex on the Beach makes you sick.’
‘I’m not going to have sex on the beach or anywhere else… Oh.’ I realized she was talking about the cocktail.
‘You never know. We might meet two nice boys.’
‘No boys.’ I swigged my drink, bubbles tickling my nose. ‘No boys ever again.’
I raised my glass, arm hovering in the air until she raised hers.
‘This will be the adventure of a lifetime,’ she said and we chinked. She turned out to be right.
But rather than flying away from something, I was flying towards something.
Towards him. To Adam.
I just didn’t know it then.
By the time the coach dropped us off at our hotel on the Spanish island of Alircia, it was nearly midnight but I still called Mum to let her know I’d arrived; she’d only worry otherwise.
‘We’re here.’ I tried to keep the sadness out of my voice but Mum heard it anyway.
‘It’ll get easier, Anna,’ she said, but I knew being alone hadn’t got easier for her. ‘Better with no one than the wrong one.’
‘I know.’ I did know. I’d accepted his proposal for myriad reasons: because of what I’d been through, was yet to go through, but none of them the right reason. The only reason.
Love.
I told Mum I’d speak to her soon. Nell and me hovered near the pots of exotic plants and flowers, waiting for the driver to empty the luggage hold; Nell plucked a bright pink bougainvillea and tucked it into my hair.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she exclaimed, but I barely registered the fairy lights twisted around the thick trunks of the palm trees that circled the pool. We wheeled our suitcases towards reception to check in. I was hot and exhausted. The gin I’d drunk earlier had left a residue on my tongue. A throbbing in my temples.
‘Check this out!’ Nell, typically, had abandoned her luggage and was sauntering into the bar. ‘Nightcap?’
‘I’m shattered.’ I was struggling with her case and mine. ‘I just want a shower and my bed.’
‘Spoilsport.’ She said it lightly but I felt a pang of guilt. I knew she’d used all her annual leave this year and had taken this time off unpaid to support me. The least I could do was let her have a drink.
‘I suppose because it’s all-inclusive it would be rude not to,’ I said.
I stayed with our things, stifling a yawn and hoping Nell would order us shots as she sashayed to the bar. Instead of something we could knock back quickly, she returned with two glasses brimming with orange liquid and stuffed with pink parasols, cocktail sticks spearing glacé cherries.
‘I asked for something fun,’ she shouted over Madonna who was ‘True Blue’. What was it with Spain and their fascination with English Eighties music?
I took a sip. ‘Jesus. We’ll sleep well after these.’
‘You think? I can only taste the orange. You’re such a lightweight. Hey, one o’clock.’
‘God, is it? No wonder I’m so tired.’
‘No. Look. At one o’clock.’ Nell jerked her head to her left. ‘He’s checking you out.’ I couldn’t help but look and when I did, I felt… I don’t know, a sense of déjà vu. Familiarity. He was tall, dark and awkward, sipping beer from a plastic cup, and alone. He seemed to be alone. He caught my eye and smiled. I turned away.
‘No boys, remember?’ I said to Nell.
‘I’ve you listed as being on your honeymoon?’ the young receptionist with jet black hair and bright white teeth asked.
‘Yes.’ Nell peered at his name tag. ‘Miguel.’ She draped an arm around my shoulders. ‘If we could have our key. My wife and I are eager to go to bed.’
Pretending we were married was preferable to going into why I wasn’t and Nell knew I did have that terribly British urge to constantly explain myself, but the emotions that surfaced when I heard myself described as someone’s wife zapped the last of my energy. All of a sudden it all caught up with me. The journey, the alcohol, my lack of sleep. My vision darkened and my ears began to buzz. Wishing I could sit, I rested my head on Nell’s shoulder, lulled by the tap-tap-tap of Miguel’s keyboard as he checked us in, words drifting in and out of reach … breakfast… sun loungers… excursions.
‘Let’s go, darling.’ Nell dropped a kiss atop of my head. Simultaneously I straightened my neck and wiped my mouth for traces of drool before I thanked Miguel and forced my feet to move. I could feel eyes burning into my back as we headed outside where the air was still warm and chirruping crickets welcomed us to their island.
The music grew fainter as we searched for our accommodation, using the scant light from the screens of our phones to make out the numbers on the whitewashed walls. Inflatable swans and flamingos rested on balconies, a signpost to the apartments with kids in them. Towels and swimwear dangled from retractable washing lines.
Stars speckled the sky and through the blackness, to our right, the sound of the waves lapping against an unseen shore. The warm air smelled of the beach.
‘This is us,’ Nell said. She unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry, Anna.’
I pushed past her, wanting to see what she saw. A ‘Just Married’ banner was strung across the lounge, rose petals scattered on the floor. On the coffee table, a bottle of champagne and two flutes.