Read the book: «The Life We Almost Had», page 2

Chapter Two

Adam

It was four days into the holiday and if I’m honest I was feeling pretty lonely. Josh had met a girl on day one and was spending much of his time massaging sun cream into her curves. She had a friend who smiled hopefully each time I caught her eye. She seemed nice enough, but holiday romances weren’t really my bag.

‘She’s offering it on a plate,’ Josh had said.

But I needed some sort of connection. It all seemed so shallow otherwise.

‘Worse than a bloody woman.’ Josh checked his pocket for condoms again. As agreed, I vacated the room, heading towards the bar. I’d hardly spent any time with Josh since we arrived – this was supposed to be our last mates’ holiday before I launched myself into my new life – but I didn’t mind. Generally, I liked my own company.

I was bored now though. I took another swig of beer – my fifth pint. It may be free but I had to drink twice as much as I did at home to get a slight buzz. The music was loud but that was okay, I didn’t have anyone to talk to; besides, I was a bit of a sucker for the Eighties – another thing Josh ribbed me about. If we’d met as adults I sometimes wondered if we’d have been friends at all, but Josh had been there for me during that awful time nine years ago and I don’t know who I’d be without him. Where I’d be. Despite his ‘don’t give a shit’ exterior, he was steadfast in his loyalty and like a brother to me, albeit sometimes an annoying brother. I was wondering whether to call it a night, whether he’d finished hogging our apartment, when I saw her.

You know sometimes all the light in a room seems to attach to one person and they shine brighter than anyone else? That was her. Everything blurred into the background. I took in the cascade of thick, dark ringlets falling over her shoulders. Bright pink flower tucked behind her ear. Pale floaty dress skimming her ankles. She looked exactly like Star from The Lost Boys, one of my all-time favourite films.

Star.

And how she shimmered. My chest tightened. I waited to see who she was with, shoulders sagging with relief when I saw it was another girl.

Not that that meant she was necessarily single.

Not that I was looking, after my disastrous relationship with Roxanne had only finished a few months ago.

But still.

She sipped from a glass almost as large as a fish bowl, crammed full of cocktail umbrellas and fruit on sticks. She had a sense of humour then.

I smiled at her. She turned away but I didn’t mind. I still had ten days left to get to know her.

And I somehow I just knew that I would.

The crowd had thinned by the time she left. The entertainment – and I used the term loosely – finished. The bar felt even emptier without her. Colder. Scrunching up my plastic cup, I tossed it into the recycling bin as I left. She was standing in reception with her friend, their backs to me, checking in. It suddenly seemed vital that I asked what time I needed to vacate my room in ten days so I hovered behind her and yeah, I admit it, I breathed in deeply, smelling the coconut shampoo she used. Even then I was in rapture. Two words pulled me back to reality.

Honeymoon suite?

‘If we could have our key. My wife and I are eager to go to bed,’ the one with short blonde hair said. Star rested her head on her wife’s shoulder and I felt my own shoulders slump. The flower slid out of her hair, fluttering unnoticed onto the floor and I couldn’t help scooping it up. When she left reception, I watched her go. It felt she was taking a piece of me with her.

Yeah, I know how that sounds. Did I mention that I was an incurable romantic?

I felt Miguel’s eyes on me while I clutched the flower sorrowfully between my fingers.

Or an incurable loser.

I wasn’t exactly following her, I promise. I was many things back then but a stalker wasn’t one of them. As luck would have it, her apartment was pretty much opposite mine and Josh’s. Identical, except ours had the giant pink inflatable flamingo Josh had bought on the first day, almost blocking our front door. I was still holding her flower and I wanted to give it back to her. I knew she had a wife, but I hoped that we could be friends. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about her I found so interesting but there was… something.

‘Excuse me,’ I called, approaching her. It wasn’t until she turned that I realized she was crying. My eyes flickered towards the ‘Just Married’ banner hanging in their room, the champagne bottle on the table, before resting back on hers again.

‘Sorry…’ I was painfully embarrassed I’d interrupted such an emotional moment. What a dick move. The happiest day of her life and some weirdo was holding out a flower while idiotically standing in front of a bush sprouting at least thirty identical magenta blooms. ‘You dropped this.’

She turned and ran inside while her friend – her wife – gave me a look so withering I expected the plants to shrivel and die. I pretty much wanted to join them.

I sloped back to my own apartment. Inside, a red lacy bra was draped over the sofa and there were noises coming from the bedroom I definitely didn’t want to be hearing. My head was pounding. I swiped a bottle of water from the fridge and headed straight back out. Through the window of Star’s apartment, I could see the girls shadowed in the lamplight, hugging each other tightly. Something tugged at my heart. It wasn’t long ago that I’d held Roxanne in my arms but better empty arms than the wrong person in them. Besides Roxanne was in somebody else’s arms now. Somebody else’s bed.

Bypassing the beach all the tourists use, I strode purposefully until I reached a tiny cove I’d stumbled across the first evening Josh had been ‘entertaining’. It wasn’t too far but unreachable by road, and without parking, toilets and refreshments, hardly anyone came here. It was my favourite place.

I settled on the damp sand, the night breeze springing gooseflesh on my arms. I wished I had someone to share warmth with and not in the way Josh was doing back at the apartment.

Something proper.

Instead of a bottle of champagne for two, I sipped from my lonely bottle of Evian for one, gazing at the creamy moon. A shooting star lit up the sky. I made a wish that I could talk properly to the girl who was already occupying too much head space.

Yeah, I was an incurable dreamer.

The next day my wish did come true, but the circumstances were awful.

Bloody awful.

Chapter Three

Anna

On the first day of my honeymoon, I woke to darkness after a fitful sleep. Immediately I remembered that I hadn’t got married yesterday – the pain of being dumped two weeks before my wedding day. That it was Nell lying beside me in the creaky bed that rocked each time once of us moved. It was her floral perfume, rather than the smell of sex, clinging to the stiff, white sheets. Checking my phone screen, I was surprised to see it was gone eight. Automatically I opened Facebook. Wondering if my ex was regretting his decision. It was torturous visiting his profile page, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Multiple times a day.

‘Unfriend the tosser,’ Nell had said, but it was an addiction. A wound that would never heal because I was always picking at the scab, despite knowing that what lay underneath was raw and painful, and would hurt all over again.

He’d been tagged yesterday by Sonia in a photo of the two of them sprawled out on a picnic blanket. Rather than standing at the altar, ready to love me for better or worse, he’d chosen to sit in a field. Sandwiches and crisps formed an oval around a giant chocolate cake. I wondered how long it would be until he told her she should lay off the sweet stuff. Pinch her waist and sigh she’s getting chubby. I studied the picture. She had to be a size twelve – the same as me. I’d thought after all his barbed comments that it was my body that turned him off; it was almost worse seeing he’d gone for somebody the same shape as me. To know that it wasn’t the outer me he didn’t want, the thing I could change, but the inner me. The essence of who I was wasn’t enough for him. I wasn’t enough for him.

Best day ever!! Sonia had captioned her post. He had liked her comment but hadn’t written a reply. Had it really been his best day ever? Better than the day he proposed? That was over a picnic too. His signature move. Suddenly it all seemed so calculated. A message that I’m easily replaceable. Easily forgettable.

Bastard.

‘Charming,’ Nell muttered.

‘Sorry, I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud. You’re awake then?’

‘God knows why. It’s the middle of the bloody night.’

‘It’s quarter past eight.’

‘Same thing.’

Bright sunlight burst into the room when I opened the shutters. Nell shrieked and yanked the duvet over her head. I had to blink several times before I could make out the clear blue sky.

‘It’s going to be scorching,’ I said.

‘Too right.’ Nell’s words were muffled. ‘And that’s just me in my bikini.’

The all-inclusive morning buffet was ridiculous. Nell and I had piled our plates with crispy bacon, thick maple syrup, waffles, eggs with runny yolks, crusty bread and sachets of orange marmalade, reassuring each other that we’d swim off the calories. Not that I could swim properly but walking in water was toning. Also there was a gym here. Yoga classes. Beach volleyball. I was going to be all kinds of active.

By midday I’d been star-fished on my towel for two hours. My dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre laid unopened next to me. I’d been intending to reread it this week before my students began it next year, but for once I had switched off from work, from home. From everything. The sand moulded to my shape, cradling me in its warmth. The tender skin around my chest was beginning to sting. It took a gargantuan effort to lever myself onto my elbows. Nell was shrieking in the ocean. Jumping over crystal waves. Screeching at a boy named Josh to stop splashing her.

I became aware of eyes on me. Making a pantomime of adjusting my hat, tucking my hair in, I twisted my head left to right until I saw him. It was the boy from the bar. I prickled with embarrassment, recalling how I’d run away in tears last night when he had tried to give me back my flower. Instinctively, I sucked in my stomach while covering my pasty sausage legs with my towel. When I’d first suggested booking Alircia for a honeymoon, the idiot I had almost married told me I needed to lose at least a stone if I wanted to look half decent in the one-piece swimsuits he always said suited me better than bikinis.

I had tried.

Picking at salad while he tucked into steak and chips; sitting in the cinema, my lap empty, while he balanced a giant tub of buttery popcorn, the smell making me salivate. After I’d been dumped though, I’d stuffed myself with ice cream to cool my humiliation and I’d probably put on those few pounds I’d lost, and more. It hadn’t seemed important what I weighed. But now it did. Was the boy from the bar wondering why I was the only girl on the beach in a one-piece? Imagining that my body underneath was covered in boils? From behind the safety of my sunglasses, I stole another glance in his direction. Rather than staring at me with horror or disgust or even amusement, he wore an expression of something else. Admiration? Interest? There was no way I was up for a holiday romance, but still it gave me hope that my bruised and battered self-confidence might one day heal. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at me like that. The last time anyone had looked at me properly at all.

It hit me that my fiancé had long stopped loving me, if he ever had, and for the first time I felt I might have had a lucky escape.

With a start, I realized that I was staring and he knew that I was looking at him. I felt a gentle creep of heat that had nothing to do with the sun. A pull of attraction as he held me in his gaze. Wanting to wash away the sticky sun cream, the sand clinging to my skin, all the feelings I didn’t want to be feeling, I raced into the sea, thundering past Nell until my thighs were covered by the water, my bottom, my hips. The roll around my stomach that never seemed to disappear no matter how many crunches I did. Cringing at the cellulite speckling the back of my legs. Feeling horribly conspicuous in my black swimming costume amongst a plethora of neon bikinis.

Despite its perfect blue, the sea was colder than I had expected. I sucked in my breath, tasting the droplets of salty water that splashed my lips. Counting to three in my head, I plunged under the waves, slicking my hair back over my scalp when I surfaced. Bouncing on my toes, adjusting to my lower body feeling cool, the sun heating my shoulders and face. Around my legs weaved fish, larger than I had ever seen. Their silvery scales catching the light, casting mini rainbows above the waves. I trailed my hands through the water as I walked, smiling with delight as a fish brushed against my fingertips. Tomorrow, I decided I’d buy a snorkel. I could stay in the shallows and feed the fish. Not with bread – I didn’t want to make them ill – but I’d bring some vegetables back from breakfast.

I strode forward. Once. Twice. Stopping to let the ripples around me settle. Watching a shoal of bream pass by, I moved once more. Suddenly there was a tugging sensation, my legs knocked from under me. At first I was confused, thinking it was someone playing a trick on me. I glanced around, realizing how far from the shore I had strayed. Panic rose. I was out of my depth. I tried to step towards the beach, using my hands to scoop back the water and give my legs momentum, but I was marching on the spot. Nell almost a pinprick on her towel. Unable to hear me shouting her name. I flapped my arms in the air. A wave knocked me off my feet. Water flooding my mouth. I was choking. Spluttering. Coming up for air and sinking once more.

‘Help!’ I screamed now. My voice minute against the vastness of the ocean that held me in its grip.

The current dragged me back once more. I was treading water now. Tiring. My body exhausted with the effort of trying to reach dry land. My eyes stinging with salt. With tears. My throat sore from both screaming and the salt water I had gulped.

It can only have been minutes but it felt like hours, my limbs heavy with exhaustion. The ocean bed sucking me down.

I felt myself slip under. Spiral down. Down. The clear water growing murky. For a split second I let my body go limp. Giving up. My lips parted. Water streamed down my throat. My lungs burning as they gasped for air. Unbidden, my feet gave adrenaline-fuelled kicks, my arms windmilling with panic. My head burst out of the water. My whole body thrashing like a fish on a line, panic contracting each and every cell. I’d been swept even further from the beach. Why weren’t there any lifeguards here? Why wasn’t anybody helping me?

I was crying now. Fear causing me to shiver despite the sun. I raised my hand. My body dropping like a stone. My fingers grasping at nothing, fruitlessly trying to find something to grip onto.

But there was nothing to help me.

I plunged beneath the surface once more.

My energy drained, the fight ebbing away from me.

Chapter Four

Adam

There was something so confident about her. The way she wore a swimming costume rather than a bikini. Not caring about fitting in. Not trying to look like everyone else. Her body was curvy in all the right places. The way she covered up, rather than putting it all out on display, made her appear almost other-worldly. The word chaste sprung to mind and I chided myself for my outdated idealism. Romanticizing everything when I got the chance. She determinedly strode into the water, not dipping a toe in and shrieking it was cold like the other girls. Her self-assurance was captivating. It might have been daylight, but she still shone like a star. My mouth couldn’t help smiling along with hers. I couldn’t see what she was watching so intently, probably the fish.

There was a shriek.

The blonde – Star’s wife – frolicking in the waves with Josh. He probably thought she was flirting with him.

Sucker.

My eyes flickered back to Star. She was bobbing up and down. Tiny in the huge expanse of ocean but in no way insignificant.

Josh and the blonde ran out of the sea and flopped down onto towels, deep in conversation. Again, I gazed out to sea, shielding my eyes when I couldn’t immediately see her. She resurfaced. Her hands waved. I thought at first she was beckoning to the blonde, wanting her to go back into the water, but then she slipped underwater again, and I wasn’t so sure. Worry drew me to my feet. Something was wrong. I knew it. She disappeared from view again. Her arms flailing as she fought to break free of the current, which now I realized had her in its grip. It was strong here, I knew from experience, but she should have been able to swim through it.

Why wasn’t she swimming?

The ocean sucked her down once more, her body, her head, her tightly clenched hands. I ripped off my T-shirt, kicked off my flip-flops and pelted into the sea. Once I was knee-deep I threw myself forward, the water slapping against my stomach, my arms slicing through the water. It could only have taken several seconds to reach her but it felt like forever. Her head was barely above water, panic in her eyes.

‘Just relax.’ I linked my arms around her waist. ‘I’ve got you.’ Her body thrashed wildly, heels jabbing into my shins. She didn’t speak. She was whimpering like a frightened puppy. ‘Let your body go limp or you’ll drag us both under.’ She was slim, she couldn’t weigh much, but I was struggling to stay afloat. She tried her best to stop moving but her muscles were rigid. It was like trying to save an ironing board, stiff and unyielding. I tried to manoeuvre her head onto my shoulder. ‘Relax.’ This was nothing like rescuing a mate in a swimming pool for my silver badge. I was sweating despite the water. I began kicking towards the shore, her slumped against my chest, her head leaning back on my shoulder. ‘I’ve got you,’ I said again. It was then I realized I never wanted to let her go.

In the shallows we stumbled to our feet, our arms around each other. I wasn’t sure who was supporting who as we staggered onto dry sand. I was incredulous that conversation still buzzed, children still filled their buckets. Nobody had noticed that someone had almost drowned. My adrenaline was leeching from me, the memory of a few minutes ago hazy. But it had happened.

‘Are you okay?’

She nodded but I knew she wasn’t. She was shaking. I was shaking.

‘Anna! I’m going to get some drinks with Josh. Be back in a bit,’ the blonde called loudly before she turned away.

Anna. She was called Anna. I wanted us to be alone but she needed comfort. Reassurance. I couldn’t give that to her. I couldn’t just watch the blonde leave, like a dick.

‘Do you want me to tell your wife what happened?’ I asked as her knees buckled and she sank onto her towel, still coughing.

‘My wife? Why would you… Oh, last night.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘She’s not my… I’m not…’ She coughed again, rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand.

That mouth.

‘It’s hard to know how to explain,’ she said.

‘I find it’s best to start at the beginning, Anna?’ I sat cross-legged next to her. ‘I’m Adam, by the way.’

‘I don’t want to go into it all, but Nell’s my best friend. We’re not romantically… I’m not romantically…’ She ran her fingers over the face of my watch. ‘I hope that’s waterproof – it looks old?’

She was changing the subject. I wanted to know why she was on a honeymoon with her friend but I didn’t want to push. She looked so pale and there was still a tremble in her fingers as she lifted them from my wrist.

‘It’ll be okay.’ I leaned back on my elbows, feeling the rough sand against my feet, the sun warming my skin, and hope. I felt hope.

‘You twat,’ Josh would have said if he knew what I was thinking.

He wouldn’t be far wrong.

‘Thank you,’ Anna said quietly. We’d been sitting side by side, gazing out to sea for at least fifteen minutes – it was difficult to gauge the time; my watch wasn’t waterproof and I wasn’t hopeful it would ever work again. We were both lost in our own what-might-have-been thoughts. Our silence companionable rather than awkward. ‘You saved my life,’ she said.

‘You’d have been okay.’ I sieved sand through my fingers. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better. Embarrassed. I’m not a good swimmer.’

‘No shit!’

There was a split second when her expression hovered uncertainly before she burst into laughter. I found myself laughing too and when Josh returned with the drinks we were doubled over, my sides aching.

‘What’s so funny?’ Josh asked, shadowed in the sun, but we couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t explain it. For Anna it was probably the relief of her being alive. For me? It was the same.

‘I’m Nell.’ The blonde handed Anna a plastic pint glass of beer before she sat, curving her legs under her.

‘Adam.’ I took a sip from the glass Josh offered me. It was weak and warm.

‘Are you as smooth as your friend here, Adam?’ Nell asked.

‘Sadly not. Josh has all the moves.’

‘So he thinks,’ Nell grinned.

‘I think I might have met my match,’ Josh said.

Nell raised her eyebrows. ‘You think?’

‘And you are?’ Josh held a hand out to Anna.

‘Anna.’ She took his hand and he raised hers to his lips, planted a kiss.

‘A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.’

Nell cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘Lock up your daughters – Casanova is in town.’

Josh’s eyes were all over Anna, undoubtedly unsavoury thoughts running through his mind.

‘Oi. Behave.’ I threw a kick in his direction. He glanced at me and I gave an almost indiscernible shake of my head and in return he gave an almost imperceptible nod. He turned his attention back to Nell. He may come across as a dick sometimes but, like I said, he was loyal to me. Always had my back.

While he asked Nell if she fancied another swim, I asked Anna if she wanted to go for a walk and I tried not to read too much into it when she said that she did.

We strolled barefoot across the beach, not getting too close to the rolling waves that frothed into foam. Jet skis zoomed towards the shore and shot out to sea again as though they were attached to elastic. I felt the prickling heat of sunburn on the back of my neck, but I also felt something else. Comfortable. Something I’d never truly felt with Roxanne, with her constant obsession with her appearance. With my appearance. Making me change before a night out if what I was wearing didn’t complement her outfit.

‘Shall we head up there?’ I pointed to a slope that led off the beach.

In unison, we turned. Our bodies were close as we strolled, arms almost brushing. I could have stretched out my fingers and taken her hand, but I didn’t.

We paused when we reached the path. Brushing the sand from our feet before slipping our flip-flops on. Hers were silver and sparkly. Mine were from Primark, white and plastic. Roxanne would have been horrified.

A row of kiosks selling postcards and buckets and spades provided a strip of shade and we stepped into it thankfully, welcoming the kiss of warmth rather than the beating heat.

A man approached us and thrust a clipboard under Anna’s nose. Pushed a pen into her hand. He tapped twice on the sentence at the top of the form written in broken English. Some sort of petition to keep open a school for deaf children. Anna glanced at the man, confused. He placed his hands over his ears.

‘You’re deaf,’ Anna said.

He nodded. Moved a hand to cover his mouth.

‘You can’t talk?’

He shook his head.

Anna’s expression was one of sadness. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She spoke slowly. Clearly, exaggerating each word with the movement of her lips. ‘What do you need?’

He twisted his fingers, signing things we didn’t understand.

‘I can’t… I don’t know sign language,’ Anna said.

The man tapped twice on the sentence again, this time with force. The clipboard bowing in Anna’s hands. He slid his finger down to a blank space before pointing at Anna.

‘You want me to sign my name?’

He nodded. His hands making circles as though there was more.

‘My address?’

He nodded again. Tapped the paper too hard. He was getting my back up now. He might be deaf but that was no excuse to be rude and intimidating.

‘You don’t have to—’ I began but Anna had begun scrawling out her details.

Anna Adlington.

‘Good luck.’ She handed the clipboard back to him with a smile. She began to walk on but he put a hand against her shoulder, stopping her. He rubbed his fingers together, the universal sign for cold hard cash.

‘Oh, you want money!’ Anna’s cheeks spotted pink. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t have my bag. Adam… do you…’

I did have my wallet but I wasn’t giving anything to this tosser with his aggressive attitude. It was probably a scam.

‘No, I don’t.’ I took Anna’s arm and went to walk away but the man blocked my path.

‘Listen, mate.’ I straightened my spine. ‘We’re not giving you any money, understand?’

The man began to shout, angry words, and despite the language barrier I could guess what he was saying.

‘Back off.’ I held up my palm, shielding Anna with my other arm. We hurried away.

‘He lied,’ she said quietly. ‘You really can’t trust anyone.’ I could hear the crack in her voice as she spoke and I knew she was thinking of whoever had hurt her, just as I was thinking of Roxanne.

‘I’d better get back to Nell.’ She wouldn’t meet my eye and began to hurry away.

‘Anna.’ I hesitated as she paused. Unsure what I wanted to say. That not all men are bastards. That I’d never hurt her. Lie to her. That rejection was raw for me as well, that I understood; finding Roxanne in bed with her boss, her legs wrapped around his waist while a band of pain tightened around my heart. There was so much I wanted to say but I didn’t say any of it. Instead, I asked, ‘I’d very much like to have dinner later. With you, I mean. You and me having dinner together. What do you think?’

It was crazy to ask. A holiday romance wasn’t on the agenda. A quick fling wasn’t my style and I had plans for after this fortnight. A new life waiting that wouldn’t accommodate a relationship. But still, in that moment we felt all kinds of right for each other. I didn’t know then that we were all kinds of wrong for each other.

I didn’t know, while I waited for her answer, that I should, perhaps, have walked away.