‘Okay. Where do you want to meet?’
Did he really need to ask?
‘By the tree.’
‘Of course,’ he said, already sounding more distant, like someone I used to know. ‘See you there in an hour.’
My hands shook as I applied mascara and lip gloss in front of my bedroom mirror. Over my shoulder the empty room kept disappearing and a shimmering image of all the times Rhys and I had been together in this place glimmered in the glass. He was haunting me, and he hadn’t even gone yet.
I chose my outfit with care, just in case this was going to be the last time I saw him. The thought caused a raw sob to escape. Old Ellie, the one Mum had shaped from the ashes of her own rejection, told me to get a grip. Ignoring her, I pulled his favourite top from my drawer. It was a shade of ice blue that complemented my colouring and went well with my jeans, the ones that hugged me everywhere they should. That was good, I thought, as I ran a comb through the wedding curls that still hadn’t dropped out. I had a feeling I might need a hug before the day was over.
Sunday mornings in the park are always uplifting. It’s impossible to escape the joyfulness, because it hits you from every angle: dogs leaping like acrobats for frisbees, parents playing ball with their children or pushing them to squeals of delight on the swings, breathless joggers gasping out ‘good morning’ as they pound past on the pathways. Even the herons living by the lake look happy.
I tried to draw in the atmosphere as though it was an antidote to the trepidation coursing through my veins, pushing the blood aside and making me cold in the unexpectedly warm October sunshine.
There was a feeling of serendipity in being here to learn what had been troubling Rhys for the last forty-eight hours. Time was spooling backwards; taking us back to where it had all begun.
Rhys was standing beneath the tree, facing away from me. My pace slowed, while my heart rate did the opposite. He was staring into the distance, following the flight of the lakeside’s long-legged feathered residents as they settled in the trees.
I crossed the grass to reach him, my footsteps silent. Yet when I was still too far away for him to have heard my approach, Rhys suddenly stiffened and turned to face me.
The first thing I noticed was the two takeaway cups in his hands. One of them bore his name in scrawled black script. Something shifted inside me, as though a circle was closing.
The closer I got to his side, the more my heart felt like it was breaking, not because of what I feared was about to happen, but because here was the man I had come to love – even though I’d never once said those words to him – and he was hurting. Somehow that gave me the strength to summon up a smile from an almost empty barrel and paste it onto my face. This was horrible for him too. I could see that.
Very carefully Rhys set the cups down on the ground and stepped towards me, his arms open. My feet took over before my brain could override them. They ran to him. The hug lifted me from the grass, crushed my ribs, and made me wish that we could freeze this single moment and never let it go.
But he set me back down before gently lifting my chin until my face was tilted towards his. His lips were soft as they covered mine, but the kiss was bittersweet. It was over too soon, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the same was about to be true of us.
‘You look tired,’ I said, my gaze tracing new lines that I swear hadn’t been there before. They ran like fantails from the edges of his eyes and drew a stack of horizons across his forehead.
‘I feel exhausted,’ he admitted. The smile I loved crept on to his lips. ‘Turns out I don’t sleep that well anymore when you’re not beside me.’
‘Ditto,’ I said, noticing that the smile he was giving me hadn’t reached his eyes, which were full of clouds darker than the stormy ones that had gathered on the day we’d met on this spot.
He bent to retrieve the coffees and passed me mine. I prised open the lid and saw a heart shape in the foam. It had broken down the middle, something I didn’t imagine the barista had done. It felt like the entire universe was trying to prepare me for something I still didn’t want to believe.
‘Do you want to do the small-talk bit first?’ he asked.
‘No. All I want is to make sure this isn’t a preamble to telling me something awful about Tasha.’
There was a look of quiet admiration in his eyes when I said that. ‘You really are the best person I’ve ever met.’
I gave a rueful smile. ‘Why do I get the feeling that isn’t going to be enough?’
He winced then, as though I’d stabbed him.
‘Let’s walk,’ he said, putting an arm around my shoulders and leading me away from the old, damaged oak.
I managed just five steps before I blurted out the horrible fear that I’d been trying my best to suppress.
‘Are you going back to Annalise?’
His stride faltered, but he kept walking.
‘No. Well, I don’t know. Not really.’
‘That’s a piss-poor answer, Rhys. I’m going to need a better one than that.’ I was trying to pry myself out of his hold, but his griptightened and he wouldn’t let me. That just wasn’t fair; letting me go while still holding me close.