When We Were Young Read online

  So I’d pore over the album in my room, most evenings. It was always on my desk, always waiting so I could say goodnight to my parents.

  Sometimes, when I was about eight or nine, I’d imagine they were the stars outside, shining brightly. There were two that were often visible through the gap in my curtains, and for so long I’d say goodnight to those stars too.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma whispers, and I stare at her. What has she got to be sorry for?

  Her eyes are lightening, just the color of them. Blue fading to a hazy gray. Maybe it’s the snow that’s falling that’s changing them, or maybe it’s her emotion. But, oh, those eyes I’ve stared into a thousand times before. Eyes that spoke to me as we made love.

  I take a deep breath and look at the ground, at the frost on the gravel and at her scuffed trainers and at my new socks with comets stitched on them. “Me too.”

  I sigh, and I know without looking that Emma’s nose is getting pinker still. Her ears will be freezing too. She always got cold ears so easily. And I don’t know why I’m thinking of her cold ears, when this is it. This is the chance I need. The chance to talk, because we need to talk.

  I need to explain—if I can.

  I need Emma to listen—if she will.

  I need to say sorry.

  “I’ve just boiled the kettle,” I say, “if you want to come in?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Emma

  There’s a framed photo on Oscar’s coffee table. A simple wooden frame, with some cat hair stuck to the glass. Inside it, there are three people. His grandmother is at the front, to the left. She’s smiling widely, her wild hair so...wild. That’s one thing I remember clearly about her: her hair. Even in her seventies, it was magnificent.

  Oscar’s a little way behind her, beaming at the camera. Looking happy. He’s got his arm around Celine, the name I know only from the captions on his Instagram photos and as the person who tags him in all those Facebook photos. She looks like she’s a few years younger than me. She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. A smile I stared at for hours last night, when I was searching through his older posts, trying to use her beauty to persuade myself that meeting Oscar again was a bad idea.

  There was one photo in particular on Instagram that enthralled me. It was dated just over a year ago, and it was the two of them together. It burnt itself onto my retinas, and now, as I stare at Celine’s red felt jacket in this photo on Oscar’s coffee table, I realize she was wearing the same jacket in that Instagram photo, and I think her dress is the same too. And the weather, and the park behind. Taken the same day.

  The roof of my mouth feels too dry. Oscar rarely took photos of us.

  Oscar.

  I allow myself to look at him in the photo, his arm around Celine. He looks happy. Happy, just like how I remember him looking when we took long walks at sunset along the beach. He’d sing then, and the air would be cold, but he’d keep me warm.

  “Snuggle into me more,” he says as we walk, and he’s opening his coat, so I can get my arm around his back, under his layers.

  I hold onto his hip as we walk, and he’s a cage around me. So warm. And he’s mine.

  We pass a couple on the beach who are just holding hands, and holding hands feels like nothing when I’m molded to Oscar’s side.

  What we have is real.

  “We’re not together anymore.” Oscar’s voice catches, and I startle, find him standing behind me in the doorway. It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about him and Celine and not just stating the fact of our relationship.

  My heart pounds. How long has he been standing in the doorway, two mugs in his hands, watching me as I stare at that photo and think about us?

  “She... She left me six months ago.” He hands me my tea, then rubs his right ear like he always does when he’s struggling with his emotions. “I should’ve taken down the photo, but Grandmother...” He sighs. “We’d just taken her to the aquarium. It was the last trip before the... She really enjoyed that day. You can see it in her face, can’t you? That spark. She rarely likes photos, but she liked that one, told me to have it up in my house, so she could be with me. She meant it as a joke, but then she...” He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

  I nod and I know I should say something, but what can I say? He’s supposed to be a stranger now. I’m not supposed to comfort him, am I? But I met his Grandmother. She was lovely. Welcoming, accepting.

  And she’s gone?

  I didn’t know.

  I feel heat behind my eyes, and I need to distract myself, so I focus on Celine in the photo. Oscar can’t have loved her. He can’t. Else he wouldn’t be able to stand to have her photo here, her watching him. He’d have photoshopped her out the photo or something, so it was just his grandmother.

  When Oscar left me, I tore every trace of him from my room, my life, my soul. But still, he clung on. The sound of his voice haunted me. I’d wake at night and feel his embrace. I found his travel toothbrush still in my little bathroom at the beginning of the fourth month. I don’t know how I didn’t notice that before.

  After I got rid of his toothbrush, I felt freer, even though his voice still haunted me. Those last words.

  Oscar gestures for me to take a seat, so I sit on the sofa, and he surprises me by sitting next to me. Close. Only a few inches between us. It’s hot in here—so hot I took my jumper off and draped it over the sofa as soon as I came in here—but I can feel extra heat radiating from him too now.

  I look around for the cats, but I can’t see any. I don’t like to ask, because maybe Celine took them. And now I’m thinking about it, those recent photos that I looked at, dated within the last six months, they weren’t of the cats. They were of Oscar’s car and people at his work and perfect suit jackets and sunsets.

  I take a sip of the tea. Yep, he still can’t make it well. It’s too watery, he didn’t let the bag seep, but it’s easy to pretend it’s the best cup of tea ever. Especially when he made it. Especially when I’m sitting next to him on the sofa, as I drink it.

  And it’s reassuring—that he hasn’t changed. He may be a successful businessman, but he’s still the same Oscar.

  My Oscar.

  I swallow hard.

  “I think we were too young.” It takes me a while, but I get the words out. And I don’t know why I feel the need to say it, to give him some sort of explanation—even though it was his decision to end it. Not mine.

  And I’m thinking of us and when we were young, while staring at the framed photo of his grandmother and him and Celine. His ex. My arm brushes against Oscar’s, and he looks at me.

  “We were young,” he says. “What were we? Seventeen?”

  “Eighteen.” My voice is low. Eighteen when we got together. Twenty when he broke away from what we had and ghosted me for a year while kissing other girls in places he knew I’d be.

  My head spins.

  It’s him. At twenty-eight, he smells the same. It’s not cologne or aftershave, it’s the musty smell of him. He smells of security and safety. Of familiarity and warmth. Of everything that I lost.

  And everything that I still want but know I can’t have.

  It’s too late now.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Oscar

  I met Emma at university, that very first day. The first day of the rest of our lives. Grandmother loved that saying. She said it to me and Jared, my cousin, all the time.

  And she was right.

  I never believed in love at first sight. Sure, there was lust. I knew about lust.

  And I was attracted to Emma. I wanted her from the moment I saw her sit down across the seminar table.

  She’s beautiful, and I watch as she takes her books out of her bag. She arranges them neatly in front of her, on the table, and then the girl next to her says something, maybe introduces herself, I don’t know, because I’m only concentrating on her. On the shape of her lips as she speaks. On how soft her hair looks, how I want to touch her hair, run it thr
ough my fingers.

  God, I need to know her name.

  And I can’t stop watching her, even when the seminar’s started and introductions are being made. I choke out my name, and all I need is hers.

  “I’m Emma,” she says, smiling.

  My God, she’s beautiful. Emma. Her name tastes right as I mutter it quietly.

  I don’t listen to another word in the seminar. How can I when she’s here? When all my energy is just drawn to her. I am a prisoner.

  At the break time, she stands up and again I see her body. She has the hottest body, and I want to touch her curves and look into her eyes. Those eyes that sparkle when she’s talking about the book we’re studying this week. I wonder if she’ll be in more of my literature seminars.

  I pray that I’ll see her tomorrow.

  She just sparkles.

  And I am drawn to her, the clichéd moth to a flame. Helpless.

  I take a deep breath.

  Emma’s in my living room, and it’s easier to think of those times when I’m not in the same room as her. But I wonder if she remembers that moment. If she had any idea what I was feeling and how much it took not to reach out and touch her hand afterward as we filed out. I made sure to walk close to her, and I could’ve so easily brushed my hand against hers, felt her skin under my touch.

  But I didn’t.

  I wanted our first touch to mean something. To both of us.

  “Concentrate,” I tell myself, then realize how ridiculous it is that I’m talking to myself.

  I take the teabags out of the lopsided ceramic bowl I made years ago and boil the kettle, trying to ignore the stirrings inside me. And she’s in my living room right now. So close I can almost smell her perfume, even in the next room.

  And I’m inhaling her scent as I pour the boiling water into the mugs. Because she’s here, and she smells the same.

  My hands shake as I carry the mugs through. What are we going to say? There are too many words we left unspoken before, and time has both mellowed the distance and made it sharper. One wrong word and the blood will spill.

  I pause in the doorway, staring at the shape of her. I’ve got the heat cranked up in the house, because the cats are upstairs, and Emma’s taken her jumper off, draped it over the back of the sofa, so now I can really see her. Her blouse is fitted, and it suits her. Draws my gaze to her breasts and the curves of her hips. Her jeans are tight.

  I want to touch her again. I want my hands on her and—

  And I realize what she’s looking at: Grandmother and Celine and me.

  I jolt. “We’re not together anymore.” I swallow hastily. “She... She left me six months ago.” I stride forward, hand her the pink mug before I drop it, then rub my right ear and swallow awkwardly. “I should’ve taken down the photos, but Grandmother...” I stare at my tea, the steam swirling above the mug. “We’d just taken her to the aquarium. It was the last trip before the... She really enjoyed that day. You can see it in her face, can’t you? That spark. She rarely likes photos, but she liked that one, told me to have it up in my house, so she could be with me. She meant it as a joke, but then she...”

  I stop. How can I say it? I swallow hard, then clear my throat. It’s a nervous habit, one Grandmother always commented on.

  I glance up at Emma. “Sorry.”

  But I can’t keep looking at her. I look away, so I don’t see if she nods or shakes her head, and she doesn’t give a verbal answer. I focus on the tea, take two big gulps that burn the roof of my mouth.

  The photo album is on the television stand, where I put it when I showed Emma in here before disappearing to make the tea. It’s a new TV stand, one Celine bought but didn’t want when she moved out. She had everything arranged when she dropped the bombshell on me. She told me she was leaving, that we didn’t love each other—just said it so matter-of-factly—and gave me a list of the furniture she wanted. She’d been planning it a while. But I got the TV stand. No TV though. But that’s okay, because the photo album is there now. My parents are there.

  When I turn back, Emma’s still standing. I nod toward the sofa, and she takes a seat, and so do I—next to her. And maybe this isn’t a good idea, but she looks so good, and I’m remembering it all, feeling it all.

  Emma’s underneath me, moaning softly. She lifts her back up, arching against me, and there’s lust in her eyes.

  I growl as I kiss her harder and harder.

  “I think we were too young.” Emma’s voice startles me.

  I turn to look at her, and she’s blinking too quickly. She’s nervous. But she’s thinking about us—and I’m thinking about us.

  “We were young,” I say. “What were we? Seventeen?”

  “Eighteen.”

  I nod, because I don’t know what to say, and this reunion is harder than I thought it would be. Maybe I shouldn’t have invited her in, made it more awkward.

  But I did invite her in, and Grandmother always said that things happen for a reason.

  We do things because we’re meant to do them.

  And Emma’s here.

  My Emma.

  I breathe deeply, feel a little dizzy.

  I was crazy to let her go last time.

  I shouldn’t have—and it was stupid. So stupid. Because I loved her, loved her in a way I’ve never loved anyone else. Ever since we broke up, she’s been a shadow in my heart.

  Apparently, I said Emma’s name in my sleep more than once after Celine and I moved in here.

  That’s the reason she left, ultimately. Because she didn’t want to compete with my first love.

  And how can anyone compete with Emma or with what we had?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Emma

  Oscar asks me about my current life, and I try to make it sound exciting, when really it’s just pathetic. Moving across town and back into my parents’ home at twenty-eight because the landlord’s put my rent up and it’s too high. But everywhere in Rose Haven is becoming more and more expensive now, ever since those plans came through to turn the old private school into Rose Haven Hotel and Spa. The whole town decided it would become a tourist trap, and prices have gone up for the locals too. I’ve got no savings left, not after I bailed Jenna out. I spend most evenings alone, only my two goldfish for company while I read a secondhand paperback, and when I go into work, Garry just moans at me because my sales numbers on the forecourt aren’t as good as the Jerry’s and Asad’s and Peter’s. Jerry and Asad and Peter who are taken seriously by customers because they’re men.

  I don’t want Oscar feeling sorry for me. Not when he’s got it all. He’s the boss of a sales company. He’s won marathons raising money for charity. He was the runner-up in a local businessman award two years ago at the age of twenty-six.

  My life is dull compared to his. And maybe he’s realizing it now, realizing that he had a lucky escape.

  But that’s always been my insecurity. That I’m dull, boring.

  “You’re not dull, and this isn’t boring,” he says, his voice soft.

  I shiver into the blanket. “But we’re not doing anything. And I’m ill.”

  “But we’re still together.” He holds me tighter, his arms around me. “I don’t mind looking after you. It’s what couples do.”

  Couples. I like the way he says it. I can’t help it.

  I smile. “I love you.”

  He smiles. He doesn’t say it back, but that’s okay. He’ll say it when he’s ready. I know that.

  So we just talk instead. Talk about how much we mean to each other and plans for the future, what’s going to happen when we finish university.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” Oscar’s voice breaks as he asks the question, and I jump a little.

  He wants to know if I’m seeing anyone? Does that mean...

  No. I can’t think like that. Can’t get my hopes up. It doesn’t mean anything.

  He turns toward me. His eyes are earnest as he stares at me, awaiting my answer.

  I shake my head. There�
��s never been anyone after him who could compare. Not really. How could Tinder dates and six-week-relationships where I didn’t really feel anything compare to what he made me feel? But how can I tell Oscar that? Of all the days and nights I’ve thought of him since? All the times I’ve wished that everything that happened was just a bad dream, a nightmare, something to wake up from?

  But it wasn’t.

  It was real.

  And it happened again and again in my head.

  I couldn’t escape it.

  “It’s not working,” Oscar says.

  And we’re both naked, and he’s waited until after sex to say this, and I think it must be a joke, but he’s not laughing and neither am I.

  “What?” I reach out for him, but he ducks from under my touch.

  “No, Emma,” he says. “This isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Not going anywhere?” I stare at him. “But what about Torquay? We’re going to Torquay next year?”

  He shakes his head. “Look, all this, it was just a bit of fun.”

  A bit of fun.

  “Get out.” My voice is blunt.

  It’s his room we’re in, but I don’t care, and then I’m screaming and he’s shouting at me to be reasonable, and I’m screaming at him that what we’ve got is special and real, and he’s laughing.

  “Emma, this has just been fun. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that.”

  His eyes are dark, his lips slightly parted. And he’s looking at me, looking at me in a way no one has looked at me in such a long time.

  I breathe deeply. “No. I’m not seeing anyone.”

  I turn my upper body toward him, straighten my neck. We’re so close.

  Too close.

  I put my mug on the coffee table.

  He does the same, then offers me his hand, and then my fingers are in his.

  “Do you think...?” He seems to have some trouble getting the question out, and then he takes both of my hands, envelops them in his. “I’ve missed you.”