Page 60 of Not in a Million Years

‘Never been better. What does it look like? I should shower – we’re meant to be at the hospital at ten and I still need to pack.’

‘I guess you won’t want breakfast?’

My stomach churned horribly again. ‘No chance.’

‘Sure I can’t bring you anything?’

‘Please just leave me alone. Sorry about this, but I’ll get sorted more quickly on my own.’

‘If you’re sure…’ He hovered in the doorway. ‘Kate…’

‘I’ll be fine. Just go. I’ll see you downstairs at nine.’

He waited another moment, then shrugged, reached out a hand to brush my naked shoulder and turned and left. Moments later, I heard the door of his room open and close again.

Shakily, I got to my feet and looked in the mirror. Last night’s make-up was smeared around my eyes and lips; my foundation had collected around my jawline in greyish, grubby smears. My hair stood up around my head in a parody of a halo, damp with sweat and smelling faintly of sick. And the rest of me was pretty rank, too. Stale perfume, stale sweat, stale Perrier-Jouët and stale Daniel seemed to be oozing from every pore.

I pointed a finger at my reflection and told it, ‘You are a complete and utter fucking tit.’

My reflection nodded, with no choice but to agree.

I stepped under the shower and sluiced my body and hair with tepid water, then went in big time with the free toiletries, squeezing out the last of the mandarin shower gel and the dregs of the lemony shampoo I’d smelled so often on Daniel’s hair. I used my own conditioner, although my hair was so brittle and dry from seawater and sun that I knew it would have little effect – a serious go with the Olaplex would be needed as soon as I got home.

As soon as I got home and had been to a pharmacy and dry-swallowed the morning-after pill the second they handed it over.

‘What a dick,’ I muttered, stepping out of the shower and upending the almond-scented body lotion into my palm before smearing it over my legs and shoulders, where the new red skin was fading to pink. ‘What an utter prize idiot you are.’

I was castigating myself but, as I crammed my toiletries into my wash bag and quickly slapped on some make-up before stowing that away too, I realised that the description could equally apply to Daniel.

I’d been drunker than him, last night. He’d let it happen just as much as I had. The fragile truce we’d achieved had been blown apart, turned into something full of recriminations and blame even worse than it had been last time.

One of us should have stopped it. I should have stopped it – I was the risk-averse one, the sensible one. Only I’d been the one begging him not to stop. I could hardly blame the man for not guessing that I wasn’t on the pill.

I remembered the kisses, the touches, the way our bodies had fused together like we were one person, all our messy, complicated history seeming to have vanished in a tide of booze and lust – or be somehow amalgamated into a shared thing.

And then I remembered him saying, You always snog random men on nights out, and felt my insides curling up with shame. It was true. I did always snog random men on nights out. Well, not always, but often enough for it to have become a thing – a joke. Was that what he thought last night had been? Just a casual shag between two drunk people who wanted to prove they’d still got it?

And what had I been thinking, anyway? I didn’t even like Daniel. Sure, I had, back in the day. And certainly, we’d reached a kind of accord, out here, so that we could get ourselves and Andy back home without the wheels falling off big time. But this had not been part of the plan. One-hundred-arsing-per-cent not.

I pulled some clothes from the wardrobe to wear today and chucked them on the bed, then put my suitcase on the opposite side and began throwing things into it, not bothering to fold or roll anything properly, cramming my trainers on top of the pile instead of carefully stuffing them with socks and tucking them in the bottom, then sitting on the lid to get it closed.

The way Daniel had reacted to me this morning, his half-hearted attempt at banter barely concealing the deep remorse that mirrored my own, told me that last night hadn’t been part of his game plan either. He hadn’t hugged me. He hadn’t said it was okay. He knew we’d screwed up big time, same as I did. Except it was me holding the potential consequences of our screw-up inside me, hidden under the innocent-looking black cotton of my knickers.

I was furious, with myself as much as with him. I couldn’t even pretend that I’d been an innocent victim in it all – I’d consented, not just enthusiastically but avidly. I’d been gagging for it. The fact I’d been pretty drunk was neither here nor there – for all the dark thoughts I’d had about Daniel over the years, I knew for sure that last night would never, ever have happened if he’d been in any doubt at all that I’d wanted it to.

Only, now that it had, I wished with all my heart it hadn’t.

Because now that it had, with the memory of those hours as fresh in my mind as the sheets on the bed would be once we’d gone and the chambermaid had been in to do her thing, I knew how hard it would be not to want it to happen again. Because it had been fucking amazing.

Amazing fucking.

I couldn’t see a way for Daniel and me to go back to being friends. If he ever rubbed sunblock on my back again, or took my hand to help me into a boat, or hugged me when I was upset, I knew the memory of how his body had felt close to me, over me, inside me, would come rushing back and I’d be lost.

Friendship wasn’t on the table any more, so enemies we’d have to be. Frenemies, if I was really lucky.

Wearily, I gave the room a final scan, pulling open drawers, glancing inside the wardrobe, tugging back the shower curtain. There was nothing of me left in this room where I’d stayed for two weeks. Only a few stray hairs in the bathroom sink, a couple of cotton pads smeared with my eye make-up in the bin and the stack of notes and change I’d left for the cleaning staff showed I’d ever been there at all.

I shouldered my bag, set my suitcase on its wheels and pocketed the key card for the last time, then trundled my case to the lift – which we hadn’t used since our arrival – and made my way down to the ground floor, blinking as I emerged into the sunshine.

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