Page 93 of Textbook Romance

‘I don’t need to know what you get up to in the bedroom,’ Mia jokes and I laugh, snot bubbling out of my nostrils. Beth passes me a tissue. ‘That’s some “if you love someone, set them free” shit,’ Mia continues, eloquently.

She said the word love. I shrug. It felt like the right, mature thing to do. I had to think about us outside of our bubble. I had to think of not only my future but also his and a time ten years down the line where he could look back and not have any second thoughts, no resentment. I had to be sensible because what we had was so heady, so potent that neither of us could think straight.

‘Did you love him?’ Beth asks me.

I cry. I know I felt something. I was on the floor, and someone offered me a hand, they pulled me up, they danced with me and held me close. No one had done that for me before, but I never understood it. He was so good-looking, so special, that I spent so much time just looking around, wondering what was happening.

‘I’ve never met anyone like him before.’

‘How was the sex?’ Mia whispers.

‘MIA!’ Beth shrieks, looking out for where Dylan is in the house.

I laugh. ‘Mia, I had an orgasm so strong, my tongue went numb.’

She does a strange little dance next to my fireplace. ‘Knew it. I told him to look after you, by the way,’ she adds, pointing at me.

‘But he looked after me in so many ways. He was kind and thoughtful and he just made me feel… alive…’ I tell them. ‘And when he was near, it did feel like nothing else mattered. That’s quite a special thing.’

Mia holds Beth’s arm near as they stand there bearing witness to this. Dylan suddenly re-appears clutching three or four bottles of half-drunk Christmas alcohol and glasses. Mia examines each bottle, pouring me a small glass of cranberry flavoured gin that Kate gifted me. Dylan looks on at this scene thoughtfully and I catch his eye, glancing down at the card from Jack.

‘Dylan, I’m sorry I’ve worried you. Please don’t worry about me. I’m just being silly about something,’ I say, wiping at my face.

‘Is it something to do with Jack?’ he asks. Both Mia and Beth look at each other, taking a step back.

‘I guess.’

‘Jack – we met him at football and his mates gave me a lift to Birmingham that time,’ he says casually.

I nod.

‘Were you going out with him?’ he asks me. And for a moment, I don’t quite know what to say. To be frank, we were kinda just shagging and hadn’t put a label on it. But he was someone I cared for greatly, that much I know now. I still don’t know what to say but Dylan looks up at me and I realise that he had a parent who lied to him for almost a year, so it’s not fair to have another parent do it to him, too.

‘Yes. For a couple of months but it didn’t work out.’

Dylan seems to exhale a sigh of relief that I’ve been truthful and smiles. ‘I kind of knew.’

I turn to him sharply. ‘What? How?’

‘When his friends drove me to Birmingham, they thought I had headphones on and wasn’t listening to their conversation, but I was. They were talking about Jack and how he never calls in favours. They said you must be quite special if he was calling this in on his behalf.’

‘Oh,’ I reply blankly.

‘The football thing confirmed it. The Laser Tag excuse was pretty piss poor,’ he says, half laughing.

‘Jack took you to Laser Tag?’ Mia interrupts.

‘It was for a kids party,’ I try to explain. I turn back to Dylan to hear him continue.

‘Then that night I came back from Liam’s house, you were sitting in the front room crying, trying to tell me you were watching a sad film, and I just had a hunch something had happened.’

I stop to think about how I never revealed any of this to the kids for fear of how they would react, but Dylan seems so incredibly chilled by this information.

‘Does Lottie know?’

‘No. She’s not as smart as me, you know,’ he jokes.

‘And how do you feel about it all?’ I ask him, curiously.

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