Page 6 of When We Were Young

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 ofourrelationship.

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.

MyOscar.

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.

---