Page 83 of Wild About You

ANNACripes. Well done for hanging on in there. You haven’t used our code word so I assume you’re not at your limit.

We’d decided on the codeword ‘banana’ to signal if things were getting out of hand and Fi or me had to get involved.

TOBIASBelieve me, I’m almost there. BTW that Darren bloke’s been in to look at one of the pictures. He tried to flirt with Tally and Lucinda at the same time. He’s unexpectedly creepy.

I sent a nauseous emoji as the lift doors opened. He sent me a 100 per cent emoji.

Chandos was a coffee bar on a small street near Pimlico, halfway between Sean’s workplace and where I used to work. As I neared it, the familiarity of the streets worked its way into me and I felt a veil of sadness-tinged nostalgia fall over everything. There was the tapas bar we’d gone toon our second date, and there was the near derelict house we used to wonder about – OMG, there was the tabby cat we nicknamed Arthur!

I stood to look at the cat. He was lying on the wall in a patch of fading sunlight. He looked at me with a distinct air of disdain.

‘I see you’ve found Arthur.’

I turned. Sean. It was surreal to see him in real life, so close. Over the past few months he’d morphed into a voice on a phone, a series of text messages. In my mind he’d grown smaller, like a picture on a TV screen, thanks to all my meditation exercises. But now he was beside me, and the overwhelming feeling was one of familiarity. I knew that look on his face – that mixture of gladness and uncertainty. I knew the type of pomade on his hair. Why he’d chosen that tie to go with that suit.

‘Hello, you,’ he said.

We embraced lightly, like friends. There was the scent of him. The number of times in the days after our break-up when I’d pressed my face into a sweatshirt of his, to get a hint of that familiar smell. But now I felt – nothing. Was this shock? Was this the numbness of those terrible months after the break-up, reasserting itself, warning me to protect myself?

As we walked into the coffee bar, he was talking, talking. Somehow his voice kept fading out as I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. But it was fine, because he didn’t seem to need my input.

‘… so I said to Kelly, there’s no way I’m working on that project…’

‘… to that restaurant, but it was an awful evening, not like when we were there…’

Had he always been like this?I thought, sipping the strong black coffee I ordered. Had he always used me as a sounding board, not caring whether I replied or not?

‘Anna?’

I focused on his face.

‘It’s so good to see you again. I’ve missed you so much.’

I smiled weakly. He waited, his eyes questioning.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said. It seemed simpler just to say it. And it was partly true. I’d missed him a lot – so much – at the beginning. I’d obsessively thought over our relationship, my brain bathed in a cocktail of sorrow and anger. But, gradually, that had lessened. With every plant I’d put in the ground, every joke of Tobias’s I’d laughed at, every time I’d been booped by Hugo, that cocktail had lessened in strength. And there was Jamie.

Jamie had been something entirely new. Grumpy, maddening, hilarious, and so utterly gorgeous just the thought of him tumbled me into delirium. Yes, I’d rejected him – for his own sake. But in this moment, I was homesick for him.

I looked down to see Sean tracing the outline of my fingers on the table.

‘How’s things with you?’ he said.

Finally, a question about me! I thought, and realised I wouldhave said that out loud to Jamie with a fair dose of sarcasm. But not to Sean. I edited myself with Sean. I always had.

‘Fine,’ I said, and took another sip of my coffee.

He nodded, as though I’d said something profound. I could tell he was holding something back; he was excited about something. Weirdly, this made me even calmer.

‘Hasn’t changed much in here, has it?’ I said, looking around at the retro banquettes, all red leather, chrome and Formica.

I needed a therapist. This man, this love of my life, was positively boring me, and was making me boring too. I was boring myself.

‘Anna,’ he said, in his gentlest voice. ‘I’m ready.’

And with that, he took a small box from his jacket pocket and put it on the table.

I swallowed hard. ‘What’s that?’ I said.

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