Page 56 of Because of Me

“No more than I want to know what you guys were so distracted by that you couldn’t last the extra ten-minute drive home.”

“Got it.” He claps his hands before reaching over to place them in Cassidy’s lap.

“It doesn’t matter now anyway. I freaked her out when I was talking to her father. Right when I thought we had a chance at being more, I scared her off with the thought.” Giving up on the ruined peas, I gingerly peel my hand out from under it and rub my wrist. “I wish I knew how to convince her we are worth more than what her family expects us to be, but she’s terrified of letting herself down. She built all these walls to keep her father out of her love life, but it feels like they are so tall I can’t scale them, and she won’t open the gate to let me in.”

Finally deciding Cassidy and Callum are no threat, Kitch emerges from under the couch. I watch as she weaves between their legs, ultimately deciding to paw at Callum’s calf. He freezes, staring down at her. “I’m not really a cat person,” he grunts.

Cassidy leans down to scoop Kitch onto her lap. The old cat doesn’t put up a fight like the last time they met, instead curling under Cassidy’s arm.

“I never thought she’d end up with a guy,” Cassidy muses as she strokes Kitch’s back. “She was always fighting against her father’s expectations to find a man and get married, I figured she’d counted it out so completely that when she finally found her person it would be a woman.”

“She didn’t think she would end up with anyone though. She joked that if she ever did, she hoped it was with a woman, just to rub it in her dad’s face, but she never thought it would happen. She rebelled against the idea for so long.”

“So now,” Callum says, leaning forward to drop his elbows on the table. “Not only has she found someone she can see herself spending her life with, but it’s a guy? She’s inadvertently proved her father right.”

“Oh.” I speak in unison with Cassidy as we realise Callum has well and truly nailed it. No wonder Amira is freaking out.

Shooing Kitch off her lap, Cassidy stands and places a hand on Callum’s shoulder. “Can I say something really on the nose?”

“What?”

“Talk. To. Her.” She claps with each word, punctuating her sentence by leaning over the table to poke me in the shoulder.

“For what it’s worth, I feel bad for telling you that once.” I glare at her and nod my head towards Callum. The irony is not lost on me how precisely the tables have turned. “And I’ve tried. But she closes up whenever we get remotely close to figuring out what we are.”

Callum stands too, and they end up arm in arm, staring at me across the table. “Do you think you need to not live together? Like, is that making it harder for her since she can’t get away?”

I go to rebut, wanting to explain away Callum’s reasoning, but I can’t. Not when deep down I know it’s the only solution here. “I don’t want to, but I haven’t been able to come up with any other ideas. Hence the dark.”

I don’t want to go back to living on my own, not when I’ve grown so accustomed to having people around when I get home from a long day at the winery. But the more the idea stews in my mind the more right it feels.

If I packed up all my things and went home, where would that leave us? Ella knows most of the truth anyway and given her own escapades I think we can trust her not to tell any of their family. Amira said fake is easy because the boundaries are clearly defined, but they’re not. They crisscross and squiggle their way across an invisible field and living together, sharing a bed, we’ve bounced our way between them so much that I don’t know where the goalposts are any more.

As Callum and Cassidy see themselves out, I head to the bedroom with every intention of pulling out my suitcase and beginning to pack my things. The bed is too appealing though. Amira’s plush purple sheets and fluffy hotel-esque pillows call my name. And my wrist still throbs. I couldn’t even get a suitcase down the stairs if I tried.

So, I strip down to my boxers and curl under the covers one last time.

AMIRA

Despite our best efforts to remain silent, Ella and I are comically loud as we clamber into the apartment. In my effort to avoid the inevitable, I dragged her out to dinner and drinks after my shift at the boutique and convinced her to stay out dancing until I was certain Noah would have gone to bed for the night. Guilt is a thousand tiny needles up my spine, reminding me I should have at least told him we were out. The door slams against the wall, keys clatter as I drop them onto the small table in the hall and Ella bumps into the wall. She slides to the floor, laughing at her own clumsiness.

“Shh.” I do my best to hush her, but fall into my own fit of laughter.

In the back of my mind, I’m aware we might wake Noah, and know we should at least try not to. But I wouldn’t be mad if he woke up. I don’t like the silent treatment we ended last night on, or how I spent the whole day avoiding him, and I want to make it up to him. Physically, at least.

I’ll never know where Noah and I would be if it weren’t for my family, but I need to not think about that. If getting a little tipsy at a nightclub taught me anything, it’s that I don’t want to come home to anyone other than Noah. Knowing he would be here when we got back was like knowing the sun is always going to rise when you’re feeling sad at three in the morning. A constant beacon of hope.

Hope that maybe I can have the future that always felt so out of reach. The one I never thought I wanted.

It still scares the shit out of me, but with Noah, maybe it’s worth the fear.

I shouldn’t be making decisions so late, especially not with the wine flowing through my veins. And I still agree with everything Cassidy said. But if this is the last night I get to spend with Noah in my bed, I want to make it count.

Ella bumps into every piece of furniture I own as she makes her way to the kitchen. Glasses clink together as she pours us each a glass of water, and the cupboard above the stove slams when she can’t find what she is looking for.

“Paracetamol?” she asks in a terrible stage whisper. Instead of sounding hushed, her voice comes out all deep and croaky.

I turn on the light to search the pantry, finding the small box of painkillers and passing it to her. When I stopped drinking, she started doing shots, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a rough morning when she wakes up.

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