Page 100 of The Wedding Pact
Flynn only nodded.
‘Do you and August live in a tall building, like you and I used to?’
‘No, it’s a house converted into flats, just a few neighbours sharing the same roof.’
‘And does it have a view?’
‘It does, you can see the whole city stretched out before you. I can see why some people would climb all the way to the top of the hill again and again, year after year, just to look at the view.’
‘So the city is beautiful, you have a nice place to live, good company, good health, the only real problem is the job?’
‘And I don’t have you,’ he confessed.
‘Fujio … ’ Yui put her hand on his arm, signalling him to come to a stop. They paused on a low wooden bridge, a stream running underneath it, babbling softly. She took a deep breath, and Flynn already knew what she was going to say, he could see it in her face, kind though her expression was.
Yui took a beat before speaking. ‘You wouldn’t have me, even if you came home. You know that, right? Even if you’d stayed in Japan and never left, you still wouldn’t have me, not anymore.’
His shoulders sank, not with the weight of his sadness, as he’d thought they might if Yui said this, but with relief. Relief to finallyknowthe answer to the question that had troubled him for months. It was still sad, of course, and would take some adjusting to, but if anything it was now like a weight had finally been lifted..
‘It wasn’t working, was it?’ he asked, leaning down on the railing of the bridge, but turning his face to look at her. ‘We weren’t working.’
Yui simply shook her head.
‘You don’t think it would have made any difference if I’d stayed?’
‘Do you?’ she asked, a half-smile on her lips.
‘I honestly didn’t think I knew the answer to that this whole time.’
‘I think deep down you knew it before you accepted that job. I don’t believe you would have taken it – you probably wouldn’t have even applied for it – if you hadn’t already known we were lowering the curtain on us.’ Yui said this without judgement, without bitterness. Flynn could see she’d moved on, and now he just needed to catch up with her.
‘You seem happy,’ Flynn stated. ‘Are you?’
‘I am. Is that the answer you came all the way across the world to hear?’ she joked.
Was he happier knowing she was happy? It didn’t make sense to him, because if she was happier now than she’d been when they’d been a couple, shouldn’t that make him sad? Shouldn’t he feel resentful and even more lonely? Maybe he should; who’s to say how a person ‘should’ feel? But he didn’t. If anything, Yui’s happiness gave him permission from himself to let go. And so in reply to her, before they went away from the Japanese gardens in two different directions, he told her, ‘Yes.’
Chapter 74
August
August poured Abe a glass of wine. Another week had passed, or close enough, and he was back in Bath again, this time coming down early for the Thursday evening. He’d knocked on her door on his way up the stairs, carrying a duffel bag and wearing his work suit, and had asked how she was.
‘I’m good,’ she said, cursing her straggly hair and the yellow monster feet slippers she’d bought on impulse during the week and had barely taken off since. ‘How are you? Is your mum okay?’
‘She’s fine, well, not fine, but no different. So, still seems a bit unwell, really, I suppose.’ He lingered in her doorway.
‘Do you want to come in or do you need to go straight up?’
‘I could come in,’ he answered immediately.
‘Wine?’ she asked, picking a bottle out of the rack. She wouldn’t usually drink on a work night but … who was she kidding, yes she would.
‘Yes, please,’ he answered, and took a seat on the armchair. He then moved to the sofa, and then back to the armchair. He stood up when she brought the wine over. ‘Where should I sit?’
‘Anywhere you like,’ she answered. She glanced at the bedroom doors; both were closed. It had become a habit that she and Flynn kept their doors shut now, in case anyone popped by, but it still didn’t hurt to check. She also mentally clocked the rest of her surroundings. Wedding photos upright: check.
Abe took a seat on the sofa in the end, so August squashed down on the armchair, feeling like the two of them together on the sofa might send him running.
