Page 111 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘I came to see you.’
‘How did you…?’ Gemma was glancing around, clearly looking for another person to come and intervene. ‘How did you find me?’
‘You did tell me where you’d got a job.’
‘Once. Months ago. Look, I don’t know why you’re here but you can’t just turn up at my work. That is so Jodie.’
Jodie held up a hand. ‘I’m not here to try to get you back or anything. I wanted to say sorry.’
Gemma’s perfectly made-up face crinkled into a frown. ‘You want to say sorry?’
‘Yeah.’
‘OK. Well, I can take a break in a bit.’
The reality of turning up here and expecting Gemma to change her whole day around was creeping up on Jodie.
‘You can wait in the lounge.’
‘Thank you.’
While she waited she kept asking herself the same question. She’d told the taxi driver she needed closure. She’d told Gemma she wanted to apologise. She was telling herself she was here to prove that she was right and her mum was wrong. Gemma had been a great girlfriend and Jodie hadn’t deserved her. That had to be true. If that wasn’t true then how could Jodie be sure that anything she knew, about who she really was, was true?
She kept asking herself the same question, and it was the same question Gemma asked the moment she sat down opposite her in the leather-backed chair in the corner of the hotel bar. ‘Why are you here, Jodie?’
And she knew the answer. It wasn’t Gemma’s face she saw when she closed her eyes any more. It was Pavel’s. It was Pavel telling her she had to face up to the damage she caused. Gemma was part of that damage. A big part. Whatever Jodie’s mum thought, Gemma was one more person Jodie had broken apart. ‘To say sorry. I know I messed us up.’
‘Thanks?’
‘Is that a question?’
Her ex shrugged. ‘I don’t really know what else to say.’
‘You don’t have to say anything. I want you to know that I know that everything that went wrong with us was my fault.’ This was her truth. ‘I’m too impulsive. I don’t think things through and then I do crazy shit. Like when I took over the whole kitchen worktop cos I decided to get into bonsai.’
Gemma laughed. ‘That was a bit eccentric.’ She nodded indulgently. ‘But that’s just you. Scatty Jodie.’
Scatty. Jodie felt a prickle of tension. She was scatty. Gemma was poise and calm and competence, and Jodie was scatty.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s good that you’re trying to grow.’ Gemma smiled. ‘I always said you had potential, didn’t I?’
She had. Gemma had always encouraged Jodie to be better. She tried so hard to help her see where she was going wrong so she could work on it and be a better version of herself. It wasn’t Gemma’s fault she’d failed.
‘So anyway I wanted to say sorry. I know I drove you away.’
Gemma nodded. ‘You understand why I went no contact?’
Of course she did. Gemma had a whole new life. She didn’t need Jodie barrelling in and messing things up. And now she’d done exactly that. ‘I shouldn’t have come here.’
‘It’s fine. It’s good to see you actually.’ Gemma glanced down at the empty table in front of them. ‘Let me get you a drink.’
‘Thank you.’
Gemma came back from the bar with two glasses of wine. ‘I can’t remember whether you do red or white? Hope a nice Merlot’s OK.’
When she’d been with Gemma she hadn’t really done either. ‘Red’s fine.’
