Page 64 of Five Years
“Well, exactly. And I loved you too much to ask that of you.” Ariana’s voice lowered.
Leah shivered. “I think I should go inside—”
“You know...when Hannah proposed, that should have been the happiest moment of my life. Love is supposed to be simple. I forced a smile, but my heart felt a million miles away, tangled in the past...with you.” Ariana’s voice cracked, tears welling.
“I don’t know what to say—”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Fear flickered across Ariana’s face—had she said too much? Champagne courage had loosened her tongue.
“Where do we go from here, Ari?” Leah pleaded. She needed guidance, a sign, something.
Ariana shut down. “To bed. It’s getting late.”
“Okay.” Leah nodded.
Acceptance wasn’t hard-fought; she was used to Ariana shutting down. It had been the pattern since the breakup. No explanations, no drawn-out closure—just silence after a week of unanswered texts.
“Goodnight, Ari.”
“Good—night, Leah.”
As Leah slid the glass door open to the warmth of the lake house, she could’ve sworn Ariana saidgoodbye,notgoodnight.
FOURTEEN
When Leah lay in bed at night, sometimes she still felt her. She felt the warmth of Ariana’s body beside her. She imagined the curls of her hair falling against her shoulder as she leant over to kiss her goodnight. The feeling of her arm as it reached over her bare torso—the 7 a.m. wake-up call she still longed for. She was embarrassed to admit that she’d taken a significant step back.
In the months after their break-up, she used to spray Ariana’s perfume on the pillow beside her; the scent brought her comfort. It was torture, obviously.
Who does that?
She often questioned her own intentions—was she trying to make herself miserable? There was a series of days that turned into weeks where even her favourite coffee shop and her mom’s lemon meringue pie couldn’t get her to snap out of it—it was a pity party for one.
The embarrassing step back came the night after she returned from the Harrison family trip to Lake Michigan. She opened the cabinet in her bathroom and removed the bottle of perfume hidden at the back. There was less than a quarter left. She would never wear it herself—too musky—she didn’t need to keep it, and she’d had countless opportunities over the years to dispose of it, give it away, mail it in an anonymous parcel to Ariana’s home address with the bra she left behind, her spare electric toothbrush heads, and the pair of grey jogging bottoms with the hole on the thigh. But she didn’t.
Instead, day after day, she opened the same cabinet, stared at the same quarter bottle of perfume, and sighed. She didn’t realise how important it was to remove triggers until she read an online article that alluded to such things:if you must keep them, keep them out of sight.And so she moved it to the back. It wasno longer the first thing she saw in the morning, and that was progress.
Until now, she gave in to the temptation to spray her pillows once again.
“What is wrong with you?” Leah muttered to herself.
The Lake Michigan trip—exactly what I needed—were the words she typed into social media; the collection of photos made for a wholesome post. It felt like an appropriate post to share. She was grateful to Grace for allowing her to spend time with her family. She was grateful for the break from reality. Butexactly what I neededwas more to do with keeping up appearances than anything else. That’s all social media was, and she hated it. She hated that she, too, wanted to portray a certain image to the world as though anyone actually gave a rat’s ass about her life.
A whole two minutes after she hit post on the selection of carefully chosen images, her mobile phone pinged—and again, and again—and eventually the caller ID flashed up: Grace.
Leah answered, begrudgingly. “Hi.”
“Hi? Really?”
She was about to get a Grace grilling, and she wasn’t mentally prepared. She had to return to Douglas Green Advisory Group at 7 a.m. A day filled with meetings, questions she couldn’t answer, and her father’s soaring stress levels that materialised after a week’s vacation.
“I’m sorry,” Leah apologised.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were planning on leaving early?” Grace asked. It was the same question she sent via text the day before, but she clearly expected a different answer.
“I did.”
