Page 17 of The Life We Almost Had

‘Last one on the beach buys breakfast tomorrow at the airport,’ I called out, racing ahead, trailing my joy behind me like a kite.

Once I’d let him catch me, we sat drinking cheap wine that tasted like vinegar. As the sun dipped and the sky darkened, I was comfortably drunk.

We lay entwined, my fingers creeping under his T-shirt, feeling the softness of his stomach. Tracing the birthmark on his forearm that resembled a map. Wanting to remember it all.

Everything.

Eventually, we dozed on the damp sand. Our bodies always tangled together; even when we rolled over, we automatically adjusted ourselves so we were never apart. His hand on my hip. My arm stretched backwards, touching his thigh.

Adam was still asleep when I woke up. I studied him. Committing his features to memory, an image I could revisit at any time.

The pale sun rose, diluting the darkness, threading pink and gold through the muted sky as night leached silently into day.

Our last day.

Time to say goodbye.

Chapter Eight

Adam

The driver hefted our suitcases into the coach hold. I took a last, lingering look at the hotel. Its whitewashed facade, the brightly coloured flowers in terracotta pots. It didn’t seem possible I’d been here for two weeks. I could barely remember the first four days without Anna. My holiday started when she had arrived.

It felt like my life had started when she had arrived.

I watched her climb onto the coach with Nell, and I followed with Josh. Already there seemed a distance between us. If my last memory of us had been me watching her as she had gazed in wonder at the rising sun, it would have been a lovely memory to hold on to.

The airport was light and bright and full of too many people. We queued for check-in. We queued for passport control. We queued for coffee. Nobody was hungry.

We sat, the four of us, until the tannoy announced the gate was open for me and Josh.

‘Time to go, Ad.’ Josh stood, scraping his chair back. We all rose and then there was a flurry of elbows and noses that bumped as we hugged and kissed, wishing each other a safe trip.

‘It doesn’t have to be goodbye,’ Nell unexpectedly whispered into my ear.

‘Adam. We need to shift,’ Josh said but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. What had Nell meant? Had Anna said something?

The desire to sweep Anna into my arms and declare eternal love was overpowering. I could feel Josh glaring at me and I knew what he was thinking.

He was thinking I was a twat.

‘Anna…’

Her eyes met mine. Her lashes coated with unshed tears. There was nothing I could say to make it easier.

The realization that I would never again feel the shape of her name on my tongue made my throat close.

I couldn’t let her go.

I wouldn’t.

The announcer was calling for us to board but it sounded so far away because now the world was only made up of her and me. Josh was swatting our boarding passes against his thigh impatiently, but everything felt inconsequential.

Everything but her.

The thought that I could stand back and watch her walk out of my life seemed as ludicrous as trying to fight against the tide, so instead I let go of rational thought and allowed myself to sink into the possibility of what might be.

I took her hand.

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