Читать книгу The Pieces of You and Me - Rachel Burton - Страница 24

She looked so beautiful when he saw her walking down the aisle in front of Gemma at the wedding ceremony. He couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to have been given this second chance.

But he had known there was something wrong; she hadn’t seemed as pleased to see him again as he had to see her. And later, outside the Orangery, she had seemed distant as though she hadn’t heard what he was saying.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for years. Being here at the wedding with her felt like a daydream. It didn’t seem real. Caro had kept him occupied during the wedding, full of jokes and stories and anecdotes from his childhood that he had forgotten, blanked from his mind during the lonely years he’d spent at Harvard; but he was delighted to remember, now that he was back here amongst people who he had used to love, people who he had forgotten to love.

When Jess had danced with him after dinner to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ he felt that it was a turning point, a significant moment in his life – like the day he first kissed her on the bench by the River Cam or the day he asked her to marry him. He wanted those days back and he was determined that this weekend he was going to make that happen, determined that he was going to take a risk.

But he knew there was something wrong and when he asked her to get some fresh air with him he wanted to find out what it was, to help her if he could. But he was still sure that she wasn’t telling him the whole story.

When he turned to look at her again, she was staring at him. When their eyes met he felt the wave of heat that had washed over him when he saw her in the pub in York. He didn’t know what to say or do. He wanted the easy banter of their youth to return, the secret smiles, the in-jokes. He wanted it not to feel awkward. But it did. Ten years had passed and there was nothing he could do to bring them back, to turn back the clock. They used to know everything about one another, but they knew nothing now about the people they had each become. Part of him wanted to tell her everything but another part of him wanted to hold back, as she was holding back from him.

‘What tempted you back to England?’ she asked, breaking the silence that hung between them. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you would ever have wanted to leave Harvard?’

‘I missed England,’ he replied. ‘I was lonely out there, I never really fitted in and I just wanted to come home.’ It sounded like a poor explanation even to him.

‘But York?’ she persisted. ‘Why didn’t you just go back to Cambridge?’

He looked away from her. ‘It was a good opportunity,’ he said.

‘A long way from the Arsenal stadium though,’ she joked, nudging him gently, reminding him of the obsession he had shared with her father. Her light-heartedness sounded forced to him, as though she knew he had just lied to her.

‘Nearer than Harvard was,’ he replied. ‘The first thing I did when I got back to England was a tour of the Emirates Stadium.’

She smiled next to him. ‘I wonder what Dad would have made of it?’

Jess’s father, Ed Clarke, had been everything to Rupert, everything that his own father had never been. It was Ed who taught him to play football, to stay loyal to Arsenal even during the bad seasons. Ed had taught him to swim, to fly a kite and Ed had always encouraged his wild side, his freedom. Rupert’s father never seemed to believe in kids being allowed to be free.

As Rupert got older it was Ed who bought him his first legal pint on his eighteenth birthday – even though he knew Rupert had had his fair share of illegal pints before that – and it was Ed who Rupert met up with in the week to watch the football with in the pub, after Jess had moved to London. They would sit in the corner, always at the same table, and chat amiably as they watched the match.

‘For what it’s worth,’ Ed had said one night. ‘I think you made the right decision about staying in Cambridge and not going to one of those Ivy League universities. I think you’ll be much happier here. I think you spent enough time away at school.’

Rupert had smiled. Ed always seemed to know him so well. ‘I’m glad I stayed too,’ he said. ‘Dad doesn’t always know what’s right for me.’

‘He’s doing his best,’ Ed had said as Rupert had scowled. ‘Us parents have such high hopes for our kids, such big dreams, and eventually we have to give those dreams up and trust our kids to make the right decision.’

‘I guess you and Caro are better at that than my parents,’ Rupert had said. It had always been Ed and Caro he went to when he was angry with his father, and it had always been them who had helped him calm down, helped him think more rationally. He hadn’t known then what he would have done without them.

One night during Rupert’s second year at university, Jess had come home early for the weekend and surprised them in the pub. Rupert had watched Ed’s face light up when Jess walked in and the three of them had spent the evening together, the football forgotten. It felt almost ridiculous to remember now that it had been one of the best nights of Rupert’s life – a simple evening where he could forget lectures and seminars, studies and exams, just for a few hours. He had felt as though he was part of something important, surrounded by love. He had felt as though he had seen a glimpse of his future that night, but that future had been pulled away from him when Ed died.

There was so much he wanted to say to Jess now about the summer her father had died, but he didn’t know where to start.

‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he said instead. ‘Do you ever wonder what would have happened if things had been different, if we’d kept in touch, if …’

‘But we didn’t,’ she interrupted. Her tone sounded harsh, far removed from the gentle nostalgia of a moment ago. ‘Those things did happen and our lives went in different directions. It felt as though we weren’t part of each other anymore.’

‘And yet here we are again,’ he said quietly, turning towards her, trailing his fingers gently over her bare shoulder. She shivered and he took off his jacket, wrapping it around her.

‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,’ he said.