Adele Parks - Love Lies

‘Are you talking about Scott?’

‘No! I was trying to talk about nothing!’ I sigh, defeated.

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, yeah, that’ll be right, you don’t do talking. You run, don’t you,’ says Adam. Oh bugger, didn’t see that coming. Adam glares at me. Any compassion I thought I detected has been swallowed by anger. He shakes his head wearily. ‘I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, Fern. I still don’t know what went wrong. I woke up one day and that was our last and I never even knew it. We were doing fine, Fern, weren’t we?’

I can’t answer. I want to look away from him because his pain is burning in his eyes and it’s obvious in the small, tight lines around his mouth too. But I don’t look away, it would be too selfish, I should see what I’ve caused. He continues.

‘Well, I thought we were and then you left. You just weren’t there any more. People shouldn’t just bale out when the going gets tough. People should stay put and work stuff out. People should talk things through.’

‘I tried to talk to you,’ I offer gently, weakly.

‘You gave me one ultimatum and you didn’t even stick around long enough to see how I’d respond.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, that’s good to know,’ he says sarcastically. ‘And now you’ve run away again.’

‘I thought you approved of me running out on Scott.’

‘I’m glad you’re not marrying the man but there were better ways to tell him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat.

‘Yeah, I’m sure Scott will be stoked to hear that.’

‘He slept with Ben,’ I point out.

‘You knew that yesterday. You could have called it off yesterday before the cameras were rolling.’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Life is.’ Adam spits out the words and stares in front of him. He looks irritated. Nearly all the flowers and stalls are packed away now; the warehouse looks bleak. I get the feeling that pretty soon someone is going to brush us up with the bits of stray foliage and sweep us into the bin. ‘Why didn’t you finish it yesterday?’ asks Adam.

‘Because you didn’t want me,’ I reply with a heavy sigh. I’m not delirious about admitting this but what is the point of trying to save face at this stage? ‘And I didn’t have the courage to leave without you. Or, at least, I thought I didn’t.’

We sit silently side by side. Him in a smarter suit than I have ever seen him wear – in fact, the only suit I have ever seen him wear – and me in a gown that cost six months’ salary, but we don’t look as grand and refined as we ought. We look bizarrely out of place in among the empty trestle tables.

Adam looks nervous but strangely elated. I can almost

I’m going to have to start all over again.

Alone.

Adam coughs. I think he’s thinking the same thing. He’s probably cold too and suffering from pins and needles because he’s scrunched down next to me. I wait for him to tell me I have to get on with it.

‘You know yesterday, when I was talking about my band and I said that they’ll never make number one because that stuff doesn’t happen to me, I’m not a number one sort of guy?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘The thing is, Fern, that sort of stuff doesn’t happen to me because, truthfully, I don’t want it enough. I don’t want it at the cost of everything else and that’s how much you have to want it in this business. That’s how much Scott wants it. He deserves his success and all that comes with it.’ His tone is slightly scathing. I don’t think there is any love lost between Adam and Scott. ‘But you know, maybe they might get into the top forty. Maybe number twenty-six or something around that mark.’

‘Yeah, you said.’

‘I’m just saying it again, so that you are clear. I’m not going to be a stonking, raving, unequivocal success. I’m more average than that.’

‘I know, Adam.’

And that’s why we could have a chance, if he’d allow it. I look at him and try to understand exactly what he’s saying. I listen very, very carefully. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Is he managing my expectations? That would mean he is at least allowing me to have expectations. How far away is starting again? Millions of miles or just around the corner?

I lean closer and closer towards him. He stops talking and I stay silent. My mouth is just inches away from his. I can feel his warm breath heat my being. Just an inch apart now. His delicious lips are right there, a nose length away.

He pulls back. The space he leaves between us is a world. Or should I say, the space I put between us is a world. He doesn’t want me. If he did, that was his moment. He could have kissed me here, among the buckets of flowers. I’ve blown it. I start to cry again. I wish I wouldn’t. It’s girly and weak and messy but I can’t stop myself. I don’t know how I’ll make it through this.

‘Why are you crying now?’ he asks with a touch of impatience. It’s agony that even his impatience thrills me; everything about him is familiar and straightforward.

‘Because I’ve lost everything. I’ve thrown away everything.’ I give in to the big, ugly sobbing once again.

‘You don’t know what the future holds, Fern. You never know, in a year’s time you might look back at all of this and, well, laugh about it.’

I stare at him as though he’s insane.

‘OK, maybe not laugh exactly,’ he concedes. ‘But it might not seem like the end of the world if you were sitting in your lovely two, maybe even three, bedroom home in – I don’t know – let’s be realistic, the wrong end of Clapham. Not a bad place for a starter home.’

‘Not at all.’ I sniff, momentarily giving in to this fantasy he’s describing.

‘And you might be pregnant and my band will have made a bit of cash, maybe I’ll have more than one group to manage by then.’

Pregnant? How? That’s stupid. How could I have met and fallen in love with someone and decided to have a child with them in that short time? Looking at Adam right now, I can’t imagine doing even the first part of that scenario. How could I meet anyone else when I’m in love with Adam? And I am in love with Adam. What I feel for him is not a three-day infatuation, ignited behind closed doors in Wembley, already cooling as I flew across the Atlantic. What I feel for Adam is not a fairytale, it’s a love story. There’s a difference.

‘And you know what else? Scott and Ben will have invited us to their wedding. They’ll be our best friends again.’

Us to their wedding. Our best friends. Did I hear that right?

‘Us? But yesterday, I asked you if you would take me back? And you said no. You said you can’t go backwards.’

‘I said I didn’t want to be the guy you ran back to, but being the guy you ran towards, well, that’s a different you . If you’d been the type of girl who could have gone through with that farce then I had you all wrong and I didn’t want that, Fern. You had to work it out on your own, girl. I was so proud of you back there. You looked so brave and strong, telling the hottest rock singer and songwriter Britain has ever produced, the world press and your thousand guests to fuck off.’ Adam’s smiling now; it’s a broad, uninhibited smile. The best smile I’ve seen from him, or anyone for that matter, in months.

‘I didn’t say that exactly,’ I say with a small, shy grin.

‘You sort of did.’

Once again we lapse into silence. I don’t know exactly what to say. I don’t want to rush at him, force anything, move too quickly or set any deadlines. None of these things would be right. Instead we both sit and enjoy the moment. I breathe in the smell of foliage and peonies.