Ella Harper - The Years of Loving You

Ed headed for the toilets but couldn’t locate Saskia. About to give up, he heard a giggle coming from the kitchen area. A Saskia giggle. Hoping she was ok, Ed poked his head in. His smile faded.

Saskia was kissing one of the bar staff. With some enthusiasm. She caught sight of him and stopped.

‘Ed.’ She put a hand to her mouth.

The young bar chap looked extremely uncomfortable. ‘Shit. Sorry. I was … this is …’

‘Not what it looks?’ Ed shook his head. ‘Let’s not be silly.’ He held the door open for the boy who scuttled out, red in the face.

‘Ed, I’m sorry about that.’ Saskia swallowed.

‘About what?’ Ed was reeling. ‘About me finding you snogging someone else at our engagement party?’

‘Yes.’ Saskia looked away. ‘You make it sound terrible.’

‘Er, no, Saskia. It just is terrible. I’m not sure I could articulate it in a way that doesn’t sound horrendous.’ Ed wondered how he was holding it all together. Clearly his world had just imploded slightly. Massively.

Saskia was pleating her skirt ferociously. She had gone from flushed to pale in a short space of time and seemed to be looking at the floor with great intent. Perhaps searching for words to explain herself.

Ed wanted to rage at her. But for some reason, he couldn’t. He wanted her to tell him why he had just walked in on her kissing some other guy. Was it the first time she’d done something like this? The tenth? Had she always been unhappy? Why had she got engaged to him if she wasn’t fully committed?

No words formed.

Eventually, Saskia spoke. ‘I … Ed, I just don’t think I can do this.’

‘Do what?’ Ed stared at her.

‘This.’ Saskia swallowed. ‘This party. The engagement. The … the … wedding.’

‘You don’t think you can do the wedding?’ Ed shook his head dumbly. ‘I don’t think I can do the wedding! Not after that.’

‘No, but I was thinking that beforehand … not just … after that.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ Ed put his hands on his face. What the hell was happening here?

‘Probably not. But I need to explain.’ Saskia was twisting her hands together and she suddenly looked absurdly young.

Ed’s stomach shifted. ‘Go ahead.’

‘It’s just all become a bit … serious,’ Saskia said, her eyes meeting his pleadingly.

‘A bit serious? Yes, I suppose weddings do feel a bit that way, don’t they?’ Ed wasn’t sure how he was supposed to deal with this.

Saskia grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter, presumably for support. ‘The whole getting married thing. I did want things to move along a bit, but I would have been happy to stay engaged, you know. For quite a while, in fact.’

Ed looked her in the eye, wanting to see the expression reflected there. All he saw was regret. ‘Meaning?’

Saskia averted her eyes. ‘This has all been fun, Ed. You and me … we have incredible fun, don’t we?’

‘Fun. Right.’

Ed was starting to feel like an absolute idiot. He had misread the situation between himself and Saskia. He had assumed that her hints to move things along meant marriage. But no. She wanted commitment in a soft form … a prolonged engagement that kept the ‘fun’ element of their relationship alive. No wonder she hadn’t been interested in the wedding itself. It was Ed who had allowed himself to get carried away with all of that. He had believed he was ready and that Saskia was the right girl.

‘So you never really wanted to get married?’

Saskia grabbed his hand. ‘Oh, Ed. Don’t put it like that. I did want to get married. Kind of. You asked me, it felt lovely, I said yes. I just didn’t realise you wanted to dash off immediately and book venues and talk about buttonholes.’

‘Gosh. What a massive idiot I am.’ Ed rubbed a hand over the back of his head, not sure how his life had just blown up in his face.

‘You’re not an idiot.’ Saskia sounded upset now. ‘I just got swept up with your enthusiasm. I did love you, Ed. I mean, I do.’

‘Do you?’ Ed turned to face her.

‘Yes. This is just …’ Saskia paused, her pretty face scrunching up. ‘It just doesn’t feel like fun any more, Ed. It feels way too serious. Too grown-up. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just too immature for all this stuff.’

Ed let out a sigh. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Saskia was very young, admittedly. Way younger than him. But that didn’t make her immature. Or it hadn’t, until now.

‘Stay, Saskia?’ Ed asked. It was the only time he was going to ask her, but he had to give it one last shot. He wasn’t sure he wanted to; she had snogged someone else after all. But he did love her. And it was only a kiss. He could get past it. Probably. ‘Stay and we can work things out.’

‘I-I can’t.’ Saskia hung her head. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She touched his arm. ‘I have to go.’

‘Go?’

‘Yes.’ Saskia looked around vaguely. ‘I need to leave. I can’t be here. This is … too much. It’s all just too much.’

Ed blinked. Was Saskia actually going to walk out of her own engagement party? Was she effectively … jilting him? Ed felt sick. He suddenly wished he hadn’t eaten so many cocktail sausages.

‘Goodbye, Ed.’

And that was that. The end of a relationship. The end of an engagement. Aghast, Ed watched Saskia walk out of the kitchen. Following her, he watched her walk right out of the pub. Her parents scurried after her, as did a couple of her closest friends.

Ed had no idea what to do. No idea whatsoever. ‘I’m so sorry, everyone,’ he said to the room at large. ‘That was – rather unexpected. I’m afraid the wedding is off.’

There was a collective gasp.

Turning to the bar, Ed rubbed a shaky hand over his face. ‘I’d like a tequila please. A large one.’

‘And I’ll have what he’s having.’ Boyd handed his children over to Helen with a mouthed apology and joined Ed at the bar. ‘Let’s get royally shit-faced.’

Ashen, Ed nodded and necked the first tequila of many. Molly. Where the hell was she? Ed needed Molly.

He made a quick call to Sara, Molly’s best friend. Sara was on her way to the party and seemed flummoxed that Molly was absent.

Ed grimly accepted another tequila. Hurry up, Molly, he thought to himself. Hurry up. I need you.

Molly sat in silence waiting to be called in. She hadn’t been kept long, but sitting in this particular waiting room was one of those occasions where time seemed to move so incredibly slowly, it was like being suspended in another realm.

Of course, there were worse things to be dealing with, Molly reasoned to herself. This wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. She knew friends whose children were in and out of that incredible hospital in London – Great Ormond Street, was it? Children with over-sized, inoperable tumours and unusual illnesses that meant regular resuscitation and any number of other complications. Molly also had friends whose parents, both of them, were suffering from cancer or something equally hideous.

So she had no right to be acting as though her world was about to come crashing down around her. Molly realised she was gripping the edges of the chair she was sitting in so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. She let go. Her hands felt fine today, ironically. They had for the past few days, in fact. Molly wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was it a brief respite? Or had whatever was wrong with her retreated for no apparent reason?

She glanced at her watch. She had missed Ed’s engagement party last week. She had sent an apologetic text to Ed to explain of course, but she hadn’t heard back from him. Which might mean that he was furious with her. Molly knew she needed to speak to Ed sooner rather than later, but she just couldn’t face it right now. Not until she knew for sure.