Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

I drink a bottle of wine from the minibar and I listen out for the opening and closing of bedroom doors in the corridor. Each time I hear a door I think is in their direction, I peep out and duck back in again. They stay in their rooms all night.

The following day they take a trip to Fota Island. They spend a long time looking at and photographing the Lar gibbons, who sing loudly and swing wildly, much to Heather’s delight. They take photographs of each other and then Jonathan asks a teenage boy to take a photograph of the both of them. I don’t like the look of the teenager, he is not someone I would have personally trusted with my phone, and Jonathan doing this annoys me. I move closer, just in case. The teenager’s gang of friends are already sniggering at Jonathan and Heather’s happy faces pushed together for the photo. I move closer and closer, ready to pounce on him when he runs off with Jonathan’s phone. The boy takes the photo and hands it back to them. I freeze, then step in behind a tree so I’m not seen. Jonathan and Heather examine the photos and then surprise me by heading back in my direction, and as they do my phone beeps. It is a message from Heather; the photograph of her and Jonathan. This makes me feel sad inside, disappointed at myself for being here. It is as though somebody has taken a pin and popped my balloon. Why didn’t I trust that Heather would keep me informed and therefore involved every step of the way? I had wanted to share this place with her, had been put out by my own suggestion that they come here and yet, she is sharing it with me. Feeling unnerved, I hang back a little further.

Heather and Jonathan spend four hours in the park. It is hot and humid and busy with school tours and families. Wishing I had a change of clothes more suited to this weather than the black suit I’d put on for my interview, I stay in the shade, but I never lose them. They stop for ice cream and talk for an hour, then they return to the hotel. They sit in the bar, both drinking 7UP and they continue their conversation. I don’t think I have ever spoken to anybody for so long at one sitting, but the words flow from each of them and their attention is completely focused on one another. It is beautiful, but again I feel a tinge of sadness, which makes me feel ridiculous. I am not here to feel sorry for myself. They eat in the bar and go to bed early, tired from their long day outside.

I have one message from Monday. Call me. Please.

My finger hovers over the call button but instead my phone rings and I talk to Heather for forty-five minutes about the day she had. She tells me absolutely everything that I have already witnessed and the jubilation I felt yesterday at being here and knowing she is sharing everything with me has disappeared. I feel like a traitor. I should have trusted that she would be capable. I shouldn’t be here.

It is day three. They will be leaving tomorrow and they are sitting outside the hotel talking. What began as a beautiful day has quickly turned. While everyone moves inside to shelter from the cool breeze, Heather and Jonathan, oblivious to the cold, continue to talk. Sometimes they don’t talk and sit comfortable in each other’s company, and I can’t stop watching them, absolutely fascinated by what is going on with them.

Something inside me shifts. Although it has already dawned on me that I shouldn’t be here, I realise that I should leave now . Because if Heather ever finds out, I know it would jeopardise my relationship with her. This trip is important to her and my being here is disrespectful to her. I know this and yet it only hits me now. I have betrayed her by coming here, and I feel ill and upset with myself for that. I betrayed Monday for this – another betrayal. I have to leave.

I hurry to my room to collect the few belongings I brought with me. I check out. As I scurry through the lobby, suddenly eager to flee the scene, I run smack-bang into Heather and Jonathan.

‘Jasmine!’ she says, shock written all over her face. At first she is happy to see me and then I watch how she processes it, joy turning to confusion. Bafflement, then wonder. She is too polite to be angry with me, even if she has figured it out.

I’m so stunned by the sight of them, and feel so caught out, that I don’t know what to say. Guilt is written all over my face. They both know it and look to each other, seeming as appalled as I feel.

‘I wanted to make sure that you’re okay,’ my voice wobbles. ‘I was … so worried.’ My voice cracks and I whisper. ‘I’m sorry.’

Heather looks at me in shock. ‘Did you follow me, Jasmine?’

‘I’m going now, I promise. I’m sorry.’ My lips brush her forehead quickly as I leave, clumsily bumping into people in the halls as I make my way to the door.

The look that Heather gives me, and the way that I feel, is not natural.

For the next few hours I sit on the train, face in my hands, repeating the mantra. I have let Monday down, I have let Heather down, I have let myself down.

The taxi pulls up outside my house and I climb out, exhausted and desperately in need of a change of clothes. I look at my garden, hoping to feel the familiar sense of relief or rejuvenation that I’ve come to expect from it. But I don’t. Something isn’t right. It has lost its vibrancy.

Reality has taught me a lesson, the universe has gotten me back. I have neglected my garden in a heatwave for three days without any instruction to anyone to help. The flowers are thirsty. Worse, slugs have eaten their way through my garden. My cream roses are drooping, my pink peonies are ravaged. I have managed to keep it in all day, but the sight of my precious garden brings me to tears.

I have let Monday down, I have let Heather down, I have let myself down.

I missed an important opportunity in my life, in order to be there for Heather. But Heather didn’t need me. I repeat this to myself. Heather didn’t need me. Perhaps it is me that clings to her, looking for help, for escape from my own world. Instead of living my own life for myself, I have taken on the role of guiding her and in a way mothering her. Whether this was a result of caring for her, or the reason I chose to do it, I’m not sure. I don’t think it matters either way, but I know now that it’s a fact.

Feeling out of control this year, I have turned to my garden to maintain control, thinking it would bend to my will. It has shown me that it will not. Nothing can bend to our will. I neglected my garden and I allowed the slugs to take over.

That is exactly what I have done with myself.

21

Apart from betrayal, June also brings a christening, godmother duties and a one-night-stand with my ex-boyfriend Laurence, the boyfriend who lasted longest, the one everybody thought I’d marry, including me, but the one who left me in the end. Sleeping with him again after two years of Laurence-celibacy was a mistake, it was an enjoyable mistake, but it won’t be happening again. I don’t know what I was thinking, but after a day spent drinking in the sun, the old familiar feelings came back, or the memory of them did, their echo, and so I confused them as easily as I had the male from the female toilets and the glass of water from the straight vodka. Just another oopsie on that long summer’s day. And maybe I was longing for a moment of security, to go back to the feeling of being loved, of feeling in love. Only it didn’t work out that way, of course it didn’t. Recreations never work. The ‘here’s one I made earlier’ can rarely be replicated. Don’t try this at home, kids.

And so I end up outside your house at two in the morning, drunk, throwing pebbles at your window, with a bottle of rosé and two glasses in my hands.

You open the curtains and look out, your face sleepy and confused, your hair standing high on your head. You see me, then disappear from view and I sit at the table and wait for you. Moments later you open the door, tracksuit on, and sleepily make your way to me. When you register my state, the groggy inquisitive look on your face quickly changes to amusement, the expression that makes your blue eyes sparkle mischievously, though smaller and surrounded by the crinkles that squeeze them when you smile.