Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

I frowned. ‘Fine, you go out with Don then if he makes you so happy.’

‘I am,’ he snapped. ‘Tonight. So you’d better talk quickly with Blake because I’m not hanging around another night.’

‘Don’t worry, I can try to cover up your rashes with powder.’

‘This isn’t about the rashes,’ he hissed again, his face going purple.

He was more like the Life I’d met on the first day; tragically we were going backwards. The lady of the house asked me what I’d like to eat. I eyed up Life’s breakfast. ‘Something healthy,’ I said critically. ‘I’ll have the granola, please.’

‘Microwaved?’ he said loudly, making a point.

‘I’m going to start cooking again,’ I said defensively.

He snorted. ‘I’ve filled your fridge with fresh fruit and vegetables every few days; they’ve all gone rotten and I’ve had to throw them out.’

‘Really?’

‘You wouldn’t have noticed, you were only opening the freezer.’

‘Are you guys going to the adventure centre too?’ the girl asked.

Life rudely ignored her, not in the mood to talk to anyone unless it was to torment me.

‘Yes,’ I smiled, excited for Blake. ‘You’re all going there?’

‘Second time this month, but it’s Harry’s first.’

I could tell which one was Harry because the blond beside me went red as they all jeered and jostled him, ruffling his hair and leaving him even more dishevelled looking.

‘Harry’s terrified of heights,’ the girl explained for me, with a bright smile. ‘If he dives, Declan has promised to shave his eyebrows.’

‘And his balls,’ the redhead said and it was Declan’s turn to look slightly embarrassed as they all jeered again.

‘Have you been taking lessons?’ It was a question for Harry.

‘No, his mom’s been shaving his balls all his life so he knows exactly what to do,’ the cheeky redhead said and they all laughed again, Harry included this time.

‘We’re doing a tandem skydive,’ the girl answered me.

‘What’s that?’ Life asked, starting on a chocolate croissant. I glared at him but he stuffed it in his mouth.

‘Tandem skydiving is when two people fall through the sky attached to one parachute system,’ I explained. ‘You just need to do twenty minutes of training before the skydive.’

Life made a face. ‘Who in their right mind would want to do that?’

Harry looked like he agreed with Life but wouldn’t say.

‘We used to do it all the time.’ I smiled at the memories of Blake and me hurtling towards the earth together, and wanting to get back up in the air as soon as we’d landed.

‘How romantic,’ Life said sarcastically. ‘It’s a pity the parachute didn’t fail to open.’ He reached into the basket for a chocolate muffin. Again my glare did nothing to stop him. ‘So what? I’m depressed.’

‘Well, you need to snap out of it because you’re going to need every ounce of energy you have to help me.’

‘You can get a lift with us if you want,’ the girl said. ‘We’ve got Declan’s mum’s camper van. There’s plenty of room.’

‘Great, thanks,’ I perked up.

It was a five-minute drive from the B&B to the adventure centre. My stomach lurched every few seconds. I was quite uneasy and not just because I was precariously perched on a pile of surfboards, which were bouncing around and fit to fall despite Declan’s very careful driving, though the others were shouting at him to speed it up. Harry was sitting beside me, pale as could be.

‘It’ll be fine. If anything, this will help you overcome your fear of heights.’

He looked at me doubtfully, then, when the others were busy slagging each other about Declan driving like an old man he said quietly, ‘What if I get sick in the air?’

‘You won’t,’ I said confidently. ‘There’s no sensation of sickness. Skydiving is a constant so it doesn’t turn your stomach like going over a bump or a hill.’

He nodded, then a moment later he asked, ‘What if the parachute doesn’t open?’

‘It will and anyway there are two parachutes, and both parachutes will have been meticulously maintained by highly qualified staff. I know the guy who runs the place and he’s perfect, I mean he’s a perfectionist.’

He looked a little more relieved but not completely. ‘How well do you know him?’

I thought about it, then said firmly, ‘I haven’t seen him for almost three years but I’m in love with him.’

Harry looked at me like I was a weirdo and mumbled, ‘Yeah well, people can change a lot in three years.’ Then he left me to think about that while he joined the other two who were pretending to snore as Declan carefully rounded the corners.

‘Well, that told you,’ Life said, sitting on a half-inflated banana boat across from me. Despite his crankiness he looked good in a new pair of jeans, trainers and a polo shirt. I’d managed to take down some of the redness in his face with powder but he was still a bit blotchy. He looked like he wanted to say something.

‘Out with it.’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s just that poor little Harry there is terrified of going up in a plane and you’ve just given your word that Blake is “perfect”.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘So? Blake is the most safety-conscious guy I know.’

‘He’s also a liar. Pity you didn’t tell him that.’

I ignored him the rest of the way.

The centre was actually a very modest building.

‘It’s a Portaloo,’ Life said, stepping out from the camper van and joining me.

‘It’s not a Portaloo,’ I said, annoyed, surveying Blake’s new business. It was more of a Portakabin. In fact, it was two. One was clearly the registration and checking-in room and the other was changing and toilet facilities.

‘Is this what your dream looked like?’

It wasn’t but I ignored him. At least Blake had actually done something he wanted to do unlike most of the people in the world. Unlike me. The nerves were still there but I was excited; I kept that paused image of Blake and Jenna clinking glasses in Morocco and I held onto it as a driving force. That was why I was here; to break them up, to make him see me and realise he loved me again. I’d changed a lot in our two years, eleven months and twenty-one days of being apart and I wanted him to see that.

I followed the excited Fantastic Four – or at least the Thrill-Seeking Three and a Petrified Harry – into the cabin. There was a sweets and crisp dispenser, a tea and coffee dispenser and chairs lining the walls.

‘That’s good, maybe I can see the doctor about my rash while I’m here,’ Life criticised once again.

The walls were covered in framed photographs of Blake, some of which had been blown up and super-sized. They were taken from his TV show and made him look like Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible , freeze-framed in a muscle-bulging action sequence, all biceps and abs and rock-solid bum cheeks: Blake jumping out of aeroplanes, Blake white-water rafting, Blake climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Blake’s muscles popping from his skin as he climbed the Rocky Mountains, Blake having a shower under a waterfall. My eyes lingered on that one for a while as I checked out his amazing body, as did all the eyes of the young women in the cabin. It was only then, when I looked around at the rest of the clientele, that I realised it was mostly women, mostly young women, mostly beautiful, tanned, toned, pretty women. It put me on the wrong foot momentarily; all these young things were here to see Blake the TV star, he probably got this attention all the time, in every bar, in every town and city, in every country. They probably all threw themselves at him; he could have his pick, he could have them all at once and just to torment myself, I had an image of them all together, him in the middle of all their young naked bodies writhing all over him. I might have been ten years older than them all but I used to have his naked body writhing all over me too, whenever I wanted, and that made me feel better.