Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat, pacing the room. “You have no idea how either of us is feeling.” He stopped pacing, marched up to her face, and looked her directly in the eye, his chin lifted, his head steady. “Today,” he steadied his voice and spoke with perfect clarity, “I am going to tell Elizabeth Egan that I love her and that I want to spend my days with her. I can still help people while I’m with her.”

Opal’s hands went to her face. “Oh, Ivan, you can’t!”

“You taught me that there was nothing that I couldn’t do,” he disagreed.

“No one else will see you but her,” Opal exclaimed. “Elizabeth won’t understand. It just won’t work,” she said, clearly distraught by this revelation.

“If what you said is true and I made Elizabeth see me, then I can make everyone else see me too. Elizabeth will understand. She understands me like nobody else has ever done. Do you have any idea what that feels like?” He was excited now by the prospect. Before it had only been a thought, but now, now it was a possibility, he could make it happen. He looked at his watch; 6:50 p.m. He had ten minutes. “I have to go,” he said with urgency in his voice. “I have to tell her I love her.” He strode out toward the doorway with confidence and determination.

Suddenly Opal’s voice broke the silence. “I do know how you feel, Ivan.”

He stopped in his tracks, turned, and shook his head. “You can’t know how this feels, Opal, not unless you lived through this. You can’t even begin to imagine.”

“I have,” she said, quietly and uncertainly.

“What?” He viewed her warily through narrowed eyes.

“I have,” she said, with strength in her voice this time, and crossed her hands across her stomach, clasped her fingers together. “I fell in love with a man who saw me more than I had ever been seen in my whole entire life.”

There was a silence in the room while Ivan tried to come to terms with this. “So that should mean that you should understand me all the more.” He stepped toward her, clearly thrilled by the revelation. “Maybe it didn’t end well for you, Opal, but for me . . .” He smiled widely. “Who knows?” He threw his hands up and shrugged. “This could be it!”

Opal’s tired eyes stared back at him sadly. “No.” She shook her head and his smile faded. “Let me show you something, Ivan. Come with me this evening. Forget the office.” She waved her hand around the room dismissively. “Come with me and let me give you your final lesson.” She tapped his chin fondly.

Ivan looked at his watch. “But Eliz—”

“Forget Elizabeth for now,” she said softly. “If you choose not to take my advice, you’ll have Elizabeth tomorrow, the next day, and every day for the rest of her life. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She held out her hand to him.

Reluctantly, Ivan reached out to take it. Her skin was cold. Then she took him to a place that later he wished he’d never been.

Chapter Thirty-One

Elizabeth sat on the end of the staircase and looked out the frosted glass window to the front garden. The clock on the wall said 7:30 p.m. Ivan had never been late before and she hoped he was OK. However, her sense of anger was rather more active at that moment than her worry for him. His behavior on Saturday night gave her reason to think that his absence was due more to cold feet than foul play. She had thought about Ivan all day yesterday; about not meeting his friends, his family, or his work colleagues, the lack of sexual contact, and in the dead of the night as she battled with finding sleep, she had realized what it was that she had been trying to hide from herself. She felt she knew what the problem was; Ivan was either in a relationship already or unwilling to enter into one.

Any niggling feeling she had along the way she had ignored. It was unusual for Elizabeth not to plan, not to know where, exactly, their relationship was going. She wasn’t comfortable with this big change. She liked stability and routine, everything Ivan lacked. Well, now it could never work, she thought, as she sat on the stair waiting for a free spirit, just as her father was. And she never discussed her fears with Ivan. Why? Because when she was with him, every little fear dissipated. He would just show up, take her by the hand, and lead her into another exciting chapter in her life, and while she was reluctant to go with him at times, often apprehensive, with him she was never nervous. It was when she was without him, moments like now, that she questioned everything.

She decided immediately that she was going to distance herself from him. Tonight would be the night she would discuss it with him once and for all; they were like chalk and cheese, her life was full of conflict and as far as she could see, Ivan ran so far so fast just to avoid it. As the seconds ticked on and it moved into his fifty-first minute of being late, it looked like she didn’t need to have the conversation with him after all. She sat on the stair in her new cream trousers and shirt, a color she would have never worn before, and she felt foolish. Foolish for listening to him, believing him, for not reading the signs properly and, even worse, for falling for him.

Her anger was hiding her pain, but the last thing she wanted to do was to stay home alone and allow it to surface. She was good at doing that.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Benjamin, it’s Elizabeth,” she said rather quickly, speaking before she had a chance to backtrack. “How would you like to get that sushi tonight?”

“Where are we?” Ivan asked, strolling down a darkly lit cobblestoned street in inner city Dublin. Puddles gathered in the uneven surfaces of an area that consisted mainly of warehouses and industrial estates. One red-bricked house stood alone between them all.

“That house looks funny there, sitting all on its own,” Ivan remarked, nodding toward the house. “A bit lonely and out of place,” he decided.

“That’s where we’re going,” Opal said. “The owner of this house refused to sell his property to the surrounding businesses. He stayed here while they sprung up around him.”

Ivan eyed the small terraced house. “I bet they offered him a fair bit. He could probably have bought a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with what they would have paid him.” He looked down at the ground as his red Converse runner splashed into a puddle. “I’ve decided cobblestones are my favorite.”

Opal smiled and laughed lightly. “Oh, Ivan, you are so easy to love, you know that?” She walked on, not expecting an answer. Just as well, because Ivan wasn’t sure.

“What are we doing?” he asked for the tenth time since they had left the office. They stood directly across the road from the house and Ivan watched Opal viewing it.

“Waiting,” Opal replied calmly. “What time is it?”

Ivan checked his watch. “Elizabeth will be so mad at me.” He sighed. “It’s just gone seven p.m.”

Right on cue, the front door to the red-bricked house opened. An old man leaned against the doorway, which appeared to act as a crutch. He stared outside and looked so far into the distance he seemed to be seeing the past.

“Come with me,” Opal said to Ivan and she crossed the road, passed the old man at the front door, and entered the house.

“Opal,” Ivan hissed, “I can’t just enter a stranger’s house.” But Opal had already disappeared inside.

Ivan quickly skipped across the road and paused at the doorway. “Em, hello, I’m Ivan.” He held out his hand.

The old man’s hands remained clinging to the doorway; his watery eyes stared straight ahead.