Cecelia Ahern - How to Fall in Love

‘It’s not … we shouldn’t have … I shouldn’t have …’ he tried to start it off. ‘I take full responsibility,’ he said finally. ‘I’m sorry, Christine. I shouldn’t have … come to you last night.’

‘No, I should have known better,’ I swallowed, my voice husky, sounding as if it’d had to travel a great distance. ‘You have Maria, the big party, big day and exciting news to share with the world about your job, so don’t worry,’ I helped him say the words, ‘Let’s forget what happened. And please,’ I placed a hand on my chest and my voice cracked, ‘forgive me. I apologise from the bottom of my heart for being too …’ Damaging? Needy? Selfishly looking after my own needs when I should have been thinking of his? Where was I to start?

He looked sad.

‘It was wrong.’ I tried to keep my chin up, but how could I? I felt so awkward. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered, moving quickly to the bedroom. ‘I don’t want to leave you in case …’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. He was drained, exhausted, but I believed him. My being there wouldn’t help anything now. I would have to risk leaving him alone.

‘I’ll see you later?’ he asked. ‘At the party?’

I froze. ‘You still want me to come?’

‘Of course.’

‘Adam, you don’t have to—’

‘I want you to be there,’ he said firmly, and I nodded, hoping now that Maria would complete the picture so that he wouldn’t need my presence as he thought he might.

I did well to last until I’d arrived in my flat to break down in tears.

I hid in bed in the flat, ignored the phone, the door and the world while I covered my head with the duvet and wished I could take it all back. But the problem was, I couldn’t even wish for that properly because last night had been so good, so incredible, something I had never experienced before, more than just good sex. Adam had been tender and loving, but I’d felt a connection, he’d been so confident and assured as if he knew it were the right thing. There was no hesitation, no tentative kisses or touches. And if at any stage I felt a tiny flutter of doubt, one look in his eyes, one kiss was enough to know that it was the right and most natural thing in the world. It wasn’t like any one-night stand I’d ever had, it was tender, we’d made love, like our history had made it really mean something and silent promises were being made for the future. Or else Adam was just that good and I was an absolute mug.

I had been ignoring my phone and door, but that wasn’t to say anybody had bothered to call me. I knew this because I’d checked. I had the phone with me under the duvet and as I was consciously ignoring it I had to keep checking to see who it was I was ignoring. Nobody. But it was Saturday morning and most people were in bed or enjoying family time and weren’t bothering to text. Not even Adam. It was the first time in two weeks that I wasn’t with him and I missed him terribly, I felt a hole in my life.

The doorbell rang.

My heart lifted at the thought of Adam at the door, heart in his hands, or even better, his heart on a lily pad, offering it to me. But deep down I knew it would not be Adam at the door.

The doorbell rang again, which, when I thought about it, was unusual. Nobody knew I lived there, apart from family and close friends. Most of my friends were busy with their new young families or were hungover in bed. Unless it was Amelia. I knew she’d picked up on my sadness last night over the phone and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was there with two coffees in her hand, a bag full of cupcakes, ready to help lift me. She had been known to do it in the past. The doorbell rang again and, warming to the idea of coffee and sympathy, I threw off the covers, not caring how I looked, and dragged myself to the door. I pulled open the door, expecting to see my shoulder to cry on and instead was faced with Barry.

He looked more surprised to see me than I did him, despite the fact he’d rang the bell four times.

‘I didn’t think you’d be here,’ he said, looking me up and down.

I wrapped my cardigan tighter around my body.

‘Then why did you keep ringing the bell?’

‘I don’t know. I came all this way.’ He shrugged. He looked me up and down again, clearly unimpressed with my appearance. ‘You look terrible.’

‘That’s because I feel terrible.’

‘Well, that’s what you get,’ he said childishly.

I rolled my eyes. ‘What’s in the box?’

‘A few of your things.’

It looked more like a pathetic excuse to come over and harass me. Chargers from phones I’d long ago thrown out, headphones, empty CD cases.

‘I knew you’d want this,’ he said, clearing away the junk on the top and revealing my mother’s jewellery box.

I immediately burst into tears, my hands flying to my face. He was taken aback, not knowing what to do. It had previously been his job to comfort me, it had been mine to let him, to want him to, but we stood there like two strangers – except two strangers would be kinder, as I cried and he watched me.

‘Thank you,’ I sniffed, trying to compose myself. I took the box from him and he stood there, uncomfortable, not knowing what to do with his fidgeting hands and no barrier for him to hide behind. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

‘I also wanted to say—’ he began.

‘No, Barry, please no,’ I said weakly, ‘Because I honestly don’t think I can take any more of what you have to say. I’m sorry, you know, I’m really sorry, sorrier than you can ever possibly imagine, that I hurt you. What I did was awful, but I couldn’t make myself love you like you deserve to be loved. We weren’t right for each other, Barry. I don’t know how else to say sorry, I don’t know what else I could have done. Stayed? And let us both be utterly miserable? Jesus …’ I wiped my stinging eyes roughly. ‘I know I’m in the wrong here, Barry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Okay?’

He swallowed, was silent for a while and I braced myself for another of the most hurtful things he could think of to say to me. ‘I wanted to say I was sorry,’ he mumbled.

That took me by surprise.

‘For what exactly?’ I said, the anger rising, even though I was trying to suppress it. ‘For smashing Julie’s car? For cleaning out our joint account? Or for insulting my friends? Because I know I hurt you , Barry, but I didn’t go and drag other people into it.’

He looked away. All the sorry seemed to have gone out of him. ‘No, not for that,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m not sorry for any of that.’

I couldn’t believe his cheek. He composed himself.

‘I’m sorry for the voicemail. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was wrong.’

My heart hammered, he could only mean one voicemail, the one I hadn’t heard, the one Adam had heard and deleted.

‘Which one, Barry? There were an awful lot of them.’

He swallowed. ‘The one about your mother, okay? I shouldn’t have said it. I wanted to hurt you in the deepest way possible. I know that’s your biggest fear so …’

He left a silence and I tried to figure it out. After an awkward pause I got it and realised I’d known it the entire time. Sometimes you can know something and not know it at the same time.

‘You said I’d kill myself like Mum did,’ I said, my voice trembling.

He had the decency to look ashamed. ‘I wanted to hurt you.’

‘Well, that would have done it,’ I said sadly, thinking of Adam listening to the message. So he knew that my mother had killed herself, that in my deepest, darkest moments when everyone told me how alike me and my mother were I’d secretly worried we were too alike. A secret I’d shared with my husband and which had come back to haunt me even at a time when I knew I was not like my mother in that way. My mother had suffered from severe depression all of her life. She had been in and out of clinics and therapy since she was a teenager. Finally, unable to beat the demons in her head, she had taken her life when I was four years old. She had been a thinker, a worrier, a poet. And of all the thoughts and poems she had written throughout her life as she tried to figure out her puzzling head there was one which I had clung to and made my own: the one I had read at the funerals of Amelia’s mother and Adam’s father.