Always and Only You

Chapter Eighty-One

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

Present Day

The messages start off chatty, silly, sometimes a little cheesy. I can tell it’s Simon who wrote these. They have his tone and vocabulary, the same sense of humour. There are multiple messages every day for the first few weeks and then they slowly peter out.

I see the pattern now. This is exactly how communication went with Simon when I was at Heron’s Quay. The first few weeks were full of enthusiastic, chatty messages but by the time I left, I had that same feeling he was pulling away.

Now I come to think of it, he was the same running up to the wedding. I’d noticed he wasn’t always messaging me back or that his answers were short and to the point, but I just put it down to us both being busy and stressed. The clues were there. I just didn’t give them enough attention.

I turn back to the thread of messages and check the dates. As October turned into November, he ghosted me completely. But good old Erin didn’t give up. Reading it all back now, I’m asking twenty-three-year-old me why she bothered. It’s clear he’s lost interest. I would judge Past Erin for being pathetic if I couldn’t see how worried she was about him. She might be an idiot, but she’s got a good heart, that girl.

I sigh as I scroll through the one-sided conversation. When Anjali was cross with me once, she told me I treated people as my personal projects. Maybe that’s why Simon seemed so appealing back then. I could swoop in and fix him. Of course, now I know it wasn’t just grief eating him up, but guilt. There’s no way I would have been so persistent if I’d known the truth. I probably wouldn’t have messaged him at all.

I scroll down to reveal more messages. There it is … finally, he answers again.

Is this the moment when the identity switches? I double check the date. November. From what Simon said when we met for coffee, that seems about right. This could be it.

I’d forgotten that he didn’t dive straight in to fully fledged conversations. The messages are brief, as if every word was given reluctantly. He certainly doesn’t seem to be eager to reel me in and fool me. So why did he start?

The next chunk of messages reveals the answer. I come across a series of rambling messages from me to him.

Can we talk? It’s important.

I close my eyes, remembering how I felt when I typed these messages. The emotion was all-consuming. I felt trapped, stuck.

Please, Simon. I’m lonely and homesick and I’m grieving in a strange country …

Please help me …

Oh, my God … I begged him to talk to me. My desperation leaps off the screen. No wonder he finally gave in. Far from it being a heartless, calculating act, I realize it would have been heartless not to do what I’d asked.

Does this marry up with what I know about Gil in real life? I need to separate that Gil from dream Gil, go only on the facts. I look away from the computer screen and lean back in the chair.

He let me come and stay with him when I needed to get away, when I needed rest, even though I’d made my dislike for him obvious. And then he took care of me, fed me, listened to me, bossed me around when I was being stupid and didn’t know how to pace myself. Real Gil had my back, just like dream Gil promised he would.

Not knowing quite what to do with that, I return my attention to the messages. We talked through the night Megan died in fits and starts. It’s still painful to read now. And once we were done opening that can of worms, we just … talked. About everything. Stupid moments in our days. Big fears. Big dreams. I didn’t just bare my soul to him, but he also bared his to me. And all the emotions I felt at the time, the sense of connection, the longing to be in the same room as him, roll over me like breakers on a stormy seashore. It’s as if I’m back in that moment, giving tiny pieces of my heart away to him with every short message, until finally he holds them all.

Reading the messages back now, I can practically hear Gil’s voice. How did I never realize? How was I so blind?

But then, in January, those messages trail off too. Did he lose interest as well?

No.

My gut answers for me. Firmly. Definitively. I don’t know whether to trust it. The only other way to know for sure is to ask Gil himself, and I’m definitely not ready to do that at the moment.

I see plenty of messages from me, telling him I can’t wait to see him, telling him while also not telling him I am completely and utterly in love with him. But I can also read the silences, the secret I was keeping about my surprise visit home for Valentine’s Day. It’s almost as if I can feel the effervescent hopefulness resting between the message bubbles, knowing I was going to see him soon.

And then I came home.

I remember that evening in the pub clear as day. I pushed the doors open and looked around. I saw Gil first, and I knew wherever he was, his best friend couldn’t be far behind. And then I laid eyes on Simon, and everything else was forgotten.

Thinking back now, I realize they both looked surprised, but Simon also looked uncomfortable, as if he’d been caught out doing something he shouldn’t. And Gil …

He wore that locked-down expression he often wears. I always thought it was because he didn’t like me, but I’ve seen it on his face countless times since I arrived at Heron’s Quay, even after we became friends. The last time was my last day, when I pushed and pushed when he didn’t want to tell me something, but I made him. And then he told me he loved me. Finally, I fully understand what that expression means. It’s the one he wears when he’s trying to hide something, when he has a secret. I just didn’t realize that, for years, I was his secret.

I put my phone down and place my head in my hands. He was telling the truth. He loves me. He’s always loved me. A great pit of regret and fear opens up inside me, but I also feel like I’m soaring. If only I’d known at the time. Instead, I came back home to a man I didn’t know I’d broken up with, and Simon had a change of heart.

It’s all I can do to stop myself picking up the phone and ringing him, or getting on the first train out of Paddington. It’s only the fact that I don’t know if he’ll be at the boathouse that stops me clicking onto a travel website and booking a ticket. Didn’t Simon say that Gil needed somewhere to live for a while?

I open up a new browser window and search for Heron’s Quay to find some more answers. The search results come in quickly and I click on the first link, hardly bothering to read it, but when the website loads I discover it’s not a holiday let website but an estate agent’s. There’s a thumbnail with a picture of the boathouse with ‘Coming Soon!’ splashed across it.

Gil is putting Heron’s Quay up for sale.