When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

Fuck. That’s why I love him. That’s why I’ll love him even if he did something wrong and stupid. I’ll love him even if he lied to me. And even if he lies to me again.

Harry puts his forehead on the towel rail. Talks to the floor. “We were a circle of friends in uni, me, Hannah, a few others, Rupert was my housemate. When we graduated they stayed in London, I left for New York and they kept breaking up and getting back together. I never went near her, never, when they were together, or at least when I knew they were together, in all these years.”

He paces the bathroom floor, looking at the tiles, the bathmat, the door, anything but me. “Rupert went to work in Hong Kong and they broke up. Hannah got promoted and it meant business trips to New York. We’ve known each other since we were eighteen. It would have been strange for her not to call when she was in town.”

He stops pacing, leans against the vanity, half-sitting on the edge of the sink. “I was lonely. I worked eighteen-hour days. I started work at 5 most mornings on the European desk. I went to work in a box in a building and went to bed at night in a box in a building. It was all very empty. I made money. Bantered at the office. Talked to girls in bars who just wanted me to say inane things with a British accent. It was awful. But then Hannah would appear and I didn’t have to explain anything. She was lonely too. She’d given up on Rupert. She was lost and so was I and”—he looks away from me—“we fell in love. I knew at some point we’d have to tell him, I broke the code, I should never have touched her, but I thought we could all be adults about it. Maybe it should have been me and her all along.”

I try not to flinch at that last sentence. I say, “Why didn’t you tell me, when I asked you about her? Why did I have to stand there tonight and look at you looking at her?”

“I feel awful, I…” he mumbles. I wish I was dressed. I keep hold of my knees to cover myself, goose bumps rising on my arms. My skin is tight, itchy. I stare at the taps and he slides down the vanity to the floor, hands to his face. We’re silent for a while until he finally says, “Gigi, she was pregnant. I was going to marry her.”

I’m overcome with jealousy. It didn’t happen but I’m jealous that it could have. I’m trying to remember that I’m angry. I’m angry and jealous and in love all at once. I make him turn around so I can climb out of the bath. I put on the fluffy hotel robe, devastated and furious. And afraid.

He leans his head against the cupboard under the sink. He tells me about the future he didn’t have as I sit on the edge of the tub. “She told me about the baby and we decided that I would move back to London and we’d get married. She flew home and I sublet my apartment, got a job transfer, sold my furniture on Craigslist. Made enquiries about houses in Clapham. Found out about registry weddings in Chelsea. I was going to push the pram on the common. I was going to get one of those carriers so that on Sunday mornings I could strap the baby on and get coffees and the paper for us while she slept in.”

I can see him doing it, flashes of him as a father and husband. I dig my feet into the bathmat. I look at my toes, candy-apple-red polish like drops of blood. A cheap-looking red against the Egyptian cotton or whatever fancy stuff this mat is made of. I want it to be me, me in the picture of that life he wanted.

He keeps going: “I wanted her and school plays and rugby matches and Christmas morning.” His eyes are shining. “It was stupid of me, turning my whole life upside down like that. I just wanted it. She said she had to tell Rupert, alone, in person. We owed him that much. But then one week became two and all my calls went to voicemail. I had to move into a hotel until she got round to telling me what was happening to my life.”

From his spot on the bathroom floor Harry tells me about how she emailed him a month later from Thailand. She never told Rupert about Harry or the baby. She just made a discreet visit to a clinic and a few weeks later accepted Rupert’s proposal on a moonlit beach.

These are his secrets, the pieces of his life that broke. But there’s more, there always is, so I say, “But when I saw you in the park, it was over between you?”

He sighs. “She made me promise not to tell him. She thought it would ruin their engagement, destroy our whole circle. But I was going to tell him anyway, except that then he asked me to be in the wedding. We were at a bar, we’d had a few drinks, there was no way to say no. I was about to tell him but then he said he wanted to be with her so much, he loved her, had loved her for years. I wasn’t brave enough to do it. And she had already ruined my life, I didn’t see why she should ruin his as well. God, I sound like such an arse.” Harry shakes his head, looks ahead at the bathroom radiator, embarrassed and ashamed.

This is all of him. He betrayed his friend, had his heart broken, thought he was a dad and then he wasn’t. He didn’t tell the truth when he should have. He’s still entwined with her lies. But