I sat and stared at him. I could feel tears prickling my eyes. This was a very very sensitive topic for me still, I really didn’t want to talk about it.
“What?” he said, as worry came across his face.
I sighed deeply, willing the tears away, “Just tired,” I said quietly whilst avoiding eye contact. I knew I’d be a total mess if I tried to talk about this right now.
“How about this,” said Aston. “Go home and sleep for a few hours, and then I’ll take you for a late lunch somewhere and we can hang out this afternoon for a bit. We’ll talk about it then.”
I just nodded my head at him. I did owe him an explanation. Of all the people in the world besides myself, he was the one who was affected the most by my decision to take the Mosley job. He needed to know why I wasn’t there anymore.
“Stick your number in there yeah?” he asked, passing me his phone. “I’ll text you around one or so.”
I nodded and obliged before saying goodbye and driving off towards my house. I parked up my car and wandered into my house and straight up to my room. I crawled straight into my bed without changing my clothes and curled up into a ball.
Before, I’d been ok. Yeah it was weird seeing Aston, but it had been so long that it didn’t really affect me any more. I think I was slightly stunned more than anything and didn’t have a chance to think about it. But then when he’d asked about the job, the one that split us up, it sort of hit home a bit. Memories of our perfect summer in the little flat started to flood my mind, and small tears started to leak down my face. I couldn’t do this to myself, or to him. Not again. I’d loved him back then, but like he said, I’d grown up. And with that, I’d moved on.
Eventually I fell into a restless sleep, tossing and turning and constantly waking up. Finally I fell into a deep sleep, only to be shocked awake by the buzzing of my phone still in my pocket.
I pulled it out and stared at the screen, a British number popping up along with a text. I opened the text, [Hey, Still down for lunch? I can come round and get you at 2 if that works. Ast].
I took a moment to contemplate the situation I was in. Did I want to open myself up to this whole thing again? What was it anyway? Just friends, or memories of the past still lingering? To be fair I had no idea if he was seeing someone or how he viewed this whole thing. For all I know it could be an innocent catch up and then we’d never see each other again. But did I want even that? Frustrated I got out of bed and paced around my room, spinning it all around in my head. I seriously thought about ignoring his text. But in the end I decided I couldn’t do that to him. It was mean, and he really did deserve to know why I’d left Mosley.
[Sure, sounds good. I know a good place to get a nice meal not far from the beach, we can just meet there. J].
Almost instantly I got a reply back. It was almost too fast, like he’d been waiting for my response, scared that it wouldn’t come. A little bit like old times maybe?
[Ok that’s fine, send me the name and I’ll see you there in a bit.]
Quickly I sent him the name and location of the restaurant before throwing my phone on my bed and peeling off my clothes, ready for a quick wash.
After doing what I needed to do I brushed and dried my hair, leaving it down. It was longer than it used to be, the style was very California, long and a bit wild. Beachy. I threw on a bikini and then a summer dress. Aston had mentioned hanging out after lunch and I had this niggling feeling I was going to end up in the ocean at some point over the course of the next few hours. Better be safe than sorry! I added a bit of simple makeup before throwing my things in my bag and heading to my car, ready to go meet Aston.
