It Had To Be You

SIX

SIX

Jess sat opposite him after giving her coat to the waiter.

            “I’ve ordered red wine, but you can have anything else?” Alex offered.

She half smiled in reply, glad of the defence of the table between them, his eyes had studied her far too intently as she’d crossed the room, “red is good.”

He filled her glass as she watched him, then he broke into a smile. “Thanks for coming!”

            “I didn’t really have much choice.” Her words were clipped, deliberate, frosty.

He’d always meant to make this difficult for her, to give her some of his pain, the burden he’d carried around for too long, but instead he found all day he’d been looking forward to seeing her.

            “What do you want from me Alex? You have turned up in my life, the life I’m just getting back together, it’s taken a long time to get to this point, and I don’t need you ruining everything....”

She didn’t say the word ‘again’ but he knew it was there. And it was a good question. What did he want? He’d waited until he was at the top of the tree to confront her, to hurt her. The tree he’d always promised that he’d climb with her at his side. Instead it had been a solo journey, and he hadn’t realised until he’d set eyes on her how lonely it had been without her. All his intentions and plans were out the window. He’d wanted to show her that she was wrong to run away without giving him a chance, to spurn his love, their marriage. But in reality, she was angry, hurt, pained, but was still the lonely, vulnerable little girl that he’d fallen in love with in his teens. He was almost thirty now, sick of running, fed up with working, but until he’d spotted her across the room at the Awards ceremony the previous week he’d not even thought about slowing down. He’d dated dozens of women over the years, all for not much more than two dates, yet instantly he wanted to see more of her, give it, and her, a chance.

            “I’m not ready to let you go yet. I’m not finished with you.” He meant that more than he had meant anything else. He wasn’t willing to let her go, and he whilst he’d negotiated a million deals in the last five years, none was more important than the one he faced now. This was more hostile than his worst take over, but he couldn’t lose this, couldn’t lose her.

She shook her head in disbelief, “I bloody knew you’d do this! That you’d lie to me...again!”

He took a drink of his wine, taking a moment to compose a response, “we were once friends Jessie. Don’t we owe each other a little time?”

The waiter appeared and she ordered a plate of spicy pasta, she might hate him, but the food here was too good an opportunity to miss out on. He raised an eyebrow before asking for a fillet steak, rare of course.

As the waiter scurried off she looked at him again, “I can’t do this Alex. It’s too long ago, too much has happened since.” She didn’t need for him to know that mentally she wasn’t able to take another emotional rollercoaster, just how many years it had taken to recover from losing him, and from his betrayal.

            “Well then can’t we just catch up on the here, the now?” Alex was desperate and would take any compromise he could get.

She laughed, a rough, harsh sound and her animosity shocked him, “oh yeah! Let’s talk about the weather, our jobs, friends...and ignore all that you did to me!” There was a quality to her response that was a warning to him, an unspoken ‘leave me alone’.

            “I was hardly unscathed in all this Jessie! You make out that you were the only one hurt, the only one who lost anything.”