Ten Years

Chapter Fourteen

This obsession was new to him. Like everyone else, Edward could obsess over the perfect comeback he didn't have or worry about leaving his door unlocked. As the perfectionist he was, he could even obsess over a role or an accent he needed to master for a character. But this? This was new to him.

Edward dragged a hand through his hair, settled his elbows on his knees and stared at his mobile on the bed. It had been five days since he had met her, five days of second-guessing himself. He wanted to call - promised to call, but he shouldn't do this. He had decided to give himself a chance to amend things with Anna. They were engaged, right? He owed it to her. He owed it to themselves.

They had fought a lot these past days, Anna and him, more than usual. They had even fought all the way driving to the airport. If you asked Anna, she would say they were just having a heated conversation. She did not like confrontations although never shied away from expressing her voice in her careful, clipped tone. Any other reaction would be unladylike.

Their issues were many. Anna basked in the public's adulation and expected everyone, Edward included, to make her an absolute priority. He, on the other hand, wanted to disappear from people's radars even refusing big projects he once chased - disappointing Anna along the way. But the biggest of their issues was the size of the pond between them. She did not like him being there in London; he did not want to be anywhere else.

It had been two days since Anna was back in LA, and he had yet to call her. The prospect of hearing her voice with its unescapable tremolo of reproaches was more than he could handle. Admittedly, that was not exactly the best way to amend things. She had asked him point-blank if he had any intention of moving back to LA. Never, he had thought. "I don't know at this point", he had said instead.

A kettle sang in the distance. Edward stood up and walked to the sleek modern kitchen. Pops of yellow bounced off the backsplash, the sun glinting off the crisp white cabinets. The vintage enamel tea kettle – the only piece of equipment belonging to him in this kitchen - contrasted with the overall design. According to his mum, that was the proper way to make a decent cup of tea.

He sat back in the living room with a mug of the hot beverage and pondered what to do next. Meeting Leïla even if just for a cuppa would complicate things.

Leïla. He rolled her name around his head, said it to no one but himself. The girl he had never forgotten - his memory of her always there, in the corner of his mind. He still remembered the sting of regret for not kissing her that day in the airport. Her dark brown eyes had sparkled with anticipation, the same anticipation that had consumed him and had turned later into regret and self-disappointment.

So yes, Edward was obsessing and second-guessing himself ever since he had stopped dead in his tracks upon hearing his voice being called out. At first, the thought of being recognised – something that seldom happened here in London – had annoyed him before the smile on her freckled face hit him in the chest. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered, and when he embraced her, the familiar scent of lavender tickled his nose.

How was she here, in London, in Hampstead Hill, the same moment he was walking through? Edward did not believe in coincidences, but even the pessimist in him could not help but recognise how big of a sign this was.

He placed his empty mug on the coffee table and scanned the room. The white marble coffee table, the white Scandinavian sofa, the white Eames lounge chair, and the gold-leafed floor lamps created clean, sleek lines – a stark contrast to the afternoon sun splashing through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The light was the only thing he liked in this period conversion flat that Anna had arranged for him to rent. Now that he decided to stay in London, he needed to find a place of his own, something smaller that he can make look more like him and less like a double-page spread in a glossy magazine.