Chapter 37 - Will now.
Christmas has flown past and I still feel the same. No Alyssa, nothing to do. No friends in Oxford. Miki thinks that I've finished that book, To Kill A Mockingbird, when really it's lying at the bottom of my bag untouched for three weeks.
I desperately need a holiday or something. Funny, seen as I've just had one.
I work and work and study and study and when I am not doing that I am either asleep or on my way to work or study. Sterling is the same as ever and that comforts me. I continuously make small-talk with the girls in the Mardi Gras to satisfy them and keep them from asking questions, and as we move into the first few weeks of January, the place is quieter than I've ever seen it.
It was Niall's birthday and I had meant to call him but chickened out. I don't know why. Tai's birthday is next month and if I can't call Niall then I have no chance of making contact with Tai. It makes me feel physically ill inside when I think about it all, every aspect of it; me just floating around, with problems and problems that cannot be solved. They can't be solved at all; they're just suspended in mid-air.
"You've been wiping that table for ages, Will!" Simone struts past with a few menus for a table in the corner, and laughs as I stand up straight from my deep thinking. I look down at the now-sparkling table top, then go back to my duty hanging around the door to welcome people. It's getting dark how, at five o'clock on a Sunday evening. The winter is depressing and I can't stand it any longer.
"Thanks," two guys call as they walk past me, over to the windy door.
Nodding, I cross my arms and look around. "Have a nice day."
I turn back around to the door then. There's hardly anything to do - this seems to be one of the lower months here. But all of a sudden I'm staring into a pair of bright green eyes which are shocked and fearful, and I have to step back to steady myself.
"You work here?" Alyssa demands incredulously. Then, she looks away from me, probably to check if anyone else is on duty so she doesn't have to face me. I just grab her a menu from the stand and nod, my insides trembling.
"Yeah."
I wonder why she's here, why it's only now that she has decided to check this place out. I wonder why she's on her own. I stand there, staring at her for ages as she regards me suspiciously, until finally I have to clear my throat and lead her off towards a table.
I put her in near the fire and then once she has sat down, put the menu in front of her. It stays untouched as she observes me.
"Do you . . . Do you want to order a drink now?" I hear a robotic voice from inside of me ask. I want to ask how her Christmas went. I want to say happy new year. But I close my eyes briefly, trying to imagine her as just a normal customer. It's impossible.
When I open them again, Alyssa is staring down at the now-open menu. Anywhere but my eyes. "I'll have Sprite."
I nod then I have to walk away before I go mad. I hurry up to the bar, where Keira is as usual. I go behind the bar and whisper in her ear, "My girlfriend - I mean ex-girlfriend - is sitting at table twenty. I can't serve her, Keira."
"This is work, Will." Keira frowns and goes to get a drink for a customer. "You have to do what you've been told to do."
"I'm not even waiting tables. I'm on the door." I plead with her as I begin to fill up a glass with Sprite for Alyssa. "Can you get someone else to wait on her?"
Sighing, Keira looks over to the area where Alyssa is sitting. "What happened between you two? You don't want to try and get her back?"
"I can't, Keira," I mumble. I don't give her any time to reply - I walk right off and then grab Justine's attention.
"Can you give this to table twenty?"
"Do it yourself," she replies, as if I'm mad. She walks away hurriedly over to the other side of the restaurant, shaking her head.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair, avoiding the eyes of a few girls sitting at the table nearest me. So I begin to walk away slowly, towards Alyssa's table.
I'm surprised when I see Anthony sitting opposite her, both of them engaged in deep conversation. I slowly place Alyssa's Sprite on the table in front of her, then take my notebook out of my pocket.
"Oh, hey Will." Anthony grins up at me, and Alyssa closes the menu she was just looking through before passing it to him.
"Hey." I glance between them, then say to Alyssa, "Are you ready to order?"
"Yeah. Can I have the chicken Ceasar salad, please." She barely looks at me.
I write it down then look over at Anthony. "You want anything, Anthony?"
"Um . . . I'll just have a drink. Coke, please."
I nod before turning away and walking quickly towards the bar. Half an hour left of my shift. Half an hour until I can go busy myself with something far, far away from Alyssa, and for a while I'll be able to forget her.
-
"Bye, Will." Keira waves as I make my way out of the restaurant with my coat on, my bag on my shoulder. I nod and wave, then shove my hands in my pockets and lean against the door to open it.
The weather's disgusting - bits of rain coming down here and there, grey clouds in the grey sky, wind whooshing past left right and centre. I begin to walk back to campus, blending into the medium-sized crowd of students everywhere.
It's then that I see her. I didn't think she had left the Mardi Gras by now but obviously she has, and she's walking just a few people in front of me. I'm focused on her so much that I miss my turn to go back to the student accommodation area, and that's when I realise that I'm following her. She's hurrying along with her golden hair flying out behind her - no umbrella, no hood up. I'm picking up my pace as I see her dart into a bookstore. Of course. I remember she was always reading. Always had a book. I guess some things do never change.
"Alyssa." I don't delay. As soon as I get into the shop and find her at the Classics shelf, I walk up behind her and keep close.
Her shoulders jerk in a way that tells me I've startled her. As she turns around with wide eyes, a book already in her hand, I don't stare anywhere but her.
I'm thinking about what Keira said - "You don't want to try and get her back?"
"Alyssa, I don't know what I'm doing without you." I sigh and close my eyes, knowing this is it. There's not going to be anything else I can do to get her back.
"You're doing fine," I hear her say coldly, then I open my eyes to see that she's turned around again. "Probably much better than how you were when the burden of having a girlfriend was hanging over you."
"No. I'm falling apart." I shake my head and gently grab her arm to make her look at me. "I miss you. I miss you so much, and-"
"You should've thought about that when you fucked all those sluts in Oxford when you moved there." She pauses and I can just hear the pure and utter venom in her tone. "And you've probably not stopped since you got here."
"That's not true." I can hear the hurt in my own voice. "Alyssa, please. I love you."
That's when she turns. "No, you don't! You do not love me! Fuck off, Will. Fuck off." Her hands are against my chest, then, and she's shoving me backwards. But before she knows it I'm kissing her deeply and my hands are in her hair and running down her back and over her waist as she stands there, suddenly frozen. Not kissing me back, but not pulling away.
"No," I whisper to her firmly, against her lips - no. "I'm not going to give up."
I don't know what has come over me.
"Until what? Until you get me in bed again with you?" She snaps quickly, pulling away from me with blazing red cheeks. "Because that's all you want, Will. And maybe you don't miss me. Maybe it's just that you miss the feeling you had with me. So I'll tell you what, why don't you find another girl and you can get that feeling back again soon enough, I'm sure."
I stare at her, and it's as if I've been slapped in the face, like I had the day I told her the truth.
It's not fair.
"Because I'm not your slut, Will," she carries on, then begins to back away, her eyes staring into mine. "Stay the hell away from me. Keep away. I've moved on."
And with that, she's out of the book shop, missing whatever she wanted to buy in here.
"I don't know what you want me to do," I call after her angrily, and we're both running through the suddenly heavy rain, across the road, down back alleyways. "I love you!" I shout angrily, then grab her hand firmly, pulling her right against me. Nothing between us.
"I hate you," she whispers back, and that's when I see she's crying and we're kissing and she's panicking and I'm caressing and she's stroking and sobbing and pulling and kissing and kissing and
"I don't know," she mumbles against my mouth, as a trickle of rainwater runs down the back of my neck.
So I kiss her again, just to make sure, and I've never tried to kiss someone so hard and so much. Her tongue is in my mouth and her hands are places I don't think they've ever been before, as we both collapse against the side wall of an old restaurant, her wet hair sticking to my hands, forming a web around my fingers.
"Oh, Will."
"I'm so sorry," I breathe, and I want her - not in that way, not in any way I've ever felt before. I just want her, forever. I run my hands under her coat, under her shirt, her hands running under my coat, under my shirt, under the back of my pants. And I don't know how long we spend kissing, fierce and hot and urgent, but then she pulls away and the tears are streaming down her cheeks, and she's just shaking her head at me, and there's nothing I can do.
"Why?" I whisper, as she pulls her hands away. I stare at her, my eyes seeking reason in hers. Nothing.
"I have to go. Please, Will. I can't do this." So now she is heading away, her hands in her pockets and her shoulders limp, and that's when I remember that guy - that guy called Jack.
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