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“I’m okay,” she said. She walked to the window, deliberately not looking at Will, unable to meet his eyes. Over in the window bay she swiped at the condensation on the panes, sending little runnels of water trickling down into the leaded grooves, and stared out into the night. Across the top of the cloisters she could see the stained glass windows of the chapel glowing bright, and the steeple rising into the night. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear and speckled with stars. She shivered, feeling the chill strike through the gappy old glass, and through her still-damp clothes.
“I’m not defending him,” she said at last. “I just—I think maybe I overreacted. I was shocked to find him in the room, but—but that was all.”
“Okay,” Will said. His voice was quiet, and she heard the rustle of fabric as he stood and cleared his throat. “Are—do you want me to stay? I could take April’s room… or the couch.”
Hannah closed her eyes. She wanted more than anything to say yes. She couldn’t bolt the set door—April would not be able to use her key to get in—and the thought of lying in her room waiting for Neville to return, however unlikely that was, was almost more than she could stand. But the other option, the thought of Will lying just feet away, no April between them… that was unendurable in a very different way.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her voice was so low that she wasn’t sure if she was really talking to herself. She heard Will’s footsteps creaking on the old boards as he crossed the room and stood behind her.
“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t catch—”
As he spoke, he put his hand tentatively on her shoulder, his skin shockingly warm through the thin, damp cotton of her shirt. Hannah shivered uncontrollably, in spite of herself, and Will took his hand away as if he had been stung.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said again, and she realized that he thought it was a shudder of revulsion.
“No,” she said, swinging around, “it’s—”
And then somehow, and afterwards Hannah was never sure how it happened—whether she had leaned into Will, or he had pressed himself to her, or whether their bodies had just met in one of those stupid clumsy clashes when two people move in the same direction while trying to avoid each other—she never knew.
She only knew that somehow she was crushed against him, hip to breast, and he against her, and that she would not, could not move. And then their mouths were touching, lips and tongues, in a way that made something deep inside her melt into a liquid puddle of desire.
A sound escaped her, a kind of soft moan, and Will’s lips were on her throat, and his hands under her shirt, and she was pressing herself into him, feeling him against her, and she knew, she could feel that he wanted this just as much as she did.
And then something happened—a sound from the corridor—and they both broke apart at the same time, panting and horrified, staring at each other with wild dilated pupils and mouths still soft and wet from kissing.
“Fuck,” Will said. His face was white in the moonlight streaming through the window, and he looked suddenly much older than nineteen. He turned away, frantically tucking his shirt back in, shaking his head like he was trying to shake away the memory of her touch, the memory of what had just happened. “Fuck. God, what—I’m sorry—I’m so, so sorry—”
“Will,” Hannah managed. “Will, it wasn’t just you—we both—”
“Fuck,” he groaned again, and somehow she knew that it wasn’t only what he had just done, what they’d both done, but what it meant—the impossibility of them ever being together now, because their joint betrayal of April would surely destroy her.
She stood, watching him helplessly as he crossed the room, snatched up his jacket from the back of the sofa, and then stood for a moment in the doorway, looking back at her.
“Hannah, please—” he said, and then stopped. She wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Please don’t tell April? Please don’t hate me? Please don’t come near me again?
She waited. Her heart was pounding in her throat.
But he only shook his head.
“Take care of yourself,” he said at last. And then he left, closing the set door very gently behind himself, as though he was frightened to make a sound.
AFTER
The bell above the Bonnie Bagel’s old-fashioned door gives a tinkling chime as Hannah pushes it open. Inside she stands for a moment, catching her breath and waiting for her glasses to unfog. As the lenses clear she glances around the little cafe; there’s no one here, even though she’s ten minutes late.
For a second her heart lightens. Maybe he’s given up, gone home? She won’t hang around to find out. She’ll send him an email—I’m here, but I must have missed you. She’s about to turn on her heel, breathing more easily with a palpable sense of having discharged her duty to the young man, when a woman hurries out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Hello love, sorry I didnae hear you come in. Where would you be wanting to sit?”
“Well…” Hannah hesitates. “Actually I was here to meet a friend, but I think I’ve missed him. I should probably—”
She’s turning towards the door when the woman interrupts, cheerful and happy to be of help.
“Young man with sandy hair? No, no, you havenae missed him, he’s just in the back room, there. Said you’d be wanting to talk so could he have a quiet table. Mind, they’re all that way today! I don’t know what’s making the tourists so shy, it cannae be the rain for we’ve had none to speak of.” She gives a comfortable laugh. Hannah feels her face fall, and then tries to rearrange it into something more appropriate for someone who’s just avoided a wasted journey.
“Oh, good. Thank you,” she says weakly.
“Will I bring you up a cup of something? Tea? Coffee? Or a scone maybe?”
