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My babies. He’d seen me behave all mumsy, preferring to sit with children than attend a societal event, and it had shocked him. Repelled him, even.
My shoulders grew cold too, and I knew the right words for the moment. They were ones I’d used before, in another dark and confusing time. “I get it. You saw me. So, fuck off.”
He turned away from the window fast. “I am saying to you that there was a room full of options—”
“You saw me,” I repeated. “And you saw a room full of better options. So go look for them. They’re probably still in the castle.”
“You want that I go?”
“Yes. I think I’m being clear about that. This conversation is not what you promised me, Aleks.”
“Fine,” he said and walked out.
The fact that he was naked did nothing to diminish the cold finality of the moment. The bang of the door reverberated as I stood on the soft carpet waiting for the redness of the air to calm, for badness to be over, for life to be right again.
His trousers lay at my feet. I placed them gently on the chair. His socks followed. Then there was the shirt. I held it to my face and breathed it in, but that didn’t help. Something dreadful had happened, and I couldn’t bear to think about it. But some facts had to be dealt with. The castle was full of women who had been, or might soon be, girlfriends of Aleks. I couldn’t be here too. I would go home with Justin for Christmas, and after that? No. It was too soon to think about that too.
My original plan to stay at the castle for the holiday meant I hadn’t packed. The bus for the train station left in an hour, and it would be good to be busy. The suitcase and drawers were not kind, containing clothes Aleks had given me, along with the necklace. Carefully laid in its box last night, I knew it was time to give it back. The beautiful heirloom was not for me. He would agree that now. Maybe wearing it in front of everybody last night had contributed to his outrage? I placed it on top of his clothes.
Packing abandoned, washing and dressing were easier options, but over too quickly. Options. I stood in the bathroom, somehow holding his shirt again, and tried to understand what exactly he’d meant by that. I had jumped very quickly to an assumption—
He swept back into the bedroom, dressed in black jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt just like when I’d first seen him, which was a stupid thought because it was his usual attire. My eyesight misted, and that was good because I didn’t want to see him.
“There is another person you have learn never to listen to,” he said. “A very stupid man.”
“You forgot your shirt.” I thrust it in his general direction on my way back through to the bedroom. “Your other clothes are there.” Packing simplified into a fast chucking in of everything.
“Why is this you are doing? You are staying here for Christmas.”
“No, I’m not. I do have other options, you know.”
“Who is this being?” he asked loudly. “You are to be telling me now. Some man is asking you to go away with him? Is William? The Jesus boy? Colin? The farmer?” His voice rose in volume with each odd and fast suggestion.
“I’m going home with Justin. I’m sure his mum won’t mind.”
He sat down on the bed, looking deflated and sad and strange.
I sat too. “This reaction doesn’t make any sense, Aleks. You just dumped me.”
“No. How can you be saying this? I am being jealous. So very jealous. And I am sorry.”
“No. You said you saw me. Bad things about me. You said I don’t think properly, and that I should be more like Simone. You said we shouldn’t be here together. Here…” The gesture he’d made was easy to imitate.
He took my hands in his. “Sometimes I am feeling one negative thing, and making many steps and imaginings, and growing it all into a big disaster. This is what you have to not listen to. Come, we go back to bed and start the day again?”
“I can’t,” I said, not quite sure how large the statement was. It sounded like something from another bleak time. “If I don’t show up downstairs soon, my mother may come up here.”
“But you will stay for Christmas?”
I said nothing, not sure what to do about that now.
“Malphia.” He pulled me into a hug. “Here. Remember. This is us.”
So, I was staying. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps.
We walked down the stairs hand in hand.
“I will take you to Glasgow tomorrow,” he told me. “Holly says is best place for shopping and vegetarian restaurants. Will be a nice drive too. We will see some of Scotland, other than these walls.”
