Page 113 of If We Were Young

“Matthew. You came the whole way to London and weren’t brave enough to even come in through the door. Three years of being best friends and you could stand there and not even say hello?”

“What difference would it have made?”

My blood rushed faster and faster, taking down everything that I knew.

“Then I would have known. I would have stopped talking. I’d never have told Paul about you. He’d never have offered to make me forget you and I would have been able to tell you that I loved you and that I was sorry I hadn’t told you before.”

His lips parted in a gentle sigh.

I lifted a shaking hand and swiped at my face. “It was you who wasn’t brave enough. You weren’t brave enough,” I stabbed my fingers into his chest. “Not me. All these years and I thought it was me, but you never ever once asked. You never spoke up either. That night you knocked on my door all you said was, ‘had I thought this could be something else’. You didn’t say let’s make this something else.”

My legs shook and a baffled silence settled around us. Like the beat of my universe—my heart—was the only sound in existence. “All these years I’ve blamed myself. I’ve felt so guilty that I never loved Paul with all my heart, that when he died it actually felt something close to relief. I never would have lived that lie if you’d walked through the door. Why didn’t you?”

“My dad found me, and I told him everything. Told him I thought I loved you, that you filled my head with every single thought I had. That I couldn’t get married because I knew it would be a mistake.” Matthew hiked in a breath. I wished I could turn to see what his family’s faces looked like, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. “He told me I needed to do what I thought was right. I could forget you and save everything that Carlings were. Or I could…” He stopped.

“So the next day you got married knowing you were in love with me?”

“Didn’t you get married loving me?”

“No! You fucking idiot. I got married trying to bloody forget you.” I pressed my palms against the sockets of my eyes. “And I failed.”

Shit. I needed to go. My life morphed into spinning teacups at a fairground and I couldn’t stop it from turning.

I’d been such a bloody fool.

I got myself to move, my legs mechanical. The silence in the room, the dropped conversations, drowned out the sound of the cheesy music we’d been dancing to.

Oh God.

It was all a dream.

A youthful fancy.

I headed into the hallway and found my coat, slipping it on and shivering as the silky lining brushed my skin.

Lynn was in their kitchen, so I quickly walked over and said goodbye.

“You can’t go out there now; it’s starting to snow.” Her face was etched with sympathy. She must have known about Matthew’s drunken trip to London all those years ago and the fact he returned and went straight to church.

She must have known who I was as soon as I walked through the door.

“I will help your family business, Lynn, I promise.”

“Honestly, Ronnie, it’s never meant that much to me. A stupid price for my husband’s health and son’s happiness. But the fools could never see it.”

My tears burned against my lashes. “It’s been lovely meeting you. At last.”

She grabbed my face, strangely maternal, and it made my tears a little hotter. “He never stopped talking about you.”

“I never talked about him enough. I think that says it all.”

Wiping at my face, I headed out to the front door. Lynn was right, snow had begun to come down in big blobby chunks. Not nice fluffy white stuff, but wet and cold; dollops of disappointment to land on my cheeks.

“Ronnie,” he called as I reached the bottom step. I breathed in deep not knowing if I had the strength to turn.

Rings

“Please don’t leave like this.” It strummed all minor chords and it hurt my heart.