Page 107 of How We Began

“Excellent! Come in and we’ll discuss terms.”

“This is great,” Ben said, although his voice had a strange tone. “At least I will know where you’ll be when I’m away.” His hand slid over the table to mine, fingers tangling. My poor heart stuttered and restarted.

Walking home later, after saying a slightly tiddly goodnight to my new boss, Ben and I trooped along Upper Richmond Road. He reached out, intertwining our fingers. We shared the journey home with hands swinging together between us.

“Is this okay?” he asked after a while, motioning to our hands.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t add anything else.

Just walked in the silence, under the stars, my hand in his.

7th March

Ben leaves in sixteen days. I know it is only for two weeks but there is a sense of doom hanging over it.

The good news is I have a job, so I’ll be able to afford to buy student essentials such as baked beans and wine. I should tell Tristan, and then he can relax that he won’t have to support the entire house over the summer holidays, or the next two years, for that matter.

I think perhaps I should try a bit harder looking for somewhere to live. I’ve been burying my head in the sand, but I need to wake up and realise that this is all going to happen. Things are not going to stay the way they are now.

Change is coming, and I can’t stand in its way. Tristan and I are going to leave the flat we have shared for eight years. Mer and I are going to move out of the halls. Ben is just going to leave.

After the last couple of nights, I can almost get used to the whole friends thing. If being friends means that I can still talk to him, and that we can still be together comfortably by ourselves without all that awkward tension hanging over us, then I can live with it. I would rather that, than nothing at all.

Nothing would be unbearable.

If friends means that we can still hold hands every so often, can still communicate just by standing there breathing each other in as our eyes can hold a conversation of their own, then I can just about survive it until he goes.

I can just about cope with the idea of letting him go if this is all we are until he leaves.

Right, and I’m calling the estate agent and begging them to find us a new home.

(Later)

I burst into Ben’s room without knocking. He was sat at the pillow end of his bed, his back against the headboard as he read a book.

“Lilah?”

“Wait…” I bent over and heaved in a breath, holding up a finger. “Wait.”

I’d run the whole way back and then straight up the stairs.”

“Waiting.”

I glanced up to catch his smirk.

Finally no longer about to pass out, I straightened up. “I’ve had an idea.”

He just stared at me open mouthed.

“So, you know I don’t like war.”

“I think you made that perfectly clear at the Imperial War Museum.” Damn that smile of his.

“And you know how I hate the armistice parade?”

At this he frowned.

“Oh no, we weren’t talking then,” I amended. “Anyway, I do.”