more like forty, but Lucy had logged in and read a few over the years - reminding herself of what she'd written.
The night before, she'd said: 'You pour your heart out to someone, taking the time to make every word right, and then ten minutes later you start doubting yourself and you need to go back to check.'
I'd said I understood, but back then I didn't really. Sitting in the cafe, I scrolled down the list of emails and read the headers. The messages had all been sent from Lucy's own email account. She told me it would be okay for me to read any of the ones that had already been opened. The rest were just for him.
I clicked on one.
My dearest Rich, it began. I was thinking about you today. I know I promised not to last time, but I couldn't stop myself. I think about you every day, every second. Even if you're not there, you're still there.
So - she thought about him every second. I didn't recognise it then, but I think those first few sentences broke my heart - like one of those mythical kung fu strikes that you don't actually feel until a little time after the blow lands. 'He's the only person I've ever loved,' she'd told me the night before. 'There was never anything physical between us, but I know that what I felt for him was real, true love. And I've never felt anything like it since.'
This was their history: they'd been childhood friends - members of a mixed group that had played together as little kids and hung out together as bigger kids. They'd been held in place by the tight geography of Goat's terraced streets and the glue of parental friendships. Thick as thieves but much more loyal, Rich and Lucy were always close, and there was something between them that they both knew was special. Despite that, they never got together as a couple.
'I don't know why we didn't,' she told me, in that hotel bedroom. She was smoking again. 'I wish we had; everything would have been different then. God knows how it didn't happen.
Maybe it was just bad timing - just that one of us would always be with someone else when the other was free.'
So they drifted around - never having an actual relationship, never quite landing - but they got on so well that their friendship survived intact.
'Nobody has ever made me laugh like he did. Nobody has ever made me feel so totally at ease about just being myself,' she told me. 'It's like we were designed for each other or something.'
'Nobody's designed for anybody.'
I was watching her smoke, and I was bothered despite myself.
Suddenly I didn't feel so special anymore. I was just ordinary.
Second place. She was making do with me when there was someone else out there she wanted more. I was married, of course, so I couldn't really complain. But even so - I realised that the flippancy of our relationship hurt a lot more now that I was on the receiving end. As she told me the story, the both of us lying there, I felt something twisting inside me. Something that was not good.
When they were seventeen, Rich's girlfriend had fallen pregnant.
He was devastated; but he was a responsible kid and he listened carefully to other people, and since her parents were adamant that the couple get married he decided that they would. It was all planned quickly; the pregnancy was an undertone that was rarely mentioned. The night before the ceremony, Lucy met with Rich in their local and they sank a few beers together. Lucy hardly ever drank when she was younger, but that night she'd wanted to. She'd never felt so miserable, and had only recently begun to understand why. Over the course of the conversation, it became clear that Rich was as miserable as she was, and that they were both feeling that way for the same reason.
'If you want to run away,' he told her towards the end of the night, 'then I'll come with you.'
She didn't tell him not to be so stupid, because she wanted to say yes.
'But I couldn't,' she told me. 'His girlfriend was five months pregnant, and I just couldn't do that to her. I wish I
The night before, she'd said: 'You pour your heart out to someone, taking the time to make every word right, and then ten minutes later you start doubting yourself and you need to go back to check.'
I'd said I understood, but back then I didn't really. Sitting in the cafe, I scrolled down the list of emails and read the headers. The messages had all been sent from Lucy's own email account. She told me it would be okay for me to read any of the ones that had already been opened. The rest were just for him.
I clicked on one.
My dearest Rich, it began. I was thinking about you today. I know I promised not to last time, but I couldn't stop myself. I think about you every day, every second. Even if you're not there, you're still there.
So - she thought about him every second. I didn't recognise it then, but I think those first few sentences broke my heart - like one of those mythical kung fu strikes that you don't actually feel until a little time after the blow lands. 'He's the only person I've ever loved,' she'd told me the night before. 'There was never anything physical between us, but I know that what I felt for him was real, true love. And I've never felt anything like it since.'
This was their history: they'd been childhood friends - members of a mixed group that had played together as little kids and hung out together as bigger kids. They'd been held in place by the tight geography of Goat's terraced streets and the glue of parental friendships. Thick as thieves but much more loyal, Rich and Lucy were always close, and there was something between them that they both knew was special. Despite that, they never got together as a couple.
'I don't know why we didn't,' she told me, in that hotel bedroom. She was smoking again. 'I wish we had; everything would have been different then. God knows how it didn't happen.
Maybe it was just bad timing - just that one of us would always be with someone else when the other was free.'
So they drifted around - never having an actual relationship, never quite landing - but they got on so well that their friendship survived intact.
'Nobody has ever made me laugh like he did. Nobody has ever made me feel so totally at ease about just being myself,' she told me. 'It's like we were designed for each other or something.'
'Nobody's designed for anybody.'
I was watching her smoke, and I was bothered despite myself.
Suddenly I didn't feel so special anymore. I was just ordinary.
Second place. She was making do with me when there was someone else out there she wanted more. I was married, of course, so I couldn't really complain. But even so - I realised that the flippancy of our relationship hurt a lot more now that I was on the receiving end. As she told me the story, the both of us lying there, I felt something twisting inside me. Something that was not good.
When they were seventeen, Rich's girlfriend had fallen pregnant.
He was devastated; but he was a responsible kid and he listened carefully to other people, and since her parents were adamant that the couple get married he decided that they would. It was all planned quickly; the pregnancy was an undertone that was rarely mentioned. The night before the ceremony, Lucy met with Rich in their local and they sank a few beers together. Lucy hardly ever drank when she was younger, but that night she'd wanted to. She'd never felt so miserable, and had only recently begun to understand why. Over the course of the conversation, it became clear that Rich was as miserable as she was, and that they were both feeling that way for the same reason.
'If you want to run away,' he told her towards the end of the night, 'then I'll come with you.'
She didn't tell him not to be so stupid, because she wanted to say yes.
'But I couldn't,' she told me. 'His girlfriend was five months pregnant, and I just couldn't do that to her. I wish I
Similar Books
