Second Chance - Jane Green [29]
*
Holly called Tom the next afternoon. Got him on the phone whereupon they had an awkward, stilted conversation. The most awkward conversation Holly had ever had with anyone, but a conversation she was not unfamiliar with. These are the conversations you have with men who feel you are putting pressure on them, she realized. These are the conversations you have when you are about to be dumped, when you are clearly feeling so much more than they.
But how could this be? This wasn’t just anyone. This was Tom. Tom!
They said goodbye and Tom put down the phone and sank his head in his hands. He hated this. The last person in the world he wanted to hurt was Holly, but what choice did he have? He knew he couldn’t be her boyfriend, and how could they go back to being just friends after last night?
He’d take some space, he decided. Not phone her for a little while. Not abandon her, never abandon her, but they would both take a little space until they could pick up the friendship where they left off. Prior to last night, that is.
For several weeks Holly was devastated. She had had enough relationships over the years to know, with pain and shock, that Tom was no different from any of the others, that their years of friendship stood for nothing, and that things would never be the same between them.
Leafing through the back of Time Out one afternoon, she saw an ad for a three-month expedition in Australia. Life in England had never been bleaker, and the constant entreaties from friends to just get out and get on with life fell on deaf ears. She needed a change, needed to get away from the memories, needed to replace the videotape in her head with something other than that one night with Tom. That whispered ‘Holly’ that she thought meant he loved her, would never leave her.
Tom finally tried to get in touch when Holly was in Australia. He missed her. Had thought of many other things, but ultimately all roads led to Holly, all other girls were not what Holly was, and mostly he remembered the longing, the feeling of having come home.
‘Tom? It’s Holly!’
‘Holly? Where are you? Where’ve you been? I’ve missed you, where the hell have you been?’
Holly laughed. ‘Australia. I was meant to go for three months but ended up staying for six. I’ve had the greatest time of my life, and I’ve met someone! Can you believe it? This is it, Tom, this is the man I’m going to marry. I can’t wait for you to meet him.’
Sweet Tom, Holly thought, having made a date for him to meet Marcus. How I’ve missed him, she thought. And she was too caught up in the rebound to hear Tom’s confusion, to think that she might have broken Tom’s heart in much the same way he had broken hers a few months earlier.
*
‘I loved him,’ she wants to shout, to tell Paul and Olivia and Saffron, but she doesn’t because she knows what they will say.
That they loved him too.
Chapter Six
‘Christ, there are a lot of people,’ Marcus mutters, turning the wheel hard as he circles the block for the third time.
‘I imagine there’s probably quite a contingent from America,’ Holly says, scouring the people walking up towards the church to try to find someone she knows. ‘Oh look!’ she says. ‘There’s Saffron. Saff! Saffron!’ She sticks her head out of the window as Saffron turns and waves, hurrying gratefully over to the car.
‘Oh thank God,’ she says breathily. ‘I didn’t want to go in on my own.’
‘Can I get out and go with Saffron?’ Holly turns to Marcus, only to see he is completely star-struck, and she suppresses a giggle. ‘You two haven’t met, have you? Saffron, this is my husband, Marcus. Marcus, this is Saffron.’
‘How lovely to meet you.’ Saffron shines her most luminous smile on him, and Holly uses the opportunity to hop out of the car.
‘I’ll see you in there,’ she says as Marcus regains his senses, thanks to a car behind them honking, and drives slowly down the road, leaving the two girls standing facing each other, laughing.
For Marcus can be charming. He can be quite the most charming man you could ever wish to meet. He is known on the court circuit as Jekyll