Sarah marches into the flat and slams the door behind her.
“It’s over,” she barks.
“What?” I ask, momentarily distracted from my cozy rosé and Married at First Sight marathon. Noah’s just told me I have to quit my job, and all I want to do is bury myself under sofa cushions and empty chip packets.
“The engagement, the wedding, everything. Richard says it’s all happening too fast. I threw the ring at him,” Sarah says. Her face is red with fury.
“You did what?” I gasp.
She collapses on the sofa next to me and reaches for the bottle of wine on the table.
“Okay, okay, stay calm,” I tell her, reaching for the remote and turning off the TV. “What did he say exactly?”
“It’s too expensive, we should wait until next year after he gets his bonus, blah blah blah bullshit,” she growls.
I remove the bottle from her grasp, fill up my glass, and hand it to her. She takes slow gulps until her breathing starts to return to normal.
“So he’s not actually calling it off?” I say. “Maybe he just needs a bit more time to get used to the idea?”
I see Sarah’s nostrils flare as she puts the empty glass down and immediately refills it.
“Used to the idea?” she scoffs. “Is the idea of marrying me so fucking terrifying?”
“Right now? A little bit, yes,” I say. “Take a breath. He’s not breaking up with you, he’s just asking for time.”
“You’re giving me advice on relationships? That’s rich,” she snorts.
“Well, I’m just saying—”
“Oh, I get it, you just don’t want me to move out, do you? And this is your chance to keep me here. You’ve never liked Richard, and now you’ve sensed blood. Is that right?”
“No, that’s not right!” I say, my voice cracking a little. “It’s just that you’ve always been so careful with guys. Why such a rush now?”
“Because Richard and I are perfect for each other,” she says, like it’s an indisputable fact. “Whether he realizes it or not.”
“Can you really be that sure? You’ve barely dated since uni.”
Sarah’s eyes narrow. “How would you know? You’ve always been too wrapped up in Noah to take any notice of my life.”
Sarah had dated a few guys before she met Richard, but despite her questionably healthy interest in my love life, she never wanted to spill the tea on what went down with them. Sometimes I worried something really bad might have happened, but maybe it was just that none of them could meet her impossibly high standards.
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, come on, Gwen, you’re like a lovesick teenager around Noah,” she says.
“I am not!”
“Yeah, you are,” Sarah says. “You idolize the guy, always have. It’s pathetic.”
“Where’s this coming from?” I say, starting to feel my blood boil.
“You’re terrified to stand on your own two feet. You wrap yourself up in Noah like he’s your safety blanket. You could do so much better, and deep down you know it.”
“That’s bullshit,” I snap. “I’ve known Noah for years, you’ve known Richard for about ten minutes. So I’m not sure you’re in a great position to lecture me here.”
“You’re not happy, you’re sinking. You’re about to throw your life away to follow that guy around the country like a devoted poodle. Talk about codependent.”
“Hey, hang on a second,” I say, trying to gain control of the situation, which seems to have turned on me. “Maybe the whole van idea is dumb, but I needed some direction, you know, after…”
“After your dad died? You can say it out loud, Gwen. It happened.”
Her words sting me, like a thousand tiny daggers.
“I know it happened,” I say, my voice turning as cold as the Arctic.
“This isn’t what your dad would have wanted for you,” she says. “He’d be so disappointed.”
My body goes stiff, like someone just stuck me with a cattle prod. “Tell me you are not going there,” I say quietly. “You are not telling me what my dad would think.”
Sarah’s face blushes red, just for a second, before she gathers herself. “Noah can’t replace your dad, Gwen, and it’ll be me who has to pick up the pieces when it all goes south, just like I did last time,” she says. “But here you are, siding against me.”
“I’m not siding against you, Sar, I—”
With that, she downs her wine, gets up, and stomps upstairs, leaving me wondering what just happened.
Later, when I get off my shift at Delicioso, I text Richard, asking him to meet me in the Brown Derby. I feel terrible about my fight with Sarah, and I’m hoping maybe if I could fix things between her and Richard, I could make it right.
After he’s finished recounting the nonevents of his latest trip up a random Welsh hill, I try to steer the conversation around to Sarah. It’s slightly awkward, as it’s never just the two of us. Normally I have either Sarah or Noah to help soak up some of the hiking anecdotes. (Note: I am using the word “anecdote” very generously here.)
“So what happened with Sarah?” I ask him, playing dumb. “You didn’t bring her back any Kendal Mint Cake?”
“We had a stupid row about the wedding,” Richard says. “I think it’s all over.”
“Let me guess, you want teal place settings, and she wants turquoise.”
Richard sighs. I can tell he’s already a bit drunk, which is unusual for him on a work night. He explains that he’d asked Sarah if she would consider postponing the wedding until they were a little more financially secure. She had reacted in classic Sarah fashion by taking off her engagement ring and chucking it in the front garden.
I’d intended to tell him to give himself a slap and beg her for forgiveness, but the more we talk, the more I feel a bit sorry for him. I realize I’ve never really spoken to him properly before, always preferring to join Sarah in teasing him or tuning out when he starts talking about his many, many manly hobbies. But, and maybe this is the bottle of merlot I bought “for the table” (aka me), I’m beginning to see a whole new side to him.
“We haven’t even been together a year,” he says. “We don’t even live together. Sometimes I think she’s more in love with the idea of a big church wedding than she is with me. She told me I’m on my final strike. Says I better not embarrass her any further.”
I try to make him feel better by telling him how I am shitting myself about giving in my notice at work and plunging all my savings into this crazy idea of Noah’s.
“Things are going really well at work. I just got a promotion. And now it’s like he just wants to up sticks,” I say. “Sometimes I wish something crazy would happen, you know? Something that took all this out of my hands, so I didn’t have to make this decision anymore.”
“What, like, you get kidnapped?” he asks.
“No, I mean a huge distraction. An act of God. I dunno, An alien invasion.”
“Or a nuclear bomb?” Richard laughs.
“Ha, yeah, something like that. Or a natural disaster. Anything that could get me out of this.”
“I know what you mean,” he says. “If a volcano erupted in Eastbourne tomorrow, then surely the wedding would get canceled.”
“Well, Sarah losing her temper is a little like a volcano erupting,” I offer.
Richard suppresses a smile.
“Noah was always my anchor, you know?” I go on. “But ever since his mum got ill, he’s discovered this whole new ‘live each day like it’s your last’ attitude. How am I meant to tell him that I haven’t, though? After the year he’s had, he needs something to look forward to.”
“What about what you need?” Richard asks.
I look down at my phone, where there’s a message from Noah asking: Did you do it? What did your boss say? I don’t reply, and stick my phone in my bag.
“It doesn’t matter what I need,” I tell Richard. “I’m just going to have to do it. And it’ll be fun, I guess.”
“You didn’t come this far only to come this far,” he says, which takes my sozzled brain a moment to realize is rather poetic. He might resemble a more preppy Bear Grylls, but he’s actually capable of being quite sweet.
“Well, that’s what we say when we reach base camp at Nevis,” he adds.
“Base camp.” I smile. “That’s so lame.”
“Hey!” He laughs. “That’s also where I proposed to Sarah, you know?”
“What, halfway up Ben Nevis?”
“No, halfway up Roseberry Hill, behind the church on Eastleigh Island. I insisted that she go on a hike with me, and that was as far as she got before complaining her hamstrings were sore.”
“Classic Sarah,” I say.
“I said, ‘That’s okay, this is base camp. I have a protein bar in my pocket,’ and pulled the ring out. The rest is history.”
“And now you’re getting married there.”
“Well, maybe not anymore,” he says, looking down into the murky brown depths of his IPA.
After a few more pints for him and a tequila chaser for me, we walk home together. We pass Richard’s place before mine, and he asks if I want to come inside for a nightcap. And, in a spectacularly brilliant moment of masterly decision-making, I say yes.
“Sarah’s got my key,” he says, lifting the flowerpot outside the front door and picking up the spare. “Our little secret.”
“What?” I ask, the tequila suddenly clouding my brain.
“The spare key,” he says, waving it at me. “Don’t tell anyone about my secret hiding place!”
Inside his very neat flat, he fixes us some drinks that we really don’t need, and starts drunkenly showing me his walking gear. I can’t stop laughing at him as he models various body warmers, ankle supports, and waterproof trousers. At one point, I find myself collapsed on the floor after successfully pulling a stubborn hiking boot off his left foot. The next thing I know, Richard has joined me on the rug, and offers to help me remove my Converse in return. My head is woozy, and it feels like my thumping heartbeat is the only part of my body in control. Before I know it, we start pulling off more of each other’s clothes, until suddenly, we’re kissing. And then more than kissing. Everything is a blur. Then, in what seems like seconds, it’s over. It’s done, and I can’t take it back.
Afterward, I walk straight home in a daze. Thank God, Sarah’s in bed when I get in. I throw up twice and fall asleep.
The next morning, I go outside, find the ring lying in the dirt, rinse it off, and give it back to Sarah when she gets up. I apologize for our row, and tell her she was right, Richard is a prick and she shouldn’t wait for him to make up his mind. She tells me she has to, he’s the only good man out there, and that she’s invested so much in this relationship that she has to make it work, whatever. She says she isn’t about to give up on it because he’d had a few pre-wedding jitters. I feel like throwing up again.
And that is that. For the next few days, Noah keeps asking me if something’s wrong. I brush him off and suggest we get the tequila out. Every time he brings up the van, or the future, I change the subject. Every time I feel the urge to tell him, I push it down. The following Saturday, we’re due to spend the weekend at his mum’s. I can’t face it, and fake a stomachache.
As I watch Noah leave, I feel empty. I’m heartbroken, and it’s all my fault. And it’s me who is wielding that power to bring everything down. With just a few words, I could destroy everything. Or I could keep mum and bury this secret forever. It’s a responsibility I don’t know how to bear.
The wedding is apparently back on, and Richard repeatedly texts me, but I can’t bear to even look at them. I delete his number off my phone. By the time Noah comes home the following day, I still don’t know what to do. I’ve spent the weekend at his flat, in a daze of pajamas and Cheetos, wondering if I can even find the words to tell him. But when he walks in the door, he says something that takes away every bit of agency I have left.
“It’s Mum,” he says. “The cancer’s gone, she’s in remission.”
He is so happy, so excited—there is no way on earth I could destroy that. I’ve always said we were best friends, and I can’t figure out why I would do this to my best friend. It was just sex, I tell myself. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t change anything. But sex is never just sex. I convince myself of fantastic things—that I can move past it, that the van is a new start for the both of us, I even give in my notice at work—but deep down I know the real truth. Even if he never finds out, it can never be the same as it was before. No matter how hard I try to push what I’ve done beneath the surface, I’ll always know it’s there. I’ve created a fault line that would slowly crack through our whole relationship.
For the next few weeks, Noah’s mum gets steadily stronger, and we carry on a pretense of domesticity for a while, but I can’t get excited about our new life together. I slowly grow more and more distant, avoiding time alone together, canceling plans, and stopping sleeping with him altogether, until he can’t help but stop loving me. Well, that’s the plan, anyway.
Because we don’t officially live together, there’s no long, complicated, drawn-out breakup. No passive-aggressive texts. No bad back from sleeping on the couch. When I walk away from that pub on that drizzly winter night, years of shared history just disappear like melted snow. I must have missed it, somewhere in the small print of the relationship, where they said this was possible.
The breakup gives me a sort of superpower. Suddenly I can download dating apps, armed with a magical immunity to any hurt or rejection, because the only person who I care likes me is Noah Coulter. It doesn’t matter if any of these app guys ignore me or dote on me, because they aren’t him. And for a while that distracts me from the pain a little. I lock all the memories of Noah away, and leave them there to biodegrade naturally, like stale sandwiches rejected by seagulls.
It isn’t until weeks later, just after my date with Seb, when we’d all taken the ferry to Eastleigh Island for the wedding rehearsal, that it happens. I’m sitting in a pew in the back of the church swiping through Connector as Richard and Sarah argue about the order of service for the seventy-third time that afternoon.
I can’t say I’m über-shocked when I see the profile pop up on my phone. He’s used a fake name, of course, and his profile photo is deliberately obscured, but it’s Richard all right. When I flick through the rest of his photos, I recognize them all from his Instagram. That evening, I swipe right, so I can send him a message on Connector.
Gwen: Richard, wtf, I know this is you. What we did that night was stupid, but we were smashed. Now you’re on a dating app? You’re getting married next week ffs.
Meet me, base camp he types back.
I sneak out of my hotel room and walk up Roseberry Hill. Halfway up, I find Richard, encased in his windbreaker and beanie hat, almost in tears. He starts telling me how he’d downloaded Connector for work, as his company was building a rival app.
“I was just interested in the algorithms, how the code worked, you know? But then I got kind of addicted,” he says. “I’m just chatting to girls. I don’t meet anyone. I love Sarah, I really do, but everything’s about the wedding and I can’t bear it. This helps me cope. After we get married, I’ll stop.”
“Bullshit,” I say.
He looks at me angrily. “Fine,” he snaps. “You want the truth? After, you know, what happened with me and you, I went to pieces. I can’t stop thinking about it. You won’t talk to me, so I chat to girls on Connector. It’s a distraction, I guess. But I’ll never do anything, it’s just flirting.”
Classic. So this is all my fault.
“Tell Sarah. Cancel the wedding, Richard,” I say.
“I can’t. It would break her heart.”
“So will marrying her if you don’t love her,” I say. “You’re clearly not ready for this wedding.”
“I have to be,” he insists. “Everything’s paid for, she’s moving in with me. It’s too late, Gwen. And I do love her, I swear I do. This is just a wobble. The marriage will be a new start. Anything that happened before doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not sure I can just pretend none of this happened,” I say, looking straight at him and leaving no doubt what I’m referring to.
“You have to,” he pleads. “Because I am, and I will be for the rest of my life. You can’t tell her, Gwen. Stick your head in the sand and forget it ever happened. Please, promise me you’ll never tell her. Our little secret, right?”
I look out over the hills at the church.
“I can’t promise you that, Richard,” I say. “This isn’t right. Sarah needs to know.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“If you tell her about this, then you know what other secrets will come out,” he says eventually. “What do you think Noah would say?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore—”
Then he puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me round to look directly at him.
“It will destroy Sarah, you know. What you did will utterly destroy her. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
I stare at him, and it takes all my strength not to shove him off the hill.
“You bastard,” I mutter.
He doesn’t reply; instead he looks down at his feet. I grab his phone out of his jacket pocket and hand it to him.
“All right, you win,” I say. “But you need to stop being a dick and delete the app. Now. And you have to swear to me that you’ll never, ever do anything like this again.”
“Okay,” he says, and I watch as he presses his thumb hard on the app icon until he’s given the option to delete it.
I turn away, leaving him alone on the hill, clutching his phone. Back in the hotel, I cry until I don’t think I can cry anymore. And then, well, then people started dying, and all that seemed a little less important.