Faithful (17 page)

I spent the rest of the day pottering about. I did some yoga. I read at least three articles from the economist and texted Anna to tell her I was so proud and then resorted back to Grazia. I also caught up with a couple of my favorite TV shows—anything to do with the law, it was always so much more exciting on TV than it was in real life.

In between I kept Daniel supplied with tea, water and a shoulder rub that almost turned into something more before I turned very stern and told him that he was to stop trying to distract himself and to work hard today so maybe he could have some time for me on Sunday. I just liked being there in the house with him
. Just to know he was in the room upstairs was comforting. It made me feel like we were really part of a couple and we weren’t just caught up in some wild affair. It made me feel even better that I had started telling people that I was seeing someone. I guess my parents would be next. I wondered how they would react. I think they were relieved that Charlie and I weren’t together, although of course they never said anything. “We just want you to be happy darling,” was my mother’s eternal cry.

After sharing takeout from Daniel’s favorite Italian place in his office, I cleared up and took a long hot bath. I took my book and a glass of wine to bed and waited for Daniel. I didn’t hear him come to bed, but he was there when I woke up the next morning. Even sleeping he looked tired. Pulling on
my robe, I went downstairs to make some fresh coffee and to see what was in the fridge. I would go shopping today so I could cook this evening. Perhaps I could make some breakfast as well?

The day followed much of the same pattern of the previous day although I didn’t even pretend to look at
The Economist
again, but I did go for a run, which I thought if we were measuring virtue, would balance out.

“Leah?” Daniel was calling for me from his study. I was messing about in the kitchen, preparing some virgin mojitos for cocktail hour.

“I’m in the kitchen. Give me a second and I’ll come up to you.” Despite my offer, I heard Daniel plod down the stairs to come and find me.

I was very pleased with my cocktail creations and grinned as I offered one to him. He took it from me but placed it straight on the counter behind me without taking a sip. He looked serious. Worried.

“What is it?”

“I have to talk to you. Come sit with me.”

We sat on the sofa. He was really worrying me now. There could only be bad news coming. What could have happened? He just remained silent as we sat there.

“Please
, Daniel, I’m going to have a heart attack. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Daniel’s head was in his hands, his elbows on his knees. He wasn’t looking at me. This was bad. I wanted him to spit it out. Was he trying to end things with me?

“I have to go to New York.” My chest dropped. Was that all?

“
OK, well that’s not so unusual, is it?”

“I have to go for a while. Until the next set of financial results are released.” How long was that?

“Our share price has taken a battering over all this MD stuff and I need to go and shore things up, oversee what will be a criminal investigation, and reassure investors. But I want you to come, Leah. I don’t want to leave you. I can’t.”

“How long until your results are released?”

“About two and a half months. But you’ll come with me, Leah, won’t you?”

Two and a half months
?
Wow. I couldn’t go to New York for two and a half months. I had a job. A life.

“Let’s just calm down. Virgin cocktails are just not going to cut it. Can we have some wine
, please?” Daniel headed back to the kitchen. It gave me a chance to collect my thoughts. This was a shock. I knew Daniel wouldn’t want to leave me so it must be serious.

We didn’t speak while Daniel was
organizing the wine. When he came back to the sofa I took a large swig and set my glass down. I took Daniel’s hands in mine. He scanned my face, trying to read my reaction before I started speaking.

“Look, this is no big deal.” I hoped I sounded more convincing than I felt. “It’s two and a half months out of our lives. You’ll be working a lot
, anyway so even if I was there all the time, you would just feel guilty for working so much. You can work constantly if I’m not there. I’ll fly out to see you as much as I can, and before you know it, you’ll be back.” That seemed logical, right?

“You won’t come with me.” It wasn’t a question. Daniel looked defeated. I climbed on to his lap and pulled his face toward mine.

“Daniel, I can’t just drop my job. You know that. And I don’t want to put that much pressure on this relationship so early on. And even if I did come with you, I wouldn’t see you because you have to concentrate on work. Please don’t make this a test of my commitment to you.”

“You’re right. I’ve been fighting this all weekend, trying to find another way, a way that would keep me in London
, but tonight I realized what everyone is telling me is right. I have to be there. I’m sorry.”

“The only thing you need to be sorry for is for keeping this from me for as long as you have. You need to share these things. Otherwise I just worry because I can tell you’re keeping things from me.” Daniel nodded and pressed his lips against mine.

“When do you have to leave?”

“Tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday.”

“Well, we’d better make the most of it.” I turned around and straddled him, stepping my legs over his, pushing my hands through his hair and delving into his mouth. I was going to miss this.

“I want you in my bed.”
Daniel slid me off his lap and stood up, holding out his hand to me. I took it and he led me upstairs.

We quickly and silently undressed. I was anxious. Wanting him but wondering where we were left after such a bombshell. There was no time to process any of
it; I just concentrated on reassuring Daniel.

I slid my fingers up his arms
, from his hands to his shoulders, and then around his neck. The feel of him was so reassuring. He reached under my bum and lifted me to the bed. There was no thinking about anything now as Daniel dropped his head to my nipple and licked and sucked.

“You taste delicious.” I arched my back. The sensation was incredible but I wanted something more. I wanted him deep inside me.

In a very calm voice I told him, “Daniel, I need to be close to you.” It wasn’t a desperate cry to increase my pleasure, but a serious request. And he knew exactly what I meant. He entered me so deeply I placed my hands against the headboard to provide resistance.

“I need to be deeper
, Leah.” I could feel him as deep as he could be, I thought, but I was wrong. Daniel shifted and moved my legs over his shoulders so my pelvis tilted up. I cried out as he touched that spot deep inside. He rolled his hips and pushed and pushed until my arms gave out and he grabbed my shoulders to stop my head crashing into the headboard. His movement again forced him into me at a slightly different angle and the combination of sensations so quickly sent quivers down my body. I was so close to my release, Daniel could tell.

“Breathe
, Leah. I’m not ready for you to come yet.” Daniel seemed so determined in his request that it  staved off my orgasm. I pulled my legs down and clasped them around his waist pulling him in with my legs. I reached around his back and ran my fingers down the valley of his tight muscles and along his spine. I felt him buck beneath my touch. He got into his rhythm and was just pushing in and out of me over and over.

I pulled his face from my neck. I wanted to look at him. When our eyes met I saw sadness. I didn’t know if he was desperately trying to hold off his release or he was sad about him leaving me.

“I love you,” I whispered, my eyes not leaving his. He pushed his head back into my shoulder and sucked.

He never lost his rhythm, and every unrelenting movement created another layer of pleasure building up around me. I clenched and he moaned.

“Leah, I’m close, baby.” That was all I needed to light the touch paper of my climax.

“I’m there Daniel. Come with me.” And we both dissolved.

Daniel left the next afternoon.

It was all happening so quickly. I tried to pretend to myself that I would see him in just a few hours.

We agreed that I was going to fly out to see him a week on Friday which meant it would be ten days before we saw each other again. I had thought four days without him had been a struggle. What was ten days going to be like?

I didn’t go to see him off at the airport. He was flying with colleagues and anyway it would have felt too dramatic. I kept reassuring him that this was going to be no big deal. I kept telling myself the same thing. My feelings were still in a box which I had no intention of opening at the moment.

The rule about no contact during working hours got well and truly trampled. Every morning when I woke up there was an email waiting for me from Daniel and I made sure I sent one to him for when New York’s sun rose. I’m not sure how much sleep Daniel was getting. Quite often when I emailed him in what should have been the dead of night in New York he replied or called me. We spoke at least twice a day and if I tried really hard I could imagine he was just
around the corner. The closer my visit to him, the more relaxed he seemed.

***

The sun was out, which improved my mood. After all it was a Monday. I took the opportunity to take a walk to find my lunch a little further away from the office that my usual haunt. Work was frantic and I needed 20 minutes to myself with no phones ringing, no people throwing questions at me from every which way. When Brendan offered to get my lunch I refused. I wouldn’t get out until late tonight so there was no chance of seeing daylight again if I didn’t take the opportunity then.

I wandered to a deli that I particularly like and collected a salad and my favorite smoothie. As I headed back into the sun I caught sight of a couple on the opposite side of the street laughing. The sun helped everyone’s mood. The guy was stroking the woman’s pregnant belly, his eyes not leaving
hers as they laughed. It seemed such an intimate moment and I replaced my sunglasses to begin my walk back to the office.

And then I froze.

It was Charlie and Fran.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from them
. I stood there just staring as the rest of the City became a haze. I was vaguely aware of being knocked into by various people inconvenienced by my petrified state but I really couldn’t focus. I couldn’t move. I realized they were standing outside Anna and Fran’s firm. Why did I come this way? I didn’t think about running into them.

Despite our lives having been so entwined just a few weeks ago, until now it was as if they had fallen off the face of the planet. They had fallen off the face of
my
planet but here they were, getting on with their lives as if they were just any other happy couple. As I continued to stare they eventually kissed briefly and Fran headed back inside, then Charlie strode away.

That’s when the nausea kicked in.

It was overwhelming. The metallic taste in my mouth was a sure sign I was was actually going to throw up. Oh no, I couldn’t let it happen here. The panic forced me back into reality and I focused on the road just a few steps away from me and stuck my hand out for a cab. I mumbled Anna’s address to the cabbie, still trying desperately to convince my body that I wasn’t going to be sick.

I made it to Anna’s without vomiting. As soon as I was through the door I ran to my bathroom and emptied the contents of my stomach. Even when my stomach was empty the heaving wouldn’t stop and I clung to the bowl
, afraid that if I let go I would fall all the way to the floor. Tears ran down my cheeks and I wasn’t sure if I was crying or if it was just the strain of the vomiting. And then it was clear I was crying. I didn’t even know why but I couldn’t stop it.

My body stopped heaving and I pulled myself off my knees and tried to go about cleaning up the bathroom and myself. Black mascara marks had settled on my cheeks and as I tried to wipe it away new mascara replaced it. I tried to take a deep breath. I needed to get back to the office
. I had so much to do. I started to panic. Why did I come home? I should have thrown up in the office. And then the heaving started again and I rushed back to the toilet bowl. There was nothing left to come out but I just stayed there alternating between sobbing and heaving as pain started coursing through my stomach muscles.

At some point I forgot about work and gave in to the tears. I couldn’t just clean off the smudged mascara and dance back into work as if nothing happened, my whole face was swollen and
red, and I was still heaving, although there was now more sobbing than heaving.

When the sobbing seemed to have won out
, I tried again to pull myself up. I didn’t even bother looking in the mirror. I just rinsed my mouth and found something to tie my hair back with. My clothes were disheveled and I pulled them off myself and found my way to the shower. The crying then found a new lease of life and I just stood under the warm water and didn’t try to stop it.

Eventually the water ran cold
, and when I started shivering I climbed out of the shower and wrapped in a towel crawled into bed. The sobbing seemed to have subsided, for a time anyway, and I heard my phone ringing somewhere outside my bedroom. It must be work wondering where I was. I rarely took lunch and now I’d been gone for hours. I started crying again, these tears were bitter, bitter that Charlie still had this power over me and then sorrow consumed me again.

I staggered out of my bedroom
to find my phone. I couldn’t speak to anyone but I should let the office know I was OK. There were nine missed calls. Most of them were from Brendan and then there were two from Anna. I texted Brendan saying I had come down with something really suddenly and was at home. Just as I pressed send, my phone started buzzing in my hands. It was Anna. The tears intensified. What was I going to say to her? I took a deep breath and answered.

“Leah, is that you
? Are you OK?”

“Yes, fine.”

“You are clearly not fine. What’s going on? Brendan called to ask if you were with me because you didn’t come back from lunch. Where are you?”

“I’m home. I’m fine. I’ll see you when you get home.” And I hung up, a wave of grief passed over me and new tears were falling. It had taken every ounce of energy I had to put that sentence together in something resembling a normal voice.

I slunk back into bed and pulled the covers up. I couldn’t get warm. At some point I must have cried myself to sleep. The next thing I knew I felt the bed sink behind me and I felt a body climb in beside me. But something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the right smell next to me. It wasn’t
Daniel
. I eyes flew open—no, not Charlie? I sat bolt upright and was confronted by Anna beside me.

“Oh
, thank god. I thought it was Charlie.” I lay back down but on my side my body facing Anna.

“Why would Charlie be in your bed, Leah?”

“I don’t know.” I was disoriented and so thirsty. Why was I so thirsty?

“Leah, what’s going on? You are really freaking me out. It’s 4 p.m. on a Tuesday and you are in bed. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“What? No. I need some water. Please will you get me some water?”

Anna
returned a few minutes later with two glasses of water with lemon. She was so thoughtful to think of putting lemon in the water. I would never think of that. I started to cry again. Perhaps if I was thoughtful like that Charlie wouldn’t have cheated on me with my friend.

“Oh my god, Leah
. Are you OK? Why are you crying? Is it because you miss Daniel?”

I ignored her but took the glass from her hand, and greedily drank down the water as I cried. I must have sounded like I was choking.

“Leah?”

I took her glass from her and drank that straight down
, as well. And then it was back, that metallic taste. I leapt out of bed and rushed to the bathroom just in time to have all the water I just drank pour into the toilet. I sunk to my knees.

Exhausted, I stopped crying and was just staring into the toilet bowl, grasping
the  seat with both hands as if the ground underneath me wasn’t steady enough to keep me upright. Anna followed me in to the bathroom and rubbed my back. I’d dragged her out of work, all because of him.

“I saw them.” I said quietly, still looking into the toilet bowl. “Charlie and Fran. Outside her building. I had almost forgotten it all and then
I saw them
. I saw her with what was meant to be my life. Pregnant with Charlie’s baby, kissing Charlie.” I wretched into the toilet again.

Anna didn’t say a word. She didn’t say
, “I thought you were over this. I thought you’d moved on. You’ve got Daniel now. You’re better off without him. They deserve each other.” She didn’t offer any of those useless platitudes that made rational sense but just didn’t matter. She understood. She pulled me to my feet, wiped my face with a warm cloth, and then made me wash my hands and rinse out my mouth. She led me back into bed and brought the covers up right to my chin. She left the room but came back two minutes later with more water.

“Just sip. Tiny sips.” I took the glass and took a few little sips and handed it back to her.

She climbed back into bed with me. I managed to fall asleep again, but kept waking, replaying the scene of Charlie and Fran together outside her office. My imagination extended it, seeing them in my old home, with Charlie’s parents. I was replaying their whole existence around and around in my head.

I had been awake for the last two hours when the clock went to 6:30 a.m. In my head that was the earliest possible time I could get up without Anna thinking I was still freaking out. And if I was in the office for 8 a.m., I could be
there before everyone else and catch up on some of the stuff I missed yesterday.

Anna caught me as I tried to sneak out of bed.

“Don’t argue with me. You are not going into work today and I’m working from home.” As she said it I realized I wanted someone to tell me not to go to work. At that moment, I never wanted to go to work again.

“You need to give yourself a
break; one day isn’t going to kill anyone. My clients don’t know I’m not in the office, and if I am in the office, I might be tempted to rip Fran’s head off. And I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t go down well with any jury, so I’d very likely go to prison, and then my clients really would be inconvenienced. On balance, I think it’s probably best to work from home until the feeling passes. Just to be sure.” I half-smiled, went to the bathroom, and then climbed back into bed.

“I hate him
.”

“G
ood.”

“Good? I want to do him physical harm. That’s not good.”

“Leah, when you met Daniel, all your feelings about Charlie disappeared and you magically got over a six-year relationship in days. You are just catching up on what you’ve been putting off. And anger is good, anger is normal.”

“You’re been all wise again and it’s freaking me out.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry for being a bitch. You think that being with Daniel is just a rebound thing?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, and I have no idea, Leah. All I know is that you’ve been able to escape from Charlie to Daniel. I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing. It just is.”

She was right. I had forgotten about Charlie until yesterday when I was confronted by the reality. Daniel allowed me to do that.

By early afternoon I summoned the strength to make it to the sofa to watch trashy TV, and although I’d not eaten anything for 24 hours, the only thing I wanted was ice cream, obviously.

Anna and I didn’t talk much
, but neither did I concentrate on what was on the TV. My mind wouldn’t let me. I just kept thinking about Charlie and Daniel and about Charlie and me and Daniel and me. Was what I was feeling for Daniel real or was it my way of just making sure I couldn’t feel what I felt about Charlie and me? I couldn’t help but think that Daniel’s trip to New York was a sign. It was an opportunity for me to find out the answers to all these questions. I was going to have a lot to talk to Daniel about when I went to see him later that week and I wasn’t sure he was going to be happy with what I was going to say. I was clear to me now what I needed to do.

***

I had pleaded with Daniel not to come to the airport to collect me. I tried to convince him that it would be wasted time for him which he could use to work so he would have more time off when I had arrived. He had grudgingly agreed but only if I agreed to being collected by his driver. That was an easy give from my perspective.

After I landed and waited for four weeks for my bag to be spat out on the conveyor belt I secretly hoped that Daniel had broken his promise and come to collect me. I was more than a little gutted when I saw a piece of card with my name on it waiting with excited friends and family of my fellow passengers. I wanted Daniel to make it all better.

“Good evening, ma’am.”

“Hi.” I sighed, not hiding my disappointment.

Somehow the driver managed to park directly outside the entrance to the airport and as he put my bag in the trunk I took my hand luggage and opened the door, desperate for the air conditioning. It was a scorcher.