Page 32 of Love at First Sight

Cal and I don’t really talk on the way back to London.

I don’t tell him what Ali said to me, and he doesn’t ask.

We keep the music low and the speed high.

I sting, like I’ve been slapped and now the skin is tender to the touch.

I don’t understand what Ali thinks she knows.

I mean, obviously Cal and I get on, obviously we had a spark back on the day we met, but it’s not like she knows that my mystery man was actually Cal.

I’ve respected the boundaries and done my best to move on.

Mostly, anyway. I don’t understand what made her act this way.

Surely it wasn’t just being contradicted by Cal, that she couldn’t stand him defending me.

That’s such a small thing, in the grand scheme …

I fall asleep at some point, and start when Cal wakes me, gently touching my arm. We’ve stopped at the Tesco near Newington Green.

‘Oh my god,’ I say, coming to. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to nod off.’

‘It’s okay,’ he tells me. He smiles uncertainly, as if he’s not sure if that’s against the rules. My eyes roam his handsome, beautiful face, and I think, How could Ali discard this wonderful man so easily? She’s crazy . ‘I just didn’t know where to go, now,’ he says. ‘Where your dad lives?’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yeah. Take this left, and then the second left after that.’

I rifle in my bag for a mint, look in the mirror and wipe the mascara from under my eyes. It’s 1 a.m. I wonder if Dad is even still up. I text him: I’m here xx

Cal cuts the engine as he pulls up by the house.

‘I’ll make sure you get in safe,’ he says. ‘I hope he’s okay.’

‘I really appreciate this,’ I tell him. ‘I really am sorry if—’

Cal puts his hand over mine, holding my fingers as he cuts me off: ‘It’s fine. You don’t have to be sorry about a single thing. Okay?’

‘I hope you guys can fix it.’

Cal blinks.

‘Do you?’ he says.

I look at him, unable to lie and yet unwilling to tell the truth.

Cal nods as if that’s all the confirmation he needs, and the conversation is over. I get out and close the car door as quietly as I can so as not to wake the neighbours, bending down to wave goodbye through the window. Cal raises his hand in response.

The light is on in Dad’s front room, a bright postage stamp in an otherwise dark road.

If it seems unusual that he hasn’t drawn the blinds, after I pass through the front gate, I understand why: he’s passed out on the sofa, an almost-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s beside him.

It’s then I remember I don’t have his house key: it’s back at my house, and my house keys are in Ali’s kitchen.

Urgh. I lightly rap on the window to try to rouse Dad, but I don’t think a marching band in the front room would be able to wake him.

‘Everything all right?’

I jump.

‘Cal, you scared me!’ I whisper. ‘Jesus!’

‘Sorry. I was trying not to wake the neighbours. Are you locked out?’

I gesture to the window and Cal takes a look. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Right.’

‘Yeah. And I don’t have my key.’

‘Breaking and entering?’ he suggests.

‘Gonna have to be,’ I say. ‘Come on, round the back. I used to sneak out that way all the time when I was a teenager. It never occurred to me that one day I’d be gagging to sneak in. ’

Because the houses on Dad’s road are terraced, the way to the back means walking halfway down the street so we can double back on ourselves around the rear, which is a good five-minute walk.

‘Were you a naughty teen then?’ Cal asks as we navigate the dark pavements.

‘Me?’ I say. ‘Naughty? Nooooo.’ I’m smiling, though. He knows I’m kidding. ‘All right,’ I admit. ‘Maybe a little. I smoked and drank when Dad was out at work, messed about with my mates, that sort of thing. I don’t think anyone would have cared if I’d kept my grades up, but they slipped a bit.’

‘Good grades aren’t everything,’ Cal says.

‘Spoken like a regular C-student,’ I tease.

‘Bs, really,’ he counters. ‘But I was a terrible teenager. I didn’t rebel, didn’t go out and do stupid things.’

‘Really!’ I say. ‘You were a good boy, then?’

‘Chronically uncool,’ he replies. ‘If I’d smoked and drank and had sex, it would only have been with myself.’

‘Awww. I can’t imagine you as uncool. Everyone wants to know you.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘I do,’ I say. We reach Dad’s back gate, and I have to hop up onto a ledge in the wood of it so I can reach over and unlock it. I do it on the first try, and get down to swing the thing open.

‘Smoothly done,’ Cal whispers. ‘My compliments.’

‘You haven’t seen anything yet.’

‘I actually can’t see anything at all,’ Cal says, because it’s pitch-black in the garden. I giggle.

‘Dad uninstalled his motion-sensor security light after the neighbours complained it was too bright,’ I explain, reaching for his shoulder to guide him through the gate.

‘Stoke Newington has an urban fox problem, and when they started getting really prolific they’d set the lights off scores of times throughout the night.

And the noise of them, too. You’ve heard foxes having sex, haven’t you? ’

‘I have,’ Cal says. ‘God bless them.’

We reach the house, and I let go of Cal to run my fingers along the window at the side of the French doors.

‘The trick is,’ I explain, as I undertake my work, ‘to find the little gap …’ Which I do at that exact moment, and wiggle my finger until there’s a space big enough for me to unhook it. It pops open. ‘And there we go! Give me a lift, would you?’

Cal bends down so I can stand on his knee, and I hoist myself up and slip through the open window. Then I undo all my elegance by stepping on something on the floor and fall to my knees with a thud.

‘Gah!’

Outside, Cal laughs, then catches himself and says, ‘Wait. Are you okay?’

I brush myself off, get up and look for the light switch. It’s a dimmer, so I can put it on low and wait for our eyes to adjust. I find the back-door key and let Cal in.

‘Nice place,’ he says, eyeing up the kitchen. ‘And ten-out-of-ten on the break-in skills. Quite impressive, really.’

‘Compliment accepted. Right. I’m going to go wake up Dad.’

‘I’ll …’ Cal looks around, eyes landing on the Nespresso. ‘Make coffee?’ he says. I instinctively look at the clock. 1.30 a.m.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I need it.’

Dad is absolutely out for the count. I can’t blame him.

When Craig and I ended things, I found myself in a similar state, only I turned to cheap prosecco instead of hard spirits.

I close the blinds, put on a lamp in the corner, and turn off the big overhead light.

He looks peaceful, asleep like this, I think to myself, despite knowing his head is going to hurt like hell in the morning.

I cover him with a blanket and kiss his forehead, but even that doesn’t make him stir.

Oh Dad , I think. I love you . And I do.

I really, really do. It isn’t lost on me that I was the first person he called. He knew I’d come. Family always does.

He still owes me one hell of an apology though.

Maybe I’ll apologise too.

‘How is he?’ Cal asks, handing me a steaming mug when I re-enter the kitchen.

‘Okay,’ I say through a yawn. We should have been in bed hours ago. Cal eyes me, the start of a smirk playing across his mouth. ‘I don’t know how you’re still functioning,’ I add.

He tips his head, shaking it, the smirk breaking into an all-out smile.

‘What?’ I say, thinking he’s about to laugh at me. He sighs instead.

‘You just look so pretty,’ he says. ‘Your cheeks have gone all rosy and you’ve got mascara …’ He gestures to under my eyes, and I immediately panic.

‘Oh,’ I say, looking in the reflection of the metal extractor fan to try to fix it.

‘No,’ Cal says, reaching out to pull my hand away from my face. ‘I didn’t mean it’s bad. It’s … good? You look good, even though you’re a bit dishevelled. Well. Not dishevelled. You know. Oh god, this was meant to be a compliment.’

I bite down on my lip because otherwise I might laugh at him.

‘You’re an idiot,’ I say, and it isn’t until the words leave my mouth that I hear how they sound.

They don’t sound like I’m teasing or reassuring him; they sound soft, quiet, an invitation for him to step closer so he can hear me better.

Less you’re an idiot and more I like how you’re still holding on to my wrist and maybe you should stay there .

‘An idiot?’ Cal says, his tone matching my own: low, suggestive. ‘How rude …’

The air is thick with tension, and it terrifies me, my heart thumping in my chest, breathing suddenly shallow and quick.

Cal, here in my dad’s kitchen, after driving me through the night to check he’s okay.

But then I think of Henry, and Ali, and her ultimatum.

Cal tugs gently on my arm, and with his other hand reaches towards my face, pushing hair away from it, tucking it behind my ear.

Those kind eyes of his could be my undoing.

How he looks at me feels like a drug, like he wants to eat me and protect me and ravish me, all at once.

This is real – whatever is between us. Cal’s thumb rubs across my lip, and I couldn’t stop the noise of pleasure that escapes from me even if I wanted to.

‘Do you ever think about that day, when we met?’ he says, and before I can answer he adds: ‘Because I do, Jessie. I think about it all the goddamn time.’

I nod.

‘Yes,’ I say, breathlessly. ‘I think about it all the time too, Cal.’

He leans in closer, happy with my reply, his fingers snaking under my hair at the back of my neck, grip precise and firm. I could do this; I could surrender to this moment and pretend consequences don’t exist.

But they do. Consequences do exist.

I take a step back. ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m already missing the feel of Cal’s skin on mine, his breath so close to my mouth. Tears prick at my eyes. It’s dramatic, but I can’t help it. ‘Shit,’ I say, dabbing at them with my fingertips, wiping them away.

‘Sorry.’ Cal looks concerned. ‘I thought …’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘Me too, it’s just …’

We’re not making any sense. I pick up my coffee mug – when did I even put that down? I bring it to my lips. It’s only lukewarm now, but I drink it anyway, just to have something to do with my body as my brain whirrs so frantically it might fall out of my ear.

‘Things with Ali are over,’ Cal says, after a minute of silence. ‘I would never try anything if it wasn’t. I hope you know that.’

‘I can’t betray her.’ I’m practically at the other end of the kitchen now. ‘I would never do anything to jeopardise what she is to me.’

‘You’re not,’ Cal counters. ‘Okay? It’s over.

Me and Ali, it should never have got as far as it did.

I was so fucking desperate to find somebody that what should have been a bit of fun got too serious – and for her, too.

I’m not her guy, Jessie, any more than she’s the woman for me.

I just fucking wish I’d held out longer.

I would have. If I’d known you were around the corner, I never would have dated Ali.

I should have waited for you. But I didn’t know you were coming.

And then I couldn’t even bring myself to end it with her, because I lived in hope that I’d get to see you, every time I was at the house. ’

‘It’s a mess,’ I say, sadly. ‘I wish you’d waited for me too. But it doesn’t work like that, does it?’

‘We can’t let this slip by,’ he protests. ‘I’m not going to let it.’

He comes to me, pulling me in close, holding me, and I allow it for just a second before pushing him away, because if I don’t push him away now, I never will.

‘We missed our chance,’ I say. ‘We don’t get to do this now. I don’t want to.’

I feel awful, but I know that if I tell Cal the truth, he’ll try to find a loophole – reason his way out of Ali’s ultimatum so that we can be together.

And as much as I want him, I want Ali and Henry more.

I choose them. If it has to be a choice, I choose my family.

Hasn’t Dad taught me that much? If you sacrifice your family for love, you have to know your love can always leave. Just look at Simone.

No. Ali and Henry are the safer bet. They’ll never break my heart. And so, I am firm.

‘I don’t want this,’ I reinforce. ‘Maybe before, but not now. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Ali, but I’m not sloppy seconds.’

‘Sloppy seconds?’ Cal says. ‘You’re not the second choice, Jessie, I swear—’

I hold up a hand.

‘I’m not interested,’ I say, definitively, sounding way more confident than I feel.

‘I really appreciate you driving me here, and you’re a very nice man, but there’s nothing here, and there won’t ever be.

In fact, now you and Ali are done and Stray Kids is opening, I don’t suppose I’ll see you at all, and that’s as it should be. So, shall I see you out?’

Cal looks at me, jaw slack and eyes wide.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he says, and I don’t know if he means that he doesn’t believe I don’t want him, or he doesn’t believe I’m being so cruel.

I don’t hang around to find out. Instead, I walk out of the kitchen and open the front door, because I can’t have him here, it hurts too much.

I have never met anyone like Cal, somebody so kind and funny and open and encouraging.

I shouldn’t have to make this choice. But I do, and it breaks my heart.

The image of Cal walking past me and pausing on the doorstep like I might change my mind will haunt me, because I almost do. I almost tell him to wait, that I’m sorry, that I’m crazy and don’t know why I said all that.

But he doesn’t turn around, because I don’t say any of that. Instead, I close the door behind him as fast as I can, and then let myself cry once again. By the time I stop, the birds are singing and it is light out.