Page 37

‘If he picked you,’ Leon says, lowering his voice, the steady, serious cadence of it quieting some of the sadness that threatened to overwhelm me, ‘he’d walk all over you and he’d probably cheat because that’s apparently the sort of scumbag he is, and he’d hurt you, and …

And I get it, you’re in love with him, you know?

That’s … I don’t know what that’s like. I wish I had someone in my life I felt that strongly for, that I’d risk everything for just a chance to be with them.

But he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve you .

I didn’t mean to say that you were worthless, that wasn’t …

I meant , you’re worth too much to throw it away on someone like him. ’

A fresh wave of tears pricks at my eyes and spills over onto my cheeks, but this one doesn’t hurt so badly. It aches, carves out a hollow deep inside my chest, but it isn’t the sharp, all-consuming pain that makes me feel small and stupid.

It makes me …

Makes me yearn , for – for I don’t know what. More? Maybe?

For someone who would fight for me like I’ve been trying to fight for Marcus, someone who doesn’t offer me scraps while I give them my whole heart and act like it’s enough. For someone to look at me and …

Say that I’m worth more. To see that I am.

I find my gaze drawn to the mirror above the sink.

Leon’s profile is highlighted there, a squat nose and scruffy hair and searching eyes and broad shoulders in a creased shirt.

And there’s me, cheeks blotchy and bright, eyes shining with tears and hair frizzing out of my braids, drowning in this godforsaken jacket.

I look at my reflection, see the heartache and hope and sorrow etched into my expression that I know oh so well, and … And I wish I didn’t. I wish I could look in that mirror and see a different girl.

I wish she could see that she’s worth more.

Leon begins to say something else but stops abruptly as I jerk away from him, tearing off my jacket. Some of my hair snags on one of my brooches and I yelp, fighting my way free.

‘What are you doing? Fran—’

‘I hate this jacket. I hate – I hate …’ I hate the person who clung to it for almost two years like a talisman, a promise.

I hate that it suddenly feels like some sort of a claim Marcus has on me, when the reality is he probably never even noticed that it’s his, all those times he’s seen me wear it.

I wrench my arms free, hurling the jacket onto the floor and breathing hard. My cheeks are wet all over again, and I’m surprised I have any tears left to cry.

‘Are you—’

There’s the clack! of heels on the floor as someone approaches, and Leon turns pale, alarm flitting over his face as he looks towards the entrance, mortified at being found in the ladies’ toilets.

He makes a snap decision, snatching my wrist to haul me with him, locking both of us inside a toilet stall just as someone comes into the bathroom.

One of his hands presses into the door beside my head and my brain catches up all at once, realising that his body isn’t just crowding mine against the door but is almost flush against me.

My hips are pressed into his thigh. His cheek rests against the side of my head.

When I breathe in, my chest grazes his torso.

I tilt my head back to look at him, and Leon shifts only slightly back, enough to look down at me. There’s a question written on his face; his attention is still on the other person in the bathroom, listening, waiting for them to leave.

‘I don’t think I needed to hide, too,’ I whisper. ‘I’m allowed to be in here.’

He flushes, and I bite down a giggle. It turns into a sort of hiccup in my throat, which is still thick and raw from crying, but my reaction has him relax, a bit of a smile curving at his mouth. As some of the tension eases out of him, I feel his body sink a little more against mine.

It’s strange, if only for how pleasant it feels.

‘Shh,’ he whispers back, ‘before we get caught.’

I turn my face to reach his ear, so I can whisper even more quietly, ‘I think hiding in a toilet stall with a girl is a lot more compromising than handing her tissues because she’s crying by the sink.’

I misjudge it a bit, because my mouth ends up grazing the edge of his earlobe when I speak, and this time it’s Leon’s turn to sputter out a choked sound and my turn to shush him, which threatens to set me off into a whole new fit of giggles.

This whole situation is so absurd, I can’t even feel shy about the implications of us hiding out in here like this.

‘Do you think people actually have sex in these?’ I whisper.

Leon glances around. ‘Well they are big enough. Look, there’s even a mirror on the door. Kinky.’

I glance to my left to see the thin, full-length panel of mirror on the door just behind me – which is quite thoughtful decorating, given the limited facilities of an airport.

I’ve seen hotel rooms with less. But Leon catches my eye and waggles his eyebrows, and I have to look away, shaking with silent laughter now.

Then he jokes, ‘Do you think it counts as the mile high club, if it’s just an airport?’

I can’t contain myself then, but no sooner has a squeal of laughter left my mouth than he’s pressing two fingers to my lips and shushing me.

Which works – a bit too well, because I’m startled into silence by the feeling of his calloused fingertips against my mouth, and I know the absolute absurdity of this situation has just gotten the better of us and he didn’t mean anything by it, but it’s so oddly intimate, even without the fact our bodies are still pressed up against each other, and I can only stare at him, my breathing suddenly so loud in the confined space, and his eyes are so impossibly dark and so impossibly intent on me that it feels like his gaze could swallow me whole.

As if catching himself, he moves his hand away.

I’m holding onto his sleeve, not quite sure when I reached for it.

I don’t know which of us prompts it to happen, but his hand settles on the side of my neck, large and solid and warm, winding his fingers through some of my hair, and again, so oddly intimate – it’s only my neck, but when was the last time someone touched me there, held me this tenderly?

It’s so much more intimate than a hug, or even maybe a kiss.

My emotions all feel too close to the surface right now, and I’m absolutely powerless to resist the full-body shiver that ripples down my spine at the intensity of such a small, simple touch.

His breath fans across my face. Sweet, like blackcurrant, like apples.

We’re both caught completely in the moment, barely breathing. Is his heart thundering the way mine is? Is he leaning in just a little, or is that me?

Are we really about to –?

Someone smacks the flat of their palm against the door right behind my head and I yelp, jolting away from it, stepping on Leon’s feet. He stumbles back, falling almost onto the toilet and barely catching himself, a hand flung out to each wall of the stall.

His eyes are blown wide and his cheeks are bright pink, the blush spreading all the way down his neck from the embarrassment of being caught (as if it would be from anything else …) and he’s stuck with his legs bent in front of him and arms akimbo, squatting barely above the toilet bowl.

He sets off the automatic flush. Some of the water splashes up onto the seat of his jeans.

‘Excuse me!’ shrills a posh voice on the other side of the door.

Leon cuts me a look, eyes narrowing and head angling as if to say, Don’t you dare , even as a hint of mischief tugs at the corners of his lips.

I stuff a fist into my mouth, unable to look away. His eyebrows tug lower as if to warn me to stay quiet, and I am barely holding it together anymore. Leon bites the inside of his cheek, shaking as he tries not to laugh too.

‘Stop it,’ he hisses, ‘I’m gonna fall.’

Oh, he is, any moment – and he’s at such an odd angle, I wouldn’t be surprised if he drops right into the toilet rather than simply onto the seat.

I take pity, trying to manoeuvre myself underneath one of his arms to help him up, which has us both staggering about in a bundle of flailing limbs, fighting to keep our balance.

Leon trips forward, but when I fling my arm forward to try to catch him, he’s already caught himself and instead his head collides right with my elbow.

I let out a strangled yelp at the judder that goes all the way up my arm from my funny bone, and Leon groans.

The woman outside our cubicle gives a scandalised cry. ‘I don’t know who’s in there, but this is a public space ! There are children around! You should not be fornicating in there! This is diabolical! You should be ashamed of yourselves, the pair of you! And in a toilet !’

Posh lady smacks the door a few more times before harrumphing.

‘I should fetch security on the pair of you. This is absolutely shameless! And leaving your clothes strewn all about the floor, too!’

My denim jacket comes hurtling over the top of the door. I fumble to catch it, feeling suitably chastised even as the lady storms out before we can argue that we weren’t doing anything wrong.

I don’t think we were, anyway.

Although for a moment there …

For a moment, it did almost get quite close to … to something …

What am I doing? Crying over a man who’s about to marry someone else, locked in an airport toilet with the bride’s brother? What has my life come to? I’m sure this part wasn’t in any of the romcom films building up to an epic grand gesture and a declaration of romance.

Defeated, and feeling less an idiot and more completely at sea, I unlock the door and say, ‘Come on, I suppose we’d better go before she does go and get security.’