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Chapter Thirty-five

Leon

I’m not so sure Gemma’s that tired all of a sudden – exhausted, yes, but not sleepy – except Francesca clicks her tongue gently and unbundles her denim jacket, draping it over Gemma’s shoulders like a blanket.

She rests a hand on Gemma’s back for a moment, almost like she’s saying, I’m here , or, We’ve got you , and it makes me think again: She’s too good for Marcus.

The thought sends me straight back to our interaction in the women’s loos.

Not the part where I told her I thought she was worth more, but the part where I freaked out and locked us both in a cubicle, and the soft graze of her mouth at my ear, the press of her body into mine, the way her pale eyes blew dark when I touched her neck.

The memory has my heart thudding hard in my chest, my stomach tightening.

Not that I was going to – I don’t know, kiss her, or anything. We barely know each other. She’s in love with someone else.

But … would she have wanted me to kiss her? The way her breath caught, the way she looked at me …

I try to shove the image away, because it’s not like it’s going to happen anyway. All it’s doing is making my head feel like the bloody Gordian Knot, except I don’t have a sword to hack it apart with and try to make sense of.

Is this how Francesca feels about Marcus?

A few looks, a kiss, a handful of flirty moments, and it’s tangled her up into this great big mess where the only way through it is one drastic, unthinkable thing, like confessing her feelings before he makes it to the altar?

If this is only an inkling of how she’s feeling, I suddenly don’t blame her for coming up with such an outrageous plan.

Francesca pulls away from Gemma to sit cross-legged, the green Ladurée box open on her lap as she browses the macarons. I don’t think she’s looked me in the eye once since our pseudo-walk of shame out of the toilets; but then again, I’m not so sure I haven’t avoided meeting her gaze, too.

It was … a weird moment, back there.

Maybe fuelled by booze or proximity or that way she ticks her head to the side when she smiles. Probably nothing I should be dwelling on.

There’s a little card inside the box listing the different flavours. I pick out a passionfruit one, offering it to Francesca.

‘Want to trade?’

‘Sorry?’

‘For the pistachio one. You said earlier you don’t like them.’

She jerks, blinking rapidly, and searches my face for a moment before accepting the orangey-yellow dessert and swapping it for a pale green one, and smiles brightly at me. ‘Thanks.’

‘Sure.’

She takes a bite of it, and I’m a beat too late in looking away, my eyes snagging on the way her teeth sink delicately into the biscuit, the drag of her lips wrapping around it.

Definitely the booze, and the fact we’ve been stuck here for hours. Maybe a bit of wedding fever, even, and my own lacklustre dating life.

Definitely not Francesca.

For a few minutes we sit quietly eating the macarons. She takes a tiny bite out of several, sampling them, and I watch her pull faces as she reacts to the tastes – the scrunch of her nose over the rose one, the appreciative way her eyes widen and she nods to herself at the matcha.

It’s very different to how I pop the entire raspberry one into my mouth.

Francesca’s been watching me too, though, because as soon as I bite into it I blurt, ‘Oh my God ,’ and she laughs.

‘It’s like eating a whole berry, isn’t it?’

I nod, savouring the taste now – which is so zingy and fresh, it’s less like eating a biscuit and more … well, like she said, a whole raspberry. I’ve never known anything like it.

‘The lemon one’s good, too, if you liked that. The Marie Antoinette one’s sort of … earthy? Like an Earl Grey.’

I follow her lead, taking a smaller bite of the blue macaron next.

‘Huh, you’re right. It is earthy.’ It’s not really my taste, and I regret not saving the raspberry one now.

Francesca must read that on my face, because she laughs again, and snaps a bit off her raspberry macaron to hand me the half without a bite taken out of it.

I do the same with the Marie Antoinette one, and we make another trade.

‘I’ve never been to France,’ she murmurs. ‘But I think this is mostly what I thought it’d be like. Sitting around eating macarons and being a bit liberal with alcohol and having deep conversations about life and love.’

‘With almost twelve hours to kill, maybe we should’ve tried to get a train into Paris.’

I don’t know what makes me say it, but suddenly I’m imagining the Eiffel Tower sparkling against a night sky, and a small, warm hand in mine at a little bistro by the Seine, and a smile so big her cheek is tucked all the way into her shoulder.

Francesca says, ‘Oh, please, I don’t think you even really wanted us to join you for a cup of tea after we sorted out the flight! There is no way you would’ve gone exploring Paris with me.’

I hum, conceding the point, but tell her, ‘I’m sorry, for the record, if I …

came across badly. I’m not usually so … confrontational.

’ I twist a macaron around between my fingers, cringing at my earlier attitude.

‘I know it’s not an excuse for being rude, but – I mean, it’s not like I have a very high opinion of Marcus, and I was kind of wound up about talking to Kay before the wedding and worrying I wouldn’t make it in time, and then …

You know, you show up, all sunshine and with those big eyes, and all I knew about you was that you trail around after Marcus, you flirt with him and act too cosy and familiar, and that even if he laughs about it, it obviously bothers Kay a bit.

I didn’t know if this was all just an act, or … ’

‘Wait, if what was an act? My – my friendship with Marcus?’

‘No, the …’ I wave a hand at her in an all-encompassing gesture, but she pulls a quizzical face. ‘You know, you . Being nice. Not … I dunno, I guess I was expecting someone more like …’ I glance at Gemma. ‘More … assertive?’

‘Someone who’d actively plot to steal someone else’s man,’ Francesca offers, with a self-deprecating smile now, and she nods.

More seriously, she says, ‘It’s alright.

I get it. If he has made me into a bit of a joke, even if it’s just to try and clear his conscience or pretend there’s nothing between us, I don’t imagine I made a very good impression before you even met me. ’

‘I don’t imagine I made a very good impression even after you met me,’ I say, and when she catches my eye, we both break into grins.

And, because I didn’t say it earlier when she asked, I nod in the direction of my bag – Dad’s bag, covered in all his mementos, and tell her, ‘I don’t really travel much because I feel like I need to be around for my family.

Because my dad’s not well. It’s hard to shake how responsible I feel, sometimes, for them.

I guess I do it so much they all just rely on me by default, so then I feel even worse about …

It’s kind of a cycle. It’s nobody’s fault.

And I don’t mind it, really; I want to be there for them.

But … yeah. Mostly I live vicariously through my dad’s stories of all the places he visited when he was younger.

’ I turn a macaron in my hand. ‘I think I thought this was pretty much what going to Paris would be like, too.’

Francesca smiles; I can sense it even before I look up to meet her eye again.

She reaches over to put her hand on my arm, and …

I kind of appreciate that she doesn’t say anything.

Doesn’t tell me I need to get a grip, get a life, like some of the girls I’ve dated have done; doesn’t tell me how sad and pathetic that sounds.

Just smiles, like she’s thanking me for telling her. It’s … kind of nice.

The two of us lapse into quiet again, picking through some more of our macarons.

Gemma is fast asleep now – her breathing is slow and steady and even, and her face has tilted to one side a bit.

She looks peaceful. Her glasses sit at an awkward angle where she’s got her face pressed into her arms, so I gently pull them off to keep them from breaking, setting them down safe, before Francesca pipes up again.

‘Leon? Can I … can I ask you something?’

I look over, and she flushes.

‘You don’t have to answer. I don’t expect you to, I mean, and I know I don’t have much right to ask, so you can tell me if I’m sticking my nose in …’

Is this about what happened in the toilets?

The almost-maybe-might’ve-been kiss?

I wait, apprehensive, but Francesca asks, ‘Why do you feel so responsible for the rest of your family? I realise your dad’s not well and you want to help, but this talk you want to have with Kayleigh, the stuff you said about it being okay if she cuts you off as long as the rest of your family don’t have to go through that, too …

That’s so much to take on, so I guess I just wondered … Why?’

She’s the first person who’s ever actually asked me that; even before I answer, I can feel relief sinking into my bones, a gladness to open up about it.

‘It’s because I am responsible for them.

Maybe that seems stupid because both my parents are still around, but …

I was thirteen when Dad got diagnosed with MS. He’d been sick for a while, but it reached a point where he and Mum were constantly going back and forth to all these appointments, trying to get answers, figure out medication and therapies and regimens that would help keep it under control and stuff, so I had to help take care of the girls a bit.

Myleene was only a toddler, and Kay’s world was basically plans with friends and hockey practice and new pencil cases and lip gloss, so she wasn’t as aware of everything that was going on.

‘We had Nana, of course. She was around a lot. And nobody asked me, but it was … it was like this unwritten rule, I guess. I was the oldest: I needed to step up, I needed to help out; so I did. And now we’re pretty much all grown up …

I mean, Myleene still lives at home, and Dad’s still not well.

He’s okay,’ I add quickly, when Francesca’s face falls in sympathy, ‘and he can still do most things, but when he does have an episode, it’s – it’s hard to see.

It’s tough on everyone. It takes him longer to recover these days than it used to, and that’s only going to get worse as time goes on. ’

It’s why I never went away to uni. I got my qualifications from a local college and through online courses instead.

It’s why I haven’t moved away, even now – so that Kay and Myleene are free to, and so someone is still there for Mum and Dad when they need help.

It’s why I find dating hard, because even though my family aren’t a burden to me, it feels like I’d be burdening someone else who didn’t choose it.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I tell Francesca, ‘I love my family, I’m happy to be there for them; I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But when my nana got sick … She always told me I’d need to look out for them, but it always felt like we were a team; now, it’d just be me .

And I told you guys what it’s like when Kay and Marcus visit: it really hurts my parents to see her pushing them away.

Myleene absolutely idolises her, too, so she’s willing to overlook it all just to feel like she’s still got her cool big sister around. ’

I can’t help but glance at Gemma again. Maybe she’s more like Myleene than she is like Kay; maybe I haven’t been giving her enough credit, all these years.

‘And this feels like something I can fix,’ I tell Francesca, only realising how true it is now that I’m saying it out loud. ‘Instead of just trying to hold it together or patch it up afterwards. I can’t fix the fact Nana’s gone, I can’t fix my dad’s MS, but – I thought at least I could fix this.’

I surprise myself when the words crack, and Francesca goes a bit blurry.

I blink a few times, clearing the tears from my eyes.

She makes a soft sound and sets her macarons aside to prop herself up on her knees, leaning forward.

She clasps one of my hands in hers, and her other rests on my left knee.

And I blurt, ‘Except maybe I can’t fix it after all. And I’ve failed.’

‘Oh, Leon.’

She shuffles around, and even though, sitting, I’m still a head taller than her, Francesca wraps an arm around me and pulls me into her side so my head rests on her shoulder.

She smells like coconut, which I noticed in the bathroom, but this time it doesn’t make me repress the urge to bury my nose in the crook of her neck – it just makes me sink into her side and close my eyes.

‘I know that it’s easy to say, but in case it’s helpful to hear it: you can’t be responsible for how Kayleigh acts, and you haven’t let anybody down if she keeps pushing you all away – whether the wedding goes ahead or you talk to her or not.

But for what it’s worth, I don’t think it counts as failing if you try. That’s more than most people would do.’

Maybe she’s got a point, I think.

But maybe it’s still not enough.