Page 28 of The Love of Our Lives

As I’m leaving the room to see who it is, I can hear Adam asking William if he wants to come see the roof terrace one day and I think how kind he is – how he wants everyone to feel completely at ease.

Glancing at myself in his hallway mirror briefly, I smooth down the glittery velvet dress I’m wearing. It’s ridiculously short, I have to admit, but if I can’t be a little out there at a Christmas party with friends, then when can I be?

A Christmas party with friends.

The words sound so odd in my head, but at the same time, a shiver of happiness goes down my spine.

I’m still thinking about how happy I am and how I was clearly worrying over nothing as I fling the door open wide, stopping short at the sight of a woman standing there.

She’s tall and trim, in navy trousers; a smart cream coat on. Her light-blonde hair is neatly bobbed, with pale-blue eyes I’ve seen before. Except they’re much harder up close and now they scan me over from top to toe, an almost shocked look on her face.

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

My heart is thudding so hard right now.

‘Good to see you’ve still got your ability to say nothing.’

We stand like that for a moment, me looking at this woman I know nothing about. Yet this dynamic feels oddly familiar, and all those strange déjà vu sensations I’ve been having come flooding back again.

Glancing behind me briefly, I say, ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I tried the other flat first and no one was in, then I heard the racket,’ she says firmly.

Uncertain what else to say, I lead her across the landing and let us both into my flat. She immediately starts looking around, at the ceilings, at the floor, at the living room she walks into.

‘Can I take your coat?’ I try uncertainly. But even I can hear how pathetic it sounds.

Emily’s mum turns to me now, eyes seemingly on fire.

‘Nine months in my belly and eighteen years under my roof,’ she says, ‘and you treat me like a stranger, if I can even call it that,’ she says.

Heat reaches up my neck, as she moves about like a wasp trapped in a bottle, picking at the blankets on the sofas, and glancing at my still-technicolour wall. And all the while, I stand at the side, uncertain what to say, what to do.

Shit, how long did I actually think I could hold off a mother for? What have I been playing at? Just ignoring Emily’s old life like this. I don’t know exactly what happened between Emily and her mum, but perhaps I should have taken the bloody time to find out.

Emily’s mum finally takes a seat on the sofa, perches there like it’s deeply uncomfortable.

‘Would you like a tea?’ I try, my heart thudding.

‘That’s obviously not what I’m here for,’ she says slightly softer now.

‘Then what are you here for?’ I falter.

Her eyes widen, something like real anguish in them now. ‘How could you just drop your responsibilities like that, Emily? How could you quit your job like that? And that wonderful man?’

She starts shaking her head and I find myself unable to speak.

‘This whole life you’re living up here is a dream, Emily,’ she says, standing up again. ‘A child’s fantasy. You’ve always lived in a wonderland, and right now, you’re risking all of it, everything we’ve worked so hard for.’

Something sparks in my stomach at her words.

Because she’s right. These past six months have felt like a dream to me, a fantasy. I have lived more in the past six months as Emily than I did for my whole life as Maggie. I have felt more joy and experienced more excitement than I ever dreamed possible.

And I won’t let anyone take it away from me.

Emily’s mum spies something on the mantelpiece, walks towards it.

She picks up a selfie I put up of Adam and me at the Christmas markets – we’re on the Ferris wheel, clearly freezing, but we’re both grinning away madly, our faces right up against each other.

She just stares at it for a long moment, before turning it around to me.

‘And who is this?’ she says, holding it out to me with both hands, as though I didn’t take the photo myself, as though I haven’t stared at it in wonder a hundred times already.

‘That’s Adam,’ I say, steadier now and take the photo from her. ‘The man I’m seeing.’

Emily’s mum looks at me, lost. ‘We’ve just worked too hard for this, Emily.

We had a plan. Think of all the schooling, all that work at university and to get that promotion,’ she implores.

‘I poured my life into your father’s business so that you could have every opportunity I never had, and now you’re throwing it all away for some photography hobby and some man who looks like a nobody to me. ’

The words cut.

How can she say that about someone so kind and wonderful and vibrant? He’s the most alive person I’ve ever known, after Cat. And suddenly, that spark in my stomach turns into a flame.

‘Don’t you dare say that about him.’

‘And why shouldn’t I?’ Emily’s mum says, clearly frustrated too. ‘Why should I let you destroy your life like this?’

‘I’m not destroying it,’ I say steadily.

I look around myself, at the shabby living room, which is popping with colour and life. I look at the picture of Adam in my hands.

‘I’m finally living it,’ I say then, as though a dam from somewhere else has been opened; as though someone else’s words are passing my lips.

‘I’ve spent my whole life trying to live the life that you wanted me to have, I forgot how to live the life that I wanted to have.

But if I don’t go out and give it a proper shot now, then I might as well be dead already. ’

Emily’s mum walks towards me until she’s standing right in front of me.

‘Come back with me now, Emily,’ she pleads.

My heart is beating so very fast, and I don’t know what is happening right now, but it’s like I’m here, and also not, as though I have the thoughts in my mind, but someone else’s too.

This is the life I was always supposed to have, they’re saying.

This is the life I always dreamed of.

‘I won’t leave,’ I find myself saying, ‘I won’t be scared anymore.’

A long silence passes between us, mother and daughter standing in the shadows without speaking.

‘You’re a fool,’ she says finally. ‘A wasteful fool, throwing away everything we’ve ever given you. Don’t come crying to me when none of this works out.’

‘I won’t,’ I say, more forcefully now.

And then as swiftly as Emily’s mum came into the flat, she turns on her smart black heels and heads back into the hallway. At the last second, she turns, and I’m not sure but I think I see the glisten of something in her eye; a slight drop of a barrier she’s had up the whole time.

And in this moment, I finally understand it all. That somehow, despite all of our surface-level differences, Emily and I were the same. Neither of us were living the lives we actually wanted.

But more than that, I wasn’t actually living at all.

Emily’s mum opens the door, stares back at me with eyes full of pain and regret.

‘I love you, Mum,’ I find myself saying, even as those strange sensations start to drift away again, ‘but I have to do this.’

She looks like she’s about to say she loves me too when she stops herself.

‘Goodbye, my Stella,’ she says, ‘my star,’ she adds softly, before walking out.

The door closes behind her, and my whole body stiffens.

My Stella.

And everything I thought I’d just figured out is covered by a tsunami.