Page 42 of The Rest is History

Charlie

A finger jabs me between my shoulder blades as I stand in the staff queue at the cafeteria. I turn around.

It’s Zara, and she’s spitting fire.

‘You cowardly fuck,’ she hisses.

‘Leave it, Zara.’ I fix her with an icy glare that I hope adequately communicates my message: I am not in the fucking mood.

‘Don’t worry. I’m not asking for your side of the story. Nor am I interested in trying to reason with you. I just wanted to make it very clear that I am one hundred percent Team Elodie in this situation, and you’d better stay the fuck away from her, and from me, for the rest of term.’

‘You’d better remember I’m your boss,’ I warn her. ‘This is a place of work for us. Obviously, I blurred the lines by getting involved with Elodie,’—fuck, saying her name hurts—‘but that’s between me and her. You can support your friend without affecting our professional relationship.’

Her gaze flicks over me like I’m a pile of dog shit on the pavement.

‘Whatever, boss . Just note that I want nothing to do with you outside of anything relating to the History Department. Okay?’

‘Fine by me,’ I mutter and push my tray towards the chef so I can get the fuck out of here.

Today is torture on so many levels.

The excruciating memory of how much I hurt Elodie yesterday. The woman I love, staring up at me with disbelief and derision in her beautiful eyes.

The knowledge that she’s here, and that I can’t go to her. How much better it will be for her if I steer clear.

The unconscionable fucking abyss that is my future, now that I’ve walked away so decisively.

No more Elodie.

No more touching her.

No more running my lips over her body.

No more pulsing deep inside her as I gaze at her in awe.

No more waking up to her warmth. Her smile.

No more revelling in the singular paradise that is her affection. (Her love, even. I suspect, anyway.)

I know there’s no other path forward, but the pain of loss steals my breath from my lungs. I’m have no idea if there’ll come a point where I can look back on our brief time together with happiness, or whether it’ll always be marred by the hurt I’ve caused her and the agony I’ve brought upon myself.

I suspect it would have been better all round if I’d done the work to keep that fucking Jenga tower standing. To forbid myself from ever getting to know her. From letting her past my defences.

Towards the end of lunch break, during which I catch a glimpse of her down-turned head and a flash of her yellow dress in the staff garden from an upstairs window, I bite the bullet and go seek Phil out in his office.

‘Shittiest timing ever’—I rub my hand across my bloodshot eyes—‘but scratch what I told you the other week about Elodie and me. I’m afraid we’re no longer an item.’

He gapes at me. ‘You are fucking with me. What the hell happened?’

I sag, and he gestures to me to sit.

‘Jesus Christ, mate,’ he says. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Thanks. Haven’t slept.’

He taps his pen on his desk. ‘So. What happened?’

I purse my lips. ‘Had to let her go. It was delusional, thinking I could make a go of it beyond the initial… you know.’

‘Fuck-fest?’

I wince. ‘I was going to say infatuation, but yes.’

‘Because…’ he prompts.

I spread my hands wide. ‘Because she deserves the world, doesn’t she, and she wants babies—she made that very clear at Jack’s this weekend—and you know I’m not the man for that job.’ I slump back in my chair and rake my hand through my hair so hard I practically rip a few clumps out.

He watches me. ‘And she told you all that?’

‘No. I discerned it.’

He blows out a breath. ‘Wow. So you finished it because you think she won’t want you because you’re infertile, and she has no clue what’s just happened?’

‘It’s not about her not wanting me. It’s about not wanting her to have to make that decision.

I think she was getting in deep—we both were—and I don’t want her to have to choose.

Don’t want her staying with me because she thinks she loves me or owes me.

She’s such a sweet person; I know she’d consider choosing me.

This way she has no choice.’ I straighten my shoulders.

‘She’s going to have to get over me, and it means she can find someone who can actually come up with the goods. ’

He flinches. ‘Mate. That’s a seriously twisted way of looking at the situation. Maybe she’d like you to treat her like an adult and actually provide her with all the information before she makes a decision about your relationship.’

I shake my head. ‘Nope. Not going to happen. What if she chooses me and then hates me in twenty years, when it’s too late? I promise you, she’ll thank me in a few years when she’s sitting there with some other guy and his kid.’

That specific visual causes such a wave of nausea to roll through my stomach that I practically puke in Phil’s shiny, crested wastepaper basket.

‘Er, she won’t thank you. She’ll still think you’re the twat who led her on and dumped her for no reason.’

‘But she’ll be glad to have got rid of me.’

He shifts in his seat. ‘This all feels extremely unhealthy to me. Do you want to speak to one of the counsellors?’

‘No, thank you. I did all that when Adeline left. Therapy doesn’t change the facts.

’ It’s time to take charge of this situation.

‘I didn’t come here for sympathy, though I appreciate your concern.

I came to ask if there’s a spare office I can use for the rest of the term.

Clearly, I need to make myself scarce from the History office.

Zara laid into me just now in the cafeteria queue—not that I blame her.

But the least I can do is stay away from El. I don’t want to rub her nose in it.’

More like, I don’t want to rub my nose in it. Because I can’t be there with her, staring at the wall and knowing she’s behind me. It would be like the old days, but a million times worse.

He nods. ‘Sure. I can probably find you something—give me twenty-four hours. You know, the deputy head has a nice office. Dual aspect. That’s all I’m saying.’

I groan. ‘Now’s not the time, Phil.’

‘Okay, okay. But tuck it away. At least you’ve only got a month till the end of term. Then she’ll be gone.’

I stare up at him. ‘What?’

He looks at me as if I’m thick. ‘Amanda’ll be back from mat leave in September. I’ll have no role for Elodie. Unless…’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless you want to take up the deputy headship. Then she can take your place. Didn’t you say she’d much rather teach the sixteenth century in any case?’

I stare at him.

That’s it. I think about the lengths she’s going to to support her sister and niece, both emotionally and financially.

She may hate me, but perhaps the one way I can help her is by alleviating those burdens—and taking the deputy head role could be one part of that. Another idea springs to mind, too.

I’m lying on the sofa on my terrace, glass of gin in hand—no tonic required tonight—and two overly warm dogs sprawled on top of me.

I was in luck. I picked Luke and Leia up from Carol, Jack’s housekeeper, after school, managing to avoid him and Emmy.

I’m going to put that conversation off for as long as I can.

Clearly, though, I’ve tempted the gods, because my phone rings seconds later, signalling the front gate buzzer. I sigh and press the button.

‘Let us in, fucker,’ my brother growls.

Fucking excellent. I press the remote entry button on my app and swing my feet down. The dogs protest until they hear the drag of gates on the gravel, and they’re off.

I don’t go to greet him and whichever members of Jack Fisher’s Circus he’s brought with him. They’ve turned up uninvited; they can bloody well find their way around the back.

I’m staring into the abyss at the bottom of my glass of gin when my brother rounds the side of the house.

‘Oi!’

I look up as he marches towards me. The dogs can sense that the shit is about to hit the fan and are tearing around him in excited circles.

‘You are an idiotic fucking dickhead, you know that?’

Emmy’s behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides. I ignore Jack and his insults and slapped-arse face and dutifully stand to greet my sister-in-law.

‘I’m so sorry, Charlie,’ she whispers, pulling me in for a sincere hug.

‘Thanks.’ I pat her on her shoulder.

‘Sit,’ Jack orders. He’s in full-on big-brother mode and it’s already fucking irritating. At least he’s brought scotch. He slams a very nice bottle on the coffee table and points at me to stay where I am before striding into the kitchen, presumably for glasses.

Emmy sits beside me and puts her arm around me.

‘You okay?’

‘Very far from okay,’ I tell her, and her face falls.

Excellent. Another woman I’ve let down. I know she was over the moon about me and Elodie—I had a flurry of texts from her last night to that effect. But, unlike my brother, she won’t throw it in my face. She’s far too sweet for that.

Jack returns with glasses and a bottle of Pellegrino. He pours some of the latter for his wife and hands it to her before unscrewing the scotch and pouring us both a few fingers. He pushes one glass my way.

‘Em’s driving so I can knock some sense into your thick skull,’ he says conversationally. ‘I hear you’ve managed to sabotage the best thing that’s ever happened to you in record time.’

‘News travels fast.’

‘Yeah, well Em saw Elodie at pickup and she got it out of her.’

I glance up at Emmy, who’s looking uncomfortable. ‘You saw her? How was she?’

‘How the fuck do you think she was?’ Jack sneers. ‘You introduce her to your entire fucking family, and then you dump her the following day without even a proper explanation?’

‘I was asking your wife, dipshit.’ I turn back to Emmy and wait.