Paper Hearts

THEN:Chapter 8

“I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for" - Maeve Binchy

Eden:

I walked.

I switched off my phone, hugged the borrowed checked shirt to my chest– I had come to discover that it wasn’t mine after all – and walked as though I had somewhere to be. I wasn’t thinking clearly, at that point – some inner voice was telling me that walking would help me, clear my head. I found my iPod in the pocket of my shorts and blasted music until my head ached and the battery died. When I did finally switch on my phone to check the time, it was almost 4pm – nearly six hours after I had stormed out of the flat that morning. I had 14 missed calls – one from my Mum, the rest from Ollie. I couldn’t help experiencing a savage, vindictive rush of pleasure at the idea that I might have worried him, even frightened him a little bit. He deserved it.

I decided not to go back yet. I called my Mum back and pretended I was fine, though I could hardly mask the fact that I’d been crying for the past six hours – my voice was thick and nasal, and Mum asked if I was okay at least seven times before I managed to get rid of her.

Then I wandered up to the Chinese takeaway we’d had a few nights ago, and sat on a stool by the window eating pork rice and dumplings until I couldn’t think of any more reasons to stay out of Ollie’s way. That, combined with the fact that a group of drunken men had arrived in to make crude remarks, led to me ringing the bell to Ollie’s flat and experiencing that rush of delight again when he opened the door, looking pale and panicked.

“You scared me” he said, and I could see in his eyes that he meant it. I shrugged.

“Good. You deserve worse”

He looked pained, “Ede...I thought you’d done something stupid”

“Over you?” I laughed, then gave him a tiny little smile, the merest hint of forgiveness held in it, “Someone has a high opinion of himself”

He smiled too, reluctantly, and pulled back the door to let me in, “Did you know you’d stolen my shirt?”

“Not until I reached the cinema”

“You walked as far as the cinema?!”

“I just walked. I didn’t think too much about where I was going” I turned back to where he was standing, “I thought about it, you know. Doing something stupid. But then I remembered that I told you I wasn’t giving up on us. And throwing myself into a reservoir sure seemed like giving up to me. Besides being a highly unglamorous way to die”

“You could always throw yourself in front of a train” Ollie offered up, with a small smile, holding up ‘Anna Karenina’, “I finally finished it while you were out. Thought it might distract me – like you’ve been distracting me for the last three months I’ve been trying to read it! But the thought that you might decide to end yourself like Anna didn’t do much to calm me down”

“I should say sorry, but I’m not going to”

“I wasn’t expecting you to. I’m the one who should be sorry. And I am. Though that crack about me only being in it for the sex was below the belt”

“I know. I didn’t mean that” I looked at him warily; I still had my arms wrapped around myself, “I meant it. That I love you. That I’m going to stick around and be your girlfriend whether you’re in Afghanistan or here in London with me. Even if that isn’t what you want”

“Ede, of course that’s what I want!”  he moved swiftly to me, then stopped a few paces away, obviously unsure of how I would react, “I want you to be my girlfriend for as long as you want to be. I was just trying to do the right thing”