Happy Endings (11 page)

Jack looked at me with those gorgeous eyes of his and then smiled. The wedding was six months away and so far we hadn’t done anything except save the date and book the church. We still had everything else to do and on top of the film, it was starting to feel like it would never get done. So, in our hour of need, and desperate, I had called my mother.

‘I really am sorry about being such an idiot about the film,’ he said, sitting down on the bed next to me, grabbing my heart and yanking it around the room. I kept thinking about the kiss and whether I should tell him. It didn’t mean anything and it wasn’t going to happen again, but I hated lying to him.

‘It’s all right, honestly.’

‘No, no it’s not. I was stupid and your basic twat of a bloke. I want us to be happy, honest and proud of each other regardless of what we’re doing. I want us to tell each other everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. I want to be the one to support you and help you and the fact I wasn’t makes me feel like an idiot. I love you and I’m so proud of you . . .’

‘Rhys kissed me,’ I said suddenly. Jack let go of my hand and stood up. ‘He kissed me at the club and it didn’t mean anything. It was a silly, stupid kiss, we were drunk and . . .’

‘Did you kiss him back?’

‘For a second, maybe, but then I stopped it and I’m so sorry, Jack. I wanted to tell you right away, I did, but . . .’

‘But you didn’t, did you?’

He was looking at me, his face bristling with contempt and anger. It was a face I’d never seen before and it scared me. I’d betrayed him, betrayed us. I was terrified I was going to lose him over nothing. I suddenly wished I hadn’t told him because then he wouldn’t have that face. That look of hatred.

‘Because it meant nothing. Was nothing. Just a stupid mistake that won’t ever happen again. I love you, Jack, and no one else. I just want to be with you.’

‘Then don’t do the film.’

‘What?’

‘If you love me so much, don’t do the film with him.’

‘But it’s my dream, Jack. The moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life.’

‘And if you love me, you won’t do it,’ he said again, grabbing his coat and heading towards the door. ‘I’d do anything for you, Em, anything.’

And then he was gone.

As soon as the front door closed, I burst into tears. I had been such a fool. Why did I have to tell him? The answer was simple: because I loved him and not telling him would have eaten away at me until eventually I would have broken down and told him anyway. It was better done now than in two months or, worse, after the wedding. It hurt though. How could he ask me to give up the film? He knew what it meant to me and how hard I had worked to get it. He was probably just overreacting. He didn’t mean it.

I got up, dried my eyes, splashed some water over my face and walked into the kitchen. I sat down with a glass of wine and waited for Mum to show up.

‘Why isn’t Jack here?’ said Mum. ‘He should be here. He is the groom, after all.’

‘He had to go and meet Ed.’

‘Now, there’s a funny business. What sort of man lets his girlfriend waltz off across the globe by herself? Still, Jack should be here, darling.’

I loved Mum dearly, but she could be shallow, petty and more judgemental than anyone I knew. She’d never really warmed to Jack. I think because he worked in a coffee shop instead of doing something proper, she thought him a failure. I think she only let me pursue my acting dream because she’d hoped I would meet a tall, dark and very rich man who’d take care of me. She wanted Mr Darcy and instead she got Jack and he wasn’t good enough for her little girl.

‘Well he isn’t. Shall we get on?’

‘I suppose,’ said Mum and she started going on about the reception and a friend of hers with a huge mansion in Oxfordshire, but all I was thinking about was Jack.

From the moment I met Jack, I had no doubt he was my soulmate, my one true love. I don’t think I even believed in soulmates before him, but as soon as we met that was it – the search was over. We never just dated; it was always so much more than that. We were always so sure about each other, so intent nothing would ever come between us. Now that it had, I didn’t know what to do. I was lost.

‘What do you think, darling?’ said Mum suddenly.

‘About what?’

‘You weren’t even listening were you? About the Oxford house for the reception and Uncle Peter’s Rolls for the car.’

‘Yeah, sounds fantastic,’ I said, but my head or heart wasn’t really in it.

‘Don’t say yeah, darling, say yes. It sounds so common and your father and I raised you better than that,’ said Mum, her usual snobbish self, but I didn’t have the heart or the patience for a fight.

‘Sorry,’ I said and we moved swiftly on to the flowers.

To: Kate Jones

From: Emma Fogle

Subject: Re: I made it!

K,

Oh my God! Rhys Connelly kissed me!

Let me start at the beginning. We met up at a café to go over our lines. This in itself was crazy enough. I was sitting with Rhys Connelly having lunch for Christ’s sake! He’s actually a really sweet and funny man. Yes he’s gorgeous and sexy, but after a while I almost forgot who he was and we were just having a good time. I was actually more excited about going over the script together. I felt like a proper actress. It felt so good, Kate.

Anyway, after we finished, he invited me out for drinks in Soho with some friends of his. I felt bad for Jack, stuck at home waiting for me, but this was the chance of a lifetime. The club was A-mazing. Seriously. You’d have loved it. I wish you could have been there too. I met his friends but they had to leave early and so it was just me and Rhys. We were dancing when he just leaned in and kissed me. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, since I started dating Jack, no one else had tried to kiss me. Especially not an A-list movie star! This was probably why I didn’t stop him right away. I was in shock. It didn’t last long and we had a giggle about it afterwards. He even apologised and I could see he felt bad. I did feel guilty about it, of course, but it was nothing. We’d had a few drinks and it lasted seconds.

But then I told Ed and he flipped out. I suppose because in my head it really was just a bit silly, I thought he would see it in the same way. He didn’t. He went ballistic and told me not to do the film! What am I going to do, Kate? I love Jack so much, but this is the role I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I wish you were here. I know that’s supposed to be the other way around, you’re supposed to be the one saying, I wish you were here, but I need you.

I’ve also been trying to organise the wedding with Mother, which is, as you can imagine, a total nightmare. She’s taking over and trying to do everything her way. The trouble is I have so little energy and fight that she’s probably going to get her way and we’ll end up having the wedding of her dreams!

I hope all is well in paradise! I can’t wait to hear from you again soon. Don’t forget the photos! I want to see what Jez looks like and how tanned you are!

Love Em X

Kate

‘Ready?’ said Jez with a huge smile on his face.

We were heading off to the full moon party. We’d been drinking steadily all evening and were both a bit tipsy. It was only nine o’clock and I couldn’t imagine staying up all night but I was going to try.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

We arrived at a huge party, dance music blaring out from all corners, drowning us in its earth-rumbling bass.

‘This is mental!’ I shouted. We were surrounded by tens of thousands of other revellers, all here looking for that elusive traveller experience. We’d done the full moon party. It would be something to look back on. Something to tell the grandkids when they were convinced we didn’t understand them. A proper backpacker experience that for some reason made me think back to the day I almost died.

I was fifteen and it was typical teenage folly. I was loitering around after school with a couple of friends, delaying going home where I’d be forced to do my homework before dinner. We’d recently discovered the joys of smoking, although it wasn’t really that joyous, just three girls coughing and spluttering and trying to look cool behind the Co-op. I was about to leave and head off home. I said goodbye to my friends and then stepped out into the road without looking and was hit by a car. Luckily the car wasn’t going very fast, but I still ended up in hospital, surrounded by my family with doctors telling them I was a very lucky girl indeed. I had broken ribs, a broken arm, a whole smorgasbord of brown and sickly looking bruises and internal bleeding. It could, they stressed so many times before I eventually left, have been much worse.

After my near-death experience, Mum fussed over me so much. She seemed terrified I was going to drop down dead at any moment, which obviously caused me a great deal of annoyance, being a teenager in the throes of puberty. Maybe I didn’t fully realise it then, but I changed after my brush with death. I started making plans and thinking about my future. I stopped messing around at school and I knuckled down, because I realised life was short and I wanted to do so much.

I can still remember the exact moment the car hit me with incredible clarity. And the shock of suddenly finding myself on the ground, trapped under a car, while panic surrounded me. I wasn’t that conscious because I’d hit my head on the ground, but there was a split second when I was totally lucid and in that moment, the life I wanted to have seemed to flash through my mind.

Since then I’d always been on the run. Running from one thing to another, terrified that if I stopped, my near-death experience would have been for nothing. I guess in some ways Ed and I were both running, but his version of running meant staying still, not changing, out of fear of the unknown, while my version meant running off around the world, chasing a dream I’d had since I was fifteen.

By two in the morning Jez and I were both far too tired to keep going. We’d stopped drinking already and the prospect of staying up for another four or five hours seemed beyond us.

‘Flagging?’ said Jez.

‘Just a bit. Shall we make a move?’

Make a move? I sounded like my mother.

‘I’m never going to last until sunrise and we have a travel day tomorrow.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said and offered him my hand, which he took, and we headed off along the beach. ‘I can’t believe this is it.’

‘What?’

‘This. Us. Our last night here and then we go our separate ways.’

‘We don’t have to,’ said Jez, looking across at me.

‘What do you mean? You have to leave Thailand and I’m heading up to Chiang Mai.’

‘I could cross the border and come back for another thirty days . . .’

‘And why would you want to do that?’ I said with a naïve little giggle, stopping and turning to look at Jez. I felt fifteen again.

‘Because I like you, Kate.’

‘I like you too.’

‘No, I
like
you,’ he said before he left a pause and then said it again. ‘Like you.’

‘Oh.’ That was the last thing either of us said.

Thousands of miles from home, under the moonlight, Jez and I kissed passionately for what seemed like forever. It had been so long since I’d kissed anyone except Ed, and it felt strange at first, but then suddenly it didn’t. Suddenly it felt like the most natural thing in the world. We stumbled back to our bungalow and to the bed that had seemed like a bad idea at the time.

We lay there and it seemed only a matter of time before our kissing led to something else, but I didn’t know if I could. A part of me wanted to. I sort of ached for it and I knew with Jez it wouldn’t be awkward or strange and it would mean something. But I couldn’t do it. I’d hurt Ed enough already just leaving. I couldn’t do this to him as well. I liked Jez a lot. More than a lot, actually, but whether I had sex with him or not wasn’t going to change that. I was afraid, though, that it might change things with Ed forever and I wasn’t ready to do that. I wasn’t ready to just give up because I was so far from home. ‘I’m sorry, Jez, but could we just cuddle?’ I said.

‘It’s him, isn’t it? The boyfriend who hates to travel.’

I nodded.

‘I’m sorry, Jez, but I love him and I don’t want to do anything to risk what we have.’

‘Even though he wouldn’t come travelling, obviously loves work more than you and even though we kissed?’

‘Even so.’

‘He must be special.’

‘He is, Jez, and so are you.’

‘Really?’ he said, looking across at me, the moonlight catching the side of his face.

‘Yes really. You’re wonderful, funny and sexy and if it wasn’t for Ed . . .’

‘You’d spend the rest of the year travelling with me, we’d fall in love and live happily ever after?’

‘Maybe.’

A part of me wanted that. I could see it all in an instant. I could see the next six months and probably longer travelling the world, experiencing life and living the dream. I’d always thought about backpacking and in my head there was always a man. Tall, dark and handsome, just like Jez, and we’d fall in love on a tropical island like Koh Phangan. When I was fifteen it was all an incredible dream, but now I was actually living it and in that moment with Jez, lying in that bed, I think I could have gone with it. It was a close call. Instead we lay listening to two cats screaming outside and to the sound of the overhead fan slowly cooling our bodies.