The Art of Letting Go (The Uni Files) (34 page)

I really miss it now that it is not there.

The whole time she sits there watching me from behind her glass.

“You have done a lot of growing up, Lilah. But I think you still have some to do." She gives my leg a pat. “And it sounds to me like you and this Ben are a match made in heaven. I think you would be foolish to let it go.”

I stare at her. Did she really just say that?

“I can’t keep him, Mum. I’m not strong enough to deal with it.” I pull the duvet up. “Hell, look at me! He has been gone a week and I am a mess. I will always be paranoid about what he is up to because I think I am not good enough for him.”

“Rubbish, Lilah! You are good enough for anyone you want. You just can’t see it. Now, Dharling, let’s get dressed and go find Daddy.”

I groan and hide my head in the pillow. I can’t face my dad, but Mum just sits there watching me until I get up and go and splash my face with cold water.

Then I put on a brave face and go to see Dad who is sitting downstairs on mum’s floral sofa in the living room. My composure lasts a whole second until I crumple and throw myself into his arms.

“Dad, I am so sorry,” I blub. “I didn’t realise what you did for me. I just thought I was never good enough to make you proud.”

Mum tuts in the background. “Well done, Jack. You have made our daughter have no self-confidence at all.”

A flicker of frustration crosses Dad’s face, and just this once I don’t think the frustration is aimed at me.

“Lilah, I have only ever been proud of you. I just couldn’t let you go.” He shifts from one foot to the other. Dad cannot do emotions or feelings on any level.

“I was wrong to try and make you come back to the bank. I hope you will let me make it up to you.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” I say. Then I have a thought. “Can I stay here for Easter Sunday?”

My question is met by a pair of relieved smiles.

“That would be lovely! What is your brother doing?” Mum says.

“I'm not sure, but, actually, I would like it just to be us, if that’s okay.”

I can’t be around Tristan and Meredith all loved up right now.

“Lilah.” Dad hesitates. “I will try to stop the flat being sold if you want.”

I think about this.

“Actually, Dad, you know what? I think Tristan and I have it sorted.”

I then spend the next half an hour telling them in great detail of the place we are buying. Mum gets all excited and grabs her home-decorating magazines and we spend a lovely evening going over possibilities for the new place.

I never would have thought that I would be spending Easter with my parents. Now that I am here, I can think of nothing better. Well, actually I can, but I push that thought and all other thoughts to do with Ben and babies from my mind.

31st March

What’s better than the Easter Bunny?

Easter Sunday. The day when we celebrate the death of Jesus Christ by gorging ourselves on chocolate. I am not sure what the religious significance of chocolate is, but am pleased that Mum has a stash of the good stuff on hand.

We are having a very naughty breakfast of Bloody Mary’s (and, yes, they are very bloody), with dark chocolate when the doorbell rings. Mum and I stare at each other in shock. We are both sitting in our pyjama’s, with our hair all over the place. Our priority this morning has been chocolate. Dad is dressed, so he goes to answer the door.

“Tristan,” I guess. “He’s probably jealous that he is missing out.”

Bloody child.

Nope. Not Tristan.

“Hello, Mr. McCannon. I am Ben Chambers. Is Lilah here?”

What the fuck?

Mum stares at me with an open mouth for a moment. Then she leans over and whispers, “Yes, Lilah. This one sounds terrible. You must let him escape.”

I get my deep sarcasm from her. I can’t even think of a witty response, as my mind has gone into free fall and my legs are shaking, even though I am sitting down. I can see Ben striding down the hallway towards the kitchen. He appears very commanding and self-assured, but I can’t quite believe that he is here. He still has a week to go in the States . . .

“Lilah! What are you doing here?” The blues search my face intently.

“Spending Easter with my family.”

He raises an eyebrow at my use of the word 'family.' “Where the hell is your phone?”

“Uh, at Uni,” I offer. My brain is still not dealing with this.

“No. It’s not. It’s in my pocket, after I found it abandoned on our bed.”

I perceive now that he is rather cross. Even so, my stomach does a little flip at the word ‘our.’

“What are
you
doing here, Ben?”

“I came to find you. I lost my phone in the States and couldn’t remember anyone’s number to tell you. Basically, I was worried, so I came home.”

“You were worried about me? You came home for me?”

Nope, I don’t get it
.

“Yes, remember? We promised we would speak every day? That was until I left my phone in a cab.”

“I thought you’d forgotten me.”

My voice is small and pathetic even though I don’t want it to be. He is standing in the doorway but in a flash he is across the room and lifting me out of my seat. My parents are watching all of this but I don’t care. I just start to cry.

Oh, god! He really does love me! Loves me enough to fly all the way home because he can’t contact me.

Then I remember that he thinks I might be pregnant.

“Ben,” I sob, “there’s no baby . . .”

Before I can say anything else his lips are on mine. I hear Mum give a little gasp. Yep, Mum. My boyfriend is a hottie and he likes to kiss me
a lot
.

“I know. Meredith told me. Are you okay?”

I shake my head at him unable to answer. I see his eyes are sparkling a little too much. Then my Dad gives one of his interrupting coughs and says quite loudly, “What baby? Would anyone like to tell me what the hell is going on?”

I push away and smile at Ben, and then I turn to face my dad.

“Dad this is Ben Chambers, my boyfriend, and I am completely and utterly in love with him.”

“That’s nice, Delilah. Jack McCannon,” says my Dad, holding out his hand.

Mum steps forward. “Valerie,” she says, holding out her hand.

From the look on her face I think he has already won her over, much like he has me.

Taylor is singing “Breathless.” I would try to switch her off but it's actually quite nice.

3.00 p.m.

I have eaten five chocolate Easter eggs in one sitting. That’s a whole new Lilah McCannon record. We’re sitting in the lounge in front of the fire. Ben is rubbing my feet.

I can’t believe that any of this is happening. Today has been strange to say the least and my poor addled brain can take no more.

“Why are you here?” I ask Ben.

“I told you five times.”

“Tell me once more.”

“Because I love you.”

I can’t get my head around that.

When Ben realised his phone was lost, he spent two days trying to remember any number that he could, which was none. Freaking out that I would be freaking out, he told his band mates that he was happy with how things were going, the studios were awesome, blah, blah, blah, but he felt that he had to do something else. And fair dues to them, they let him leave with little argument.

“So did you leave just because of the baby and wanting to know?”

“No. I left because I could not get in contact with you, and I was worried.”   

“You wanted the baby, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did.” Silence. “Did you?”

“Yeah, I think I may have.”   

“So where does that leave us?”

“I don’t know.”   

“I need to talk to your dad.”   

“I would rather you didn’t.”   

“Why?”

“He might scare you off.”   

I need to talk to my dad as well. After yesterday and today, I know I need to have a grown-up girl chat with my dad. The problem is that I find it really hard to act like a grown up around him.

5.30 p.m.

“Dad?” I poke my head around the door and find my dad staring at his wall-length wine rack. “Do you want me to help you with the wine for dinner?”

“Do you know anything about wine, Lilah?”

“Well, not exactly.”    

I can uncork it and guzzle it, but that is as far as my knowledge goes.

“Would you like me to show you?”

“Yeah, okay.”

6.30 p.m.

I have just endured the most boring lecture on wine ever. I may never drink wine again out of principle.

“Dad? Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes, Lilah.”    

“Why did you want me to work back at the bank over the summer?”

“Oh, Delilah. We don’t need to talk about that.”   

“Actually, Dad, I think we do.”    

Wow, brave Lilah. Go.

“Lilah, all I wanted to do was to give you the option to back out gracefully.”   

“Dad, there was nothing graceful about that.” I try to keep the derision out of my voice.

“I know, Lilah.” He has the good sense to sound contrite. “I just felt that if we encouraged you into a life like ours then we would not lose you.”

“Dad, you nearly lost me anyway because of it.”   

“I see that now. It is not something I am proud of.” He looks a trifle ashamed.

“So why did you get so angry with me?”

Gosh, I am being brave.

“I just missed seeing you every day. I didn’t deal well with your absence, for which I can only apologise,” he explains and reaches an arm towards me, but then changes his mind. “It’s just that we were able to hold on to you for far longer than we did your brother. I guess we just thought you would stay forever.”

“Dad, I never really went anywhere. You were just trying to make me live your dreams without letting me have any of my own.”

“Yes, you’re right. I am sorry, Delilah. It looks like you have met your match with that lively chap, though!”

“Really? What did he say to you earlier?”

Dad looks at me like I am mad. “He told me he was sorry for turning up announced but he finds it very hard to be away from you. So he decided it was worth the risk of upsetting me to be with you.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes, along with other things which it is not my job to repeat.”

“Tell me!”

“Not a chance, young lady,” he says with a smile. “You and Ben are always welcome here. I hope you know that.”

I look at him in shock for a minute. “Thanks, Dad.”

9.00 p.m.

I have eaten far too much. My stomach is so full I cannot breathe! After the emotional upheaval of the day, I have decided an early night is in order. Yep, Ben is still here. Mum’s invited him to stay the rest of the long weekend. It is all a little strange.

My parents are acting like normal, well-adjusted people.

Ben is with me in my childhood bedroom, curled around me on my four-poster. It is the first time I have ever had someone else sleep with me in this room. Whenever John used to stay over, he always occupied the spare room. I never opened up my childhood sanctuary to him.

Standing up and moving from the warm fire in the living room earlier, I found there’d been nothing more natural than to hold out my hand to Ben and lead him off to my room. We stood inside the doorway for the longest time, just kissing and holding each other. I still can’t quite believe that he is here, or that he came home for me. Why did I automatically think the worst when he failed to contact me? I assumed that he had simply forgotten about me or that he was too busy doing something better. Is this because of my lack of faith in myself, or a lack of faith in him? I honestly don’t know. It’s not right. It can’t be, can it? Surely it is not normal to panic and fall apart every time you are separated from someone.

Tomorrow, Meredith and Tristan are going to join us here at Mum and Dad’s. For the first time ever the McCannons are going to have a grown-up day.

The summer term starts in a few short days. When we go back next week, there will only be a few weeks left of the academic year. How did that go so fast? Oh, yes, that’s right, I have been on a complete mental breakdown that has involved stalking, obsessing, crying, being drunk, being sober, being drunk again, and generally acting like I have the mental maturity of a sixteen-year-old.

I like to think there’s still hope for the last remaining term of the year, and that I will be able to act like the grown-up, mature woman I am supposed to be.

April

1st April

Or not.

Instead, I could get completely shit-faced with Meredith over family lunch. So shit-faced that Ben has to pick me up and carry me from the table and lay me on the sofa after I pass out with my head on the dining room table in between courses.

Meredith and I decided to celebrate the fact that Ben was home and that we were all together, acting like some happy, extended-family unit. Well, we were a happy, extended unit until she threw up halfway through the main course, and I passed out before the cheese and biscuits.

I tried to blame Ben for the fact I fell asleep at the table. He had kept me up half the night whispering promises in my ear.

He didn’t accept the blame for my extreme drunkenness, informing me instead that I am an outrageous lush and needed to not drink wine from 11 a.m. in the morning.

“Shonly on Bank’s Sholidays,” I assured him.

2nd April

Back to reality and my role of guitar-selling
supremo
. Reality is helped by the fact Ben comes with me, and spends two hours tuning every guitar in the shop. He really does have an amazing ear. He then plays us some of the band's new stuff, the bits they were working on before Ben legged it back to the UK. It sounds great, and I am left with a little stab of guilt that he has put me before the band.

By the time he’s finished, he has created a bit of a gathering with his impromptu acoustic set. There are at least thirty people crammed into the shop. Big Baz has been a little crafty and opened up the doors despite the lashing rain so that people can hear the music from outside and hopefully come in, which they do.

At the end of the set Ben gets asked a million questions by some enthusiastic but very spotty teenage boys who want to play like him. We sell eight guitars, mainly to harassed mums, and Ben has to give a gaggle of sixteen-year-old girls autographs, which makes me laugh my head off as he blushes furiously and signs the pieces of paper they offer him. As one of the girls turns away, looking like she wants to snog the bit of paper in her hand, I notice that there is a picture printed on there. Upon closer inspection I see it’s a picture of Ben.

“Where did you get this?” I ask, trying not to sound like a crazy jealous girlfriend.

“Off the website.”

Judging by the look she gives me, I have failed. “What website?”

“Well, duh! Sound Box’s website.”

I had no idea that they had a website, nor the fact that Ben has a large following of teenage groupies. Hmm. How did I not know this? Is my head that far up my own arse that I do not know my own boyfriend has a website?
It hasn’t even crossed my mind, otherwise I would have found it during my stalking days.

After the shop has cleared and Big Baz is cashing up, he hands us a fifty-pound note.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“You guys make a great team. Go out for some drinks or something, on me!” He gives a little chuckle at his ‘or something’.

How mature!

Although, saying that, I am a little desperate for some ‘or something!’ Since Ben has been home I have been on the blob, which is mighty inconvenient, though perhaps not quite as inconvenient as the alternative, which is the baby in the tummy scenario.

“You know, Ben, you sound pretty good by yourself,” Big Baz says as we get into our coats.

“Thanks, Baz. I don’t usually bother. Guess I am just used to the band being with me,” Ben replies, as he peers out of the door into the pouring rain.

“Well, you’re welcome to play here anytime, especially if you help me shift stock like that!”

Ben flashes him his rock-star smirk in return. “No worries. Should be easy.”

Cocky git.

“Come on, Lilah.” Ben says. “Ready to run?”

We run a whole thirty paces to the nearest pub where we settle down and drink all of our bonus money.

We drink pints of beer, eat lots of crisps, and then come home for lots of catch-up sex.

I love having a boyfriend. I love having Ben as my boyfriend even more.

3rd April

“Shall we go to the library and find those sources?” I try to ask without giggling. I am turned on my front and Ben is kissing up the back of my bare leg, one sneaky hand creeping up my inner thigh.

“Nah, let’s just stay in bed.”

Okay then.

I wonder if the end-of-term paper is going to have a multiple-choice section entitled, ‘Things that make you giggle in bed.’ I hope so, otherwise I am screwed.

4th April

Work and the Ben Chambers show

I wondered why we had such a crowd until I noticed that Big Baz has snuck up some flyers in the window.

‘Ben Chambers of Sound Box playing here, today at 11.’

What a cheeky shit! But it is good for business, and it has surely got to beat sitting around in a sea of depression like last week, selling only one item the whole day.

Big Baz was so thrilled with his increase in profits he slipped us a hundred this time.

Pub.

Beer.

Crisps.

Sex.

No Library.

5th April

8.00 p.m.

“Are you guys on a honeymoon or something?” Meredith shouts through the door.

“Go away,” I call. We’re snuggled in Ben’s bed at the halls and Meredith’s voice is that last thing I want to hear.

“No, come out with us,” Meredith persists. “Beth’s here, too.”

“Where?” I call back.

“Fez! Come on! You know you want to.”

Ben and I look at each other, scrunching our faces up. It’s clear neither of us ‘wants to,’ but we are both too soft to say ‘No’.

“Okay. Give us fifteen minutes,” I shout back.

“No! Say, ‘Half an hour,’” Ben whispers.

“Why?” I whisper back.

“I have something I want to show you,” he explains, chuckling against my ear as he rolls me on top of him.

“Half an hour, guys!” I shout through the door.

“That’s disgusting,” Meredith and Beth mutter in unison.

8:45 p.m.

No need for makeup. I am flushed to the max.

“Can you wear those high heels?” asks Ben, coming up behind me and buttoning his shirt.

Sexy.

“Why?” I ask, but he just wiggles his eyebrows at me.

“Oh, my God! You are insatiable,” I screech with giggles as he attempts to pull me back over onto the rumpled bed sheets.

Midnight.

We walk home, hands swinging between us. Ben is on the side of the traffic, of course. It’s raining but we don’t care. We're happy together, just casually walking along. His dark hair is flattened by the water, which drips onto his shoulders. A raindrop slides down his nose. He turns and catches me looking, gives me a wink and a squeeze of my hand.

I do not want this to end.

6
th
April

4.00 p.m.

The band is back, and Ben has gone to see them. I am at work, drinking Budweiser.

10.30 p.m.

A text from Ben:

It’s a late one. I’m going to stay at Dave’s. See you in the morning. Sorry. XX

Ugh! It’s not that late. It is half past ten. What does he mean ‘late one?’

It’s 79 days until he leaves for good. Not that I am counting.

7th April

6.00 a.m.

“
Why are you in your room and not mine?” he asks, his arms winding around me.

“Why are you here? It’s not dawn yet.”

“I missed you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he murmurs against my ear. “Now, Lilah, we really need to talk about your sleeping apparel . . .”

I giggle as he slides his tracksuit pants down my legs and lifts his holey T-shirt up over my head.

10.00 a.m.

We are back in his room, which it seems has now become ‘our’ room.

“So what happened with the band?”

“Oh, we had an argument, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

I push up onto my elbows. “What about?” I ask.

“Lilah, it is nothing to worry about. Just forget it.”

“The fact you say it is nothing to worry about makes me think that it is.”

He nibbles my ear, which I know he thinks will distract me.

Not a chance.

“They questioned my commitment, so I got angry. It was nothing and not the first time it has happened.”

“Because you left the States and came home?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Delilah. I did what I needed to do, and that is all there is to it.”

“Yeah, but your friends are freaking out that you might be about to fuck this up for them.”

He has not exactly told me this, but I know that’s what’s going on.

“Lilah, I have given them ten years. I think they can allow me to have one minor blip, even if it is when we are abroad.”

“Liam told me that you threatened to leave once before.”

He is silent for a moment. “Yes, but I didn’t leave. I decided to stay.”

“Because of me?”

He doesn’t say anything, just gives a slight incline of his head in acknowledgement.

“And now they think you are going to leave because of me?”

“Yes.”

“I am not going to let you.”

“I know. Now shut up. I missed you last night and need to make up for it.”

“What? Again?”

Cue ridiculous giggling.