The Life We Almost Had. Amelia Henley

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СКАЧАТЬ stare so intently at the words I have written that they jump around on the page. I’m at a loss to know how to carry on, when I remember one of the first things Adam had said to me: ‘Start at the beginning, Anna.’

      And so I do.

      Speedily, the nib of my pen scratches over the paper. I let it all pour out.

      This is not a typical love story, but it’s our love story.

      Mine and Adam’s.

      And despite that day, despite everything, I’m not yet ready for it to end.

      Is he?

Part One

      ‘This will be the adventure of a lifetime.’

      NELL STEVENS – ANNA’S BEST FRIEND

Chapter One

      Anna

      Seven years before

      The date I met Adam is forever etched onto my mind; it should have been my wedding day. I tucked my hair behind my ears; rather than being strewn with confetti, it was greasy and limp. Unwashed and unloved.

      The plane taxied down the runway before it rose sharply into the sky, a frothy white tail in its wake. Out of the window was nothing but cloud, as thick and woolly as my thoughts. Each time I remembered the way I’d been dumped, virtually at the altar, my face burned with the shame of it.

       Goodbye.

      I wasn’t sure if I was saying farewell to England or to the man who had broken my heart.

      Fingers threaded through mine and squeezed. Tears threatened to fall as I gazed down at my ringless hand. Ridiculously, one of the things that had excited me most about my honeymoon had been the anticipation of the sun tanning my skin around the plain gold band I’d chosen. Knowing that even if I removed my jewellery to go into the sea, the thin, pale strip of skin circling the second finger of my left hand would act as a clear indicator that I was married.

      That I was loved.

      ‘Stop thinking about him.’ Nell clicked open her seatbelt as the safety light went out, and signalled to the cabin crew for a drink. I smoothed out the creases in my floaty linen dress and it struck me I was wearing white. Miserably I fiddled with the neckline, not embroidered with tiny pearls that shimmered from cream to lilac to pink under the lights, like the dress I had picked out. It was hard not to cry again remembering the perfectness of that day. Mum covering her mouth with both hands when I glided out of the changing rooms and twirled in front of the many mirrors. Everywhere I looked I had beamed back at myself.

      ‘That’s the one,’ Mum had whispered like we were in a church, not a bridal shop, but I didn’t need her to tell me that. I knew it was the one.

      It was such a shame he wasn’t the one.

      ‘It won’t always hurt this much,’ Nell said; not that she’d know. She was usually the one breaking hearts, hers was still intact. ‘You’ve had a lucky escape. He wasn’t good enough for you. Besides, twenty-four is too young to be married. This isn’t the 1950s.’

      ‘If it were the 1950s, I’d have been married years ago and popped out a couple of kids by now.’ My throat swelled at the thought. I might have been young but I couldn’t wait to be a mother. Would I ever have children? I’d thought my future was mapped out, but now all I had was doubts and fears and a mountain of wedding gifts to return.

      ‘I can’t see you slicking on lipstick and tying a ribbon in your hair five minutes before your husband gets home. And that’s after a day cleaning windows with vinegar and beating carpets.’

      ‘I know who I’d like to beat,’ I muttered darkly.

      ‘I’ll drink to that.’ She flashed a smile. ‘And from now on, the only vinegar will be on the chips he told you that you shouldn’t eat.’

      ‘He was worried about my health.’

      ‘Bollocks was he. He was worried you’d realize you’re a normal-sized, goddess of a woman and leave him for somebody who didn’t keep calling you chubby. Anyway, let’s not give him a second thought. I’m ready to get this party started—’

      ‘Nell—’

      ‘I know, I know.’ She caught sight of my expression. ‘This isn’t what you wanted. I’m not the one who should be here and you’ve no chance of joining the mile-high club now—’

      ‘Nell—’

      ‘But. You can either spend the next ten days crying by the pool or try and make the best of it. I know you loved him, Anna—’

      ‘Nell Stevens.’ Her concerned eyes met mine and I knew she was worried she’d pushed it too far. ‘I just want to say… thank you. Not just for persuading me to come but… for all of it.’ Nell had dropped everything when I had called her at work, sobbing uncontrollably two weeks before my big day. She had kept me stocked up on vodka and ice cream while she phoned around the guests, explaining it was me who had had a change of heart. It was Nell who had talked me out of confronting Sonia Skelton when the rumours about her and my fiancé surfaced, and her who confiscated my phone at night so I couldn’t drunk-text the cheating scumbag at 3 a.m. She allowed me to retain some dignity, on the outside at least. Humiliation still stung each time I thought of him, and I thought of him often, but oddly my feelings around him were tangled in a mass of embarrassment and regret, underpinned with a slow, simmering anger. I’d wasted three years of my life. Honestly, I wasn’t sure it was him I actually missed or the idea of him. If you have to ask yourself ‘is it love’, it probably isn’t, is it?

      Our foreheads touched and again her fingers entwined with mine. There was no need for words until our drinks were delivered. Nell dived on the miniature bottles with a ‘woo hoo’.

      ‘You’ve a lot to be grateful for.’ She unscrewed the gin and fizzed tonic into my glass.

      ‘Alcohol?’

      ‘That goes without saying. But the travel agent didn’t have to let you change the name on the ticket. Now you’ve got someone to rub sun cream on your back without expecting to get laid, and someone to hold your hair back when too much Sex on the Beach makes you sick.’

      ‘I’m not going to have sex on the beach or anywhere else… Oh.’ I realized she was talking about the cocktail.

      ‘You never know. We might meet two nice boys.’

      ‘No boys.’ I swigged my drink, bubbles tickling my nose. ‘No boys ever again.’

      I raised my glass, arm hovering in the air until she raised hers.

      ‘This will be the adventure of a lifetime,’ she said and we chinked. She turned out to be right.

      But rather than flying away from something, I was flying towards something.

      Towards СКАЧАТЬ