Chapter Forty-Three

"So tomorrow we are going to Sigiriya," Benjamin said. "We'll be away for two days, so pack accordingly. We are going to visit tea plantations, a Buddist temple, local Switzerland, and of course, The Rock."

Everyone cheered. My feet were itching to see the island, to explore. My eyes met Alice's and she smiled at me.

"Today we need to discuss the details of the app, things that we want to save, what to change, and where we are going. How we see the future additions, marketing plans, features we need to work more on, and what parts we can let go of," he said. "I booked a separate office room for us in the local coworking space, so please be ready to leave in two hours."

We finished our breakfast, the terrace framed in white curtains had been ours every day, the only place to seat an extensive group. I stood up and walked back to my bungalow under the morning sun that was already slowly baking my skin.

My phone vibrated when we were having breakfast, so I had to turn down Arthur's call, texting him that I'd call in twenty. Then as I sat on my bed, my call went unanswered. A few moments later a text came that he was in another meeting already.

We kept missing each other, and I longed to hear his remarks. His texts were shorter than usual, the jokes gone.

I went to the shower. It seemed I needed to let it go and accept that I would always have sand in my hair and stuck to my skin. But the constant humidity, I was not used to it. I wanted to wash it away every minute I was outside.

I stepped out of the shower, the calming chill on my wet skin from the blasting air conditioner was a relief. I walked back to my suitcase to find something to wear to the meeting, when a light knock on my door stopped me in my tracks. I was naked. So I rushed back to the bathroom and wrapped a white towel around me.

"A minute!" I said loudly.

I opened the door prepared to see room service, but familiar stormy eyes widened when she saw me in a towel. I was sure Alice didn't mean to look at me that way, but her gaze followed my body down and up, stopping for a second at the base of my throat.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt …" she said and lifted her hands with two plastic cups. "I went to the shop outside the hotel, they sell freshly squeezed juice there. They are great to battle the heat, but I see you are battling it with a shower."

She smiled.

"Come in," I said.

Alice walked in, and I touched her lower back to guide her inside. It was such a fleeting contact, I didn't even think about it, my hand going there on its own.

"Oh, sorry," I murmured, hiding my hand behind my back.

Alice stopped, and turned to me, tilting her head. "It's okay."

It was not. Not now.

"God, it's freezing here," she said, sucking her breath in and looking at the blasting air conditioner. "I'll wait outside."

I nodded, and rushed to my suitcase, grabbing my underwear and a light flowy dress. I closed the door inside the bathroom and pressed my back to it. My heart was hammering in my chest. I was embarrassed with myself. Why on earth would I touch her? Why didn't she dismiss it but look at me as though she wanted to say something, those eyes scanning me. I was aware that I wore nothing but a towel at that moment.

I put a dress on and turned to the mirror, fixing my hair with trembling hands.

"Is it okay that I"m here?" Alice asked when I joined her outside.

"I don't know," I said honestly.

She looked away, a shadow of sadness crossing her features.

"I should probably go," she said and started to stand up.

And again my hands were out of sync with my mind, because I watched my fingers gently clasping around her wrist. There was a delay between what I was seeing and reacting to it.

I looked at my hand as if it were something foreign, and then I released her, dropping my hands to my lap.

"Stay," I whispered.

Alice sat back, her eyes on me. And suddenly it was all too much. I sprang up and walked to the other side of the pool terrace. I put my hand to the cold damp stone of the wall and closed my eyes. The memories were rushing back, the moments I had blocked. My fingers were curling into a fist when I remembered how we sang inside the yellow car, how a crooked snowman grinned at us, the smell of hot cocoa, my back to the wall outside the club, her face inches from mine, our first kiss, her hot body pressing into mine, skin on skin. The rush of emotions, the longing, the fucking love that broke my heart.

And there, on the other side of the planet, my body kept reacting to her, as though there were not seven years between those moments and the present, as though it started to remember, as though it dismissed the pain, the loss.

I whimpered.

Warm arms wrapped around me, pressing me close. The long-forgotten smell of vanilla on Alice's skin rushed back, her hair tickling my nose as I buried my face in her neck. I hated how my body remembered her, how it fit, how my arms circled around her waist.

I was breathing hard.

"It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

She brushed the skin at the top of my spine as I tried to breathe. We didn't move as we stood.

"I'm so sorry," Alice said quietly.

I stepped back and went to the lounger, where Alice had sat before, two cups at the foot of it. I took a swig, and as the sweet taste exploded in my mouth, I exhaled. Then I looked at the cup in my hand, and the second on the floor. They always brought me something, Alice and Jake, coffee, cocoa, chocolate.

Alice sat on the lounger and folded her legs in a lotus position, taking the other cup.

"It's good," I said and shook the cup in my hand a little.

She smiled and my breakdown slowly melted away.

* * *

My team packed into the bus and Nirved drove us to a coworking space in the neighboring village. The building looked more like a spa than an office. The outside Zen Garden, and small open space inside, various hammocks on the trees, it was far from the usual office we all were used to. There were three meeting rooms inside, instead of a window in each, there was a simple glass wall that looked into the lush greenery outside. The furniture looked new, the office chairs comfy.

All of us sat around a table and I looked up at the air conditioner. It was blasting cold air and I scooted closer to it. One of my colleagues plugged in a laptop, and the screen was projected onto the wall. It was a presentation we had all worked on, our vision for next steps, and current problems.

I stood up and looked around the room, all eyes turning to me. We discussed it over and over before coming here, before talking to Benjamin. He was looking at the screen with the first points. Alice was not by his side, she had stayed in the hotel.

Olga nodded, and after taking a deep breath I started talking, the speech I had prepared long ago.

Some time later we forgot that we were on the island, that the trees behind the window were different than our usual, that the birds that peered into the room were brightly colored, and my team started working, tuning back to our usual routine. We operated as a well-oiled mechanism, all parts supporting each other. Benjamin was quiet for some time, studying us, looking closely. But it was not long before he joined the discussion.

I looked around, confident at our progress. I was so proud of the people that surrounded me, of my team.