Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

K iera woke to a message from Seymour.

“Dinner at my place? Tonight?” Kiera shivered. Yes. Definitely, yes. She responded swiftly, before opening a new message to Lou.

“We need to meet, I have news.”

“Omg, let me throw the kids at Dan. I’ll meet you at The Vine in forty-five mins.”

Lou was as good as her word, and soon they were sitting at a table weighed down by croissants and bacon and coffee, as well as a large pot of tea for Lou. Lou didn’t do coffee, which had always puzzled Kiera.

“Is she your girlfriend now?” asked Lou.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? You were there. Surely you know?” Lou looked at Kiera and raised an eyebrow.

“Ok, how old were you when you and Dan got together?”

“Er, nineteen, I think? ”

“Exactly. So when we were all that age, if you went out to the pub, drank a WKD, snogged someone and then held hands, you were officially ‘a thing’, right?”

“Of course,” said Lou, as if Kiera were stating the bleeding obvious.

“Well, as I have discovered to my cost, things are very, very, very different now. You have to discuss this stuff – are you together? Are you ‘seeing’ each other? Are you exclusive? Are you monogamous? Are you telling your friends? Are you not? It’s truly mind-boggling.”

“Oh my God,” said Lou, reaching for a pain au chocolat. “In that case, Dan’s safe.”

“Why?”

“There’s no way I’m divorcing him, ever. I’d never cope with all that nonsense. I mean, I’m happy to say that WKDs are part of my past, but this all sounds more complicated than it really needs to be.”

“I’m not sure I can cope with it myself, to be honest. So, no, I don’t think she’s my girlfriend. Yet. But I’m pretty sure neither of us is about to skip off with someone else.”

“Well, that’ll have to do for now. She’s the cute one from the coffee shop, right?” Kiera nodded through a mouthful of toast. “I like it. She opted for the ‘hang around and be nice until you notice her’ technique? High risk strategy, but has good potential for longevity.” Kiera raised her eyebrows.

“Longevity?”

“Well, yes, right?” said Lou. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yeah. But the ‘l’ word is a bit scary at this early point.”

“Hun, there are many scary ‘l’ words out there. I think longevity is one of the tamer ones. I could start haranguing you about love, and then where would we be?”

“Point taken,” said Kiera. “Longevity is something I would like. But I’m not sure I can picture that right now. ”

Lou sighed. “Tonight is the night, then? I mean, traditionally, a girl waits until the third date, but I know you have a chequered history with this sort of thing, and you’ve known Seymour for months.”

Kiera’s pulse kicked up a gear. She couldn’t deny that it was something she’d been thinking about. Since they’d kissed in the swan boats and then again at the flat, she had found her mind idly wandering towards what sex with Seymour might be like. She imagined her soft lips and her confident fingers, the knowing smiles, her well-defined arms.

“Hi, I’m still here, stop thinking lascivious thoughts about your not-yet-girlfriend,” said Lou, waving a hand in front of Kiera’s face.

“Nonsense, I was just working out if I needed another coffee.” Kiera gave Lou a rueful smile.

“Hun, I don’t think any more caffeine would be good for your constitution right now. You don’t want to be shaky for your date later. And FYI, you’re a terrible liar.”

Kiera shrugged and sipped her orange juice instead. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She’d asked Seymour if she should bring anything this evening, so she was expecting a suggestion of wine or something.

It wasn’t a message from Seymour.

“Kiera, sweetie, you’ve gone awfully pale,” said Lou. “Has Seymour revealed her secret sex dungeon?”

“I, um. No. No.” She took a breath and looked over at Lou, whose expectant face was beginning to show signs of worry. She turned her phone over to Lou.

Lou took the phone and read the message aloud. “Kiera, I miss you. Chrissie xxx.”

She passed the phone back to Kiera. The number was unfamiliar.

“That cow,” said Lou under her breath. “She obviously wants something.” The undisguised anger in her voice made Kiera feel slightly less adrift.

“I haven’t heard from her in nearly a year. She disappeared. Do you think it’s really her?”

“It’s the sort of shit she’d pull.” Lou’s face spoke volumes about what she thought of Chrissie. “She can’t think you’ll just respond after all this time, as though nothing’s happened?”

“I don’t know what she expects.” Kiera gripped her now empty glass, her knuckles white. Lou was right, she should lay off the caffeine. If her heart had been racing before, now it was out of control. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” said Lou, looking firmly at Kiera, “that she realises she’s messed everything up and that she lost the best thing she ever had. It means that she’s trying to manipulate you. That’s not even a proper message, is it? There’s no apology, no explanation, no information about where she is or what she’s doing. You can’t respond.” She paused and then huffed before speaking again. “Ok, obviously you have to do what’s right for you, but you can’t let her do this to you. She doesn’t care about you. She’s having a maudlin moment and she’s remembered your number. You can’t let her back in, Kiera, you can’t. You’ve only just started to get your life back.”

Lou needed to get back to her children and Kiera needed to think. She walked through Kings Heath Park before returning to her flat, taking in the neatly tended flower beds, the duck pond and the playing children. Her mind flicked between images and memories: Chrissie, on their wedding day; Seymour kissing her in the swan boat. She thought about the day the divorce had come through, the months of silence. She stopped and sat on a bench, consid ering her options. She looked down at her left hand, where the band of skin her wedding ring had circled was still slightly indented. Her life was still indented. But what about her heart?

She got her phone out and sent a text.