A Beautiful Forever

chapter 18

Paige

“Maybe you should take a few days off,” Andrea suggests as I send yet another customer on their way without having any sort of a

conversation with them that wasn’t related to their hairstyle.

“I need to work at the moment Andrea.” I get to work cleaning up the fallen hair from the floor.

“Do you need to talk about it?”

I pause my sweeping and look up at Andrea’s concerned face. We're experiencing one of the rare quiet times in the salon when we

have no clients waiting, and our next appointment isn’t for another hour. So it’s safe to talk, my problem is – do I want to?

Sighing, I fall into the salon chair, leaning my upper body weight on the broom in my hand. “I just…” I start, having trouble working out

what to say. I’m trying to let people into my life, but it’s still hard to share my worries when I’m so used to dealing with them on my

own.

“Just what Paige? Talk to me, you’ve been moping around the salon for over a week now,” she prods, wheeling a stool over so she's

sitting directly in front of me.

“I went to meet a um… relative, the weekend before last, and it just brought up a lot of… well, shit – from my past. Stuff I wasn’t

expecting to be reminded of, and I’m just trying to work through it all in my head. I’m sorry I’ve been out of sorts, but I don’t want to

take time off – I’d just spend it thinking, and I don’t want to do that.”

“You don’t have to take time off if you don’t want to Paige. Your work is fantastic as always. My concern is that you’re not your usual

bubbly self. I’m worried about you as a friend here, not a boss.”

“Thank you Andrea, but I’ll be fine.”

“Well, I’m here if you need me ok?” she tells me and I nod, appreciating her concern.

I return to sweep my pile of hair while Andrea moves about the salon cleaning up and preparing for her next client by collecting the

supplies she’ll need for a keratin treatment.

“Why don’t you tell me about that boy of yours while we’re quiet? Thinking about him sure puts a smile on my face, and you’re the

one dating him!” she laughs.

Returning her laughter half-heartedly, I sigh again. “Elliot is wonderful, as always. He’s being so patient with me Andrea. I’m afraid I’

ve been a bit distant with him too since he took me out to Cambridge – that’s where my relative lives; and he was so supportive and

so amazing while we were there. But I feel like we were in this bubble while we were alone that burst once we got back to the flat

and around everyone else. We’re still together, but we haven’t been together since then – if you know what I mean,” I say, sharing as

much as I’m willing to about the details of our relationship.

“Sounds like you two need some time on your own then.”

The bell rings above the door as a potential walk in client enters, so I nod my head, agreeing with Andrea’s comment. “I’m working

on it Andrea,” I say before moving to greet our new customer with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.





Elliot


Ever since we came back from Cambridge, Paige has distanced herself from everyone and everything. It’s a little hard for me to

handle because our time together there was amazing, and I want nothing more than to be with her again, but during the drive back to

the flat this melancholy descended upon her, and I don’t know how to fix it.

We’re still together in a sense, but not much more besides hand holding, hugging and a bit of kissing have gone on. I’m trying to

give her space, but I feel like if I leave it too long, that space will become a great gaping void that I won’t be able to cross. There is

this sadness in her now, greater than the one that was there before. I think that maybe she had gotten her hopes up, thinking that

when she met her real dad, she’d finally have a parent who loved her. But seeing her mother there ruined it all for her, so now, that

hope is gone.

I want to fix it for her, but I know I can't. She won’t talk about it, and I can see that her troubles are constantly on her mind. I thought we

had turned a corner when she told me about her family, but now I feel like she only shared a tiny piece of herself with me and is

keeping the rest locked away. Perhaps it’s all buried underneath that tattoo.

“Elliot, I think that weights bench is clean enough now,” one of my co-workers, Natasha says to me. I snap out of my thoughts. I'm at

work, and I’m supposed to be preparing for my next client but instead I’m in a daze, thinking about Paige.

I check my appointments and notice that I am supposed to be training Agy. Taking a walk into reception, I see her standing around

chatting to a couple of other women.

“Oh here he is!” she exclaims happily as I approach. “The light of my life. Isn’t he lovely girls?” she asks the ladies she’s with.

I smile, not really paying attention to their response and lean down to kiss her cheek.

“Let’s get started, hey?” I say to her.

She waves to her friends and follows me to the treadmills where I get her to warm up. Once I have her walking at a comfortable pace

I hop on the treadmill next to her and start to run. I take the speed higher and higher as I lengthen my stride, running as fast as I can

without the risk of falling off, a gentle hum from my pumping blood fills my head and makes me feel a bit calmer.

“A little tense today are we?” Agy asks, her eyebrows rising as she watches me run.

Glancing over at her, I nod, “You could say that,” I reply.

“Girl trouble,” she comments, knowingly. “It always is.”

Slowing the treadmill, I look over at Agy with her wavy grey hair cut close to her head, blue eyes, that have lost a lot of their light, and

slightly weathered skin, I feel a fondness for her. She’s probably the kindest person I have met in the UK, and right now; I need an

understanding ear.

I slow to a stop and hop of the machine, wiping my face with a towel as I move closer, Agy watches me with her kind face, you can

tell she’s expecting me to spill my guts, and she’s right; that's exactly what I'm going to do.

“It’s Paige,” I start, “we had this amazing day together a couple of weeks ago, and now she’s back to pushing me away. It’s like we

take one step forward and then two steps back. I’m trying to be patient with her, but time is running out for me. I want to be with her

Agy. I want our relationship to keep moving forward. I’m willing to come back here to be with her, but I'm petrified that when I get

back – she might be gone.”

“Have you asked her to maybe go back with you?” Agy asks. We have moved on to stretching now, so we’re sitting on mats as I

help her limber up.

“No, she’s already said she’s staying here indefinitely. I don’t think there’s anything for her back home.”

“There will be once you’re there.”

I shrug my shoulders – I don’t know if that would be enough for her. “I just get this feeling that she is viewing our relationship as a

short term thing. I know she feels the same way I do. I'm not imagining it, but she won’t talk to me. She's not really letting me in. It’s

hard.”

“Elliot, you are such a lovely young man. I can’t understand why any woman wouldn’t want to jump through hoops to be with you. If she

is worth it, and you care about her deeply, then you need to make that clear to her – do whatever it takes to make things work. Take

her out so you can talk – just the two of you, tell her you don’t want it to be over when you go home. You can’t leave things unsaid

Elliot, believe me, at my age, I’m an expert on things left unsaid.”

“Your age? I thought you were only twenty one!” I joke, lightening up the mood.

Laughing, she taps me on the arm in good humour, “Oh Elliot, what am I going to do when you leave? I’ll have to train with one of the

boring ones,” she pouts.

I hold out my hand and help her up off the mats. “Good thing I’m coming back then.”





Paige


My heart skips a beat when I walk out of work and spot Elliot in his usual waiting place. I feel both frightened and elated upon seeing

him. He is so beautiful in my eyes, that it makes me feel like I'm dreaming him up. But I can touch him, so he has to be real.

As if I need to prove it to myself, I place my palms on his chest as I lean into him and tilt my head up for a kiss, he smiles down at me

and wraps me in his arms before tilting his head towards mine to greet me with his mouth.

Under normal circumstances, I’m a decent height, but with Elliot being well over six feet, I feel fairly small around him, I like that.

Smiling as he takes me by the hand, he leads me to the station entry instead of towards the exit.

I look up at him, confused. “What’s going on?” I ask, trotting along after him.

“I’m taking you out. I want you to myself tonight,” he tells me, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Ok, well are you going to tell me what we’re doing?”

“Something touristy,” is all he’ll tell me.

I lean into him and go with it. We have barely had a moment alone together since Cambridge, and truthfully, I haven’t made much of

an effort to be alone with him. I’ve been selfishly brooding and keeping him away, while I’ve been secretly afraid of what he means to

me.

The motel room seems like so long ago and the intensity of what I felt when we were together, scares me. It’s like my life is

dependent upon being with him, I’ve never felt like this before.

Sitting together on the train, I rest my head on his shoulder, squeezing my eyes shut as he plants a kiss on the top of my head. It’s

such a small and loving gesture, but it feels like everything to me.

Today I realised that I only have a month left until Elliot goes. I’ve just wasted almost two weeks while I focused on my own problems,

I’ve been taking his comfort, but I haven’t been giving him anything in return. I’m determined to make this last month, the best month

possible, I don’t want to live my life wishing I had spent more time with him.

“Elliot,” I say to get his attention. I hear his voice hum through his chest in response. Lifting my head to meet his face, I take a deep

breath. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant this past couple of weeks.”

“It’s ok Paige; you've had a lot of your mind.”

I shake my head like I’m trying to rid myself of my worries. “Can we pretend like none of that happened and focus on now? Let all

that ‘past’ crap fall away and just be together? – we don’t have very much time left, and I want to spend as much of it with you as I

can.”

He presses his lips together in a tender smile and reaches up to caress my face with his thumb, my eyes flutter closed for a moment

as I lean into his hand. I take his hand in my own as I open my eyes to continue. “I’ve been thinking Elliot – Shane and Gavin are

going next week, and um… they haven’t found roommates yet… so I was thinking that maybe… we, could share a room? We could

just change the listing and get another girl to room in with Naomi and another guy to room with Brian…” I suggest nervously, my

stomach churning like I might vomit – I’m suddenly gripped by the fear that he might refuse me.

Elliot’s smile breaks into a grin as he pulls me towards him and kisses me. “I think that’s a wonderful idea Paige,” he whispers, “I

would love nothing more than to room with you.” Relief washes over me as we kiss again.





Elliot


“Alright, it’s time to tell me where we're going,” Paige says as we exit the train station at St Paul’s and start to walk up the street.

“I’m taking you on a ghost walk,” I tell her as I open my eyes wide for added emphasis.

She laughs, clutching tighter onto my arm. “Is this a ploy to get me so scared I can’t sleep alone tonight?”

“It might be.”

This Ghost walk only runs on Tuesday nights. It might be fun; it might be lame - but a lot of haunted places are actually pubs, so we

can always beg off and go to dinner instead if we’ve had enough. At the very least, I figure it might be a good way to learn a bit more

about London. Besides the bus tour I did on my first day here, I really haven’t done any sightseeing, and I’m sure Paige hasn’t done

any at all.

There is maybe a handful of other people waiting for the tour when we arrive. Paige is actually pretty excited about doing this and

has been talking about what we might see while we walk. Neither of us believes in ghosts, but we’re really keen to see what passes

for haunted and are willing to have an open mind, in case we’re wrong.

Paige grins up at me and clutches my arm as our tour begins, after our chat on the train, she seems much more relaxed around me.

I’m so relieved because I was worried that maybe I had messed things up between us somehow after Cambridge – I just didn’t know

how to get us back to how things were in that motel room, despite desperately wanting to feel like that with her again.

The first place we go to is Highgate High Level Station, it doesn’t really look haunted though – the guide, a short, squat man in his

late 40s, tells us tales of ghost trains and a worker who killed himself here jumping in front of a train. The station has been closed for

decades, and the tracks have long since been ripped up, so nature has overgrown, I guess it’s kind of spooky.

“I suppose it looks kind of spooky,” Paige says, reading my mind while she’s looking around.

“Let’s capture the moment, maybe we’ll find an orb in the photo or something,” I suggest, readying the camera on my phone. We

stand in front of the entrance, and I hold my phone in front of us to take our picture there. We lean our heads together and smile as I

tap the screen. The weather is getting warmer than it was when we first came here, but it’s still cool enough to flush our cheeks and

turn our noses red. Paige looks radiant in the image.

“That’s a keeper,” I say to her.

She smiles at me and tugs my arm so we can catch up to the rest of the group who are moving on to a pub called The Gatehouse, it’

s a pretty cool looking place, but they have modernised the interior, so it isn’t very creepy either.

We take some photos of the outside and happily accept when German gentleman from our tour group offers to take one of the two

of us together. I do the same for him and his wife before we have to move on to our next ‘spooky’ setting.

“This is pretty fun,” Paige declares as we walk along with the group.

“It is?” I ask, feeling sure this was a complete failure.

“Yes,” she confirms laughing. “We are being tourists Elliot! I've never done something like this before – it’s awesome!”

We’re led to the Highgate Cemetery where we’re not allowed to take anything inside, and are handed off to another guide who

takes us around. The cemetery is actually very creepy, not creepy in the paranormal sense – just creepy because it’s a graveyard

and there are these great headstones looming over you, reminding you that people are buried here.

“Oh my god!” a woman shrieks as we all get the fright of our lives when the guide’s eyes roll back and he collapses on the ground

having what looks like an epileptic fit.

Whispers go around the group as people wonder if finally, a ghost has come out to possess him.

“He’s having a fit!” I call out, rushing to the man’s aid and disbelieving that so many people are just standing there watching him.

Paige kneels down beside me as I pull my jacket off and slide it under the man's head.

“What do you want me to do?” she asks.

“Just call an ambulance, I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt himself,” I say as I watch our guide foam at the mouth as his body shakes and

convulses uncontrollably.





Paige




“I can’t believe that just happened!” I say to Elliot as we’re leaving the cemetery, we decide that after the guide collapsed that maybe

we should call this tour quits and go and get some food. We got our fright – it may not have been from the supernatural, but it was

scary none the less; so we are ending the tour and declaring it a success.

I have to admit I’m pretty turned on by the way Elliot took control of the situation. I had no idea what to do, but he just went right on in

there the second the guide started to crumple and took care of everything. I’m very impressed.

“Hang on a sec,” I say as we exit the gates to the cemetery. “I’ll find a pub for us to go and get dinner.” I use my phone to Google a

nearby pub and get given directions to a place called Flask.

“I think that was actually supposed to be on the tour,” points out Elliot.

I shrug my shoulders and put my phone back in my bag. “Maybe we’ll actually see a ghost there,” I say.

“Maybe… Alright, one more photo before this unghostly tour is officially over,” he says, readying the camera on his phone.

We lean in together and he turns and kisses my cheek, so I turn my head and kiss him properly on the mouth before the camera app

makes its clicking sound to signal the photo is done. He’s laughing as he checks that the photo worked, “That one’s great,” he says,

showing it to me.

“You’ll have to send them all to my phone, so I have them too,” I say as we start walking towards the pub.

He nods, a thoughtful expression on his face, “So you want to remember me then? You aren’t planning on forgetting me when I go?”

I stop walking and kiss him with as much passion and feeling as I have in me. The world slips away from around us as we stand

together, ignoring the traffic and the passers-by as we meld with each other, tasting each other, breathing each other in

shamelessly. When we pull away, I can feel us both shaking from the intensity.

“I will dream about you, every night for the rest of my life.” I tell him seriously.

He threads his fingers through my hair and guides my head towards him to kiss me back, slowly and tenderly. I reach my arms up

and wrap them around his neck pulling our bodies tighter together. My body hums with longing for him. I can’t seem to get enough of

him. I don’t want to ever have enough of him.

When he pulls away he looks at me, adoration on his face, “Why couldn’t we have met in Sydney? I just feel so rushed.”

“Because sometimes all you get is a tiny flower in the bullcrap that is life,” I say matter-of-factly. He gives me a wry smile before we

continue on our way to try to enjoy what is left of the night, but our imminent separation is a constant in the back of both of our minds.