“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. This way, we can remember the last few months and look back fondly at our time together. I feel like you breathed new life into me, and I will always be so thankful to you.”
Breathed new life into her? That’s what she’d done to me.
“Can we stay in touch? Be friends?” I was grasping at straws, but I wanted her in my world in whatever way I could have her.
She sighed and the loneliness inside me grew. I knew her answer before she said it. “Maybe one day. Right now, I need a . . . clean—”
“I understand.” I tried to keep my voice steady when what I wanted to do was break down and beg for another chance.
“Thank you. I mean it; I think you’re a wonderful man.”
I just hadn’t been good enough for her. I’d been less than she deserved, and rightfully, she’d left me.
I’d spent Christmas day alone in a hotel room. I’d ordered a club sandwich and a bottle of whiskey and didn’t speak to anyone who wasn’t working at the hotel in some capacity. Some years that might have been the perfect way to spend the festive season, but this year it just seemed like the life of a lonely, washed-up bachelor with an empty life.
I’d never been much of a drinker. I didn’t like the way it clouded my mind and dulled my senses. But in the last week, since Violet had left, a clear head was the last thing I wanted. I longed to be drunk. Each morning, I woke sober and watched the clock until it struck noon, and I got out of bed to fix a whisky.
The news rattled on in the background as I poured my second glass. A rap at the door caught my attention. For a split second I thought Violet had changed her mind and flown back to rescue me. I checked the peephole and found a member of the housekeeping team standing outside.
I pulled the door open and the girl began to talk to me in what sounded like Romanian although it could have been Polish. She pushed her way past me and began clearing up my room. I ripped the Do Not Disturb sign from the outside of the door where it had hung since before Christmas and held it up. “Excuse me.” I waved the sign. She turned, saw the sign, shrugged, and pulled the sheets from the bed.
Fuck me. I didn’t have the energy to argue. No doubt the hotel staff were wondering what the hell I was doing in here. I pulled on some clothes and grabbed my wallet. Perhaps I could go and buy a bottle of my favorite whisky instead of ordering the stuff from downstairs.
As I stepped out of the lift, I raised my arm to shade my eyes from the light. I’d spent the last week in darkness; I should have brought my sunglasses.
Without knowing where I was going, I stepped outside. I’d not brought my scarf or my gloves and it must have been close to freezing. The air stung my whiskey-bruised throat as I turned up the collar on my coat and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I figured the housekeeper would be done in thirty minutes. I just needed to kill some time before I could go back and take a nap.
The last few weeks preparing for the trial had been brutal and it was catching up with me. Work had been relentless and then there was Violet. If I could find a way of getting to sleep without passing out from alcohol, then perhaps I wouldn’t wake with pain tearing through my stomach in the middle of the night. It was like an illness, except I had no temperature or any other symptoms except agony buried so deep it was impossible to describe where it was.
I groaned as I came to the end of the pavement and saw where I was. Berkley Square.
There were no nightingales singing. No beautiful Americans to dance with. Just me feeling sorry for myself with nowhere to go.
I wandered through the gates and took a seat on one of the benches near where I’d danced with Violet just a few short weeks ago. Slouching, I put my head in my hands. How had things been so good and become so awful so quickly? How had I fucked things up so fundamentally?
I cast my mind back to the weeks after my separation from Gabby. It had never felt like this. How long would it last? Would this crushing devastation ever leave me? When Gabby and I parted there was guilt and regret, but I didn’t recall pain. Or loneliness.
Chatter caught my attention and I sat up and saw a couple, hand in hand, strolling through the park, laughing and sharing their day together.
I had to get out of there. I headed in the opposite direction and turned left out of the park. But I wasn’t done torturing myself. Hill Street was within sight and I wanted to see it, remember Violet’s beautiful face at the door when I went to her after work, savor the memories of the night we first slept together and all the times since.
I slowed as the house came into sight. How had I let her go?
“Alex?” a woman called from behind me.
I resisted the urge to run. I didn’t want to see anyone other than Violet but when the woman called my name again, I turned to find Darcy, laden down with shopping, coming toward me.
Her brow was furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
“Just passing. I live just . . .” What could I say? My hotel was in the other direction. No doubt I looked like a stalker.
“Can you help me with these?” she asked, indicating the bags she was carrying.
“Yes, of course.” Our fingers fumbled as she transferred the weight to me. She got out her keys and unlocked the front door.
“You growing a beard?” she asked.
I rubbed my hand over my jaw. I guessed it was time to shave. “No, I just . . . I’ve not been in chambers, so . . .”
I set the bags down in the kitchen, and tried not to look at anything but my feet. Already, memories Violet had left in this house threatened to overwhelm me.
“I’ll make us some coffee,” Darcy said, turning to put the coffeemaker on.
I didn’t want to stay but I didn’t want to be rude. I glanced over at the dining room, the starched white tablecloth had been removed from the polished walnut table. The flowers and cutlery had been cleared. What would have happened if I’d come back when I’d said I would?
Perhaps Violet would still be here.
“I should go,” I said. “You seem busy.”
“And you’re not?” she asked. “I thought you were always busy.”
“Courts are closed, but I’m back in chambers on Monday.” Christ, that was only a few days away. I wasn’t sure the fog in my brain, or the pain in my heart, would have left me by then.
“Okay, but before you go I want to say something even though I’m pretty sure Violet would kill me before she let me utter a word, but maybe it will help—you don’t look good, Alex.”
I nodded, unable to disagree.
“The Saturday night that you didn’t come home—”
I went to speak, to say how sorry I was, but Darcy raised her hand. “She got into the two London universities she applied for. She loved it here and I think meeting you really made her see the world differently.”
My heart ached. Violet had been accepted. If I hadn’t fucked up, she’d be coming back and we’d be together.