"Hello?" Max asked groggily, as he answered the phone which had just woken him.
"It's me." She told him simply but half questioned whether she'd actually rang him, or whether she was dreaming again. Despite the number no longer being in Max's phone and the unhelpful information provided, the voice instantly gave the caller away.
The groggy tone disappeared almost instantly as he now felt wide awake. "Zoe?" It had been five years since they'd divorced and almost as long since they'd last seen each other.
"I was wondering if maybe you wanted to meet." Zoe asked, once again questioning why she'd chosen now to do this. The porter rarely left her thoughts and yet she'd stayed away for this long. Her relationship status had remained firmly single since the divorce, leaving herself time to focus on becoming a better person, but all the time the hurt and heartbreak remained. "Hello?" She asked when no response came, moving her phone back a little confirmed that Max was still on the other side.
"I'm in California, I moved a few years ago." Max admitted.
"Oh, erm I'm sorry I called." Zoe suddenly replied, feigning confidence as she spoke.
"I'm visiting Robyn next week though, I could meet you then, are you still in Holby?"
"No, it hurt too much to stay. I can't even visit." She admitted, she'd tried to stay in the place that she'd called home but Holby was plagued with far too many memories. It was obvious that the heartbreak hadn't even begun to fix itself. "I'm in Cambridge."
"Why now?" Max asked finally as he got himself out of bed, and looked out of the window which overlooked the city.
"Because I still miss you, because the thought of you still makes my heart go a little erratic. Because I've been thinking a lot and most importantly, because I don't want to get the point when I forget a single detail about you." The words seemed to tumble out of her mouth, leaving Max wondering whether the older woman was intoxicated as she poured her heart out.
"I'll contact you when I land, but for now it's still really early over this side of the world. It's obvious that I do not need much beauty sleep, but being more beautiful can't do any harm."
"Bye." Zoe managed to say just before a beep signalled that Max had hung up on her. A sigh of relief escaped her mouth, every day she thought about calling him but this was the first time she'd plucked up the courage. Originally she'd been convinced that he'd be dismissive of her, or would put the phone down the second he realised who was calling, but that hadn't happened.
"I hear on the grapevine that you've managed to get the afternoon off with only 4 days' notice. How did you manage that?" Claire, a nurse who worked with Zoe, asked.
"More importantly, where are you going? You've got no kids for something to have come up with, you're single and you socialise with no one but us." Martha, another doctor, reminded her.
"I do have other friends!" Zoe tried, but received unconvinced gazes from her two colleagues and friends. "Okay, I'm meeting someone I used to work with back at Holby."
"Is that Dylan visiting again?" Martha asked, mindful that Dylan didn't like Zoe's friends in Cambridge.
"Erm no, Max is coming." Zoe told them, between the two women she could see them racking their memories for any record of a guy called Max. Claire was the first to twig, having remembered a night not to long after Zoe arrived in Cambridge.
"Max? As in your ex-husband Max?" Claire asked, causing Zoe to nod slightly.
"Is that wise?"
"I don't know, I miss him though." Zoe sighed as her friends voiced the concerns that she'd tried to ignore when they were flagged up by her own mind.
"Don't be surprised if he's moved on Zee, it's been five years." Martha reminded her softly.
The cafe was a normal favourite of hers, and now she couldn't stand to be outside it. Butterflies kicked up a storm inside her tummy as she stood in the cold, she was slightly early, Max would be shocked, if and when he arrived. After five minutes it standing outside, she decided that sitting inside was favourable to freezing. The seat she chose was beside the window, meaning that she could see out in both directions that Max could possibly come. She was still unsure of why Max had decided to come to Cambridge and why she hadn't gone to Holby again, but she was glad of the decision.
Zoe had almost given up hope as she looked at the bottom of her empty mug. No longer was she bothering to look outside, it made it obvious that she'd been stood up.
"I'm sorry, I got a bit lost. It turns out that there's a few cafes called the same thing." Max laughed as he took the seat in front of her, leaving Zoe pondering whether she'd fallen asked and was dreaming. Max had visibly grown up, his messy hair was now cut neatly and his body was more muscular.
"Hi." Zoe replied as another rush of grief washed over her at the loss of her relationship and the man in front of her. "How are you?" She asked finally, once a waiter had taken their orders.
"I'm not too bad, how are you?"
"I'm okay, been busy at the hospital. It's so much bigger than Holby and it's just crazy there all of the time. I'm sorry, you don't care. So how come you moved to the States?"
"Always fancied it when I was younger, I did a course in my spare time in business and then got a job over there." Max explained. "So why Cambridge?"
"There was a job going and it was far enough from Holby that it was plagued with no memories."
"Fair enough."
"So how's your girlfriend?" Zoe asked, trying to gain more information on the relationship status of her ex-husband.
"I don't have one, I'm too busy at the moment for a relationship." He admitted. "You?"
"I've been single ever since we split up, never really moved on." She admitted, no longer able to meet the eyes of the man in front of her. "So what time is your train back?" Zoe asked, changing the subject.
"I'm not going back until tomorrow, I decided there was no point getting a late train so booked into a hotel."
"Oh."
"I missed you Max." Zoe whispered, admissions just falling off of her tongue now.
"In a strange way, I missed you too." Max told her, causing hope to ignite in Zoe, despite what her better judgement and her friends told her. Unsure of how to proceed now, she sat for a moment and drank some more of her drink.
"Strange?" She questioned once she'd collected her thoughts.
"I shouldn't miss you, you broke my heart and yet the biggest break was not being with you anymore." Her eyes widened. "I don't know how to recover from that, I thought being away would fix it."
"Time doesn't heal, I think it's something someone made up to make themselves feel better." They both laughed slightly. "It still breaks my heart too."
The pair left as the cafe got busier, and instead wandered towards the river bank. Punting boats went back and forth in front of them, despite the cold everyone seemed to be happy on them. Without thinking, she moved forward and kissed him. In her mind, she forgot that they weren't together anymore and that the last five years had happened. Immediately Max responded but quite quickly pulled away.
"It's not five years ago anymore." He sighed sadly, Zoe immediately moved her gaze away and to anyone looking in, it would seem that she was suddenly very interested in a particular spot of grass. "Zo'." Max tried, it had been ages since she'd been called that, whilst it had been her nickname in Holby, her colleagues and friends had favoured 'Zee' when she got to Cambridge.
"I'm sorry, forget it." She said quietly before getting up to her feet.
"That's not what I meant, I don't want to forget it. It's not five years ago, we've changed as people since then, we can't jump back in where we last left off. Let's just spend the rest of the day together and see where this goes." Max suggested, and couldn't help but grin as a smile crept onto Zoe's face.
"Okay."