The street is bustling with pedestrians as he steps out into the late afternoon chill. College students meander through the crowd of homeward-bound commuters heading for the tube. His head darts from side to side but he doesn't see her anywhere. He realizes with a jolt that he has no idea where she would be headed—certainly not back to his car, and as this is her first time in London, he's not sure she even knows where they are. Panicked, he looks everywhere, desperate to find her, or a sign of her—anything.
"Rose!" he calls out, a gruff and throaty shout he suspects she won't respond to, but he hopes all the same.
He waits for a moment, but she's nowhere in sight and sure enough she doesn't reply—none of the pedestrians even look up at him.
His fingers are trembling, half numb from the biting cold air, and he fumbles to extract his phone from his jacket pocket. He navigates to his contact list, and she's at the very top, the most recent one, just like she has been for weeks. Her contact picture is a selfie he took of the two of them hugging in front of the fireplace at Christmas, and they look so happy. He stares numbly for a moment at her picture and wonders if she'll ever—
No. He won't let himself finish that thought. She's become such a part of his life, and he can't lose that; he won't! They'll work this out—they have to. He can't imagine an alternative. He's lost so much already in his life and he can't bear the thought that—
He swallows, and, with fingers shaking hard from both fear and adrenaline, he swipes his finger over her number and holds his breath as it the call connects.
It rings four times then her voicemail picks up.
"You've reached Rose, leave a message!" she says before the beep, and he can hear the smile in her voice, and he closes his eyes, letting it wash over him.
"Rose, it's me," he says. He's left her messages over the past few weeks and they've all started the same way, but this time he can't muster his typical grin. There are no jokes with the sole intent of hearing her laugh. This time his voice is raspy and raw, and his heart thrums so fast he feels nauseous. "Please Rose, I—please call me."
His thumb hovers over the red button to end the call when he is struck with a fear that she won't call back. He adds in a hurry, "Or… I can call you. Please talk to me… I… I'm sorry. I never meant any of this to happen, and I just—I'm so sorry."
He clicks off slowly, hesitant to break the tenuous contact he has with her, even just through a tinny connection with her voicemail. His eyes try to penetrate the crowd around him again, as if by sheer force of will he could look through them and find her. He's not sure what to do—she's not here, by this point she's already gained a head start on him, and he just can't stand here while she walks further and further from him.
He hesitates for a moment, scanning the crowds both to the left and to the right, unsure of which way to go before making his decision.
He turns right.
—
He races several blocks, his feet skidding perilously over the dirty snow that has been trampled down and frozen into slipshod mounds on the pavement. All the while, his eyes sweep over the crowds and shop windows just in case she may have gone inside one. He wracks his brain to think of where she could have gone.
He sees a flash of blonde hair and races ahead, feet slipping under him. He finds his footing and propels himself onward with a gnawing, gaping need to see her. Heart in his throat, he thanks the universe for giving him a second chance to make this right—only to stop in his tracks as the woman turns, and it's not Rose after all. His mind races, wondering if she's called a taxi, or if maybe he was wrong and she headed in the opposite direction when she left the chip shop—and bloody hell he wishes there could be ten of him, one to take charge of all the streets and sidestreets and stores. Maybe one to go back in time and stop this horrible day from happening in the first place.
Fifteen minutes ago they were talking and laughing, and she was smiling at him—an hour ago he was holding her, holding her hand. His stomach turns over on itself, and the chips he ate feel as cold and heavy as frozen ball of lead. This shouldn't have happened—anything but this.
He reaches for his phone one more time and hits redial, putting the freezing plastic shell up to his almost painfully cold ear as the call connects, prayingto gods he doesn't even believe in that she picks up, that she'll let him explain. Not that he knows what he'll say, but if she'll just let him see her—if he can just hold her hand again he knows he can make it better. Being with her makes everything better. To hell with Chamonix, to hell with everything, if she will just talk to him.
It doesn't even ring this time—it goes immediately to voicemail, and his stomach sinks. Clearly she's shut her phone off.
A knot wells up in his throat, and before he can swallow it down, it rises up past his frozen, stuffy nose and into his eyes. He blinks it away rapidly, turning his head, his eyes roaming over the crowds uselessly one more time. She's not there.
Slowly, he turns back the way he came.
—
It's dark when he walks past the chippy—the inside warmly lit and inviting. He knows she won't be in there, but he can't help but look all the same. He doesn't recognize any customers from before—even Luke and his mates are gone, and their absence makes him wonder just how long he's been walking. A man and woman now sit at the table he and Rose had occupied. They're holding hands as they wait for their chips, smiling at each other and laughing. A stab of jealousy cuts through him—why can't that be him? Why the hell do they get to be happy, when everything is falling apart around him?
He knows he shouldn't call her again, she clearly doesn't want to talk to him right now, and the last thing he'd ever want to do is push her, but he needs to hear her voice, to know that everything will be alright. He decides to call again—and then decides against it—at least a half dozen times, as he holds his phone in his hand, willing it to ring.
It doesn't.
He drives slowly to Trisha's building, wondering if maybe she'd somehow found her way back there. He can't help looking out his window the entire ride there, scanning the sidewalks, hoping to see her, to get a chance to talk to her… to explain… he doesn't even know what he wants to say, what he can say, only that he'll do anything—anything at all—to make this right. To make them right.
It's dark when he parks out front, near the same spot he'd picked Rose up just hours before. She'd smiled at him, hugged him, and he'd thought she looked beautiful but he hadn't told her. God what he wouldn't give for a chance to do this entire bloody day over again and tell her now—tell her everything now.
He reaches for his phone, sitting cold and silent beside him on the passenger seat. Should he call again? Is her phone on? Had she even seen that he called or heard his voicemail? They text so often and he knows she checks that constantly… Right then, he'll try that instead. Maybe she hadn't heard it ring?
Or worse—what if she assumes he just went home? That he doesn't even care? His stomach twists at the thought and his fingers fly over his keypad.
I'm worried, please tell me you're somewhere safe. Can I come get you?
After a moment he hears the chime of an incoming message and his heart leaps as her reply pops up on the screen.
i'm ok, i'm at Trisha's
Relief unfurls inside of him, and he looks up at the large building. Lights are on in at least half of the windows, and he silently curses at himself for not bothering to ask her earlier for the number of Trisha's flat.
I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Can we talk?
He stares at his phone… she's there, isn't she? What if she put her phone down and walked away? He wouldn't blame her if she had. His own phone remains silent, and the knot begins to grow once again in his stomach.
Please, he adds after 6 minutes and 35 seconds pass. He watches his phone, silently pleading with it, as the screen goes from bright to dim to cold and black within a span of a minute. He swallows and closes his eyes, only to open them with a start as his phone chirps back at him. His pulse races with renewed hope… he can fix this, of course he can, it's them and she's one not only one of his best friends but also the woman he thinks he—
His eyes adjust and he reads her message: i can't talk tonight, i need some time.
His stomach drops, but the sensation is fleeting, the nausea soon replaced by an eerie calm. Everything is suddenly quiet in his head, so silent in fact that he can almost hear the thudding of his pulse inside his ears, and it gives him the dizzying sense of vertigo, like everything cannot be what it seems or how it seems. This… this cannot be happening. This is a nightmare. This can't be his phone, or his Rose, or his shaking hands, numb and slightly chapped from the cold. He realises that he forgot to turn on the car's heater all this time—it's freezing outside. Did she really walk all that way in this weather just to get away from him? She's never pushed him away, and he's never given her reason to. Not until today. His clumsy and cold fingers drop the phone from his grasp and it thuds loudly on the hard plastic gear shift of the car as it falls, knocking him out of his reverie.
He lets out a shuddering breath, watching transfixed as it morphs into tiny crystals as he exhales. After a moment, he shifts his car into drive and slowly makes his way home.
—
He barely sleeps that night—he barely even tries—his mind keeps replaying the entire evening over and over and over again and he can't—he just can't—lie there in bed and relive it. He makes his way to the kitchen for a drink and grabs an ale from the refrigerator—it's one of the brands he's now fond of, that Wilf regularly buys from Consett. Oh God, Wilf… his stomach twists again, he hadn't even considered him until now. He wonders if Wilf knows—what Rose will say to him, what he must think. He wrenches his mind away from the thought, it's too much, far too much to consider losing Wilf's friendship.
Wilf and Rose had invited him into their home—practically into their family, something he'd thought had been lost to him. He'd had neither for so long, and if he were to lose something like that again, something so precious, he's not quite sure what he'd do. After everything he's lost in his life, he can't lose more people he cares about—he can't lose them, too.
He finishes his ale quickly and drinks another. He plays FIFA on his PS3 and does uncharacteristically badly. He'd meant to bring the PS3 up to Weardale, it had excited him to learn that Rose had never played before, and he'd wanted to be able teach her something for a change; moreover, she'd wanted to learn.
He swallows. He shuts the PS3 off. He drinks yet another ale. Eventually he dozes on the sofa, his sleep shallow, his dreams fitful with the memory of her walking away from him.
She doesn't call or text him the next morning.
Luke stops by for his paperwork soon after John arrives at his office the next day, stammering apologies. John shrugs blearily and tries his best to assure him not to worry—it's not his fault, after all. The sick irony of it all isn't lost on John—he'd spent so much time working on the patent documentation for Rose that he'd neglected Luke's work, which led to everything with Rose blowing up in his face. Even so, as a gesture of goodwill he offers to put in a good word for Luke at both of his top choice schools—London, which is easy enough since Luke is already a student here and John's word will carry considerable weight, as well as the even more prestigious physics program at Durham, where an old friend of John's is chair of the physics department. Luke is grateful-mollified, even—and leaves the room with a smile on his face. John wishes he could say the same for himself.
He sneaks peeks down at his phone while teaching his morning lectures. Still no messages. Perhaps—perhaps she's waiting for him to call her again? They'd left that bit unclear, hadn't they? She'd only said she needed some time—she hadn't said how much time, or said that she would be the one to call. And could he really expect her to reach out to him—maybe she'd been waiting for him, constantly checking her phone the same way he's been checking his. Maybe she's wondering why he hasn't tried contacting her again.
Or maybe she still doesn't want to speak to him—his lips press into a thin line at the thought. There's only one way to find out. After class, he composes a text message. Deletes it. Writes another one. Rephrases it. There. Not pushy—just letting her know he's thinking about her, just asking her.
He clicks "send."
Will you let me know when we can talk?
A few minutes later his phone chirps in response, his fingers instinctively flying to his pocket to retrieve it, nearly knocking over his cup of coffee in the process.
yes
He exhales a breath of relief—she answered. And that's good, isn't it? The sensation is short-lived though—she clearly doesn't want to talk to him yet, she's still upset. That's what that means, doesn't it? He's never seen her upset for this long—he's barely seen her upset at all, in fact, and certainly never at him. But this means she'll talk to him, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
His phone doesn't ring for the rest of the day or the day after that, and he writes her message after message, but doesn't send a single one of them. He's pulled from one long day to the next, as if the universe is grabbing him by his heart, yelling at him to move, to budge forward, even though the only thing he wants to do is to go back, to be with her. It's the only thing he wants to do, the only thing he can think about, but she hasn't called.
She said she needed time—exact words "i can't talk tonight, i need some time" which impliesshe'll talk to him at another time, plus she promised she'd let him know when she was ready to talk. He's read that conversation over and over this week, as well as their happier texts from weeks past. He scrolls through these conversations, about telly, her job search, and some recipes with which he was experimenting in his flat first before making them for Wilf on his next trip. He'd even sent her step by step pictures while cooking because she'd said it sounded delicious. And he'd helped her pick out a new laptop after she'd texted him with pictures of a few different ones she was considering. They'd talked all the time, every day—they'd gotten so close. Surely they still are, aren't they? She wouldn't have forgotten all that.
She asked for time… he can give her that. He'll give her anything she wants.
—
It's his first Saturday without her in months.
The entire day feels skewed, like an out-of-sync audio track on one of the many horrible shows on telly he's been watching every night till the wee hours of the morning this week. It's unspoken and entirely understood that his ski lesson is canceled—not that he even bloody wants it anymore. He stares at the walls of his flat as if they're the ones who've given him offense—he doesn't want to be here, damn it, he wants to be with her, and she won't even talk to him.
His eyes fall to the paperwork on the table. It had arrived via post yesterday from the patent office. It sounds simple enough: one more signature is required—Rose's—before they process the paperwork. The sooner she signs, the sooner the patent can be filed and the technology licensed out. Regardless of anything else happening right now, he's still her friend, and she's put her complete trust in him to deal with this on her behalf. She needs to know, to sign this.
He grabs his phone and hesitates. The selfie he took of them both as her contact picture stares happily back at him, and he looks at it for a long moment, remembering how happy he had been and wondering how this all managed to go to hell. Then he calls her.
Her phone rings twice, and his stomach flutters uneasily. What if she doesn't pick up? What if—
"Hello?" she says, and her voice is unnaturally guarded but even so, she picked up and his heart soars.
"Hi, it's… me… I..um- I'm sorry to call, I know you said you wanted… but… the patent papers are here. I have them, they need your signature," he says. His heart is pounding and there is no going back now. He has to talk with her, and to hell with all his plans, to hell with Chamonix. "I thought maybe I could—maybe I could come up this weekend. If—um, if you're free?"
"I can't this weekend," she says, her voice quiet, and his stomach tumbles into his knees. "I mean—I'm moving in with Trisha this weekend."
"Can I help?" he says, hope flaring once again. "This weekend. I mean I can help you move this weekend. I'd—I'd love to help."
As soon as he pauses to take a breath, he starts to second guess his choice of words. His stomach churns as he realizes that he hadn't come right out and said he wouldn't go to Chamonix—although the implication was as clear as day in his head. To him, in fact it barely needed saying at all—of course he wouldn't go to Chamonix. Instead, he'd stay, he'd help her, he'd spend that time with her. Because she was worth—
"No, thank you but I—" she trails off. "Jimmy's been—he… he's helping me."
He takes a sharp intake of breath, and the air entering his lungs feels like lead. Jealousy flares inside him at the mention of the other man's name—the other man who's known her for years and fancies her, no less. He wants to tell her she doesn't need Jimmy because he'll be there for her—always. He's shown her he cares about her, hasn't he? Despite all this, she has to know that.
"Rose—" he starts, not even knowing what he's going to say, just knowing that he can't stand this any longer.
"Besides, you—" she says, cutting both him and herself off, and through the silence on the other end of the phone, he hears her breathing, slightly ragged—and the last thing he wants is to upset her so he stays quiet. "I want—"
He hears her exhale again. When she continues, her voice is soft. "Have a good time this weekend—I mean it. I want you to. Just—stick to Les Houches, ok? Don't—don't go to the Vallee Blanche, the ridges are too dangerous."
"Rose…" he says again, his voice a whisper.
"I've gotta go. We'll catch up on the paperwork when you get back, ok?"
She clicks off quickly, and he stares at his phone, a sinking feeling coursing through him. She's counting on Jimmy now, not him—and she didn't even tell him that she's moving in with Trisha. She didn't even ask for his help, didn't want it, and doesn't she know he would do anything—
He would have gladly canceled his entire trip just to see her this weekend, but… he swallows. He slips the patent documentation back into its envelope and leaves it on the table next to the most recent issue of SKI magazine. He doesn't much want to look at either of them right now.
—
Going to Chamonix is the last thing he wants to do.
Even so, when Jeanne calls him the day beforehand for the confirmation number of their shuttle to the resort, he can't think of a good reason to tell her he's changed his mind. Rose is busy with Jimmy this weekend, after all. All that canceling would accomplish is to alienate him from yet another person, and Jeanne doesn't deserve that.
She meets him at the airport with an enthusiastic wave and a smile. He sees the concern etched on her brow as soon as she takes a good look at him, and it's lovely of her to worry about him, it really is. He feels her gaze search his face, and she doesn't need to say a word—he knows full well that he has bags under his eyes, and he shrugs.
"Haven't been sleeping well," he says simply. She doesn't look quite convinced, but she loops her arm through his anyway and leads him towards the terminal.
He can tell by her frown that she's disappointed they don't have seats together on the flight to the Alps, and instead are sitting several rows apart; he feels horrible admitting it even in his own head, but it's almost a bit of a relief to not have to make conversation. Instead, he stares out the window, thinking about the girl slipping farther and farther out of his reach with every kilometer he flies towards France. He wonders if she's thinking about him, if she hates him, if she has even the smallest idea how even thinking about the past week without her is crushing him. And he thinks about Jimmy, who's doubtlessly with her right now, and his jaw clenches.
The flight is uneventful, as is the taxi ride to the resort and his arrival at the hotel. Even here in France, it's not a stretch to say that everything reminds him of Rose. The mountains are gorgeous, and he wonders if she's been here—surely she has, hasn't she? She's clearly familiar with the trails here and he can't help wonder about which ones she's skied, where she stayed, how she liked it. He opens his ski bag and finds a day pass to the slopes at Swinhope Moor still attached to his ski jacket. He can't bear to throw it away; instead he carefully detaches it and places it back inside his bag for safe keeping.
He eventually descends from his room to the cocktail hour Jeanne's encouraged him to attend, and the room is packed. He's not the only professor there—half the French and history departments seem to be there as well, all Jeanne's friends and intellectual counterparts. She's holding court in the corner, completely in her element, laughing with someone he doesn't recognize. They trade a smile and a wave and he turns towards the bar to get a glass (or three) of wine. He looks around, and there aren't many other people he knows. Come to think of it, he might be the only lecturer in the sciences who's even here.
He stays for the better part of an hour, circulating around a table set up with nibbles, half-listening to conversations about research and grants—and one engineering lecturer's detailed discussion of his newest patent application. He swallows, decides he's made enough of an appearance, and quietly heads up to his room for the evening.
—
The next morning he slowly packs up his gear and heads down to the lobby, as Jeanne has arranged for a group trip to ski at Les Houches, the same location Rose had suggested. He stops short as it strikes him that this is the first time he will ever be skiing without her, and the thought leaves him empty. He's quiet the whole shuttle ride there, wondering if Rose is moved in to her flat by now. He glances over the brochure for Les Houches to pass the time, his eyes focusing on the description of the multiple draglifts scattered around the slopes, and he thinks of the draglifts in Weardale, falling with Rose the first time he used one… and Jimmy.
His jaw clenches and he exhales slowly. He turns the brochure over and looks at the different amenities at Les Houches, the different types of trails, including cross-country trails that make him think of entire afternoons spent on low-lying hills, and picnics and hot cocoa on the banks of the River Wear. Les Houches even has a snowpark with festivities for maximum winter entertainment—and his mind wanders to thoughts of ice chess and vodka and traditions faithfully carved into a block of ice.
He swallows thickly. Without another glance, he folds the brochure and puts it in his pocket.
Upon their arrival, John puts on his skis somewhat lethargically—it's bloody freezing, and more than a small part of him just wishes he'd stayed back at the resort—or better yet, in London. He can't help but stare as a group of at least half the professors begins to congregate around a ski instructor with a clipboard who's signing them up for introductory lessons on the nursery piste. He can't help letting out a self-deprecating chuckle… by the looks of it, he really shouldn't have worried at all about his own lack of knowledge. A good portion of professors who've made the trip clearly are beginning skiers as well.
But… all the same, he's glad he worried about it so much—and even if she never forgives him, he's still so happy he got to spend time with her. He only wishes—
Jeanne comes up beside him, nudging his arm with her own.
"Ready?" she asks, her eyes bright, motioning over to the sign for a nearby piste.
"As I'll ever be," he says, and he feels her eyes linger on him for a moment as he adjusts his goggles.
They make their way over to a history professor and his wife near the top of the piste, and Jeanne waves to them in a friendly greeting. John forgets the man's name, but he seems to be even more of a novice skier than John himself, and is fiddling with his ski poles, which are clearly too long for him. They stand by patiently waiting for him for a moment until he's finished, and begin to trudge closer to the top of the slope, ski poles in hand.
"Don't forget to fasten your wriststrap!" his wife says.
"I'm not an idiot, dear," the man says, between clenched teeth, sparing a quick glare for her as he wrestles the strap over his gloved hand and fastens it.
"Don't start. Anyway, I see people forget to do that all the time," she says, fastening her own.
"They might be planning to ski off-piste," John says quietly. "You don't want to fasten it then. You could get hurt. Lesson number one, really ..." he trails off.
After a moment, Jeanne clears her throat. "Shall we?" she says with a smile, securing her own goggles.
She pushes herself onto the piste and begins to glide down the hill. After a moment, John lets out a long sigh and follows her.
—
They make it back to the resort by early evening. Despite wanting nothing more than to go back to his room at this point, there's a reception in one of the suites. He hasn't had anything to eat all day, so he gets himself a glass of wine and drifts around the nibbles table, picking at the array of hors d'oeuvres. He's even less inclined to make conversation tonight than the previous evening, so when one of the art lecturers makes a comment in passing about the low admission standards at some of the metropolitan universities, he walks away, not even bothering to excuse himself. The adjoining sitting room is quiet—and better yet, empty—and he sits on the sofa, staring into the fireplace and marveling how quickly this past week had all gone to hell.
He wonders how she is, if she misses him… if Jimmy's still with her right now. He hasn't expected a message from her, but that hasn't stopped him from checking his phone anyway, and hoping. The weight of his thoughts is suffocating, and he can barely remember a time when everything didn't seem so complicated. It doesn't seem possible that merely a week ago he would have considered himself happy.
He hears a noise behind him, and briefly glances up before letting his gaze fall again. Jeanne is standing in the doorway, looking over at him. Quietly, she closes the door and slowly makes her way over to sit down beside him on the sofa. He doesn't look at her, his hands remain cupping his glass of wine and his eyes stay focused on the fireplace.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm always alright," he replies, the words soft yet robotic.
Jeanne looks at him pensively for a moment, turning slightly more towards him. Placing her own glass of wine down on the table, she reaches up and brushes a few stray strands of hair back on his head, her fingertips grazing his forehead. It feels nice. Like someone doesn't hate him, and God knows he seems to have given people enough reason to hate him recently.
He finally turns to face her. He looks at her, at the sheer understanding in her eyes, and he hates himself. Hates Rose. Hates skiing. Hates Wilf and patents and ice skating and banana pancakes and chips and Weardale and Chamonix and Jeanne and Luke and everything that brought him here because it bloody hurts and he doesn't know why. It shouldn't hurt. He hasn't done anything wrong, and he has nothing to feel badly about. There is no justification for his stomach flip-flopping around the way it is right now –and not flip-flopping because he's sitting so close to Jeanne, who's now holding his hand and looking at him so affectionately. Flip-flopping because it feels like he's missing something critical, and he's brilliant and never misses anything important, and it makes him bloody angry!
He's been working for months to get here, for months! He's wanted this woman for months, and she's sitting right here, choosing to be alone with him, ignoring the guests in just the other room–and he's miserable. He would have given anything for this a few months ago, he had it all planned out. How he'd get her alone and he'd take her hand and then lean down to kiss her. How she'd hopefully respond passionately, and he'd take her in his arms on the sofa, in the hallway... who knows, even on the bed, perhaps. He'd wanted that so badly all this time. And he hadn't planned on feeling this way, like this is the last place on earth he wants to be. He hadn't planned on this. Fuck this.
For a long moment she doesn't say a word, just sits there with him, stroking his hair, gazing at him tenderly. She soon lets her hand fall to his face, cupping his cheek, stroking his jawline, still regarding him intently, almost reverently.
As the guests talk and the music plays in the other room, she slowly and gently leans forward and brings her lips to his.
He may hate himself for it, but he lets her.
