Not. Easy.
In fact, over the years I began to find my fierce attraction towards Yaz to be a source of massive guilt. She had always been too young, too naïve, and too in love with me for anything to ever happen. The power balance was completely off, and anyway I wouldn’t have survived past the first kiss as Max would have killed me (true story – he and his stepson Teddy train in Taekwondo; I work out, but those two would pulverise me).
Luckily I moved to London to start my rotation in emergency medicine, and only saw her sporadically over the next five years. Problem solved. Except Imissedher.How weird was that? Then Max and Verity moved their company down to Dorset where Yaz still lived. Not long after, a consultant job came up in Bournemouth and I followed them down there. I told myself it was only natural that I would want to live near my sister and my best friend, that the lifestyle near the sea suited me more. And all of that was true… but the fact that Yaz lived in Dorset was lurking at the back of my mind too. Cue yet more guilt – guilt is one of my specialties.
Once I’d moved to Dorset I began bumping into her quite regularly. And that was when my true torture began. Yaz was even more beautiful than before, and she still looked at me as though I was the most amazing human she had ever seen, still hung off my every word.
So what was the problem?The girl thought you hung the moon; you were so attracted to her it physically hurt. Why not jog on and make your move?
Well, aside from the Max issue, Yaz was not the type of woman I wanted to have a serious relationship with. Not after my messed-up childhood with parents who, to put it mildly, didn’t exactly conform to societal norms. I needed someone stable. And I wasn’t about to risk my friendship with Max for a quick fling with his sister. I respected him and his family too much for that. My twin sister Verity and Ineededour close friends. We had almost no contact with our actual family. Max’s mum and dad had been parental stand-ins for us since we had first met Max at boarding school aged thirteen. He’d arrived at school as an awkward, northern fish out of water, and V and I had liked him immediately. The three of us became best friends, and V and I had been virtually adopted by Max’s mum and stepdad. Verity and Max both went on to study architecture at university, and set up their own architectural business a few years after qualifying. It was natural that Verity partner with Max. His gruff northern demeanour wasn’t exactly conducive to winning clients. He needed my sister’s charm and connections, her natural self-assurance and keen business mind. With our eclectic but extremely posh upbringing, Verity and I could hold our own at a dinner table with celebrities, dukes, duchesses, politicians, you name it. Max was the creative backbone of the business, but Verity was the reason it survived.
So from the minute I moved to Bournemouth, I pushed my longing for Yaz to the back of my mind. The stakes were simply too high for me to risk a relationship with her, and she just didn’t fit in with what I wanted in the long term (my childhood had enough that was alternative about it to last me a lifetime). But increasingly I could feel my resolve cracking.
I pushed through the door into the office and froze. Yaz was lying on a yoga mat in the middle of the office, her legs spread in an almost physically impossible V as she leaned forward so that her chest met the floor, stretching out both her arms to touch her toes on each side. There were a couple of others doing the pose with her (badly) and the entire male contingent of the office appeared to be in suspended animation, their gazes locked onto Yaz’s well displayed, lycra-clad figure.Thenshe proceeded to lean all the way forward, bringing her legs behind her now and coming up onto all fours. A young guy to my right dropped his pencil, and I heard another one mutter “Jesus Christ” under his breath in a hoarse whisper. I threw a thunderous look at both of the wet-behind-the-ears little snots, and they both flushed red before turning back to what they should have been bloody well getting on with in the first place.
“Giving everyone a good show as usual I see, Midge.” My own voice was hoarse now – I tried to tell myself that it was the result of dehydration from my night shift. “Bit early in the day for those types of moves, wouldn’t you say?”
Yaz’s head snapped around to meet my gaze. The peaceful expression on her face from a moment ago fell as she scowled at me. What was stupid and crazy was that I felt her scowl like a punch in the gut. It was the complete opposite of the dreamy way she used to look at me, and instead of feeling relief I always felt an almost crippling sense of loss.
“It’s called yoga, you ignorant prick. Not that you’d know anything about it – I doubt you’d have the flexibility required with that stick permanently up your arse.”
“It’s notmyarse that’s on display for the entire office to gawp at.”
Yaz pushed up onto her feet at this comment, her face flooding with colour and her small fists clasped at her sides. Eyes flashing, delicate jawline set at a stubborn angle. She was furious and magnificent. It took all of my will power to feign a somewhat bored expression and not to gawp myself.
“I donothave anythingon display,” she said through her teeth. “You can go and–”
“Heath,” a soft voice cut Yaz off, and I felt a hand settle on my arm. With great effort, I turned away from Yaz to see Max’s wife Mia frowning up at me. I was relieved to see the colour back in her cheeks after the weeks of morning sickness she’d endured incubating Max’s spawn (anyone’s physiology would be challenged by that). She was now sporting a more healthy glow and her bump was becoming more obvious by the day. “That was uncalled for.”
Another kick in the gut – gentle criticism from Mia was the equivalent of a being screamed at by a sergeant major. She was generally quiet, stoic, non-judgmental – she was not the sort to push her opinions forward, not unless she felt she had no other choice. It wasn’t the first time she’d objected to the way I spoke to her friend. Mia was fiercely loyal, and had become close to Yaz even before she got together with Max.
But then that was typical of Yaz. When Mia had arrived at the company, she’d been traumatised by an abusive relationship, something that Yaz’s emotional antennae had picked up on long before anyone else. And Yaz was so warm, so empathic that Mia, as closed off as she had been at the time, still bonded with her and allowed Yaz to help her heal. There was something about Yaz that encouraged people closer. Just being around her made people feel warm, safe, listened to. Sometimes it was a little spooky – the first time she met my cousin (a Hooray Henry rugby lad who I’d thought had the emotional depth of a puddle) she made him cry after delving into his deep-seated feelings of inadequacy instilled in him by his shitty parents (not a shock – his mum was my dad’s sister after all). When I asked him about it down the pub, he said he felt lighter than he had in years and that the conversation with Yaz had “freed him from his repression”. He’d only spoke to her for thirty minutes max.
I looked around the office full of workers in front of whom I’d just humiliated my best friend’s sister. “Sorry, Midge,” I muttered. Mia gave my arm a light squeeze as Yaz threw me a disgusted look and turned back to her audience.
“Everyone, try to clench your core now with this move,” she said brightly. “Tighten up those v-jay-jays, ladies. Get those groins in action, gentlemen.”
“Are you here to see Max or Verity?” Mia asked me, and I cleared my throat, forcing myself to divert my attention from Yaz and her core-clenching instructions.
“Let that negative energy flow over your being. Focus on centring yourself in the moment.” She was balancing on one foot now and reaching up to the ceiling with her both hands. A slither of stomach was revealed as she stretched her body upwards. The idiots trying to copy her on the mats behind were all toppling over.
Mia gave my arm another squeeze, and tore my eyes away from Yaz to look at her.
“Max.”
“Right, come on then.” And this small, shy, pregnant woman put her hand to my back and literally frog marched me over to Max’s office. The office space itself was all open plan, although Max and Verity had their own individual offices on either side – the door and walls of each one was glass, however, which was supposed to encourage openness and break down barriers. Max was an antisocial bastard and I’m sure would have preferred to design buildings from a small underground cave for which he didn’t have to pay rent or utilities, but my sister had other ideas. Verity spotted me as Mia propelled me across the office space, giving me a low wave and cocking her head to the side in question. As twins we’d always been able to communicate without words. She frowned as she glanced between Yaz and me, her disapproval of my behaviour radiating through the glass wall. I gave a small shrug before Mia marched me into Max’s office and shut the door behind her, Max’s eyes went wide and he sat up straight in his chair. He opened his mouth to speak, but Mia got there first.
“I have hadenoughof this shit,” she said, her voice still low and quiet but now vibrating with anger. She was between me and Max, next to Max’s desk, and she had her hands on her slim hips, emphasising her bump. I’d never seen such an attitude-laden pose from her before, and would have been happy for her had that attitude not been directed my way. After all that she’d been through, Mia was much more likely to shrink from confrontation rather than start an argument – it showed that she was finally starting to trust us. Max was looking at her now in shock, which rapidly melted into a pleased, proud expression with a small smile. “And you!” she turned on him. “You can wipe that smile off your face. How Heath treats Yaz is no laughing matter.”
His smile dropped at that. Even though Yaz frequently drove him up the wall, he did not like anyone messing with his little sister. “What did you do?” he asked. Whilst Mia’s tone had been pissed off, Max’s was downright menacing.
“I didn’t do anything. I was just–”
“You told her she was putting on a display and that she had her arse out.”
“She does have her arse out!”
“Mia, love,” Max said, standing up from his chair and approaching this new Attitude Mia with appropriate caution. His angry expression from a moment ago had faded, much to my relief. “Heath has a point. It’s quite the floorshow she puts on out there. I don’t think–”
