I walk briskly around the green, Larry trotting happily by my side. He is blissfully unaware of all my turmoil, and I am thankful to at least be taking something positive from this whole experience. I might not have found my happy place, but I did find a dog.
I pause outside the inn, and consider messaging Priya. I reject the idea – it would be unfair to seek solace, to look for help, to find support. I need to do this alone, and I need to do what is right for everyone.
I see Jake behind the bar at the inn, chatting to Matt. They both look up when I walk in, and Jake’s face breaks into a smile of welcome. It doesn’t take long for that to change – he knows me too well; he can tell that I’m not here for a Starshine Special and a fond reunion. He tells Matt he’ll be back soon, and follows me across the room – right to the little snug where we sat and talked, on my very first night here.
Part of me didn’t want to do this. I gave some serious consideration to just driving away, avoiding the pain of it. But I’m not that ruthless, and knew I had to see him face-to-face. He has been left before, and I know his wife told him she was going in a text message, while he was with his dying mother. He carries scars, as we all do, and although what I am about to do will hurt him, I can at least give him the honesty and respect that he deserves.
He sits across from me, runs his hands through his thick dark hair, and sighs. He is still the most handsome man in the world, which doesn’t make any of this easier.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he says simply, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he waits for my answer.
“I am,” I reply. “And I’m sorry. Everything that’s happened – it just showed me that this isn’t right for me. Not yet. Maybe never. It’s not your fault, Jake, I want you to know that…”
“Right,” he says, smiling sadly. “It’s not me, it’s you?”
“That’s about the size of it. I know it sounds like an excuse, but it’s true. You’ve been nothing but good for me, Jake – but I can’t stay here, like this. I’m just no use to anyone at the moment. I fell to pieces when people needed me the most, and I can’t do that again. I can’t go through that again. I know that makes me weak, I know that makes me a coward – but maybe that’s what I am. Maybe that’s what I’ll always be.”
“You’re not a coward,” he says firmly. “And you’re not weak…and even if you were, is that such a terrible thing? Aren’t we all allowed to be weak sometimes?”
“Not like this. Not when you’re responsible for other people. The longer I stay, the more they’ll start to get used to having me around. The more they’ll depend on me – and I’m just not feeling very dependable. It wouldn’t be fair to stay, to carry on like this, knowing that I could crack just when someone needed me most – it’d be like you renting out a property to someone, knowing the roof could fall in at any moment.”
“I think,” he says slowly, gazing out of the window, “that maybe what I’d do is try to fix the roof before I condemned the whole property.”
I nod, but stay silent. He is hurt, and maybe he is angry, and he has every right to those feelings. The best I can do is acknowledge them.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, reaching out to place my hand over his on the table top.
He wraps his fingers into mine, and says: “I didn’t expect any of this, you know. When you walked in that first day, I thought wow, she’s pretty, because I’m a male and I have eyes. Then I talked to you, and thought wow, she’s clever and funny as well. Then I…well, then I really got to know you, Ella. No, that’s not quite right – I didn’t just get to know you. I fell in love with you. If you’re going to leave, then I have to say that out loud, instead of skirting around it in my own mind. I love you. And now, seeing you here like this, knowing that you’re calm on the outside but falling apart on the inside, I don’t know whether loving you means I should be fighting for you to stay, or letting you go.”
His fingers stroke the skin of my palm, and his eyes roam my face, and I feel the full impact of it all. Of his touch, his look, his words. His honesty and his bravery and his love. I wish it changed things, but it doesn’t – I feel like a ship that is about to sink, and I don’t want to take him down with me.
I lean across the table, kiss him lightly on the lips, and pull away.
“I love you too, Jake. But you have to let me go.”
ChapterThirty-Three
Larry looks at me from his spot on the sofa with a deep level of betrayal in his eyes. Maybe embarrassment, I’m not sure.
He is on Priya’s couch in her home in a leafy suburb of Birmingham. He has been a huge hit with her two little girls, and once he got used to a new place and new smells, the feeling was entirely mutual. Which is probably why he allowed them to comb out the long hair on the top of his head and tie it up in miniature pink scrunchies. He now has two furry ponytails sticking straight up into the sky like space rockets, and looks sad about it. I scratch behind his ears and tell him he’s handsome.
It is after 10pm, and Priya has finally got the girls to sleep. Her husband, Martin, is on a night shift, and we are making a dent in a bottle of wine. I have been here for three days, and am grateful for the respite – but this particular conversation with my friend is fast becoming something I am not enjoying at all.
Over the last few days, I have told her everything. About Mark and Kim, about Lizzie, about Starshine and Jake. About the way that being back in a hospital made me feel. She has listened, and questioned, and understood. She has not judged, or tried to fix me, or given me her opinion – until now. Now, she is in full flow. I blame the wine.
“Do you have any idea how many NHS staff developed mental health problems after the pandemic?” she asks, waving her glass in the air.
“A lot?” I say quietly, knowing she’s going to tell me.
“Yes, a lot! There’ve been all kinds of studies about it since, including one by the British Medical Association, by the Government, organisations all over the world. Everything went up – anxiety, depression, PTSD. It was hell, and for a lot of people it still is – but I also know a lot of people like you, who just ignore it, just try and pretend none of it matters any more. Who try to just forget the things they’ve seen, the things they’ve experienced. Who just think they can do a yoga class or burn a scented candle and tell themselves everything is all right.”
That one hits home, as I remember my frustratingly ineffective meditation classes, my failed attempts at self-care.
“Well, that stuff can work, can’t it?” I say.
“It can help, yes, for some. All kinds of things can help – but what’s struck me in recent years has been how bloody awful doctors are at looking after themselves. How they’ll do everything they can to take away the stigma of mental health issues for other people, but gloss over their own. If you had a patient with the same symptoms as you, would you send them away and tell them to go for a long walk and perhaps to buy a colouring book?”
“Maybe,” I snap defensively, knowing that I most definitely wouldn’t, “maybe that would be enough. And anyway, I don’t have symptoms – I’m not sick!”
