Page 125 of The Mismatch

A punch to the gut. Her head was shaking uncontrollably. ‘No, you don’t.’

He frowned, stepped back, turned away from her. His broad shoulders were hunched, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. He didn’t say anything.

She jumped off the table, her legs wobbly. As she stepped towards him her movements were slow and careful. She didn’t have anything to say, but the distance between them felt wrong.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

‘That I just told you I love you,’ he said, almost angrily. All she could see was the tension in his back, and she was sure if she touched it, it would be rock hard. She tested her theory. Her palm lightly grazed his shoulder, and she was rewarded with a shiver. ‘Don’t,’ he said quietly. She tugged at him so he’d turn to her.

‘You’re seeing someone,’ she stated.

He breathed heavily. ‘Iwas.’

‘What happened?’

He made a dismissive noise. ‘I don’t want to talk about that, Soraya. I just – I want you to know how much I care about you. I don’t want to talk about girls from my past.’

‘I’m a girl from your past! I came before her; she’s more recent than me!’ The words came out almost in a shout.

‘I only dated her to forget about you, and it didn’t work. It just made me miss you more.’ Soraya stared at the balloons they’d decorated the space with, unable to meet his gaze. ‘Soraya, look at me.’

Her teeth were chattering, her whole body a knot of nerves. ‘How do I know I’m not just another rebound from some other girl you’ve dated?’

There, she thought. At least she had said it, what she had feared all along.

Magnus didn’t seem to comprehend. ‘She knew what she was to me. I was clear about my intentions.’

‘I went on a date with a guy a couple of months ago. He knew you from uni. Said you’d basically slept with everyone. Is that true?’

Magnus furrowed his brow, pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. ‘What? Who was it?’

‘That’s not the point. I worry that I’m just …’ She couldn’t quite finish her sentence. Thinking that Magnus only wanted her for sex was one thing, but having him there in front of her, reminding her of their past, how gentle he’d always been, she couldn’t say the words. She didn’t believe them anymore.

‘None of the girls I’ve been with before meant anything to me, they were always short flings or … I don’t know, I don’t really want to talk about it. I want to talk about us. Whether there could still be anus. Or have I got this wrong? Was what you said in your diary how you really felt? Am I being a total idiot here?’

‘No, you’re not being an idiot,’ she said quietly. ‘Nothing has changed. I’m still not sure I’m ready to have sex. I need to find myself, I guess. And if or when I do want to do it, it’ll take me a while. I want to take it at my own pace, and I know that annoyed you—’

‘It didn’t annoy me—’

‘Oh, come on, it annoyed you. So much so that you lied to your friends about it.’

He took his hands out of his pockets and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. ‘Soraya, these past months without you have been awful. I went to Paris to escape, thinking if I wasn’t in London anymore, if I had a new adventure, I could forget you, forget about my family, but I can’t. I know I’ve been shit, but I’m asking you to let me show you that I won’t be this time, that what we have is real, it just started off a bit weird. I’ll show you all that if you give me another chance.’

‘Come on, if we still haven’t had sex in a year, you’re saying you’d be OK with it?’ She laughed. ‘Be realistic.’

Both his hands were on her face, his lips inches from hers. ‘I just want you. However much you can give, I’ll be happy with.’

‘I want to believe you—’

‘Then do,’ he breathed.

‘You said I don’t talk about my feelings,’ she said tentatively. She didn’t want him to jump on this flaw of hers, but it had to be said. ‘That you don’t even know me. And maybe you don’t. How has that changed?’

‘I was projecting on to you, I realise that now.’

‘What do you mean?’

He sighed. ‘I’ve always been annoyed with myself for bottling up my feelings about my parents, for quite literally running away from them, leaving home as soon as I could and only going back at Christmas. I think I projected that onto you. All the things I said to you, I guess I was saying to myself. But we’re all different in how we deal with these things, and I shouldn’t have said what I did. You should be able to tell me things in your own time. I’m sorry.’