Page 79 of How We Began

Silence.

And still more silence as he continued to watch me.

“Before I met you, I never wanted to get married or have kids or anything like that,” he finally began.

Another pause as he analysed me some more. I could almost see his words battling to get out, but he kept fighting to keep them in. I gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

“But since I met you, it is all I have thought about. Yet it seems to be happening to other people and not to us.”

He stopped to take a drag on his cigarette. “Not that I’d want us to go through the terrible things Trist and Mer have, but I keep thinking, what if we were to get pregnant accidentally and create something perfect just by chance? I think it would be the best news in the world.”

My face couldn’t control my shock.

But he wasn’t done yet.

“Then I keep beating myself up, thinking that if I had not gotten so bloody drunk that night, and made that awful mistake after that gig, that maybe you and I would be engaged by now. It was always my intention to ask you. And yeah, it might have been crazy and fast, but that’s the way you make me feel. I was waiting for your birthday. It’s not like I didn’t wait forever just to find you.” He trailed off giving a humourless laugh.

“Now I have to stand here and be pleased for our friends. I am, but I am also jealous as hell. Jealous of the things that won’t happen for us. All I ever wanted was for this to be the start of you and me, instead it’s the end.”

He wanted to marry me after only three months of knowing me? How is that even possible?

I would have said ‘yes’, straight away, after only knowing him for three months.

Oh God!

So what? He wanted to marry me, but he’s now changed his mind?

Is this because of Barbie and how I reacted? Or is it because of the America thing and the fact he’s leaving?

Oh my god, my head!

In the moment I couldn’t get my brain to think of anything to say. What was I supposed to say?

I went for silence instead.

He waited until I could only think of one question. “How were you going to ask me?”

He gave a little secret smile. “I’m not telling you. Never know when I may get to use the idea one day.”

Just like that, I knew he hadn’t given up on us, on me.

Maybe we will be like Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth and find each other again when there is no longer anything to keep us apart. I know I can’t count on that being true, but it gives me a little glimmer of something resembling hope.

“You know the other week? I asked if maybe you would like to go out on another date with me, as we have only had one real one…”

He trailed off so I helpfully added again, “And how we have sex all the time…”

Chuckling he pulled me in and pressed his lips on my forehead, the faint stubble along his jaw scratched ever so slightly against my skin. My natural instinct, instinctive and automatic, was to move in closer. Closer to him.

“Yes, that, thank you, Delilah. Well, I was wondering if I could ask for an extended date and maybe you could come to Dorset with me over the next holiday?”

What?

He looked a bit embarrassed, probably misreading my facial expression, which involved my mouth opening and closing like a gormless goldfish.

“It’s just that I like the idea of going to Lyme Regis with you,” Oh my God! He is my Captain Wentworth… “And I’d like to do it before I leave.”

I thought quickly. Take it, don’t take it. Take it, don’t take it.