‘I nearly had her. She was right there.’ He closes his eyes.
I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him tight, trying not to think about how easily it could have gone wrong. At the same time, I can’t deny my relief. That’s why he was holding his hands out. It made total sense.
‘I’m sorry, Pip. I’m so sorry.’
I’m not sure if he’s sorry for reaching for her, or for missing. Perhaps both. Either way, I’ve already forgiven him.
‘Come on,’ I say, resigned. ‘Let’s get back before those girls wake up.’
The rain is getting heavy now. Gabe bends to pick up his board. I tiptoe over the rocks and am already on the steps when I turn back, remembering.
‘Oh, you dropped something before.’
Gabe stops. ‘Did I?’
‘It was small and silver.’ I peer back at the rocks, but whatever it was has disappeared deep into its crevices.
Gabe shrugs. ‘Probably a chunk of surfboard wax,’ he says. ‘Forget about it.’
And as we climb the stairs back to the house, I do exactly that. Forget.
6
PIPPA
THEN
I never get sick of telling people how Gabe and I met. It’s a good story. A bit shocking, a bit unbelievable. It sounds more like a daydream, or a scene out of a rom-com that somehow transposed onto my life.
It was a miserable, rainy Saturday. I’d spent the morning in bed, crying over a guy called Mark who, it has to be said, wasn’t very nice. We’d dated for six months, but he hadn’t met a single friend of mine, nor a member of my family, preferring instead to hang out alone, in his apartment. I told myself it was because he was an introvert, and meeting new people was stressful for him. It wasn’t ideal but it was something we’d work on, I thought. But then, after two of my friends had seen him at the local bar dancing and chatting up women, he’d stopped returning my calls. It was as though, suddenly, he’d forgotten he was an introvert.
On my third day of dedicated crying, Kat frogmarched me out of the house, ostensibly to walk her new dog. Mudguts was a rescue, a mixed breed, white with a brown streak across his tummy. （He’d been called Mudguts at the rescue home, a name he’d become irritatingly attached to, foiling Kat’s attempt at changing it to Droolius Caesar.）
‘Maybe I should try calling him again?’ I mused as I pulled on my coat.
‘You were ghosted, Pip. You’re not meant to call people who have ghosted you.’
‘What are you meant to do if you’re ghosted?’
Kat thought about this. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. Lesbians enjoy talking about our feelings too much to ghost people. But I imagine you’re meant to lose weight, get your hair cut and post pictures of yourself living your best life on Instagram.’
‘But what if he thinks I have ghosted him?’
‘The three hundred and sixty-seven messages you’ve left him will assure him that you haven’t,’ Kat said sagely.
I knew Kat was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better. And so I wept quietly as we wandered around the Botanic Gardens.
Halfway into our walk, when it started to rain, I began to weep loudly.
Part of me enjoyed how theatrical it was – heartbroken, sobbing openly in a park. I was wearing pyjama pants beneath my puffer jacket, and ugg boots. I was the very image of a person at their worst.
The wedding that came into view as we walked around the pond felt like a particularly harsh blow, even if I didn’t envy them the weather. Guests stood huddled under umbrellas, crowded around the three rows of white chairs. At the front, under a small awning, a tall, good-looking groomsman and a nervous-looking bridesmaid held large white golf umbrellas over the bride and groom. Kat muttered something about how desperate they must have been to get married outside on such a day, but I was distracted by the groomsman. He was eye-wateringly handsome. And he was staring, unblinkingly, at me.
Given my pyjama pants/puffer jacket combination, the chances that he was checking me out seemed reasonably low. I chalked it up to the dramatic crying.
‘He’s staring at you,’ Kat said.
‘I know,’ I replied.
For the sake of the wedding, I reined in the tears as we passed them. Unfortunately, Mudguts stopped to do his business just a few metres from the scene.
‘Another reason not to get married outside,’ Kat murmured, pulling a plastic bag from her pocket. ‘So you don’t have to say your vows while a dog shits nearby. You pick it up.’
‘Who are you, the Queen? In fact, I’m pretty sure even the Queen picks up after her corgis.’ But despite my grumbling I bent to pick it up.
And that’s why I was bent over, with a plastic bag over my hand, the first time I heard his voice.
‘Excuse me?’
It sounds dramatic to say the effect that voice had on me. I felt it in my body.
Kat and I turned in unison.
It was the groomsman. He was tall, broad-shouldered, strong. With his golden hair and skin, he reminded me of a lion.
Behind him, the wedding guests watched from under their umbrellas. Many of them were smiling or laughing, whispering to each other. It gave the impression that wandering away from a wedding ceremony in which he played an important role wasn’t unusual behaviour for this groomsman.
The bride was not laughing.
‘Sorry,’ I said, assuming the bride had complained about the dog pooping near her wedding. ‘I’ll just get this, and we’ll be on our way.’
I cursed the universe for putting this glorious man in my path while I was wearing pyjama pants and picking up poop. Although, it had to be said, the glorious man looked a little dishevelled himself. His white shirt looked conspicuously un-ironed and appeared to be untucked at the back. The pocket of his trousers was half pulled out, displaying their shiny silk lining.
The rain got heavier.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Mostly for Lucy, the bride, who will never forgive me for interrupting her wedding. It’s just that I noticed you crying and I . . . I felt this overwhelming urge to ask if you were okay. Then I thought: that’s stupid, you’re with a friend and I’m the groomsman at a wedding while the couple are exchanging their vows. But you stopped, and I thought, well, it must be a sign.’ He smiled. ‘Do you believe in signs?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
I didn’t believe in signs.
Gabe looked delighted by my answer. Kat disguised a laugh as a cough.
‘In that case, I’d like a sign that I should ask you on a date.’
Gabe raised his eyes to the heavens, and for a moment we all waited.
What happened next was freaky. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, and if Kat hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t have believed it.
The rain stopped.
A cheer went up from the wedding party nearby.
I looked at Kat. Her jaw hung open. Gabe also looked stunned. I felt a smile come to my face for the first time in days.
Neither of us noticed the groom approaching, but suddenly he was standing behind Gabe. ‘Sorry, mate, but can you do this later? It’s your turn to sign the register.’
Gabe ignored him. ‘I haven’t even introduced myself,’ he said to me. ‘I’m Gabriel. Gabe.’
‘Pippa.’