Lily began to move towards the next aisle. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘Not regrets about being here. Wishing it had been different, I suppose.’
‘Yeah, ’course.’
‘But there’s no point – is there – running back to him. Because I’d have to live with knowing that I wasn’t enough, that he couldn’t take a risk for me. And I’d be giving up my dream, not just putting it on hold.’
‘Oh, Lily.’
Lily shrugged. ‘There’s no solution; the only thing I can do is move on,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant but failing. ‘And I’m here and making a new life. And hopefully in a while I’ll be able to move on properly.’
‘Definitely,’ Sam said. ‘It sounds like he doesn’t deserve you.’ She stopped by the wine boxes and heaved a couple into the trolley.
Lily resisted the urge to snap back in Ben’s defence. It was one of those strange conundrums. Lily could say what she liked about Ben. But the urge to defend him when anyone else criticised him was almost overwhelming. She knew Sam was just being supportive, but felt incredibly defensive at her words. Ben always had deserved her. They’d deserved each other – in a good way. She’d always felt their relationship was balanced, each of them bending to the other on occasion, rarely fighting. They’d giggle more often than grown-ups ordinarily would, and had never lost their sense of fun.
Then, over the last few months– now she thought about it – they’d begun doing less, going out less. Communicating less. Ben had seemed absorbed in his work – spreading papers across the dining table in the evenings, disappearing into the office or burning the midnight oil in their home study. She’d been preoccupied with getting Ty through his mocks and the pending reviews at her work. Ben had been anxious, suffering, but she hadn’t realised.
By the time she’d bought the house in France, they’d drifted apart a little. She’d arrived in France on a wave of anger and self-righteousness that had given her a kind of energy and strength to move forward.
But recently she’d started to think about the whole of their relationship, not just the recent weeks. The day they met in the lecture hall, the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant, their wedding day when they’d fallen into bed too exhausted to consummate anything. Their nights out, meals out, days out – always with moments of laughter and the kind of silliness you only really get with someone you’ve known since you were young and relatively carefree.
They’d evolved around each other like jigsaw pieces, and she could feel the jagged edges left exposed where they’d pulled away from each other. She couldn’t imagine finding anyone who fitted her so exactly, because she’d grown to fit Ben and he’d grown to fit her. Perhaps nobody would ever fill the space he’d left.
The shock – and it had been a traumatic, proper, pass-me-some-smelling-salts-no-make-that-a-bottle-of-your-strongest-brandy shock – of discovering that he really would let her walk away had been brutal. But somehow her anger had overridden it at first.
Now the anger had gone and she was left with a feeling of grief. And she knew it was going to take more time and energy to heal than she’d realised at first.
There was nothing she could do about it though, or rather there was something, but it was too much to ask – give up her dream, move back to England, pretend the last part of her life hadn’t happened; live with the knowledge that Ben was the reason she’d had to let go of the dream she’d thought they’d shared. The die had been cast and she was here, starting a new life in a new place. She couldn’t afford to give in to the feeling of loneliness – either by throwing herself at the nearest twinkly-eyed Frenchman, or collapsing on the floor in a sobbing heap. Not if she wanted to build any kind of future for herself.
Instead, she resolved, she’d buy snacks. Lots of snacks.
‘Are you sure that isn’t too many snacks?’ Sam said doubtfully as they heaved the overflowing trolley to the till. ‘Isn’t Chloé bringing some quiches as well?’
Chloé had insisted she bring something when Lily had invited her to the party. ‘But I must!’ she’d said. ‘You are my friend, non?’
‘Yes, but I… I mean this is meant to be a party thanking you,’ said Lily. ‘Thanking everyone. You shouldn’t have to work.’
‘Pah, it is not work to make a quiche, huh? Especially when it iz for a friend.’