Chapter Sixteen
“What would you do if Kirk landed on your doorstep and asked to get back with you?”
Sasha’s sister had asked her this several times over the previous year. It was as if she had a premonition: a visualisation that one day he’d come crawling back, his tail between his legs, his cap in hand, begging forgiveness.
It had always felt like an impossible dream, of course; something that would never happen. And yet, the plan was, that Kirk would be arriving in Belfast that day to see her. She didn’t know about the cap in hand bit, or the tail between the legs, but he’d be there, in one form or another, to see her.
Sasha wouldn’t believe it until she saw him with her own eyes. Until she saw him in the flesh, she wouldn’t believe that they were meeting after all this time.
She went for a short walk in the morning to get some fresh air. She had a spring in her step and joy in her heart. Perhaps her expectations were high. Perhaps she thought that this would be the final conclusion – when he would admit that he still loved her after all this time – that he still thought about her every day; that walking out on her was the biggest mistake of his life. It would be her happy ending; the two of them would walk off into the sunset, like something out of a romantic movie.
When she arrived at the café, she saw him sitting outside. He looked uber-cool with his sunglasses, his slicked-back hair, his tweed jacket. He was reading some intellectual book or other and smoking a roll-up cigarette.
She approached him and smiled shyly. “Hi.”
He looked up at her and his face lit up. “Wow!” he said, drinking her in. She stood in his glow, looking back at him, hardly believing that all this time had passed. He looked exactly the same. It felt exactly the same. It was as if no time had passed at all.
“Wow! You look amazing!” he repeated again. She basked in his praise; it was like a warm shaft of sunlight after a long period of darkness. They stayed like that for a moment, staring at each other, drinking each other in, as though time had stopped still. Eventually she broke the silence.
“Well, I’ll just get a coffee and come and join you,” she smiled.
He smiled back, nodding his head.
Joining him at the table, holding her coffee cup, she watched as he put his intellectual book in his bag and re-directed his body language towards her.
“Well, how are you doing?” she smiled.
“Aw… everything is so mental at home,” he said, in that familiar Dublin lilt. “My sister, my mum, everyone sick… ”
Sasha couldn’t help but notice that a nervous twitch was dancing on his face. He was nervous! About little old her! He was nervous.
In an odd way, it made her feel flattered. And it also made her feel calm. If he was nervous about meeting her, then surely she didn’t have anything to worry about. Surely it was going to be a civil conversation.
The initial small talk ensued; about his sister, about her illness.
But then Sasha started to feel chilly. The sun had dipped; Kirk had moved his sunglasses from his nose to up on top of his head and she was pulling her cardigan close around her. She reasoned that it would hardly be possible to have a relaxed cosy chat if they were both shivering with the cold.
She suggested instead that they go to the hotel next door. It had a comfy bar area where they could grab another coffee. It would be warm, and it had the plushest armchairs, that you could literally sink into.
As they walked into the hotel and passed the bar, Kirk said, “Oh, I’m looking at those beer pumps and I’m dying for a drink.”
“Have one, then,” Sasha shrugged.
So Kirk ordered a pint of beer, and when it arrived, he drooled over the condensation running down the side, and drank it back greedily.
After that pint, he had another. And after that, his tongue was loosened enough to open up to her about their break-up.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said. “About that awful day when we broke up. It has haunted me ever since.”
Aha! Sasha thought. So there was a reason for his visit, and this was it. Perhaps he wanted to apologise; to tell her that it was all a mistake, that he’d missed her every single day.
“Denise and I are on a break at the moment,” he said. “There’s stuff going on and she asked me to move out. I’m living at my mum’s.”
Ah, I see. So, single now, then? Sasha thought. Was this really him coming back again? Had he realised that he couldn’t love anyone but her after all?
“To be honest, one of the problems that we’re having is you.”
“Me?” Sasha gulped.
“Yes. She knows I’m not quite over you yet.”
Sasha couldn’t believe her ears. Was this really happening after all this time?
“I’ve said your name a few times by accident. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night calling your name. She’s seen your name flash up on my phone a few times.”
Oh my God. Really?
Sasha could hardly believe her ears. After months of pining, wondering, thinking, this was actually happening. He was telling her that he still loved her.
He looked so sad, then. So lost. As though all the hurt and pain of the break-up two years ago was still very much present today.
“Do you want a hug?” Sasha offered. He nodded.
Sasha went over to sit beside him and gave him a hug. It was warm; comforting, surreal. Were they really so physically close, after months of distance?
And then the strangest, yet most natural thing happened. His face found its way down to hers and kissed her.
It was a delicious kiss. Soft, warm, passionate, familiar, different; all at the same time. When they broke away, he smiled. “Oh my God, I’m so turned on,” he admitted.
Sasha giggled. And then he kissed her again; more passionately this time, until they were full-on snogging right there in the middle of the fancy hotel bar on the plush comfy sofas. The waiter busied himself at their table, loudly clattering plates, his face a storm of thunder. He might as well have been saying, ‘Get a room!’
“I want to come back home with you,” Kirk said, when the waiter had left. Sasha gulped. Really? He really was landing on her doorstep. Literally. “Okay,” Sasha agreed.
Kirk’s eyes widened. “Really? You’ll really let me go home with you?”
Sasha looked at him simply, shrugging her shoulders with ease. “Yeah.” Wasn’t this what she had pined for, for months? Wasn’t this what she wanted? For him to turn up on the doorstep and admit it was all a horrible mistake and ask to get back with her?
“Hold on – let’s talk about this.” Kirk held his hand out. “Are you absolutely sure about this? I mean, I don’t know what’s happening here. I’ve had a few drinks. I’m coming back to yours. And then when I leave the next day, are you going to be in bits? Are you going to regret it?”
But Sasha wasn’t thinking about that. All Sasha was thinking about was how he was sitting beside her, telling her that he still thought about her. Telling her that he called out her name in the middle of the night. Kissing her, getting horny immediately over her, wanting to take her home. It was like a dream come true. After months of drought, it was like an overflowing waterfall.
“I’m sure,” Sasha nodded. And soon they were hand in hand, leaving the hotel and the disgruntled waiter, dashing into the nearest Tesco to get wine and jumping into a taxi to head home.