Daniel left the next afternoon.

It was all happening so quickly. I tried to pretend to myself that I would see him in just a few hours.

We agreed that I was going to fly out to see him a week on Friday which meant it would be ten days before we saw each other again. I had thought four days without him had been a struggle. What was ten days going to be like?

I didn’t go to see him off at the airport. He was flying with colleagues and anyway it would have felt too dramatic. I kept reassuring him that this was going to be no big deal. I kept telling myself the same thing. My feelings were still in a box which I had no intention of opening at the moment.

The rule about no contact during working hours got well and truly trampled. Every morning when I woke up there was an email waiting for me from Daniel and I made sure I sent one to him for when New York’s sun rose. I’m not sure how much sleep Daniel was getting. Quite often when I emailed him in what should have been the dead of night in New York he replied or called me. We spoke at least twice a day and if I tried really hard I could imagine he was just around the corner. The closer my visit to him, the more relaxed he seemed.

***

The sun was out, which improved my mood. After all it was a Monday. I took the opportunity to take a walk to find my lunch a little further away from the office that my usual haunt. Work was frantic and I needed 20 minutes to myself with no phones ringing, no people throwing questions at me from every which way. When Brendan offered to get my lunch I refused. I wouldn’t get out until late tonight so there was no chance of seeing daylight again if I didn’t take the opportunity then.

I wandered to a deli that I particularly like and collected a salad and my favorite smoothie. As I headed back into the sun I caught sight of a couple on the opposite side of the street laughing. The sun helped everyone’s mood. The guy was stroking the woman’s pregnant belly, his eyes not leaving hers as they laughed. It seemed such an intimate moment and I replaced my sunglasses to begin my walk back to the office.

And then I froze.

It was Charlie and Fran.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from them. I stood there just staring as the rest of the City became a haze. I was vaguely aware of being knocked into by various people inconvenienced by my petrified state but I really couldn’t focus. I couldn’t move. I realized they were standing outside Anna and Fran’s firm. Why did I come this way? I didn’t think about running into them.

Despite our lives having been so entwined just a few weeks ago, until now it was as if they had fallen off the face of the planet. They had fallen off the face of my planet but here they were, getting on with their lives as if they were just any other happy couple. As I continued to stare they eventually kissed briefly and Fran headed back inside, then Charlie strode away.

That’s when the nausea kicked in.

It was overwhelming. The metallic taste in my mouth was a sure sign I was was actually going to throw up. Oh no, I couldn’t let it happen here. The panic forced me back into reality and I focused on the road just a few steps away from me and stuck my hand out for a cab. I mumbled Anna’s address to the cabbie, still trying desperately to convince my body that I wasn’t going to be sick.

I made it to Anna’s without vomiting. As soon as I was through the door I ran to my bathroom and emptied the contents of my stomach. Even when my stomach was empty the heaving wouldn’t stop and I clung to the bowl, afraid that if I let go I would fall all the way to the floor. Tears ran down my cheeks and I wasn’t sure if I was crying or if it was just the strain of the vomiting. And then it was clear I was crying. I didn’t even know why but I couldn’t stop it.

My body stopped heaving and I pulled myself off my knees and tried to go about cleaning up the bathroom and myself. Black mascara marks had settled on my cheeks and as I tried to wipe it away new mascara replaced it. I tried to take a deep breath. I needed to get back to the office. I had so much to do. I started to panic. Why did I come home? I should have thrown up in the office. And then the heaving started again and I rushed back to the toilet bowl. There was nothing left to come out but I just stayed there alternating between sobbing and heaving as pain started coursing through my stomach muscles.

At some point I forgot about work and gave in to the tears. I couldn’t just clean off the smudged mascara and dance back into work as if nothing happened, my whole face was swollen and red, and I was still heaving, although there was now more sobbing than heaving.

When the sobbing seemed to have won out, I tried again to pull myself up. I didn’t even bother looking in the mirror. I just rinsed my mouth and found something to tie my hair back with. My clothes were disheveled and I pulled them off myself and found my way to the shower. The crying then found a new lease of life and I just stood under the warm water and didn’t try to stop it.

Eventually the water ran cold, and when I started shivering I climbed out of the shower and wrapped in a towel crawled into bed. The sobbing seemed to have subsided, for a time anyway, and I heard my phone ringing somewhere outside my bedroom. It must be work wondering where I was. I rarely took lunch and now I’d been gone for hours. I started crying again, these tears were bitter, bitter that Charlie still had this power over me and then sorrow consumed me again.

I staggered out of my bedroom to find my phone. I couldn’t speak to anyone but I should let the office know I was OK. There were nine missed calls. Most of them were from Brendan and then there were two from Anna. I texted Brendan saying I had come down with something really suddenly and was at home. Just as I pressed send, my phone started buzzing in my hands. It was Anna. The tears intensified. What was I going to say to her? I took a deep breath and answered.

“Leah, is that you? Are you OK?”

“Yes, fine.”

“You are clearly not fine. What’s going on? Brendan called to ask if you were with me because you didn’t come back from lunch. Where are you?”

“I’m home. I’m fine. I’ll see you when you get home.” And I hung up, a wave of grief passed over me and new tears were falling. It had taken every ounce of energy I had to put that sentence together in something resembling a normal voice.

I slunk back into bed and pulled the covers up. I couldn’t get warm. At some point I must have cried myself to sleep. The next thing I knew I felt the bed sink behind me and I felt a body climb in beside me. But something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the right smell next to me. It wasn’t Daniel. I eyes flew open—no, not Charlie? I sat bolt upright and was confronted by Anna beside me.

“Oh, thank god. I thought it was Charlie.” I lay back down but on my side my body facing Anna.

“Why would Charlie be in your bed, Leah?”

“I don’t know.” I was disoriented and so thirsty. Why was I so thirsty?

“Leah, what’s going on? You are really freaking me out. It’s 4 p.m. on a Tuesday and you are in bed. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“What? No. I need some water. Please will you get me some water?”

Anna returned a few minutes later with two glasses of water with lemon. She was so thoughtful to think of putting lemon in the water. I would never think of that. I started to cry again. Perhaps if I was thoughtful like that Charlie wouldn’t have cheated on me with my friend.

“Oh my god, Leah. Are you OK? Why are you crying? Is it because you miss Daniel?”

I ignored her but took the glass from her hand, and greedily drank down the water as I cried. I must have sounded like I was choking.

“Leah?”

I took her glass from her and drank that straight down, as well. And then it was back, that metallic taste. I leapt out of bed and rushed to the bathroom just in time to have all the water I just drank pour into the toilet. I sunk to my knees.

Exhausted, I stopped crying and was just staring into the toilet bowl, grasping the  seat with both hands as if the ground underneath me wasn’t steady enough to keep me upright. Anna followed me in to the bathroom and rubbed my back. I’d dragged her out of work, all because of him.

“I saw them.” I said quietly, still looking into the toilet bowl. “Charlie and Fran. Outside her building. I had almost forgotten it all and then I saw them. I saw her with what was meant to be my life. Pregnant with Charlie’s baby, kissing Charlie.” I wretched into the toilet again.

Anna didn’t say a word. She didn’t say, “I thought you were over this. I thought you’d moved on. You’ve got Daniel now. You’re better off without him. They deserve each other.” She didn’t offer any of those useless platitudes that made rational sense but just didn’t matter. She understood. She pulled me to my feet, wiped my face with a warm cloth, and then made me wash my hands and rinse out my mouth. She led me back into bed and brought the covers up right to my chin. She left the room but came back two minutes later with more water.

“Just sip. Tiny sips.” I took the glass and took a few little sips and handed it back to her.

She climbed back into bed with me. I managed to fall asleep again, but kept waking, replaying the scene of Charlie and Fran together outside her office. My imagination extended it, seeing them in my old home, with Charlie’s parents. I was replaying their whole existence around and around in my head.

I had been awake for the last two hours when the clock went to 6:30 a.m. In my head that was the earliest possible time I could get up without Anna thinking I was still freaking out. And if I was in the office for 8 a.m., I could be there before everyone else and catch up on some of the stuff I missed yesterday.

Anna caught me as I tried to sneak out of bed.

“Don’t argue with me. You are not going into work today and I’m working from home.” As she said it I realized I wanted someone to tell me not to go to work. At that moment, I never wanted to go to work again.

“You need to give yourself a break; one day isn’t going to kill anyone. My clients don’t know I’m not in the office, and if I am in the office, I might be tempted to rip Fran’s head off. And I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t go down well with any jury, so I’d very likely go to prison, and then my clients really would be inconvenienced. On balance, I think it’s probably best to work from home until the feeling passes. Just to be sure.” I half-smiled, went to the bathroom, and then climbed back into bed.

“I hate him.”

“Good.”

“Good? I want to do him physical harm. That’s not good.”

“Leah, when you met Daniel, all your feelings about Charlie disappeared and you magically got over a six-year relationship in days. You are just catching up on what you’ve been putting off. And anger is good, anger is normal.”

“You’re been all wise again and it’s freaking me out.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry for being a bitch. You think that being with Daniel is just a rebound thing?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, and I have no idea, Leah. All I know is that you’ve been able to escape from Charlie to Daniel. I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing. It just is.”

She was right. I had forgotten about Charlie until yesterday when I was confronted by the reality. Daniel allowed me to do that.

By early afternoon I summoned the strength to make it to the sofa to watch trashy TV, and although I’d not eaten anything for 24 hours, the only thing I wanted was ice cream, obviously.

Anna and I didn’t talk much, but neither did I concentrate on what was on the TV. My mind wouldn’t let me. I just kept thinking about Charlie and Daniel and about Charlie and me and Daniel and me. Was what I was feeling for Daniel real or was it my way of just making sure I couldn’t feel what I felt about Charlie and me? I couldn’t help but think that Daniel’s trip to New York was a sign. It was an opportunity for me to find out the answers to all these questions. I was going to have a lot to talk to Daniel about when I went to see him later that week and I wasn’t sure he was going to be happy with what I was going to say. I was clear to me now what I needed to do.

***

I had pleaded with Daniel not to come to the airport to collect me. I tried to convince him that it would be wasted time for him which he could use to work so he would have more time off when I had arrived. He had grudgingly agreed but only if I agreed to being collected by his driver. That was an easy give from my perspective.

After I landed and waited for four weeks for my bag to be spat out on the conveyor belt I secretly hoped that Daniel had broken his promise and come to collect me. I was more than a little gutted when I saw a piece of card with my name on it waiting with excited friends and family of my fellow passengers. I wanted Daniel to make it all better.

“Good evening, ma’am.”

“Hi.” I sighed, not hiding my disappointment.

Somehow the driver managed to park directly outside the entrance to the airport and as he put my bag in the trunk I took my hand luggage and opened the door, desperate for the air conditioning. It was a scorcher.

The smell was what hit me first. That delicious Daniel smell and then I was greeted by his megawatt smile in all its glory. It hit me out of nowhere how beautiful he was. There wasn’t a part of him that I didn’t want.

“I couldn’t have you in New York and not be here. But I stayed in the car and worked so you can’t be mad.”

All I could do was grin at him as I climbed into the car in a very unladylike way, far too concerned with getting to touch him rather than elegantly entering the car. On my knees on the backseat I pulled his face toward me and kissed him.

“How could I ever be mad at you?”

He grabbed my waist and pulled me onto his lap and pushed his lips onto mine. My hands travelled around his head and through his silky hair. It had grown noticeably since I last touched it and I momentarily felt a pang of regret. I didn’t want to miss a minute with him. He ran his tongue across my lips, prolonging the moment when he would crash into me. I couldn’t wait and opened my mouth, urging him in. When his tongue met mine, I couldn’t help but moan and collapse against him, feeling his hardness growing against me. I didn’t think I could wait for the 45 minutes it was going to take us to drive into town. We had to talk before anything. I had promised him that I would tell him what was on my mind and he deserved that. I slipped off his lap and grabbed his hand in both of mine, trying to dial it down a notch.

Conscious of being overheard by the driver we made small talk on the journey into town but I couldn’t stop smiling and staring at him and touching him, unable to believe how totally perfect he was and how he was right here beside me. He was like a drug that transported me to a happy place and blocked out anything bad in my life. But blocking out the bad stuff was only a temporary solution. I didn’t want Daniel in my life because he fixed me, I wanted Daniel in my life because I loved him and he loved me.

“Are you taking me back to your flat or do you have to go back to work?” Daniel’s apartment was just off Central Park on the Upper East Side. It made sense because he was in New York so often. He didn’t ever really talk about it, but I presumed that’s where we would be staying.

“No, I’m done in the office for the weekend. I thought we could go back and relax, I guessed you’d want to change after your flight and I wanted to stay in tonight and catch up.”

I released Daniel’s hand as it travelled up my thigh. I felt the familiar heat with his touch and my nipples beaded beneath my white lace bra. Oh god, just the slightest bit of attention sent my body crazy for him. I grabbed his hand and placed it in mine again. I was going to have to be quick if I were going to keep my resolve and tell him how I was feeling.

“Sounds great. I thought it would be good to talk as well. You know ...”

His idea of catching up didn’t have anything to do with chat but we needed to talk or at least I needed to talk. I looked out of the window, trying to avoid looking at him so I didn’t worry him but I felt something shift between us and he kissed me on the top of my head and squeezed my hand.

Daniel seemed to have dialed down his touching me as we made our way into his flat. I was so totally distracted by the apartment I nearly forgot about what I was about to do. The place was enormous with huge windows facing the park in every room other than the kitchen. The decoration was very similar to his London house, just a little bit more modern but still opulent and comfortable in a palate grays and silvers and creams with huge lamps and overfilled cushions finishing the place off. I felt at home despite never having even been anywhere so glamorous.

I shook myself out of the Kelly Hoppen trance and turned to find Daniel behind me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my head in his chest. I didn’t know if I could do what I was about to do.

I took a deep breath. “You know you mean more to me now than ever man ever has ever meant to me don’t you? You have to know that Daniel?”

“Leah,” he said cautiously, “what’s going on?”

“You know, earlier in the week, when we didn’t speak for a day or so?”

I made it back to work on the Wednesday and I seemed to be fully functional so I managed to call him then. We hadn’t spoken since Monday lunchtime when I’d seen Charlie and Fran. I’d texted and emailed him and just said I was stuck on conference calls. And then when I was subdued on Wednesday, I just passed if off as tiredness and tried to be as excited as possible about my flight on Friday and my weekend with him.

“Yes, you were busy at work. What’s going on?”

“Well, I saw Charlie and Fran together. They didn’t see me but I saw them together, across the road, as a couple and her bump is quite big now and they kissed and ... well ... the whole thing kind of freaked me out.”

“Why didn’t you say? Of course it must have been upsetting. Are you OK?”

“Well, it just brought a few things up for me.” I didn’t need him to know what a complete wreck I had been, how I’d been unable to function for 24 hours, how I’d thrown up until I thought I might pass out.

“So it occurred to me that Charlie and I haven’t even spoken since I found out he was cheating. I mean, come on, you have to admit that is a little crazy. What’s even crazier is that I haven't even wanted to talk to him. I haven't even really thought about him or us or what happened between us. I’ve just moved on as if he never existed.”

“What are you saying? That you want to speak to him? That you want to try and resolve things, get back with him?”

“Oh my god no. I don’t want him. At all. And I don’t want you any less than I have done from the moment we met. It’s just I doubt myself, I doubt my judgment because of what happened between Charlie and me and it’s that I need to resolve, not my relationship with Charlie. Don’t for one moment think that this is about him.”

Daniel didn’t say a word he just stared out onto the city.

“It’s just that since we met my mind has been full of you and that has been wonderful but there has been no room for anything else. No room for me to finish up my old life in order to start a new one. No room for lessons to be learned. It must be at least part of the reason why I have all these insecurities and why I’m a ‘headcase’ as you put it.”

I moved in front of him, putting my arms around his neck but he still didn’t look at me.

“I want to be able to see me the way you see me and I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved but I don’t think I will be able to any of that until I sort some stuff out. And this time while you’re in New York seems to be the perfect time to do that.”

“Leah, what are you trying to say?” He pulled me away from him and held me out in front of him by my shoulders, finally trying to look me in the eye.

This time I couldn’t look at him, so I just stared at his chest as his eyes bore holes into me. “I’m just saying I think we need to take this time, when I go back to London and you are here in New York, we kinda just need to take a time-out for me to get myself together.”

“But ... I don’t understand, what do you mean time-out?”

I paused, this was it. I had to say it but I just didn’t know how.

“Like, a little pause, a break.”

Daniels arms dropped from mine and he sat on the sofa behind us and ran his fingers through his hair and slumped forwards, his elbows on his knees.

“You’ll be back in London before you know it and I will have had time by then.”

“I’ll come back to London. I’ll fly back with you on Monday. I’ll manage things from there somehow.” He didn’t raise his head, he wasn’t looking at me.

“No, Daniel, I don’t want that responsibility. You said yourself you need to be here and anyway, I don’t need this time because you are in New York, even if you were in London, I would still need to get my head together.”

“But if I hadn’t left ...”

“Daniel, this was going to have to resolve itself one way or another and this way, hopefully we have more of a chance.”

“You seem happy when we are together. I just don’t get it, Leah.”

“I am happy. You make me so happy. You transport away from anything remotely bad in the world and that is fabulous but it doesn’t mean the bad stuff isn’t there. It just means it seeps back into my head when I’m not expecting it.”

“So, what you don’t visit while I’m here but we still talk, we’re still friends?”

I paused. No, that wasn’t how I needed it to be. How could I tell him? I walked over to him on put my arms around him.

“We’re not just friends though, Daniel, we never were. My feelings for you are far too strong to be just your friend. Let’s just take a break until you come back to London after the results are published.”

“Fucking hell, Leah, that’s exactly the point isn’t it? We are so much more than friends. I don’t want a break from you. I want you all the time.”

I couldn’t argue with him, I felt the same. Maybe I was just forcing something I didn’t need to? Maybe just the physical distance would be enough. I sighed knowing I was trying to convince myself. I knew that if we were in contact, I would still have a head full of him, full of worrying who he was with, who was flirting with him. I would still have that feeling of him saving me and it was time I saved myself.

“I guess you want a chance to be single. To play the field, after Charlie. I should have expected it and I can’t judge you for it after what I did when I split with George.”

“No! That is not what I’m saying! At all! I don’t want anyone else, really. Anyone. This isn’t about me finding someone else. This is about me finding myself. And I know that sounds cheesy but truly, that’s what this is.” God I was explaining myself so badly. “But I can’t ask anything of you, I can’t ask you to be beholden to me while we are apart. You shouldn’t wait for me if you don’t want to.” I took a deep breath. I’d thought about this, it was only fair, but it was going to kill me to say it. “You can consider yourself single while I’ve asked you for this time. You don’t owe me anything, including your fidelity.”

“Fucking hell, Leah. I don’t want anyone else.” Daniel grasped his hair tightly in his hands and stared at the floor.

“And I don’t want you to want anyone else, but I can’t have myself being consumed with jealousy, not knowing who you are with because I’m not with you. I need to be able to tell myself that you are free to be with whoever you want to be while we are apart.”

Daniel stayed silent. God, it would kill me if he found someone else while we were apart. Maybe I was crazy for saying what I did. Crazy for asking for a time-out. What was I doing?

“Please, Daniel. I need this. We need this. I don’t want to be a paranoid headcase waiting for us to fail, making us fail. I don’t want to doubt you, doubt myself. It’s exhausting.”

“Whatever you want, Leah. Always.” Daniel slumped back on the sofa, his head tipped back, defeated.