Chapter Four

Hal

Izzy tucks into her sandwich, and I watch her, pleased to see her eating something. When she was a teenager, she was borderline anorexic, so thin you would miss her if she stood sideways. Now that she’s happy and obviously doesn’t feel as if her life is out of control anymore, she’s put on weight, and although she isn’t exactly curvy, she definitely looks healthier. But she still skips meals, and I’m always pleased to see her eating.

“I’ve just seen Rosie,” she says. She has a mouthful of coffee as she waits for my reaction. When I don’t reply, she sighs, puts down her sandwich, and leans back. “She was distraught, Hal. She wants me to talk to you about getting back together. She’s incredibly upset.”

“Yeah,” I say, finishing off the pie. “I’m sure she is.”

Izzy frowns. There’s a tiny flake of pastry by her mouth, and I reach out and remove it with my thumb. Most people’s personal space extends about a foot around them in all directions. With other people, Izzy’s is two feet at least, and she’s well-known for taking a step back if someone she doesn’t know gets too close. But she doesn’t flinch when I touch her. We’ve known each other so long that she’s not bothered by the invasion of her space.

“That’s not like you,” she says, swirling her coffee around in the cup.

“What’s not?”

“Being cruel.”

I wince at that. She always knows how to slide the knife between my ribs.

I lean back, too, putting distance between us. I don’t want Izzy to think I’m being cruel. I lay awake last night, on Leon’s couch because I’d walked out of the house I share with Rosie, and stared up at the ceiling as I debated whether or not I was going to tell anyone what’s happened. I knew I’d end up telling her. I can’t keep a secret, not from Izzy anyway.

“She loves you,” she says. “Can’t you talk it over, whatever the problem is?”

It irritates me that Izzy’s defending her. “She slept with someone else,” I say, not bothering to hide the harsh tone that creeps into my voice. “Not sure any amount of talking will make that go away.”

Izzy stares at me. Gradually, her jaw drops. “Rosie cheated on you?”

I give a small, resentful nod.

“With whom?”

“Vic Hartley.”

“Vic! The Vic who works in the grooming center?”

“Worked. I fired him this morning.”

She stares at me, and for a moment I think she’s about to laugh. Vic is about a foot shorter than me, and his hair is going thin on top. When Rosie told me, I laughed too, even though there’s nothing remotely funny about my girlfriend cheating on me.

“Why?” Izzy now looks completely bewildered, as if she cannot fathom why anyone would be unfaithful to me. I melt a little inside. I love her for that.

I sigh and take a sandwich out of the box. I had a cooked breakfast this morning, but I tend to need more calories than most men. “For a while now, things haven’t been good between us. I’ve been… distant, I guess. Rosie knew she was losing me, and she did something drastic, to pay me back, to make me jealous, I don’t know.”

“Why were you distant?” she asks. “Had you fallen out of love with her?”

I’m not sure I was ever in love with Rosie. I gradually slid into a relationship with her, and she started staying over more and more, gradually bringing her stuff over, until one day I realized with some surprise that she’d moved in. And that was fine, for a while. In the beginning she was fun and lighthearted; we spent a lot of time apart, with our friends, and it was nice to come home to someone.

But as time went on, Rosie changed. She started wanting to know where I was every minute of the day. She’s exceptionally jealous and hated me even talking to another woman. She’s what Leon would call high maintenance, and she enjoys turning everything into a drama.

A month ago, she said it was time I asked her to marry me. I told her I thought we should break up. But, being Rosie, she cried and said she was sorry, and that she’d change, and it was only because she loved me so much. And so I let the relationship drift on for a few weeks the way you do because you feel affection for the person and you don’t want to hurt them, and you hope it’ll get better. But I’ve obviously been cool toward her since then, and she tried the last resort of making me jealous, which didn’t work one jot. The overwhelming emotion I felt when she told me was relief that I didn’t have a choice to make anymore.

She hated that when she told me about her affair with Vic, I picked up my car keys and walked out of the house. She ran after me, begging me to forgive her, to sit down and talk, but I told her there and then that it was over and just walked away.

I don’t tell Izzy any of this, though. Because there’s a more important reason that I’m glad Rosie and I are done.

“Hal,” Izzy says, “what aren’t you telling me? Why did Rosie have an affair?”

“Retaliation, I think,” I admit.

Her eyebrows rise. “You slept with someone else?”

I run a hand through my hair. “Not physically.”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

Last night, on Leon’s sofa, I thought long and hard about how much to tell her. Admitting what happened with Rosie is one thing. Telling her why it happened is another. I decided that I wasn’t going to. It would change everything, and I worried that, like an earthquake, the aftershocks would ripple out and affect the rest of the Ark.

But now, sitting opposite Izzy, watching the sun turn her hair chestnut and seeing the concern in her light-brown eyes, the words start falling from my lips like water from a dripping tap, and I know I’m not going to be able to turn them off.

I lean on the table and study my coffee cup. “I’ve been… preoccupied.”

Izzy tips her head to the side and studies me thoughtfully. She’s a serious girl. Always has been. That’s not to say she doesn’t laugh at all, because she does, and frequently. But whatever she’s doing, whether it’s working, reading, or talking to you, she gives you one hundred percent of her attention. I used to find it unnerving. Now, it makes me go weak at the knees.

“With work?” she asks.

“No.”

“You’re being very mysterious.”

“No, just… reticent, I guess.” I look up at her. She’s frowning. I’m very rarely reticent.

It’s warm in the room. The door is open, but the sun’s streaming in, and my shirt’s stuck to my back. Izzy must be roasting in her long-sleeved top, but although her cheeks are a touch pink and her skin is glowing, she’s used to it, and she doesn’t complain.

I lean back and look out of the window. In the distance, Noah King is walking the boundary under the trees. At his side is his German Shepherd, Spike, the wheelchair carrying his back legs bumping over the uneven ground. Two broken animals. Noah’s never been the same since his wife died in childbirth ten years ago. The baby died too. For five years, he lived alone, hardly seeing anyone, then, out of the blue, just as I was graduating, he called me to say he’d had the idea for an animal sanctuary. For a few years, while he threw himself into its creation, I thought he might have gotten over losing Lisa, but gradually he’s retreated into himself more and more. Now we hardly see him at all, unless it’s like this, walking in the distance, Spike at his side.

Life’s short, I tell myself. Carpe diem, or what’s the point?

I look back at Izzy. “There is someone else. There has been for a while.”

“You’ve been having an affair?”

“No! God no. Come on, Izz, you know I’d never do that.”

She nods—she knows me well enough to understand I’d never be unfaithful, not physically anyway.

“I mean I’ve been thinking about someone else,” I say. “For a long time now. I can’t get her out of my head.”

She studies me curiously for a moment. Then she laughs. “I can’t say I’m shocked. I’m stunned you managed to stay monogamous for a whole year.”

“It’s not like that,” I snap, because it’s not, and I don’t want her thinking that.

Her smile fades but remains in her eyes, the way it does when I scold her for calling me Edward. “Okay,” she says softly. “So who is it?”

I look into her eyes, and gradually my lips curve up.

Her brow creases at my smile. “You’ve really got me thinking now,” she says with a chuckle. “Um… It’s not Poppy?”

“No.”

“Clio?”

I shake my head. “They’re my cousins, Izzy,” I remind her.

“Tell me it’s not Nix,” she says, rolling her eyes.

I laugh, thinking that her inimitable best friend and I would make a terrible pair. “Definitely not.”

“I do know her, do I?”

“Yes.”

“She works here? At the Ark?”

“Yes.” My heart is banging away on my ribs, and my mouth has gone dry.

“Is it one of the girls who comes to help out after school?” she asks, puzzled.

“They’re fifteen. I’m almost old enough to be their father.”

She chuckles again. “I guess. But I can’t think who else…”

She really has no idea.

“Izzy,” I say patiently. “It’s you.”

She stares at me. Then, to my surprise, she starts laughing. “Nice one. You idiot. I’m not going to fall for that.”

I don’t laugh back. I sit and wait for her to realize I’m telling the truth.

All at once, her laughter fades and her expression turns to shock. “Holy fuck,” she says, “you’re serious.”

I just smile.

For a long, long while, we just sit there, looking at each other.

Eventually, I can’t take it anymore. “Say something,” I tell her.

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers.

“I know.” I shrug. “I guess it’ll take some time to sink in.”

Her mouth opens, but no words come out. Then, gradually, her brow darkens. “What are you doing?” she says.

“Telling you how I feel.”

She shakes her head. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me?”

“Because, sweetheart, you genuinely have no idea why anyone could possibly fall for you, do you? You’re so fucking humble, you don’t have a clue how amazing you are.”

Her jaw drops. Then her eyes blaze. “Stop it. Just stop it.”

“I can’t.”

“Well, try!”

“Izzy,” I say as patiently as I can, “I’ve felt this way for a long time.”

“Then why tell me now?” All at once she looks upset. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re saying it because you’re hurting, and I’m the one woman you haven’t had in the North Island, and you think if you can have me, it’ll wash away your failure as a boyfriend to Rosie, or something.”

“No, Izz, that’s not it at all.” It’s not going as well as I’d hoped. With some alarm, I realize all the fears that were piling up in my head last night might actually come to pass. There’s no point in holding anything back now. “I’ve liked you since we were at high school together,” I tell her. “I’ve always liked you. But… well, I made the mistake of telling Fitz…”

Fitz is her brother. His Christian name is Marc, but his and Izzy’s surname is Fitzgerald, and everyone’s always called him Fitz.

“When?” she says, her voice so soft I can barely hear it.

“We were… seventeen, I think.”

She looks stunned. “What did he say?”

“He told me if I went anywhere near you, he’d knock my teeth down my throat. He meant it, Izz. He made it quite clear he didn’t want us dating. And when I asked you both to join me here, at the sanctuary, he took me to one side and told me he’d let you come here providing I promised him I’d keep my distance.”

I wait for her to bristle at the fact that her brother stated he’d ‘let’ her do anything, but she just continues to stare at me.

“So I did,” I say simply. “I kept my distance. I know the reputation I have. I understood why he said it. And so I let you be. I thought once you settled down with someone, I’d find it easier. But you haven’t. You’re still single. We’re nearly thirty. And over the last year, I guess, my resentment’s grown. Why can’t we date? Our relationship has nothing to do with your brother. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks. I’m not going to use you and discard you. I don’t want you like that. Well, I do, but what I’m saying is that I want to be with you, and I’m not going to hide it anymore.”

I finish a little breathless, sure my heartfelt plea must make her understand how I feel.

I’d hoped to see delight on her face, to see her smile spread slowly, maybe even to have her rise and come over to me, throw her arms around me, tell me she’s been waiting for me to say this for so long…

She doesn’t.

“Tell me you feel the same,” I say, somewhat desperately. “I know you do. I know you have feelings for me.”

“Not like that.” Her words are clipped, each one like a slap to my face.

“I don’t believe you.” I know how she feels about me. How she’s always felt about me.

“You don’t know me,” she says. “You know nothing about me.”

“Izzy, we’re as close as a man and woman can be without actually sleeping together.” I lean forward on the table again, closing the distance between us. She stays where she is, but her eyes widen. “Tell me you don’t think about it,” I murmur, my gaze resting on her mouth. “Tell me you don’t think about what it would be like to take that final step.”

Her lips part, and I can see the pulse racing in her throat.

“I do,” I say softly. “I think about it all the time. What it would feel like to have you in my arms. Your mouth on mine.” I lean a little closer and look right into her eyes. “To be inside you.”

For a second, she’s silent. I think she’s holding her breath, and I’m sure I can see longing in her eyes.

Then she pushes her chair back, so hard it screeches on the floor and makes me jump. “Hal, stop it.” She looks angry now. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” She gets to her feet.

I do the same. “I know perfectly well what I’m saying,” I tell her.

“You only want me because I’m unconquered territory and you’re like fucking Edmund Hillary, traipsing around in your snowshoes.” Jeez, she really is angry. She so rarely shows any emotion, and she looks amazing standing there, her brown eyes flashing, her hands on her hips and her chin thrust in the air.

“Snowshoes?” I say.

“Don’t mock me,” she yells. Behind us, the woman who makes the coffee beats a hasty retreat.

I watch her scuttle out and turn back to Izzy, amused. “Don’t frighten the staff.”

“Hal!” Her voice is a furious whisper. “I’m ashamed of you. I’m your best friend, I’ve stuck by your side all these years, and you come on to me?”

My smile fades. She knows the worst thing she can say is she’s ashamed of me. “Izz…”

“Don’t you ‘Izz’ me. Don’t you think I know what a ridiculous idea it is, the two of us dating?” She can’t stop herself laughing. “Jesus. You couldn’t put together two more mismatched people.”

“What are you talking about?” I honestly don’t understand. “We spend all day every day in each other’s company. We hardly ever get on each other’s nerves. We’re perfectly compatible.”

“You’re mocking me,” she says, and all of a sudden the laughter’s gone, and there are tears in her eyes. “You know how much I love you, as a friend, and you’re making fun of my feelings for you.”

“I’m not, Izzy, come on…”

“You’ve spoiled it,” she says, backing away from me. “You’ve spoiled everything. Thinking with what’s between your legs rather than between your ears. Again. I thought you were a better man than this.”

“Izzy!”

But she’s running, and by the time I disentangle my huge feet from the table legs and get to the door, she’s heading across the square toward the car park.

I know I could run after her. I could stop her leaving, force her to sit and listen to me, and try to explain again how I feel. But deep down, I know she won’t listen. She honestly doesn’t think I feel that way about her.

It gradually sinks in. Izzy doesn’t want to date me, and we work together. I’ve already made the atmosphere awkward by breaking up with Rosie. And now this.

The sanctuary is a place of peace, where everyone comes to escape from their lives. And now I’ve ruined that, too.

I sit back at the table and put my head in my hands. When I fuck something up, I really fuck it up.