The Place We Met by Isabelle Broom

Author:Isabelle Broom
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780718186692
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

25

Taggie

I’m back in the toilet again.

I can feel the vibration of the boat’s engine below me as I perch on the downturned seat, a wad of tissue catching the trickle of blood from my nose and the relentless tears from my eyes.

Pete is here in Como. What the actual hell?

I don’t know how I managed to hold it together enough to count the heads of my group as they boarded and check that they all had somewhere to sit. I must look a total state – so bad, in fact, that even Gladys was rendered speechless at the sight of me. I was aware of Marco telling her sheepishly that he’d accidentally punched me in the face, but I ran downstairs and locked myself in here shortly afterwards, and nobody has come to find me yet.

I thought it was some sort of cruel joke at first, or that I’d been hit so hard I was seeing things, and had somehow conjured up my own repetitive nightmares of the past six months. But no, it was really him. It was really Pete, the man who I had spent five years of my life with, the same Pete that I hoped I would marry one day, the rugby-loving radio producer I had picked as the future father to my children. That Pete.

A fresh torrent of tears joins the last, the flimsy toilet paper disintegrating in my fingers, and I muffle a loud sob with my fist while I reach round for a new batch.

How the hell did he find me? Or was it pure bad luck that he’d ended up in the same small corner of Italy that I had, on the very same harbour, on the very same bloody day? He did seem surprised, from what I can recall, but then I didn’t dare look at him once I was sure it really was him standing there in front of me. I was too distracted by the shock, and by the pain in my face. That girl who came to help me was so nice, I think fleetingly. Lord knows what she must have thought when she stumbled across the three of us. I hope Marco has explained about the accidental punch.

I brave a sniff, and wince as my nose and top lip throb in protest. Lowering the tissue, I test the movement of my nose with timid fingers, bracing myself for more discomfort but finding the pain manageable. He hasn’t broken my nose, then. Thank God for small mercies.

It’s chilly here in the toilet cubicle, and I’m shivering as much from the cold as I am from shock. It was only a few hours ago that my mum was promising me I’d never have to see or speak to Pete again, and now he’s here, in Como, on this boat. No matter how many times I tell myself that it’s happening, I can’t quite seem to grasp it, and I can feel my heart rate getting faster and faster beneath my many layers of winter clothing.

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