|18| -  "It was never romantic." - 

I'd never lived alone before. After being with flatmates at university, I'd moved in with Nathan. Then I'd moved in with Jasmine. There'd never been a real period in my life where I woke up alone in the morning, knowing there'd be nobody else around for the rest of the day.

Nathan and I didn't completely cut off contact with one another; we still messaged throughout the day, but stayed away from any subjects that were likely to evoke an argument. It meant we continued treading on eggshells to a certain degree, and so we'd arranged to have dinner on the evening before Nathan's Christmas party, to get everything out in the open.

Whenever Nathan and I went out for dinner, we'd light-heartedly label it Date Night. Even as our number of years together increased, the effort we put into our appearances for Date Night never diminished. I wasn't prepared to let this one be an exception, either.

Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. Despite being unusually mild for December, the rain was lashing down and the wind strong. No matter what I tried to do to my hair, it wasn't going to survive the journey to the restaurant. Foregoing my original plan of straightening it, I scraped it back into a messy ponytail, so at least it would look like it was supposed to be untidy if the weather did attack it.

Even though I wanted to look like I'd made an effort, I was conscious of misleading or teasing Nathan unnecessarily. I stared at his favourite top of mine in the wardrobe for a good few minutes before deciding that it wouldn't be appropriate. We needed this dinner to sort things out, and that was the priority. So, instead, I settled on a pair of black skinny jeans, heeled boots and a red cami.

He was already at the restaurant when I arrived. As the waiter showed me to the table, Nathan lifted his eyes from the wine list and then rose to greet me with a peck on the cheek.

"You look lovely," he said as I removed my coat.

"So do you."

It wasn't a lie, or an automatic compliment to return his own. The deep purple shirt he wore was striking; he'd worn it a few times before, but only for special occasions. This appeared to be one of those occasions.

"Did you want wine?" he asked me. "They've got a good Barbera here that you'll like... unless you're sick of it by now."

Normally, it would be assumed that I'd be drinking. Nathan wasn't making any assumptions tonight, though, and admittedly I'd considered keeping to the soft drinks and a clear mind, before deciding that I was being unnecessarily cautious about the whole thing.

"Sure. Just a glass, though."

He ordered a glass for himself, too, and we made small-talk for the next few minutes. Nathan told me how he was trying to help out Louisa as much as he could around her flat as a thank you for her hospitality. They'd apparently banned the subject of me, which made me think that he'd taken my comment about forcing Louisa to choose sides seriously.

When that conversation dried up, though, Nathan sighed and threaded his fingers together in front of himself as his eyes locked onto mine.

"I want us to go forwards with a clean slate and that means complete transparency. I know you saw the cigarettes and I'm sorry for lying about it."

I sighed. "Are you telling me that because you genuinely want transparency, or because you know I've already found you out?"

"Both."

At least he was honest about that.

"But not because I'm backed into a corner. I'd forgotten they were in there. That's your side of the bed and I never use that drawer. I don't know why I didn't just throw them away, but instead I put them in there because I was ashamed and didn't want to look at them. It wasn't until you got back that I remembered."

"You know, Nathan," I said, casting my eyes across the busy restaurant before drawing them back to him, "I was upset about the smoking. And you know me well enough to know why I was upset. But as far as I'm concerned, whether you smoked two or ten is irrelevant. The damage had already been done. There was no need to lie about it."

He nodded, his eyes conveying his regret to perfection. I didn't believe that was a lie, though. He was genuinely remorseful.

"When we had that Skype call, I'd spent the whole morning throwing up," he said, lowering his voice further, perhaps because he was ashamed, or maybe due to the fact we were in a place full of people eating. "I felt physically ill, and then I saw how upset you were and I felt emotionally tormented, too. I couldn't bear the thought of upsetting you further and, selfishly, making the situation even worse for myself, so I lied."

It didn't make me feel better, but that wasn't his intention. It was a survival technique on his part, not wanting to put his mind through any more turmoil when his body was already in shreds.

"I appreciate you being honest."

"And just for any avoidance of doubt, I've not smoked again since that night."

I nodded. "Okay."

He nodded back. "I just wanted to get that out of the way first, because I know you'll have been thinking about it."

I nodded again. "Shall we order?"

"Yes. Let's do that. And then we can move onto the next topic."

In spite of myself, I smiled.

❆

We'd chosen a restaurant that neither of us had been to before. It had been Nathan's choice, but I liked the idea of it being neutral ground, a place that didn't hold memories for us which had the potential to further complicate or influence our important conversation.

The food was nice, but I couldn't really enjoy it. My mind was elsewhere, anticipating the next portion of our talk. Even Nathan wasn't eating with the same amount of vigour that he usually did.

"Ask me something that's on your mind," he said.

"Shall we start with the big thing? Marie?"

He nodded and swallowed the piece of chicken he'd just popped into his mouth. I waited for him to talk, losing my appetite as my stomach squirmed.

"I can't apologise enough," he said, looking up to meet my eyes. "At the time, I didn't think anything of it but in hindsight, I can see exactly why you're upset and why it looked bad. And I should have thought something of it."

"So why delete the photos, then?"

He sighed and scraped the rest of his food to one side, setting his cutlery down in the centre of the plate to signal that he'd finished. At least a third of his meal remained untouched.

"At the end of the night, the guys were having a laugh about it. Typical lad stuff, you know? Saying I could have gone there if I wanted to. Have a bit on the side while you're away..."

I pressed my lips together, fighting against the nausea that was stirring within me. It was my worst nightmare. Colleagues with no morals, trying to influence someone who'd always exhibited a high ethical code.

"With that and Louisa's text, I realised it looked much worse than I thought. I knew they'd been taking photos all night... Marie had been encouraging them, which should have been a red flag. You've been struggling so much in Italy, and the last thing I wanted was to give you something else to fret about. I know that now it looks like I was trying to hide it or get away with it. But at the time, I just didn't want you getting the wrong impression because I genuinely never even considered going there."

"It's not that, Nathan."

I set my own knife and fork down. Throughout his speech, my fingers had gripped them tighter and tighter, until my knuckles had turned white and my palms had begun to ache.

"I know you'd never cheat. But there are still lines—"

"Then let me be crystal clear. It was never romantic. It was never sexual. It was friendly. She was a friend—"

"A friend who you knew had feelings for you."

"Yes, but I also expected more from her. I thought she respected my relationship. I didn't want to be one of those dicks who refuses to spend time with a girl who's got feelings for them. She was feeling vulnerable after her break-up and I didn't want to be another prick who rejected her."

"Why are you defending her?"

"I'm not defending her. I'm trying to explain why I didn't put a stop to it sooner. I know I should have done now. But I just want you to understand why I didn't."

I took a deep breath. We'd chosen to have the discussion in a public place so that it remained civil. With that in mind, I needed to ensure I didn't lose my temper. Nathan seemed to be considering the same thing because he leaned back in his chair and glanced around the room.

"I don't spend time with her anymore," he then said, his voice quieter. "I can't avoid her at work, but I no longer want to be around her. Just seeing her makes me angry."

"Angry at her or yourself?"

"Both, but I'm not trying to paint myself as a victim. If I was manipulated, then it's my fault for not realising it and putting a stop to it."

"Well, I don't know her, so I can't decide whether you were manipulated or not. I can just choose to believe you."

"And you do believe me?"

"Yes, I believe you. I've known you for three years and I'm not going to disregard everything I've learnt about you in that time simply because you screwed up."

Nathan's chest visibly inflated before he released a sigh of relief. His eyes shut momentarily, his hands clenched together.

"Thank you, Bella. I hope you know how sorry I am."

"If you ever lie to me about something like this again, it's going to be a different story. And I don't want to sound like that's a threat, because it's not. It's a promise."

At that point, he twisted in his seat and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. With his fingers quivering, I watched as he fumbled around before taking hold of something and pulling it out.

My eyes landed on the navy notebook.

"What's that?" I asked.

He placed it in the centre of the table between us, and then nudged it towards me. "It's yours."

The coating was cool against my touch. Upon closer inspection, it was well-worn with the odd defect to it, a scratch here and an indent there. Sliding my finger beneath the elastic coating, I tugged it over the notebook and the pages opened automatically within my hands. Nathan's handwriting covered the sheets, with more than three quarters of the book filled with words.

"What is it?" I asked again.

"When you said you needed space, I respected that. But I also struggled not being able to talk to you. So I spoke to the notebook instead. It's full of my thoughts, from stuff that happened during my day to stuff that I felt about us. I want you to have it."

It explained why he'd taken the notebook on a run with him and also suggested the reason behind him being gone for so long. We'd had the argument, we'd temporarily stopped the argument, but his head was still full of thoughts he needed to get rid of.

Even in Italy when I'd said I needed space, he'd still been thinking of me. He'd still dedicated time to me. Time that I thought I hadn't been worth.

"There were moments when I felt like you didn't value our time to talk," I said. "It felt like I placed more significance on it than you."

If he was surprised by that admission, he didn't show it. Instead, he took a large sip of wine before placing the glass back down onto the table with his fingers still curled around the stem.

"I did value it," he replied. "But I can see why you felt that way."

"So why did you start to cool off the communication? You're not like that, Nathan. Was it Marie?"

This time he did show surprise. "No, of course not."

"But it was someone you work with?"

"Nobody told me to stop talking to you, Bella. They did, however, take the piss out of me a lot."

"Aren't you senior to them, though?"

"Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's a very relaxed office, lots of banter. I could pull rank, but then that would isolate me. I wanted to be accepted. And I didn't want talking to you to become this thing that I dreaded doing. I thought if I did it less then they wouldn't make such a big deal out of it."

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, folding my arms. "I don't get it. You're in a relationship. What's their problem?"

"Immaturity." He shrugged.

"Maybe once they meet me, they'll realise I'm not some unknown girl who means nothing."

Nathan nodded. "And I hope seeing Marie in person will put your mind at ease, too."

I raised an eyebrow. "You mean seeing how beautiful she is in person?"

"She may be attractive, but I'm not attracted to her."

In a weird way, I liked that he wasn't denying how beautiful she was. The more honesty he showed, the more I believed him.

"Well, we'll see tomorrow, won't we?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Nathan's eyes lit up. "It means a lot that you still want to come."

I wouldn't go as far as saying I wanted to go to his Christmas party, where his immature colleagues and predatory friend would be, but I did want to play my own part in making an effort.

"I feel like we've taken a step forwards this evening," I said. "And I'm not willing to take one backwards by missing tomorrow."

Throughout the whole of this, I'd never stopped loving Nathan. I hadn't loved him any less. I'd just been hurt in a way that I didn't think he'd ever be able to inflict. But I wasn't going to give up. I wasn't willing to disregard years of being treated like a queen. Nathan was special, and I was determined to work just as hard as him when it came to getting things back on track. 

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Thank you for reading :) xx