Chapter 26 - "Hindsight is a wonderful thing."

"Izzy?"

As I stepped off the bus, Jack called my name. Turning around, I saw him jogging up to me, pulling his headphones out of his ears.

"Hey," I said. "Morning jog?"

He nodded, bending over and supporting his weight on his knees as he fought to catch his breath back.

"Yeah," he panted. "I'm trying to get my fitness back up."

"Bit early in the morning, isn't it?"

He straightened up at that, frowning. "You're one to talk. Where've you been at this time in the morning?" Then his face fell. "Oh...please don't tell me this is to do with Nathan..."

I shrugged. "I thought things were getting better...now I'm not so sure."

"Have you just come from there now?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I'd have come back last night but the weather was awful so he told me to stay over."

"Did anything...you know...happen?" Jack asked hesitantly, raising an eyebrow.

I shrugged. "Not important. Our problem isn't solved. That's the important thing. And this one problem is now causing lots of other problems—"

"Izzy," he interrupted. "I'm gonna be blunt with you. You need to suck it up and apologize."

"But it's not my fault—"

"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," he said. "You've both had a part to play in it and the fact you're both being stubborn is the reason that you're not solving anything. Be the bigger person and apologize. Make a peace offering. I haven't known either of you long but your love for each other is obvious to the world. One of you needs to make the first move and then I guarantee that everything will fall into place."

He jerked his head in the direction of our halls, and we set off across the road to get home.

"We never argue," I said quietly as we made our way past all the other blocks in our residence.

"Exactly. And maybe that's part of the issue. You're not used to arguing and so it's ten times worse when it does happen. And I, for one, am sick to death of it."

"Excuse me?" I raised an eyebrow as I looked across at him.

"Sorry but it's true. I'm sick to death of you moping around. I'm sick to death of you going out to solve a problem but then coming back with another one. It's tiring. You love each other so just sort it out, alright?"

"Jesus..." I murmured to myself.

"Somebody needs to say it how it is."

"Yeah and you did that perfectly."

"Thank you."

I narrowed my eyes but didn't say anything. He was right. This was going on far too long. As we arrived at our block, Jack punched in the code to unlock the main door, and then held it open for me to walk through first.

"I hate seeing you this sad," Jack told me once we'd reached our flat. We paused outside his bedroom door. "Please sort it out."

I forced a small smile. "We will sort it out. It's just taking us longer than expected."

He smiled back before pushing open his bedroom door and disappearing inside to have a shower. I remained frozen in the middle of the corridor for a short while, unable to decide what to do next. The rest of the flat was dead; after all, nobody in their right mind would be up at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning.

After a little more deliberation, I decided that breakfast was probably the best way forward. Golden Grahams had always been my favourite cereal, but they tasted bland in my mouth this morning. I chewed mechanically, staring into thin air as my mind replayed the previous night's events.

One thing was for sure: I couldn't carry on like this for the rest of the day. For the first time, I imagined what my life without Nathan would be like. I'd never considered it before because I'd genuinely never considered the possibility of us breaking up. Even now, going through our worst fight yet, I still couldn't imagine it.

Forcing myself to my feet, I plodded over to the sink to wash up my cereal bowl. The water scorched my hands but I barely felt it. If we broke up, then I dreaded to think what would become of me. It would actually be like losing part of myself.

I made a decision. I wasn't going to put myself through this anymore. Nathan and I were better than this. Even though it irritated me when the other flatmates didn't tidy their crockery away, I hypocritically left my bowl and spoon on the draining board and headed swiftly out of the kitchen, sweeping up my keys from the table as I passed it.

"Jack, I'm heading out," I called as I passed his door.

I continued out through the flat door and down the stairs. My heart was thumping, adrenaline rushing through my body. I was so pumped that I didn't even notice the person coming up the other side of the stairs.

"Bella?"

Nathan's familiar voice startled me, and I stumbled over the last couple of steps of the flight I was currently rushing down. He remained calm and came to a halt on the landing below me.

"Hey," I said, my voice coming out croaky. "I was just coming to see you."

"Hoping to sneak back into bed before I noticed you were missing?" he asked. But it wasn't accusative. It was almost sad. "Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to start with that."

"I'm really sorry," I said quietly.

He continued to look at me, as if expecting me to say something else. Maybe he was waiting for to elaborate on what exactly it was that I was apologizing for.

"I thought we could go somewhere and talk," he said. "And I mean talk properly. Maybe a walk and sit somewhere quiet."

It sounded like a good idea. If we were in a public place then there was no way we could both descend into shouting again.

"Yeah," I agreed. "That sounds good."

And so off we set. At first it was awkward because we were walking side by side without touching each other. It didn't feel natural. But as we went to cross a street, Nathan instinctively grabbed my hand to stop me stepping into the road. Once we were holding hands, we didn't let go. In fact, Nathan was gripping me especially tightly, as if he was scared I was going to pull away.

I didn't pull away.

We came to a halt in a quiet park. In a fashion that was so ironically typical of our relationship, we took a seat underneath a huge oak tree.

"I owe you an explanation," Nathan said immediately. There was no waiting around in awkward silence to see who'd talk first. Nathan was taking the lead. "I woke up this morning and this awful feeling washed over me when I realised you weren't there. It was you shutting the door that woke me up, and at first I felt almost sick at the thought that you'd sneaked out after sex...I mean, did it really mean that little to you? And then I felt angry..."

I didn't interject. I let him have his say. Nathan took a deep breath before continuing.

"Then I looked at the clock," he said, quieter this time. "And I realised I must have fallen asleep. I sat down and I had a long, hard think about everything that's been going on. We don't know what it takes to solve this fight because we've never had to deal with something like this before. But when you walked out, Bella...it really hit home. Because that's what I used to do. And I know you made that comment yesterday about my past, but it's true. I don't know why you walked out and I guess that's not really important. The important thing is the way it made me feel. I never wanted to descend into a relationship where we could have sex without meaning. And I think, in a twisted way, I sort of expected the sex to help us. I thought it would break the ice and be like a peace offering. I was naïve to think that."

"You weren't naïve," I said quietly. "Because I thought the exact same thing. You tried to warn me when I went to kiss you...and even though you say that you never wanted our relationship to descend into that, I don't believe it has. I still felt close to you. I still felt the same intense love and I still felt the same empowerment that you've been making me feel recently...and that's why I was so hurt when you fell asleep."

He closed his eyes in regret. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't know what I was expecting...maybe to talk, or to cuddle or..."

"I feel like such a prick for falling asleep. It wasn't what I was intending, I can promise you that. I haven't been sleeping well recently. That night after I threw you out, I had one hour of sleep...you can probably tell due to the fact I sent you the text at two in the morning...you didn't reply and all kinds of thoughts were rushing through my head...you were out partying, you were too mad to reply, you'd fallen asleep—"

"Well I had fallen asleep."

"I know, but even the thought of that upset me. I was too upset to sleep. In my delirious state, I assumed the fact you were able to sleep meant that it wasn't really playing on your mind much..."

"Not at all...I slept because I was so exhausted from it all. Sleep was pretty much the only thing I could manage. And I thought that hopefully things would be better in the morning..."

He nodded in understanding. "Okay, well, I didn't really sleep that night. When we had sex, I let my guard down. For a moment, I felt like everything was going to be fine. And the thought that everything was going to fine was enough for me to properly relax..."

"And enough to finally let you drift off to sleep?" I finished.

He nodded. "I guess my body really needed that. I didn't intend to properly fall asleep. I'm really sorry if it came across as not caring. It was the exact opposite."

I nodded, finally understanding. And then I leant to rest my head on his shoulder. In an automatic movement, Nathan's arm came to drape around me, his hand gently stroking my hair.

"I never wanted it to get this bad, Bella. I feel awful. I feel like it's all my fault. If I'd just been honest about Louisa from the start..."

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing," I said. "You thought you were protecting me. And even though it ended up causing problems, I appreciate the fact you were at least trying to do it for my good."

He squeezed my shoulder. "I'm sorry about everything. These past few days have been some of my most difficult. I hate arguing with you. I know I've been a real dick recently, but that's just because I don't know how to act when we're fighting. I hate seeing you mad at me...I hate that I'm the one who's made you so mad..."

I let my hand drift to Nathan's knee and stroked it. "I'm sorry as well. I said some pretty horrible things to you too."

We sat in silence for a few moments; Nathan's hand never ceased stroking my hair and, ironically, I felt myself almost drifting off to sleep. It was at that moment that I knew things were better, and that I knew Nathan hadn't lied about anything. Whilst cuddling, I was letting my guard down and relaxing, and that was making me drift off to sleep. How could I possibly blame him for the same thing earlier this morning?

"I love you," I whispered.

"I love you too, Bella," he murmured back, kissing my forehead. "There's one more thing. And you're completely within your right to say no to this. It's about Louisa."

Louisa. The origin of this fight, and yet we'd had so many different arguments since, that I'd almost forgotten her.

"Okay...?" I said, urging him to continue.

"I seriously screwed up there. Obviously you now know my reasons for hiring her, and she was perfectly clear on that too. But I screwed up by not telling her the truth, and not telling you the truth. I thought it wouldn't be necessary and obviously that came back to bite me."

"Is she upset with you?"

"She's fairly annoyed. After all, it was rather disrespectful of me and it made it look as if I was ashamed of her when, really, I was just trying to protect you."

"Okay..."

"I've had a brief chat with her since, over the phone, and explained everything. Now, more than anything, she's upset that she's caused problems between us. I know it was my dishonesty that created the issues, but she'd still like to meet up with you for a chat, if you'd like to."

"A chat?"

"Yeah. A drink or something. You can get to know each other. I think, more than anything, she really wants to assure you that she isn't a threat and that you've got nothing to worry about."

"Oh, wow, okay..."

"You don't have to, of course," Nathan quickly added. "It's entirely up to you."

"No, I will," I said.

I needed to be open-minded from now on. And I needed to accept that Louisa was part of Nathan's life again. I'd expect him to trust me on something like this, so I was going to grant him the same trust. Plus I didn't want it to come across like I still had a problem with Louisa — we needed to move on from that to prevent more arguments.

"Cool." He smiled, looking almost relieved. "I'll give her your number or email address, and then I'm sure you two can arrange something."

"Does that not make you feel weird, though?" I asked sceptically. "Your ex and your current girlfriend meeting up to talk about you?"

He shrugged. "She's my past and you're my future. That's how it's always gonna be."

I offered him a small smile, which he returned.

"Fancy getting some breakfast?" he suggested. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"I've already had a bit of cereal, but I'll come along for a cup of tea."

He pulled himself to his feet and then offered me his hand to drag me up to standing too.

As we headed off to breakfast, hand in hand, something else struck me. This had been the biggest fight we'd ever had, and it had pushed us both to our limits, but now things felt normal again. It didn't feel like we'd spent the last thirty-six hours fighting.

Maybe it was true what some people say: fighting is necessary for every couple. The strongest couples survive it and the weakest couples were never meant to be together. I'd never felt more complete with Nathan by my side. Even though this fight had been horrendous, it had definitely taught us both a lot. That's what relationships are about, and I was finally beginning to learn that.

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 Thank you for reading :)xx

 - And no, this isn't the end of the story!