The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

rain and… anyway, I hope you didn’t mind me just texting you like that. I was hoping I had the right person, actually. I googled your name and it showed up under a trades directory with a Timpton number next to your mobile number, so I thought that must be you and… anyway. Here we are.”

She quickly splashes Appletiser on top of the ice in her glass, sending some of it slopping over the side and onto the tabletop. She stares at the settling fizz, her hands clasped together in her lap. I don’t dare reach for my coffee, fearful that I’ll spill it again.

“I still don’t understand why you came to see me,” she says suddenly, her eyes still on her glass, “after all this time.”

I stare at the table, trying to recall my rehearsed response. I’ve spent the last three days preparing for this question, in the hope of sounding slightly more coherent and slightly less like a stalker than I did last time. But the words have gone completely out of my head. There was something about trying to get closure, wanting to move on, feeling tied to the past… but all that just sounds so self-centred now. This isn’t just about me. I feel like I owe her something. An explanation, an apology.

“I always hated the way things were left,” I say, honestly, “and I suppose I’ve always wanted to say sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologise for,” she says, hastily.

“I feel like there is.”

“What?” she asks, looking me straight in the eye for the first time. “What is it you did that was so wrong?” There’s an edge to her voice that makes the question sound like a challenge.

“I just… I know I put you through a lot and there were times when I behaved like an idiot—”

“Of course there were times when you behaved like an idiot. You were a fifteen-year-old boy who went through a pretty harrowing ordeal. I mean, I probably should have been more supportive.”

“God, no. You were supportive—”

“Well, I seem to remember I spilt up with you, so not that supportive really,” she scoffs.

“No, you were right to—”

“Actually, I don’t think I meant to split up with you,” she says, peering at the clouds as if she’s trying hard to recall. “I seem to remember just wanting a break from you, but I don’t think I really understood how relationships worked, which, you know, is probably normal at that age, especially given that my parents weren’t exactly the best examples. But anyway,” she waves her hand, dismissively, “it was all a long time ago.”

“I’ve just always felt that it ended in such a mess,” I tell her, “the way we got back together, and then having to tell you about the pregnancy, and then having to break it off and—”

“Oh, and I didn’t make that any easier!” she suddenly laughs, shaking her head as if she’s just remembered something embarrassing. “Didn’t I ask you if we could still make it work somehow? God, I was just so young and naïve! Well, I mean we were, weren’t we?”

“I’ve just always hated the fact that you got hurt and—”

“We were just kids, Jamie!” she frowns, as if this conversation is totally ludicrous. “Kids get hurt. First relationships and all that. I mean, yes, it was messy, but love is, isn’t it?”

For a moment we meet each other’s eye and I feel a tiny stab in my chest, the sense of loss all over again. Because that’s what it was: love. And, yes, we were kids, and, yes, it was a long time ago, but it mattered. Because it’s the only time I’ve ever been in love, and I know that now for sure. I’ve tried to find it again, tried to replicate what I once felt, but it’s always been like grasping at thin air. At times, I’ve told myself I’ve had it, only to acknowledge I’m kidding myself. At other times, I’ve told myself that the feeling never existed in the first place, that what I remember is nothing but a distorted memory intensified by the passing of time. But looking at Libby now – even though she’s so different and in many ways a stranger to me – I recognise enough of the girl I used to know to enable me to recall that feeling. And I know it was real. And I know I don’t want to go the rest of my life never finding it again. Which is why I needed to see her. So that I can make my peace with her and move on, leave her in the past where she belongs. Because I don’t want to be trapped by my best memories any more than my worst ones.

“You were a really important part of my life,” I tell her truthfully, “and the last thing I ever wanted was for you to get hurt.”

She shakes her head and looks as though she’s about to laugh again.

“And I know it was a long time ago,” I cut in quickly, “and I’m sorry that I came barging into your life again after all this time, but I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry about how things turned out. And I realise you moved on long ago, and maybe you don’t ever give it a second thought, but I do. Because I was the one who hurt you. And I regret that. I regret a lot of things. And I don’t want to go through the rest of my life with these regrets. Not if I can find a way to… I don’t know, to apologise, to—”

“And you’re honestly not sick or anything?” she interrupts.

This time, I’m the one to shake my head and laugh, realising how ridiculous this clearly all sounds to her.

“No, I’m not sick.”

She looks at me seriously. I feel horribly exposed.

“Okay,” she nods, “I don’t think you need to say sorry, but if it makes you feel better, if it helps you deal with whatever