What Kate Never Said – Part 2: Her Answer

Amira opened the door before I could knock. She was wearing a grey jumper with the sleeves pulled over her hands, and her eyes were red, the way they go when she has been crying and pretending she hasn't.

"You walked here in this?" she said, looking at the snow on my shoulders.

"I did."

"You're an idiot."

"I know," I said. "I've written a whole confession about it."

She frowned. "A what?"

"Can I come in? I need to read you something, and I need you to let me finish before you say anything."

She stepped back from the doorway without a word, and I walked into her warm, untidy flat, with its piles of sketchbooks and its smell of cinnamon and turpentine. I sat on the edge of her sofa, the paper shaking in my hands, and she sat down opposite me on the armchair, legs tucked under her, a glass of wine balanced on one knee.

I read it to her. All of it, from the dorm room to the snow. My voice cracked twice. Her face went through a dozen expressions, none of them easy to read.

When I got to the last line, I stopped.

"That's it," I said. "That's everything I never said."

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The radiator clicked. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed.

"Eight years," said Amira at last, very quietly.

"Yes."

"You let me date Daniel for two of them. You helped me pack when he left. You sat with me at my father's bedside and said nothing when I cried."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I was scared of losing you," I said. "And I did lose something, I think. I lost the version of us where I didn't have to be honest."

She set her glass down very carefully on the floor. Then she stood up, and came across the rug, and sat down beside me on the sofa, close enough that I could smell the cinnamon on her jumper.

"I'm not angry," she said. "I'm not even surprised, really. I just wish I'd been brave enough to notice sooner."

"You noticed?"

"I noticed you always looked at me like I was the only light on in the room," said Amira, with a small, shaky laugh. "I thought it was just how you looked at everyone you loved. And then I started to wonder if I wanted you to look at me like that for a different reason."

My heart stopped, and then began again, very fast.

"Amira," I said.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to be with me? Not as a friend who's sorry. As the person you chose?"

She looked at me for a long time. Then she reached out and took my hand, slowly, the way you would hold something fragile that you'd finally found again.

"Yes," she said. "I want that. But I want to go slowly, Kate. I want us to talk every day, and check in, and not pretend we're fine when we're not."

"Yes," I said. "I can do that. I want to do that."

"Can I ask you something back?"

"Anything."

"Can I kiss you? Now, on this sofa, before the wine gets warm and we both get sensible again?"

I laughed, wet and shaky, and nodded. "Yes," I said. "And if I say stop, we stop, and you make me tea."

"Deal," said Amira, and kissed me.

It was soft and tentative, then warm and certain, her hand sliding into my hair, my fingers curling into the sleeve of her jumper. The snow kept falling outside. The radiator clicked. And for the first time in eight years, I didn't have to hide anything at all.

When we parted, she was smiling through her tears.

"Green?" she asked.

"Green," I said. "Entirely green. Now pour the wine. And then tell me everything I missed in the last eight years."

"That's a very long list," said Amira.

"Good," I said. "I've got all night."