“Carmarthen…” she said, and her voice was so low, so faint. “When Ruby was just a baby… that year we went… stayed in the caravan with Mum and Dad…”
“Yes!” I said. “Mia won that crappy pink plastic ring in the arcade and it was too big for her. You wore it on your ring finger all day, and it fit, can you remember? You flashed it in my face and gave me a smile and I knew you’d say yes. I hoped you’d say yes! I went out the next morning for bacon and eggs, and I drove back into town, went to the jewellers in the market square, the posh one. You thought I’d been to the slot machines, but I hadn’t! I took the plastic ring from the draining board. You’d left it there when you were washing up. Mia asked where it was and you looked for it, said you’d have to win another one, but it was in my pocket, Jo! It was in my pocket the whole time, I took it to them and they measured it, used it for size!” I reached up into the wardrobe, pulled out an old shoebox. I threw the contents on the bed, old pictures and letters and postcards, all of them from Jo, all of them about Jo. I found the plastic ring and held it up. “See? It was your ring, Jodie! I wanted to propose to you!”
I stared at her and she stared back.
I sighed, ran my fingers through my hair. “We came home and I got that big taxi job in at the garage, long fucking hours. It was shit, I was knackered, and I lost you! We fell apart those couple of months, I watched it happen, and I had that fucking ring in that fucking drawer the whole fucking time! We were going to go back on holiday! To stay in that same caravan again! I wanted to propose on the beach! I wanted to make it all fucking romantic, like, but it was too late. We were long fucking done by then, you went on your own!”
“I didn’t think you were happy… I didn’t think you wanted me…” She let out a sob, and I felt it in my gut.
“Jesus, Jodie, I always fucking wanted you. I never fucking wanted anything else!”
She read the receipt again as though she couldn’t quite believe it. “You never said anything, never tried to get me back…”
“I wanted to,” I said. “But you were moving in with Nanna and busy at the cafe. You seemed so fucking sure!”
“I wasn’t sure!” she said. “I was never sure! I cried every fucking night for a year, Darren! Over a year!”
“Well, we’re both fucking hopeless then, aren’t we?” I sat on the bed, completely fucking spent, twisting that pink plastic ring in my fingers.
She came and sat beside me, so near and yet so fucking far. “I always hoped you’d come back, I really did. I always hoped maybe one day we’d make it. And then there was Stacey… and it broke my heart… I couldn’t even…” She took a breath. “I thought you were going to marry her, I thought our girls would be bridesmaids…”
“Never,” I said. “I’d never have married her.”
“And then you split up… but you never said… you never…”
“You were with Brian,” I said. “By the time I’d got my act together enough to take the risk, you were already with Brian. And there was Lorraine… she said you didn’t want me, said you were long over it…”
“That fucking bitch.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.” I’d never needed a cigarette so bad. My leg was tapping. “I haven’t fucked anyone,” I said. “Not since the night you came here.”
“I know,” she said. “Buck told me.”
I smiled. “Interfering prick.”
She laughed, a quiet laugh. “Good job he is.”
“Yeah, I’ll have to buy him a pint.”
“He said that…”
“I bet he fucking did.” I dared to reach out, took her hand, praying she didn’t fucking pull away.
She didn’t.
She took the plastic ring from me and slipped it on her ring finger. “Still fits,” she said.
My breath caught in my throat. “I fucking love you, Jodie. I always loved you.”
“Can I see it?” she said. She gestured to the ring box. “Since it was mine and all…”
“It’s still yours,” I said. I passed her the box.
She flipped it open and her eyes welled up. I stared at her staring at that ring and my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
“Ask me again,” she said. “Unless you’re too drunk to mean it.”
“I’m not fucking drunk,” I said. “Not anymore, and even if I was I’d still fucking mean it.”
I dropped down to the floor at the side of the bed, took the box from her and held it up, making myself say it for the second fucking time, even though my throat was dry and my heart was going fucking crazy. “Marry me, Jodie. Will you marry me? Please say you’ll fucking marry me, I’m out on a fucking limb here.”