You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Forty-Seven

DECEMBER 23rd

As I stand outside of Angelo's the next morning, I couldn't help feeling a little on edge. And not because I've been knocking on the door for over half an hour either. It felt, and I know this sounds a little narcissistic, but it felt like people were staring at me. When I went to get a takeaway coffee on my way over here, I swear the two girls behind the counter were whispering about me and I checked afterwards, there was nothing untoward on my face.

It didn't just end there either. The whole time I've been hanging around outside of the restaurant, I could see people pointing over at me.

'That's her.' One lady had said to her companion as they'd passed behind me. 'The one I was telling you about.' But by the time I'd turned around to confront them, they'd gone.

It was bizarre but at least it was taking my mind off the fact that Lincoln was completely ignoring me. (Which again, I know is totally my own fault.) He is in there, too. I saw the curtain twitching in the flat above when I first knocked, so even though we've been through this once before, he was still choosing to take the stubborn road and play ignorant.

It doesn't matter though because I have a plan and this time, I think it's fool-proof. I've taken refuge in the cafe across from Angelo's and I'm staking him out. The boy's got to emerge sometime.

I was sipping distractedly on my cappuccino, my eye's not budging an inch from the door of the restaurant when I hear it again.

'I'm telling you, it's her!'

This time it was too much of a coincidence and I whip my head around, inadvertently meeting the eyes of several school-aged kids bunched around a table nearby.

'What did you say?'

'Nuffin.' One lad smirks and the girls at the table all break out into a fit of giggles.

I sit forward on my chair, ready to demand answers, when I spot movement out of the corner of my eye and I turn back to find Lincoln jogging away from me on the other side of the road.

Finally!

I bound up, almost knocking the remains of my coffee onto the table as I make for the door and the fresh wave of laughter from the teenagers fades into oblivion as I tear up the street after him. He was quick, much faster than I was, and I was struggling to catch up with him, but I wasn't giving up. Not today. Not after everything we've been through.

My new year's resolution this year . . . start working out!

After a minute or two, Lincoln slows to read something on his watch and I use this moment of distraction to call out his name. He was only twenty feet or so away from me by now and at the sound of my shouts he glances up, frowning instantly when he catches sight of me pelting towards him.

I thought he was going to wait, resigned to the fact that I'd followed him all the way here but in an audacious move he resumes running, letting my frantic calls fall on flat ears. It was okay though, because his brief few seconds of respite had been enough for me to finally catch up with him and I run alongside him, pretending the pace wasn't making me want to vomit in my mouth.

(Well, I attempt to keep up with him anyhow. Lincoln was now sprinting so fast, I could almost see the sparks coming from beneath his trainers.)

'That was- uncalled for!' I choke after a couple of agonising minutes pass by, and I clutch at my stitch as we tread the gravel path in mismatched unison.

'What do you want, Dorothy?' Lincoln's jaw was clenched, and he was refusing to look at me.

'I want you to hear me out!' I yell, almost stumbling but recovering just as quickly.