An Education

Mia knows when something is up. And it’s not that hard to figure out because Anna’s feeling really distant and her daze is totally confused, which isn’t normal because Anna is always very engaged and endearing and quite talkative.

“I can tell that you weren’t even listening to me,” Mia said as she placed her sandwich back down on its plate. Anna quickly turned her attention back to Mia from staring out the window of the French restaurant they were having lunch in.

“I was,” Anna replied meekly. “You were talking about… something.”

“Right.” Mia narrowed her eyes at her best friend. “Did something happen between you and Nath that you haven’t told me about?”

Anna looked alarmed. “What? No… No, nothing happened between us.”

“So what’s up? You’re being really aloof right now, it’s disheartening.”

Anna scowled. “I’m not being aloof. And it’s not disheartening.”

Mia continued to give Anna a questioning look. Anna sighed and looked down at her plate.

“I got a call from an ex this morning – ”

“Who? Is it that wanker Graham still pestering you? I swear he’s got to catch a break!”

“No, no.” Anna waved her hand lazily. “It’s actually Louis.”

“Who’s Louis?”

“He’s my ex.”

“No, shit, Anna.”

“I mean, he’s…” Anna picked up her glass of iced tea but didn’t take a sip from it and placed it back down on the table. “It’s a long story. We dated and a whole lot of shit happened and here we are. I mean, here I am, and there he is.”

Mia waited. She knew that Anna was holding something back.

“He’s the first boy I had ever loved – and lost,” Anna said quietly. “He went to Eton and my father was his teacher. We met once when he came over when we were both in Year 11 to turn in work before he left early for holiday. And soon after that, he’d make the most ridiculous excuses to come by my father’s house just to see me.”

“Oh, how adorable is that?”

“Of course, my father wasn’t pleased. His own pupil was pursuing his daughter. So we kept things a secret, obviously.”

“So you were each other’s own dirty little secret, weren’t you?” Mia looked amused.

“Well, sort of.”

“That’s hot.”

“I guess. It was. For awhile.” Anna looked out the window before turning back to Mia. “I mean, it was fun while it lasted. Then it got seriously messed up and I guess I was just happy to finally get out of it.”

“What happened?”

Anna stiffened and Mia finally got the idea that this wasn’t something she should ask about at this time. She took back what she asked and changed the subject.

Their lunch continued on as they both discussed Anna’s plans for their winter holiday. Technically, Nathan had planned for him and Anna to visit the south of France right before Christmas and then head back to England to celebrate the holiday with their families. But since Nathan’s tour schedule had put their holiday plans on the wayside, Anna had no choice but to lull behind in England.

“Well, the gang and I were going to drive all the way up to Edinburgh for a week. If you wanted to tag along, we’d love to have you,” Mia suggested.

Anna smiled politely, but she knew Mia was only just saying that for consolation. Mia knew that Anna had a strict rule about refusing to join her friends’ plans when hers and Nathan’s didn’t fall through. She was determined to only join them if she had decided to originally, and not as plan B. So she kindly declined and decided to probably just join her grandparents and parents in their annual Christmas celebration at her parents’ house in Windsor.

 

 

It was taking longer than she thought it would. The train ride was supposed to ease her nerves but all she could think about was whether or not this was a good idea. She hadn’t seen him in a year and that was considered an awfully long time. Their separation was abrupt; there was no long period where they gradually saw each other less and less. It was just as quick and curt as Louis’ sudden appearance in her life.

As the train finally slowed down to a crawl in front of King’s Cross, Anna gathered her stuff which wasn’t much: just her coat and handbag. She looked out the window at the platform where she saw couples kissing each other goodbye, mothers pecking their children on the cheek hurriedly and nervously, and old gentlemen perusing their folded copies of the Telegraph. She let out a heavy breath as the train came to a full stop and the doors were opened. The passengers in her car got up and exited, but Anna stayed behind, trying to make sure her knees stopped wobbling and her heart beat eased.

She stepped onto the platform where a bout of steam met her. She coughed slightly as she pushed past passengers about to board the train back to Cambridge.

It hadn’t been so long since she’s last been to London, but because of that afternoon’s appointment, she was suddenly feeling disoriented. She needed time to pause and recollect herself before finding her way to the right tube that would bring her to W6. As she boarded another tube and sat down, Anna wondered why she immediately agreed to meet Louis all the way in Hammersmith. They could have met halfway, if that would help.

Oh, right. She was completely thrown off course by Louis’ call. All sense of rationality was completely gone by that point.

The long trip finally came to an end when the tube stopped at the Hammersmith station. The coffee shop where she should meet Louis was only a five to ten minute walk from the tube station. As she neared the coffee shop, Anna suddenly realized that this shit was real. She was meeting her ex-boyfriend after a long separation. A long separation that was absolutely necessary, that was imposed upon them by both their uptight parents.

And her nervousness was miraculously less profound now. The coffee shop, Café Nero, was so close and her heart beat finally seemed to ease. She didn’t feel like walking on clouds or floating on the Dead Sea as she had felt earlier while leaving the train on King’s Cross.

Anna felt a sharp intake of breath as she spotted Louis sitting at a table near the back. And he had been watching the door for her, so their eyes met instantly. You couldn’t deny it. It was there. It was back.

Louis stood up immediately, and normally, any other bloke would be an utter mess and gracelessly topple the cup of tea on the table over in the kind of haste that Louis stood up with. But because he was Louis Tomlinson for God’s sake; because he was so graceful and respectable and fucking posh, he stood up with not even a stray of hair out of place. A pair of schoolgirls a table away could only glue their gazes on him with googly-eyed fascination. Anna understood why they looked at him the way they did.

He was beautiful. Still beautiful.

His hair was no longer long and shaggy, like what it looked like when he was still in Eton. Though his long hair did give him that bright-eyed, boyish charm, Anna liked his hair now. It was cut and styled above his eyes, which allowed him to look like he had a purpose in life; like he knew what he was going to do right after their meet up. And because his hair no longer fell over his eyes, she took note of how blue and warm they were. His entire face was not shadowed by his sandy-brown locks anymore. It had only been a year but his face looked more rugged, more lived through. His cheekbones were sharper and higher and his face showed off a little bit of stubble, like all grown men were supposed to have. And he was sporting a tan. Of course he would. He spent his summers on yachts and wakeboarding. Despite his tan and manly, outdoorsy look, Louis was wearing a suit: Armani, as Anna could recall he liked. It was dark blue and his diamond cuff links glinted from the afternoon sun that poured through the shop windows.

Suddenly, she felt underdressed. She felt like they were supposed to go to some televised gala and she had only gone and showed up in denim cutoffs and a white H&M blazer over a flimsy gray top. As she got closer to him, she felt her cheeks heat up.

He was immaculate.

“Anna.”

The way he said her name. Ah-nah.

Louis moved from behind the table to come up to her and give her a hug. He smelled like cologne and cigarettes. He smelled like himself.

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” she began to say as she returned his hug. Their cheeks touched and she felt his rough stubble against her skin. It felt familiar, almost.

“Please, don’t be,” Louis said, as he pulled her chair for her to sit on. “I completely forgot how horrid the commute was from Cambridge to London. If I remembered that it would take you hours and several train changes to get here, then I would have decided to just meet you over at Cambridge myself.”

Anna laughed politely, pursing her lips. He was right. The commute was a bit of an inconvenience and before she could say it wasn’t, she should have stopped herself from refusing any further.

Don’t give in to his charm.

“It gave me a lot of time to… think,” Anna said.

Louis searched her eyes. He leaned forward on the table and kept his eyes on her. That was his thing. He would look into your eyes and read into them, like he was finding the translation to an ancient Greek passage he was supposed to write an essay about for a class. Anna kept still. That was her thing. She never knew exactly why Louis did that, but whenever he did, she didn’t move a centimeter.

“Think about what?” He finally replied, leaning back. He folded his hands and placed it over his legs which were crossed underneath the table. That was so unlike Louis. It was so dignified. Like his father.

“Well, just to think about what you could have been up to this whole time.” It’s been a year, Anna wanted to add, but she kept silent. A young waitress came back and offered her a menu. She shook her head and only asked for a tall glass of raspberry flavored iced tea.

The young waitress left again and Louis huffed out a puff of air. The hair that dangled just right above his forehead swayed a little and he eased into his seat. His shoulders slouched forward and he uncrossed his legs. That was the Louis that Anna knew so well.

“Well, as you know, I didn’t get into Oxbridge as my father was so disappointed to hear.” Louis tried to feign deep regret, but Anna knew better. He was always sporting bitter resentment whenever he talked about his father’s expectations of him. “However,” he continued on a lighter tone, “he did give me a job inside his company as consolation for at least getting into university. Manchester, but it’s better than nothing.”

Anna distinctly remembered that Louis’ father was the Chief Financial Officer of one of the largest record companies in the UK. That meant big business and barely even seeing his father at all. No wonder why Louis’ mother had separated from Mr. Tomlinson when Louis was only eight. Now, from the looks of it, he was slowly molding Louis into the kind of man he was and Anna didn’t know if this was a good idea or not.

“Which explains why I’m so sharply dressed,” Louis said. The waitress came by and placed Anna’s iced tea on the table. When she left, Louis resumed, “Not that I do anything seriously ‘important’, but he does make me follow him and his entourage around. Sprouting opinions on a new artist’s contract deal, a new promotional gig, crap like that. Not that my opinion mattered, though.” He shook his head. “My father just wanted me to look like the son he knew I didn’t want to become. Like I enjoyed following him around and kissing his arse.”

He lifted his lips in a lopsided grin. Dark and sinister, and yet it made Anna’s insides tingle.

“Dad even gave me an office with a view over the city. How bollocks is that?”

“Did you get a secretary that left dirty messages in your intercom?”

Louis threw his head back to laugh. His throat shook with his high, reverberating laughter. Anna merely chuckled from her seat. He turned back down to look at her, his eyes squinting with mirth.

“I wish,” he told her. “I don’t even have a bloody phone in my office.”

“Believe that you have it, and you have it,” Anna replied.

Louis froze, but he did not react in a way that ought to indicate that he thought Anna to be so odd spitting out strange adages. He quickly answered with the Latin translation, “Crede quod habes, et habes.” Anna smiled instantly.

Now, that was their thing.

And suddenly, everything else seemed to be placed back where it all belonged.

 

 

They’ve been talking for hours. It was way past dusk and Anna had completely forgotten that she had to start heading back immediately after the sun had set. Now the sky was merging its orange-y tinge with the darkness of blue and she was still engrossed in a conversation with Louis. He had just finished telling her a story of how his mother nearly got arrested in the airport customs of Barbados trying to smuggle conch shells to the UK. Anna was in stitches.

As she dabbed the corner of her eyes were tears had begun to form, she felt her phone vibrate roughly on the table. Louis’ eyes diverted down to it, where he saw a picture of a young man in a ridiculous smooching pose. The caller ID on Anna’s phone labeled him as “Babe” and suddenly Louis was gutted. His grew stiff as Anna picked up the call.

“Darling, hello,” she said delicately into the mouthpiece. She sounded so sweet and angelic. Louis remembered times when they would be on the phone with each other late at night and her voice would grow soft and low. It was so sultry; it made him squirm in his seat a little at the memory of it.

Anna made a face as she looked down at her wristwatch. It began to only dawn on her then that it was three quarters past seven. She’d reach Cambridge really late if she didn’t get a move on then.

She was still on the phone with Nathan when she got up and gathered her things. Louis got up instinctively, watching her every move.

“Sorry, babe,” she said to her boyfriend. “I’ve just got caught up and all with… something.” She looked up at her “something”, who stood in front of her, holding her coat for her. Anna took it from him. “I know, babe. I know. I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got to go.”

She hung up on Nathan before turning back to Louis. He tucked his fingertips into the pockets of his trousers, waiting for her to say something.

“It’s my boyfriend,” she told him. “I forgot we were supposed to see each other tonight. I didn’t know we were going to get carried away. I should really get back.”

Louis shrugged. It was a full-bodied, lazy shrug. He was so carefree and his shrug said so much about him.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. He smiled. “But not too much. It was a pleasure meeting you again.”

“It definitely was.” Anna bit her lip.

Was this the part where she should say she would want to do this again?

The truth is, it was fun. It really was. It was actually more than that. It was amazing to see Louis again and to laugh at his old jokes and to just be old Anna in front of him again. But in reality, she had Nathan.

She had Nathan. She had Pembroke. She still had her father who had greatly expressed that Louis Tomlinson no longer find any communication with his  daughter anymore. Anna from a year ago would quickly insist in setting up time to see Louis again. But Anna present tense knew better.

So she nodded one last time. A polite, parting nod. One that old colleagues gave each other after they’ve had a long chat and are ready to fully resign from one another. Louis reverted back to stern, austere Mr. Tomlinson and returned her nod.

Anna exited the coffee shop and looked up and down the street, trying to find which direction she came from. She was suddenly feeling disoriented again. And just as she was about to walk up the street, she felt a strong hand grip her tiny forearm. It swung her around and she immediately found herself face to face with Louis.

His eyes were going soft. She felt his breath against her lips as he uttered, ever so weakly, “Audaces fortuna iuvat.”

And then, just as swiftly as he grabbed her, he leaned forward and kissed her.

She was hesitant at first. But his lips were warm and still sweet from his tea. So she melted into it and kissed back. Everything suddenly felt so redundant. She was a fifth form student again, and so was he. Louis’ Armani suit was just his Eton blazer and her handbag was also suddenly a heavy book bag. She set it down on the pavement – which no longer was anymore. It was now the grassy pathway that led to the arch towards Jourdelay’s building. It was their secret meeting place. The busy streets of London were no longer to be heard. She could only hear the faint sounds of young schoolboys mucking about in their residence halls and House Masters and older senior house captains rallying them up for supper.

Louis stopped kissing her and suddenly they were back in London W6. Back to 2012.

“Don’t… go. Come back home with me,” Louis said.

Anna couldn’t say no. She wanted to risk it. Fuck it all, she wanted to be brave.

Fortune favors the bold, after all.