Love Me, Love Me Not: An addictive psychological suspense with a twist you won’t see coming

I saw him first.

Sat in the corner of the library with thick-rimmed glasses reminiscent of a certain schoolboy wizard. The sleeves of his jumper pushed up and the bones of his wrist tensed as pen scratched paper.

But he didn’t see me. Not then. Nor as I followed him down the cobbled alleyway that led to the pub. Not as he supped his pint and swapped ideas, hopes and dreams with his chosen friends. He didn’t notice the way I lingered at the bar, my arm a breath from his own as he passed over a crumpled note to the student serving pints.

He didn’t see me at the back of the lecture hall, watching the curl of hair at his neck, the twitch of leg as he listened. He didn’t realise that I overheard his comment about Professor MacGillis’s tutor group. About his joy and fear at having been chosen. A group I knew I was good enough for. A group that would change everything, if only I could find the golden key that would allow me to enter.

‘So all I need to do is keep the water topped up and it will flower, even in December?’ Professor MacGillis peered at the Narcissus’s sculptural tangle of creamy tendrils, moving too slowly for the eye to see. A small gesture of my appreciation, a thank you of sorts for allowing me to join a study group usually reserved for grad students. He made an exception in my case, based both on a recommendation from my own college professor and the fact I had scored the highest results in the university for my first- and second-year exams. Having me as one of his students made him look good; he knew I was worth more to him than the other way round.

‘Plants are like numbers, they follow the rules as long as you know what they are.’ I turned the vase full circle, just to check all was okay. Because I always looked. I always noticed if a root had grown … If a root had grown, a leaf unfurled, a petal’s hue lightened by the sun.

‘And you don’t mind me keeping it?’

‘Not at all. I can always grow more.’

‘It would seem your talents aren’t just limited to numbers, young lady.’ A pat on the hand that lasted a moment longer than was acceptable. A lowering of lids that failed to hide his intention.

There was a letter opener on his desk and I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like if I were to thrust it between his carpal bones, snapping the tendons between his lusty fingers. To register the surprise on his face as it transformed to pain. For him to understand I was not someone he could manipulate into a cliché. I didn’t need his help, nor his desire.

University was a new world, much the same as before but filled with subtle intricacies that allowed me to simply be. I was no longer the geek, the nerd, the girl with all the answers. Instead my ability was praised, revered and I was not alone in my brilliance. But in two years I hadn’t made any real friends. Hadn’t found anyone to fill the hole I thought could only ever be filled by Elle.

‘Professor…’ I began. But then the door to his study opened and the room shifted, air pushed aside as my real reason for being there entered and I scuttled back to my seat. The breath in my lungs started to spasm but I didn’t dare let it go, to turn, to move until I was sure it was him.

A space opposite, a seat not yet taken. Tucked into the corner, half-hidden by a bookcase, I waited as he greeted his classmates in turn, their peaty scent coiling over that of dusty books, stale beer and the Christmas chill that lingered in clothes.

I glanced at my notebook, the lines of my sketch making their way over questions already answered. Then my hand froze above the page as he kept moving around the room, stopping only at the seat next to mine.

‘Is that a cornflower?’ He unwound a bright-red scarf, each circle of his neck covering me with tiny particles of tobacco laced with eucalyptus. I pictured him rolling a cigarette, tongue running along the paper’s edge to keep it in place.

‘You shouldn’t smoke if you have a cold.’

The words escaped before I was ready and I cursed myself for not thinking first. But he surprised me, then as always. He understood me in an instant and, instead of finding me repellent, was accepting and kind.

‘True, but we all have our vices.’ His teeth were crooked and, when he smiled, a dimple sat in each cheek.

I knew all about vices, only mine weren’t the sort you admitted to. Would he like me still if he knew every part of me? I longed for it, for someone to recognise the depths that murmured underneath, willing themselves free. For someone not to care because in a way they understood them too.

The snow in his hair was melting. Droplets of water like miniature globes reflecting back an upside-down version of the world. I wanted to touch them, to taste whatever part of him still clung to the liquid.

‘I’m Patrick.’

‘I’m Jane.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Jane,’ he said, holding out his hand and waiting for me to slip my fingers into his palm.

That was when I became undone. A shifting inside of me at the nearness of him, something that before was missing but now made perfect sense. It came with a hunger, a painful longing that was a world away from the pull I had towards Elle. It was altogether more basal, which made it true.

‘A group of us usually head to The Turf after MacGillis has finished talking about himself. You’re more than welcome to join us.’

I couldn’t reply. All my senses were compounded into the pressure of his skin against my own. All my capabilities, the words I had accumulated over the years, disappeared, because when I looked at him I saw a future never before imagined. A future I had believed wasn’t for someone like me.

He had a mole on the edge of his jaw and I wondered what it would be like to kiss it. His hands, stained with ink, and nails, bitten down to the cuticles, were ones I longed to have trace over every inch of my skin. I watched the way he scratched at the tip of his nose with his pen when he was trying to figure out a problem. I wanted to know each and every one of his mannerisms, tuck them away to be remembered in years to come.

That night, I walked home looking ahead of me instead of down at the cobbled streets. I allowed myself to contemplate what it would be like to have a friend here. A real friend who understood and accepted me with all my flaws and imperfections.

What surprised me more than anything was that when I pictured his face it made me smile. When I slipped beneath the starchy sheets of my bed that night, looking out to watch clouds skate past the moon, I remember hoping that tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that, wouldn’t let me down.

We started out as friends, as oft the story goes. Sharing a love of equations, of mathematical probabilities and how far each concept could be stretched and explored. But being a mathematician, a rationaliser, didn’t stop me from appreciating beauty. It made me look at a flower and see its inherent structure, allowed me to imagine it on a cellular level. It meant I saw how it was designed to make itself attractive to insects, how nature has a way of getting what it needs. Add to that the lessons I had learnt from Elle and it meant I understood the world in a way others could not.

So I gave him the time he needed to realise I was different. Because life is nothing more than a series of interconnected moments. Just the passage of time that we anoint with purpose and meaning, only distinguished by what we do with our intentions.

It was the night of the summer ball. The end of the beginning, or perhaps the other way around. I was dressed in midnight satin, my hair caught up in filigree hair slides, lips stained the same colour as a robin’s breast. Patrick and I were sitting at the edge of the river under a heaving silver sky, as music from the main quad spun over the walls along with the drunken mating calls of our peers.

‘It seems strange to think our time here is nearly over.’

‘In what way?’ I looked over at him, at the thin line of red on his chin. No doubt the result of a shaving accident, his hands somewhat out of practice after weeks when time was reserved for poring over textbooks. Weeks fuelled by strong coffee and a somewhat narcissistic desire to be the best, the scholar, the one everyone else aspired to beat.

‘I make sense here,’ he said, gently bumping against my shoulder as I leant in to his touch. ‘So do you.’

He was talking about my move to London. About pursuing a career at a prestigious investment bank. A career he thought I was worth more than and, to a certain extent, I had to agree.

‘I want a different kind of life.’

He shifted his weight beside me. ‘Meaning money.’

He didn’t understand why I would choose money over intellectual prestige. Why I had no desire to build upon my existing knowledge of plants. To apply for a second degree in botany, stay here and use my brain for something altogether more worthwhile than making rich people richer.

Curling my bare toes into the grass, I watched as an ant climbed aboard my little toe. ‘You say that like it’s a dirty word.’

‘That’s because it is. You know as well as I do that money causes nothing but fear and loathing.’

Patrick came from money. Old money, handed down over generations, which meant he could afford not to care about it, or at least pretend not to. But I understood in a way he never could how intrinsic money is because of what happens when it is absent. What happens when your mother has to choose between putting food on the table or paying the electricity bill.

‘Money makes things easier.’

I could feel him watching me, could picture the slant of his brow as he decided what to say next, but I didn’t trust myself to look. Didn’t trust myself to do something that would ruin what I could sense was about to transpire.

‘Don’t you want to do something more with your life than filling a pot with gold? Don’t you want to be remembered for something: an idea, a concept future generations will read about and learn from?’

That was when I turned my face, looked up at him from under lashes laden with mascara and arched my back in the exact same way I had seen Elle do over and over again. He needed someone who would let him shine and not try to take away from his brilliance. He needed someone who was just as capable, who understood his ambitions, but had no desire to challenge him. We would make an incredible team because I would let him take centre stage. I’d had years of practice, of letting someone else bask in all the glory, but now it was time to claim my reward.

‘I never really thought about my future before I met you.’

He blinked. Once, then twice more. Lips parted and became heavy with intent before he sprang to his feet and threw his empty glass into the river where it promptly collided with the side of a punt. None of its inhabitants seemed to take any notice; too busy were they in grappling with one another and I remember hoping that at least one of them would topple into the water and drown.

‘Look at them,’ he said, flinging his arm in the punt’s direction. ‘So unaware of the privilege they’re experiencing just by being here. Such a waste.’

I loved him because he saw how unfair the world could be. That there were too many people who succeeded simply because of what they were born into. That it wasn’t just the ignorant who sucked the life from this planet, but the ones who assumed they were better than everyone else because they were rich.