I met him at a poetry night in 2022. He’d just been motorbiking across Spain, still wearing his leathers, I was about to read a poem about a bat growing inside my lungs. He started the conversation at the bar, I was only vaguely interested, probably thinking more about my poem, my intonations and whether I needed to apply more lip liner. He added me on instagram, liked a few posts. I walked past him soon after near the overground where I lived, he was arm in arm with a woman, later he messaged me asking ‘was that you?’

Last summer I ran into him again at a festival I was volunteering at. The friend I was with was chatting to him in the winding morning queue for showers. It was early, I’d taken a sleeping tablet the night before to aid my achey body and felt groggy. For ease I was wearing my towel ready to shower, sunglasses to hide the grog and wellies - iconic outfit but probably not one I wanted to be recognised in. I didn’t realise it was him in my sleep stupor until I heard him say ‘Caroline?!’ I briefly lifted said sunglasses to squint up at him. ‘It’s you!’ He said. It’s you. He came by the stand I was volunteering at twice more during the festival just to say hi, then late one evening my friend and I ran into him as we were coming back tired from dancing in crowds and he was just on his way out. It was my friend who got me thinking when she asked me what the deal was with us. I shrugged and said nothing, but there was a certain energy when he came to the stand the next day, a certain twinkle in his eye.

Not long after the festival he asked if I wanted to hang out. Came to pick me up on his motorbike, brought an extra helmet just for me. He dropped me off at the house of one of the families I tutor for. The mother came out of the front door and said ‘oh, your boyfriend’. I did not correct her as I didn’t want her to think I let just anyone drop me off but I did wonder if this assumption was some kind of foreshadowing/ crystal ball into the future. Unbeknownst to him, a month or so later the same family invited me and him to Chinese New Year at their house, their 11 year old I write stories with walking in with a smug look on her face and saying loudly, ‘you can bring your boyyyyyfriend’ (you can hear her tone). He was away at the time so I gave his apologies but still did not correct them on the fact he was not my boyfriend. I never told him as I had a hunch it might freak him out.

After about six slow months (he was away travelling for a large chunk of that) he kissed me. In Beckenham Place Park just as night was falling and the birds were circling above our heads. It was electric. It was also suddenly clear - okay this is what it is. We’d been sort of dancing around it for a while, I’d been dating someone else, not sure if we were just hanging out as mates or what. The next day after the kiss I had a hospital appointment, one that felt significant after a long period of pain, chemo, and loss of trust both in the system (big one) and my own body (huge one).

In the evening after the kiss he cooked me dinner at his house. I met and chatted away to his flatmates, they were interested in me, asked lots of questions, told me he’d told them I was a poet, wondered what that’s like. He had booked to take me to a spa in Reading the next morning - sauna, heated pool, steam, jacuzzi. It felt like it was going from zero to 100 and I felt both a sense of excitement and foreboding. On the way back into London after the spa and luxurious breakfast he’d paid for, he kept stopping me as we sat doing the crossword on the train, taking my face in his hands and kissing it all over. Squeezing my thigh. Playing with my sore wrist and hand whilst looking deeply into my eyes. He asked if I wanted him to accompany me to the hospital, despite knowing I was already meeting my mum there. I politely declined but couldn’t stop a swell of feeling arising, someone who cares, someone who doesn’t find my illness too much to cope with, who doesn’t feel ‘it’s a lot to take on’.

Call me crazy. But I thought he might be into me.

To cut a long story short. He wasn’t. Well at least, he went skiing for three weeks after above mentioned spa trip (I should have known then he wasn’t for me). His messaging was initially frequent, talk of what we’d do together when he got back, questions about my health, my joints, endless pictures & videos of the powder aka snow (eye roll). But as the weeks passed, they became more sporadic. Then nada. Eventually he was back, said it’d be great to see me. The foreboding feeling was still lurking, hadn’t ever fully gone away. He arrived to the meeting with a book of short stories which he handed to me along with a lot of compliments about my hair, how beautiful I looked etc etc. I took the book and the compliments graciously, with a hint of caution. Within five minutes he said, ‘I’m just going to say it… I don’t see this going anywhere romantically’. A pause. ‘Do you want me to leave?’

The conversation that followed is more hazy, I finished my wine, asked some questions (I remember distinctly one of his replies: that there was just a certain je ne sais quoi missing - said without a hint of irony), and we changed the subject. I said goodbye, went straight to my best friends house, cried and drank some whiskey. I wasn’t sure why I was crying. This wasn’t a break-up, we hadn’t been in a relationship. This wasn’t even someone I had begun to feel deeply for, we had only just worked out we might be dating. There was a sense of rejection, sure. Confusion - definitely. All the moves had come from him. I genuinely hadn’t been certain how I felt or if I had wanted to pursue anything. The whole interaction had been led by him, I was swept up in it, the one in the back of the toboggan who suddenly gets flipped out at the end.

I think there was probably some anger and definitely a big spoon of grief in there for good measure. I had just begun to allow my body feel safe with him when it so rarely feels safe anymore, with myself let alone with anyone else. I’d expressed vulnerability about intimacy when being intimate in a body that is often in pain, that is eroding its own bones, attacking its own cells is extremely hard. He’d lured me in with a false sense of security, he’d asked me so many questions about my illness, held my poor little wrist in his two big hands. Then not even called once during the three weeks to let me know where he was at. Arriving to meet me with a gift then slapping me round the face with it (metaphorically).

What followed in the following few weeks / months after the je ne sais quoi meet up is now referred to humorously by me & my friends as croissant gate. He took the trouble to remember my injection day (which happens every two weeks) and arrived at my house a week and a half later after the je ne sais quoi meeting with pastel de nata he’d made from scratch. About 8 in a Tupperware for my flatmates and I. He left with a promise that on my next injection day in a fortnight, he’d bring home-baked croissants. What I initially thought was sweet with a twinge of the unhinge soon left a bitter taste in my mouth. I’m all for gifts of baked goods but my friends weren’t bringing me sweet treats on injection days (if you’re reading this my favourite cake is carrot, lemon or victoria sponge, I also like almond croissants from Good as Gold - nowhere else). But a man who pursued me over the course of two (very turbulent for me) years then suddenly decided it wasn’t romantic without any consideration or question of what I might feel or not feel, was.

Of course he missed the next date of my injection and the croissants never materialised. However I did receive his excuses followed by a blow by blow low down of the current dough / croissant cooking situation, how many he thought it would make and asking if I wanted him to bring some round that week. To this day those messages are left unread. The last that popped up on my screen asked ‘don’t you trust my croissants?’. I laughed, I’ll give him that.

Although I won’t reply directly, here’s a whole essay response if he / anyone ever cares to read it, I want to be clear. I wholeheartedly do not trust his croissants. Even if he mastered the perfect rise, the crisp, that glossy sheen. I’m certain once you take a nibble, or a big bite, there’s no soft, flaky, layered centre. No melt in the mouth, airy interior like honeycomb. Not even a gooey almond in sight. You’d be crunching on air, a bit disappointed you didn’t go for a pain au raisin instead. A pettier me would have liked to try his croissants though, complimented them on their golden coats, lathered them up with butter and jam, taken one bite, looked deep into his eyes and said oh dear, they’re just missing a certain je ne sais quoi.