Chapter 14
That night was the beginning of the end. It certainly ended the winning streak we were on, which felt like the year was ours to rule and revel in.
Jeremy didn’t go back home until Monday after school. He stayed with me, but we barely spoke. He looked broken, and I didn’t want to say something that would make things worse, so I stayed quiet.
I was grateful but felt sorry for him at the same time. My emotions towards his father and what he tried to do to me got mixed up with everything that was happening. So, I took the easier option and didn’t say anything. At least for a few days.
Mum knew something was wrong but couldn’t work out what it might be because Jeremy was here with me. If we were fighting, then it would have been easier to figure out. However, I wasn’t ready to tell her what happened — neither the revolting behaviour of Mr Archer nor the temper and anger that fuelled Jeremy afterwards.
The party was a bust, although from what I got from shared texts, his friends showed up and took advantage of the free food and booze. Nobody stopped them or concerned themselves with Jeremy’s lack of an appearance at his own party.
I don’t know where his dad went, and I didn’t know why his mum wasn’t more concerned.
A lot of questions gathered, waiting to be answered, like the clouds rolling in off the coast, ready to bring an end to the balmy weather.
We stay silent on the way home from school. Even though days have passed, I still don’t know what to say. He pulls up outside my house.
“Are you coming in?”
“No. I need to go back home, make sure he’s gone and speak to Mum.”
“Does she know?”
He looks forward and doesn’t answer me, but I can see the tension harden his jaw.
“Okay then.” I jump out and watch as he drives off.
I don’t hear from him for over a week.
He vanished. He wouldn’t answer his phone, and he didn’t come to school. We were weeks away from our exams, and he was bailing.
And I couldn’t even be that mad at him because his dad did this awful thing, and it completely blew up his life.
I felt sick not knowing where he was or if he was okay. After spending so much time together, it was debilitating being apart for so long. It was like a part of me was missing, yet even admitting that made me wonder if that was a good thing. We’d be going off to university in a matter of months. A little distance might be good.
Make us stronger.
I loved Jeremy and couldn’t imagine my life without him, despite what had happened.
And my heart physically hurt at being apart — I didn’t want space — I wanted Jeremy.
Mum was worried and kept pushing me to talk to her, but I couldn’t. Shame, wrongly placed, prevented me from confessing, even though I knew I didn’t do anything wrong. But it cast shade over my relationship with Jeremy, and I didn’t want that.
So, I tried to concentrate on school, ignoring the looks and questions on everyone’s lips. They didn’t ask me anything — I wasn’t the cool kid — despite being Jeremy’s girlfriend.
“Come on, Anna. You’re going to be late.”
“Okay, okay,” I yell back at Mum.
I grab my things and finally run out of the door and hit a wall of muscle.
“Jeremy!”
He wraps me in his arms and swings me around. I feel like I’m about to burst, he’s squeezing so tight, but I don’t care. I need this — I’ve missed this.
“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” I smack his chest but then go back to trying to suffocate him with my arms.
“Sorry. Look, want to go for a ride?”
“We have school.” I furrow my brow in confusion. It was Tuesday, and he’d already missed a week.
“One day won’t hurt, Anna. I really need you, and it’s been a pretty shit week.” He takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine. He looks at me, his eyes filled with a sorrow that drowns out all the colour. It reminds me of how he used to look — when I’d glance at him at school or that time at the restaurant. I hate that look.
“Just the morning. I have test papers to hand in this afternoon.”
“Fair enough.” He pulls me towards the car and opens the door for me. Before I jump in, I look at him, hoping to really take him in. Despite my agreement, his eyes are still sad. They don’t shine, and all I want to do is make them light up again. “Okay?” he asks.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I tilt my head, trying to get a read of him. He smiles, but it doesn’t beam. He does smack me on the arse, encouraging me into the car.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He starts to drive, and I settle in.
Something in my chest relaxes, as though my heart can take a rest now Jeremy is back next to me, and I reach out and rest my arm on the centre console. He picks up my hand and brings it to his lips before placing it back and taking the wheel again.
“Can we grab breakfast somewhere?”
“How about brunch? I know this place you like.” He smiles at me, and this time, it’s the smile I’ve fallen in love with.
The world passes outside the window, but I pay it little attention. I stare at Jeremy, trying to read his mind. The car is still too quiet, heavy, like storm clouds waiting to unburden themselves with a downpour. I’m expecting something, but I don’t know what.
“Jere? Where are we going?” I catch a sign on the road and realise we’re driving further than just into town. In fact, we’ve already been driving for over an hour. “Jeremy?”
“I was planning on going to Tregethworth first.”
“Cornwall? Seriously!” I shriek.
“It’s a few hours’ drive. I’ll have you back tonight.” His brows draw down, but he doesn’t look at me, probably because he knows this is crazy.
“I said this afternoon, Jeremy,” I snap as I think about missing school. Every day counts right now, and my stomach lurches with a combination of worry and guilt. But I can’t deny the tiny little flutter in my heart at the gesture of whisking me off to our place.
That thought stays locked up, though. I don’t need to encourage him further about these crazy ideas.
The silence remains as we continue the drive. I run over the excuses I could try on Mum and fail to find anything original, so give up.
As we get closer to Tregethworth, I think about Jeremy and why he’s done this now. Right after the party, I could understand, and I wish he’d talk to me. Hopefully, this trip will give him the opportunity to do so.
We pull up, park down the road from Molly’s and walk into the diner.
We’re stiff and awkward around each other, not like either of us usually, and it grates on every nerve I have. We both order in a hurry and then sit and wait.
“Can we talk?” I ask, hoping for something.
“Not here. The jetty.” I nod. It makes sense. Molly’s is my place.
The last time we were here, I felt invincible, full of life and love. The epic love I’d always thought about was unfolding before my eyes, and yet now, one of my favourite places can’t offer me the comfort I desperately need.
After struggling through our food, we drive back to his place in the Cove. It at least makes me feel better, fortified to deal with whatever conversation is coming.
Avoiding the house, he leads me, hand in hand, through the garden and down the path to the jetty.
There’s a calmness here that shouldn’t be, like it’s protected somehow and shielded from the rest of the world. It always felt like this when we were here, as though it was our place, and nobody could touch us when we were here.
I sit down first, dangling my legs over the edge and swinging them back and forth, waiting.
“I’m messed up, Anna.” His voice is low and deep, and he’s still standing, talking out over the water like he’s confessing to the world and not just me. “I’m fucking raging, and I can’t stop it.” I hear the grit and the anger in the words as if he’s cross with the very syllables he speaks. “I’ve been staying here with Mum while Dad moves out because I never want to see him again.”
I turn around to look up at him, wanting to offer him comfort or encouragement — either or anything to help him. But he turns away.
“When I look at you, I just get so angry. Putting his hands on you like that. That’s all I see, and it makes me want to kill him all over again.” He balls his fists at his side, and I’m right back in the kitchen, watching the blood drip down his wrist.
“It’s okay.” But as soon as I say it, I regret it. It’s not okay. His father assaulted me, and now, it’s leaching into the rest of our relationship, making me powerless to control it, just like I was in that kitchen.
I take a breath and wait for Jeremy to speak. He just keeps pacing back and forth on the wooden slats.
“Does your mum know?” I ask. The thought of facing her makes me want to double over and hurl my guts up.
Finally, he comes to sit next to me, but he keeps his head forward. “Not the specifics. He’s never been faithful. It’s why Mum’s the way she is. He slept with my babysitter when I was a kid. There have been others as well. This place was Mum’s punishment for him, coming to Cornwall with us every year and forcing him to be on his best behaviour for at least a few weeks of the year — no business trips, late nights, or client meetings. Making everyone think we had the perfect life. It was a fucking sham.”
“I’m so sorry, Jeremy. I never knew. Well, I knew that your mum might have a problem, but not the rest.” My mind flashes back to when I was a little girl, running after my father in his car as he drove away.
What kind of a father would he have been if he stayed?
“She’s an addict, prescription drugs, alcohol, anything to block out the reality. She does a good job most of the time. This has hit her hard.”
I look out at the water, taking it all in, as the gnaw of guilt and shame sits in my gut.
Then, down at my side, his fingers brush with mine as if wanting to keep the connection between us small and secret. That innocent touch of contact is what I need to ground me — to make me feel like he’s in this with me and we’re not looking at this from other sides of the same mirror.
“I’m so sorry, Anna.” He turns to me, and his eyes look misty with tears. He grabs my face with his hands as if ensuring I can’t look away and studies my face. “You are the most important person in my world, and he almost fucked that up. I can’t stand that he tried to hurt you. That he’d do that to you.”
I close my eyes and block out the memory.
“I knew what he was like, always looking at other women. But I wanted you too much to push you away. I fucking love you, down to my soul, and he did this anyway.” His voice breaks, and it grips my heart.
“He did this to both of us,” I add, placing my hands on his.
I might have been his intended victim, but the ramifications of his actions are far more significant: hurting his son at the top of that list.
“I only care about you. So much it’s terrifying. Anna, please forgive me.”
There’s nothing to forgive, but I understand the gesture of his words. I was at his house setting up for his party. Nothing can excuse his father for his actions, and it shouldn’t be up to Jeremy to make up for them or seek forgiveness.
“I can’t cope with this without you. That’s why I came here. I need to remember what we had before he fucked that up.”
“He’s not fucked us up. I love you,” I whisper as I grab his hand and clutch it to my chest. “I love you, Jeremy Archer, through everything.”
“I love you, too.”
I’ve spent a lot of my time wondering if things between me and Jeremy would have been different if it had been his father who left when Jeremy was little rather than mine. It’s a cruel thought, but then, so much of our story is.
Or was our story always destined to play out the way it did?
A week after our little trip to Cornwall, Jeremy came back to school, and things started to return to normal. Or, at least, the normal we’d started to get used to.
But Jeremy wasn’t the same.
And I felt alone like I’d never done before.
Sammy and I were barely talking. I hadn’t made up for the mess of things I’d made with her birthday and hadn’t even told her about everything that happened since the party.
She walks past me in the corridor now and doesn’t even look up to acknowledge me.
And Mum is still mad that I ran off with Jeremy and ditched school for the day.
We’ve never fought before, and I don’t think either of us is dealing with it.
It feels like everything is falling apart, and I’m powerless to do anything but watch it happen.
Convinced by his friends, Jeremy held a second party to celebrate his birthday. Party take-two was just as stocked with alcohol and food as the first, although his father was nowhere in sight.
It didn’t stop the bad memories plaguing me as I walked into the kitchen. I hadn’t been back since we ran out of there, and it was overwhelming.
“Hey, there you are!”
I’m staring at the counter, panic rising, and my grip on the glass in my hand growing stronger as I play out the memory.
“Anna?” The voice jolts me back to now, and I turn to see Jeremy. He’s got a paper cup in his hand and a wonky smile on his face.
He’s never been one for drinking, at least not in front of me before.
My smile is weak, but I force it. For him.
“Come on, stop hiding out in the kitchen.”
He bundles me back through the house into the main living room, where a sea of people bounce and jump along to the music blaring. His arm drops as he finishes his drink before some of his mates pull him into the crowd, engulfing him in their drunken cheers.
I try and join in, dancing on the sidelines, but it’s no good.
I want to run. I want to hide, and it’s plain to see that Jeremy doesn’t see that I’m uncomfortable. My feet pull me back from the crowd, and I watch, hoping he’ll glance at me and check if I’m okay.
But he doesn’t.
This isn’t the Jeremy who kept my hand in his the whole night when we were in Cornwall or who defended me to his friends.
My heart lurches at the thought that maybe the man I’ve fallen for is as broken as I am. And that the new Jeremy is the one dancing in front of me.
I leave him to his party and retreat to his bedroom to escape, fighting the feeling that the last year has been ruined, all taken away because of his fucking dad.
Slamming the door doesn’t help shut out the sounds of the party or the fear in my mind, and I just end up pacing around the room, torturing myself with the draw to be back by his side downstairs.
I pick up my phone and scroll to call Sammy, and then remember that we’re not speaking.
Anna
I’m sorry.
I hit send before I change my mind. It’s the truth, and while it might be too little too late, I’ve made the first move.
The screen stays blank. No magic little dots, so I shove it into my back pocket.
I’m not in the mood to stay here, so I head downstairs to leave. I start looking for Jeremy but can’t see him dancing. The party’s got bigger in the time I’ve been upstairs. Everyone from school must be here, plus all of the people they decided to invite.
I shake my head and continue my search.
He’s outside on the patio, a cloud of fragrant smoke around him and some of the boys from school.
They’re passing around a couple of joints, swigging more drinks in between draws.
If watching him drink and smoke isn’t bad enough, a girl whom I think I recognise from school is perched on the arm of his chair. Her arm dangling around my boyfriend”s neck.
We’ve been together for over a year. The whole school knows it. It was the only news anyone talked about for weeks — the shock of Archer finally being ‘off the market’ — so there’s no way in hell she’s forgotten that.
Hell, no.
With an unfamiliar heat burning inside me, I march over to where they’re all having the time of their lives.
“Oh, hey!” Jeremy looks up at me but makes no attempt to move the girl”s arm. She looks at me with a grin that turns my stomach with dread.
“Do you fucking mind?” I shove her shoulder, and she tumbles backwards, sliding off the chair but landing on her feet in one piece.
“Anna, relax,” Jeremy tells me above all the calls and cheers from the boys sitting around us.
The girl skulks away, and I watch before turning my attention back to my boyfriend.
“That wasn’t nice.” He looks up at me. His eyes are dark, his pupils eclipsing the beautiful colour in them.
“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before letting her put her hands all over you.” I narrow my gaze, anger bristling in my veins.
“Don’t make a scene.”
“Don’t be a jerk. This isn’t you, Jeremy.” I shake my head and turn away, ready to leave.
“Oh really? You know so much?” He stomps after me, but I keep on walking.
“I thought I did,” I shout back.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I’m not staying here.” The emotion begins to bubble and overtake all the negative feelings, and my eyes start to sting.
“Fine. Leave me. On my fucking birthday.”
I stop.
And I turn.
“It’s not your birthday. And you seem to be doing just fine.”
There’s a moment when the pull between us, the connection, tugs at me, but I fight it and turn around, still determined to leave.
“Whatever.” The sadness in his voice makes me remember what he sounded like when we were on the jetty, and a wave of guilt creeps over me.
He’s not been the same since his actual birthday, and I feel that every day.
But I still leave.