Chapter 21
Travelling back to such a familiar place is comforting. The first glimpse of the sea as it comes into sight, the salty air that’s just the right side of pleasant — it all wraps around me like a blanket, offering me the confidence to breathe again.
The cottage and pancakes for breakfast at Molly’s Diner both do their job, bringing me closer to my normal self. Positivity rises in me as the sun drenches the beach in warmth.
Mum packed the journal she gave me for my sixteenth birthday and suggested I use it to write down anything and everything I wanted. She said I should think of it as a defence mechanism — instead of reaching for a drink or a fix, reach for the pen and scribble something down.
So, I take myself off to secluded spots in the town and write. To start with, it’s only words following my mind as it starts to wander. But then, sentences begin to form, and anything else that pops into my head. I let my mind drift and just follow the flow of words. It’s therapeutic and eases something inside me, that anxious, edgy feeling that stays with me like a shadow.
When I read it back in the evening, there are often a bunch of pages that don’t make any sense, but it doesn’t matter because it’s helping — stitching me back together one word from the page at a time.
I’ve kept the good memories of my summer here with Jeremy at bay. They threaten every minute I’m awake and even in my dreams, but the bad is too raw to let them surface too far.
Mum’s kept the chocolate fudge ice cream coming to the point that any of the weight I lost over the last few months has come back, and that’s a good thing. I feel stronger.
She’s also kept her distance, not hovering like she would be if we were back home. That’s helped as much as anything. Lying under the sun, if I close my eyes and just listen to the waves, I can forget the last year even happened.
Almost.
After the first two weeks, the novelty of being back here fades to the point that the sun can’t even change my mood. It’s a sleepy town, and the list of distractions is growing smaller.
The pull to look for something to appease that niggling inside me is growing, and writing my feelings down is no longer helping. The draw to visit the Cove seems to feed off my anxiety, and I can’t keep the idea out of my mind.
Just for a look.
Just to see.
“I’m going to meet with a new gallery. Want to come?” Mum asks the following day.
“I’m good. I’m going to take a look at The Silver Tree. I’m missing a bracelet.”
“I’m surprised it’s taken you so long.” She tilts her head and looks at me.
“It’s taken a while to get my head straight here. Jewellery wasn’t at the top of my list, sorry.” The lie kicks me in the gut, but I just turn away.
“I’ll be back after lunch.”
“You’re taking the car?” I ask as I fill the kettle in the kitchen, wondering how I might get to the Cove.
“Yeah. You don’t need it to get to Silvia’s.”
“I know, I know.”
She leaves, and I set about calling for a taxi to take me back to the place that haunts me.
I head down to Molly’s, where I meet the taxi. The drive takes forever, even though it’s only a handful of miles, my heart striking out the seconds as it pounds in my chest the closer we get.
There’s no real reason why I need to go back, but it’s torture being so close yet so far away. Maybe I need closure or to somehow see that the time we spent together here wasn’t as magical as I remember — that the hours we spent on the beach or sitting at the jetty didn’t really mean what the memories stirring from my heart make me feel.
The taxi pulls up, and I get out at the identical location where Mum dropped me off the first time I came here for our date.
The rush of excitement I feel douses me, like walking into a cold shower. It was such a short time ago, but time isn’t only measured in minutes and days. It can be marked by the breaks in my heart, too.
With slow steps, I make my way down to the beach. It’s as beautiful as ever, with gorgeous sand stretching out before me and crystal waters lapping rhythmically at the shore.
Dozens of people are down with their coloured tents or windbreaks, making their little home base for their day, enjoying the sun.
I drop down in the sand and watch the waves, picturing the burning bonfire and the setting sun.
It wasn’t all bad.
Most of it was amazing.
I smile into the sun and look up at the sky.
Laughter, fun, anticipation — a kaleidoscope of pictures shifts behind my eyes, all featuring Jeremy.
I love him. I still do.
We just got lost in each other for a while. And now I’m in a prison I’ve built myself, and I’m not sure how to escape.
The sound of the waves soothes my ruptured heart as I pick through the options I have in front of me. If he loves me like I love him, we can make this work. I can help him. We can get clean together and find our way back to this.
It’s a ray of hope I’ve needed to pick me up and keep me going.
The doubt and worry that it will be too easy to slip into bad ways niggles at me, like something on the edge of my vision, but I stay strong. We are strong enough. I can do this.
There’s time before the taxi is due, so I head back up from the beach. I tell myself it’s just a look — a glance — but as the house comes into view, the urge to see if he’s there grows.
This is the place he ran to. That we ran to, so it’s a possibility.
I walk down towards the drive, excitement bubbling at the prospect. But as I get there, it looks quiet. The windows are all dark, no car in the drive — nothing like it was when we stayed here. It reminds me of how it looked when I came here out of my mind with worry — another stab in my chest.
Looking back at that time, it was crazy how much I felt like I needed him. Frightening, even.
The back gate is open. It stops me from leaving, and I head in that direction. It’s banging in the breeze, and I open it to check if there’s someone in the garden, but it’s deserted like the house appears to be, with covers over the sun loungers and furniture.
As I peer in, the sense of loss pierces my heart so sharply that it throbs in my chest.
Coming here was a bad idea. I miss him. It’s that simple and being here only heightens that to an unbearable level.
The jetty calls, and although it’s technically trespassing, I want to go back to the place that I always thought of as ours. Just for a moment — maybe to say goodbye?
I cross the garden and through the gate and follow the familiar path with a smile on my face.
As I hit the start of the wooden planks, I look over towards where his boat is always moored, and I see the silhouette I recognise sitting at the end like we did for so many hours.
The hope that rose in me on the beach explodes in my chest and my face beams. But that all crashes in the next instance when I see that he’s not alone. Another girl is with him.
Jealousy worms its way inside my skin as I keep walking, unable to help myself until I’m halfway along the jetty.
I can hear them laughing together, and it crushes something inside.
This was our place. He said nobody came here. Yet here he is.
The girl turns then and looks right at me.
“Arch, who is this?” she asks him.
He turns to me, and his smile drops the second he recognises me. “Nobody. Don’t worry about her. Go back to the house.”
“Hey,” she starts, cross with his dismissal.
“I said go,” he snaps his command at her, and she obeys, standing, before walking back the way I just came, muttering as she passes me. I stare at her as she does and have to hold myself back from screaming at her.
Then, it’s just us.
We both look at each other for a few minutes, neither of us speaking, but the hurt and rage inside me only intensifies. He was laughing with her. How can he be happy here with someone else?
He breaks first. “What are you doing here?” He sounds tired.
“I’m in Cornwall for a few weeks, just like always.”
“I mean, why are you here, Anna? This isn’t your place.”
“Oh, really,” I scoff. “Funny, because I kinda thought it was our place, where you told me you didn’t bring others, where we talked and shared pieces of ourselves. Where we nearly…” I stop, unable to finish that sentence.
“It’s my house, Anna. And you made it clear you didn’t want me anymore,” he yells.
“Bullshit. I told you we needed to get clean and that we weren’t breaking up. You’ve just skewed everything like usual.”
“Don’t start with me.” He steps closer towards me.
“Then don’t lie to me. Who is she?” I fling my arm out, pointing in the direction of the house.
“She’s a friend.”
“Really?” I push him.
“Yeah. But I don’t see why it’s any of your business anymore.”
“Was it so easy for you to forget what we had? What we meant to each other, or was all that a lie for you?”
“No, it wasn’t a lie. How could you think that?” He scowls at me. “But you’re the one who threw it away. You left me and refused to see me.”
“Arghhh, you don’t get it, do you?” I run my hands through my hair and pace in a circle. “I was sick. We were sick. You left me passed out from a bad trip and didn’t even know. You were so concerned about getting high that you forgot about everything else. Including me.”
“Now who’s twisting things.” He turns away and looks out at the water.
“You let a random girl fuck you in front of me. You fucking shattered my heart, and yet you still think it’s on me.”
He storms back to me and snatches my wrist. “I love you, Anna. When you left, you broke me. Don’t you see that?” I search his eyes. It’s there, right on the surface of my feelings to believe him, but then I see his laughing face with that girl.
“Not from where I’m standing. It looks like you’ve moved on just fine.” I yank my hand back. “This was our place,” I hiss.
“She’s a friend.”
“You don’t have friends who are girls, Jere. I was the only one.” My rage begins to get the better of me. “I was the only one,” I scream and slam my fists into his chest, pounding on him.
He grabs my hands in his, gently this time, and pulls me into him. “Shh, Anna. I’ve got you.”
It’s so easy to fall back into his arms as he wraps me up. The tears muddle my vision, but I can still see his blue eyes as I look up at him. There’s still sadness there.
There’s a draw between us, like something is pushing us back together. It might just be that flicker of hope that I felt, but it’s something I yearn for.
“Arch? What the fuck?” The girl shouts from behind us, ruining the moment and reminding me that what we had isn’t what we have now. The feelings that were surfacing are snuffed out like wind over a candle wick, plunging you into darkness.
I step away from him, as hard as it is. At least I can see the pain in his eyes as I do.
Maybe he does still love me, but he’s hurt me, and maybe we’re just bad for each other right now.
He shakes his head as if denying what’s going on.
“You did this to us. You broke us and then threw me away.” My words are bitter, spoken from the rubble of my love for him. “All you had to do was want me more than the drugs. I thought it would be us together, always.” I turn and walk away.
“You thought we’d be together forever? Now who’s being twisted,” he shouts after me, but I can hear the question in his voice. Deep down, he believed in what we had, too. I knew it.
The girl at the end of the jetty gives me a smug look as I walk by and snarl, “Enjoy being his re-bound, bitch.”
I go and wait for the taxi, my world back in pieces again, and the itch to go for a drink or to douse my pain with anything that will make me forget is overwhelming.
The taxi comes, drops me outside Molly’s, and I blindly wander to the local shop, buy a bottle of vodka, and take it back to the cottage.