Chapter Thirty-Two
Now
T he next couple of days were ceaselessly bright, the sun refusing to break its hold even as the humidity rose again, and I used it to keep me on course: if the sun could keep shining, then I could keep going, too.
I redrafted my article and sent it to Wynn, and she said she would publish it in Saturday’s edition – a week after I’d emerged from the open house event.
She used words like inspired and hilarious and asked me what was next, and I felt validated and hopeful.
I prayed that Ethan, if he was still keeping tabs on me, wouldn’t mind that I’d twisted the facts to protect him.
I kept his number inside a notebook on my desk, and was astounded that I’d had enough willpower not to tap the numbers into my phone, even though I was painfully aware that it was there.
My resolve was always at its lowest when I was talking to my best friend.
‘You have to call him,’ Kira screeched when I finally phoned and told her everything, two days after Sterenlenn. I could hear her son, Barnaby, cooing in the background, Freddie chattering to him and then trying to get in on our conversation when Kira over-excitedly gave him the highlights.
‘I have too much to sort out first,’ I said firmly.
‘What, though?’ Kira sounded indignant. She had always loved me and Ethan together, had perhaps seen him as my saviour in the same way I had until recently. But I needed to be my own saviour, and I told her that.
‘I’ve got to speak to Mum about the house, so I actually feel like I can live here; that I’m not just squatting until she decides to sell it. I have to work out what to do about Spence’s book, and—’
‘Ethan’s right about that,’ Kira cut in. ‘You’re good enough to write something original. I know Spence makes you go all starry-eyed, but she’s only in it for herself.’
‘I think she’s in it for Amelie and Connor,’ I said carefully. ‘She wants to bring them back together.’
‘Does she, or does she know that’s what you want? Is it her way of keeping you interested?’
‘Interested in what, though?’ I laughed. ‘She wouldn’t be asking me to write a book with her if she didn’t care about it.’
‘Or she knows you’re destined for greater things than sorting out her fan letters, and doesn’t want to lose you.
She set you up to get trapped in a house with your ex because she thought it would be a fun thing to do.
And we both know Ethan’s the best guy, but she didn’t know anything about him other than what you and Sarah told her.
She could have been trapping you in there with a monster, not to mention all the things you and Ethan were worried about – one of you getting hurt, a fire starting.
It was a shit, dangerous thing to do, and she did it because she sees you as her plaything.
’ Kira took a deep breath. ‘Sorry. I get worked up.’
‘No, that’s OK.’ I rubbed my stomach, which was tight with anxiety, because what she said made a lot of sense.
I didn’t think Spence was malicious, but it wasn’t hard to imagine her conjuring up schemes because they entertained her, and telling herself there were no risks simply because she didn’t want there to be. ‘It was a shitty thing to do.’
‘And Sarah.’ Kira clucked. ‘Who would have thought?’
‘Yeah.’ I picked at a thread on my shorts. ‘It was one of the biggest surprises. But Spence got her claws into her, and she’s going to get enough of a bollocking from Ethan because of what she did.’ I swallowed. ‘She will have had it by now.’
‘So next, you’re going to call him.’ Kira said it like we’d already agreed to it.
I closed my eyes. ‘I’m not ready.’
When Ethan told me he’d found my letters, I asked him if he’d ever thought of coming to see me.
He’d admitted that he’d wanted to, but as well as fearing the reaction he might get, he wanted to have achieved something that mattered – to have something to show me.
I felt the same way. I couldn’t call him yet.
Kira’s growl was low and exasperated, and I heard Barnaby trying to copy it in the background, then he and Freddy descending into fits of giggles.
‘I’m going to nudge you every day,’ Kira said, ignoring them.
‘I’ll be like one of those annoying motivational apps, only my sayings will all be about reconnecting with the man you love.
You …’ she lowered her voice, and I could hear her breathing up against the microphone, ‘… you slept with him, and it was better than all your rose-tinted memories. Understandable, because you’re both adults now, and eighteen-year-olds think they know everything when they know nothing, but it wasn’t like tinned ravioli, was it? ’
‘What?’ I said with a laugh.
‘I used to love tinned ravioli when I was little, and somehow it came up in conversation, so we got a tin last week, and it was disgusting. The meat was like cat food. All those memories, destroyed.’ She made a shuddering sound. ‘Ethan was the opposite of that, you said.’
‘I made no references to tinned ravioli or cat food, but … yeah.’ My whole body heated just thinking about it. ‘It was …’ I swallowed. ‘It was the best sex I’ve ever had.’
‘There you go, then.’ Kira sounded smug, as if that was her closing argument. ‘It’s because you still love each other. You have to call him. I will pester you until you do. End of.’
‘Understood,’ I said, and we changed the subject, spoke for an hour about other things and then said goodbye. I didn’t call Ethan.
I hadn’t intended to fix items one and three on my list on the same day, but – after nearly a week of not seeing Spence, telling her I needed time to myself (which she could hardly quibble with after what she’d done) – I relented, agreeing to help her with the fan mail replies that had built up in my absence.
I couldn’t put off the conversation for ever, and I would feel better once I’d done it.
Mum called me as I was walking to her bungalow, my dress sticking to my back even though it was only nine in the morning.
‘Hey, Mum,’ I puffed. ‘How are you and Dane?’
‘We’re dandy,’ she said. ‘We’re going on a steamer trip on Ullswater in a bit. Taking a picnic.’
‘That’s … so great.’ It was great that she was generally so much better, that the clinical trial she’d started while I was doing my A-levels, fretting about her smoking weed, had eventually reduced some of her symptoms, and that her quality of life had improved.
I thought it was partly to do with her being happy, finding Dane, though I wasn’t about to tell her that because, one, she would accuse me of going all woo-woo, and two, as much as she loved Dane, she wouldn’t want to give credit to a man for turning her life around. ‘It sounds like a lovely day.’
‘What about you, love? How are you getting on?’ I hadn’t told her about Sterenlenn or Ethan, and I didn’t know if I wanted her take on it while it was still so fresh in my mind.
I leaned against a garden wall. ‘Things are picking up at the Star . I’ve got a chance to be a bit more creative, which is good, and … Mum?’
‘Yes, Georgie?’
‘About the house.’ I pushed my shoulders back which, according to a podcast I’d listened to, would make me sound more confident. ‘I want to stay in it.’
‘You can, love, until I’m ready to sell.’
I huffed out a breath. ‘I’d really like to stay in it for the next year.
That’ll give me a deadline I can work towards, for getting my own place.
I feel like a short-term tenant, waiting for you to boot me out, so I’d like to stay there and pay you rent, make it official.
I need it to be my home, and right now it isn’t. ’
My words were met with silence, and I winced, pushing off the wall when an old lady glared at me from the window of her house.
‘Mum?’ I said eventually.
‘I didn’t realize you felt like that.’ I heard her exhale, long and slow.
‘I had never … of course you can stay. I’d like to sell up eventually, but I wouldn’t kick you out.
I only mentioned it because I thought you wanted your own place anyway: you don’t want to live in our tatty old terrace for ever.
I’m sorry, love. It’s yours, and there’s no need to pay rent.
Use the money to save up for somewhere new, wherever you want to go. ’
I gazed at the deep blue of the water in the bay and the seagulls circling, the golden sand and the owner of the ice-cream hut raising his lime green awning, getting ready for another busy day.
I’d been so desperate to leave Alperwick, but I was beginning to wonder why I’d ever wanted to.
‘Thanks, Mum. That means a lot. I’m … going to make some changes, if that’s OK? ’
‘You haven’t done that already? You’re still in the back bedroom?’ She sounded incredulous. ‘Take the front room, get yourself a new mattress, put a desk under the window. Christ, Georgie. I’ll put some money in your account.’
‘No, Mum, you don’t—’
‘I have to go or we’ll miss our boat. Love you lots, G.
Have fun.’ She hung up and I was left staring at my phone, delighted, but also angry with myself for not speaking to her sooner.
My mind whirred with all the possibilities; how it would feel to wake up to sunlight coming in through the bay window, the slice of sea visible above the rooftops.
Or maybe I’d stay in the back bedroom and turn the master into an office.
I couldn’t stretch to mermaid wallpaper or tinted Smart glass, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make more affordable changes.
I could do it, even without Ethan’s expertise to guide me.