Chapter 48 Twenty-six years old
Twenty-six years old
Kath
When we arrived in San Francisco, we were both exhausted. But “Pirates never get jet lag” according to Sam, so we smiled through it and spent two days sightseeing.
After a fun day road-tripping a little further up the coast, the pair of us sit at a wine bar, people watching, each nursing a glass of wine. Life feels easy again. Sam was right. I physically felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest as our flight took off.
His suggestion about me seeing one of the hospital counsellors was also exactly what I needed.
It made me realise how much I’d been bottling up, and how many unhealthy coping mechanisms I’d quietly collected.
It was only when I stopped to look that I realised I’d started pulling away from people without even noticing.
Analysing those feelings also makes me understand more about why Sam did what he did.
It felt like the right thing to do at the time, even though now I can see that it wasn’t.
I glance over. He’s smiling into the sun. We could be fourteen on the beach at Sidmouth again, if not for the slightly sharper angle of his jaw, the darkening of his sandy blond hair and the stubble on his chin.
Other than work and burnout, that’s the main thing I’ve been discussing with the counsellor.
Forgiveness. Love. When you’re brave enough to dive in again, and how to start unravelling fifteen years of tangled feelings without cutting the whole thing to pieces.
And there are so many threads, threads of memories and experiences we’ve shared.
I’ve grown up loving him. It’s stitched into the very fabric of my being, etched into my bones.
Even though I spent years training myself not to love him, it never worked. But loving him and trusting him with my heart aren’t the same thing. The question now is whether the boy sitting beside me is still the same one who broke my heart.
I’m starting to think he isn’t.
“Do you want to see our itinerary?” Sam asks, breaking the silence. “I’ve channelled my inner thirteen-year-old Kath and created a timetable with highlighters.”
“I loved those summers.” I grin.
“I don’t think I have quite as many highlighters as you did. But pretty close.”
I take the pages and flick through them. It really is meticulously planned, and he’s colour-coded it just how I used to. Sam’s done everything for this holiday, and when I see how much effort he’s put in, something shifts in my chest.
“What are you looking forward to the most?” he asks, watching my face carefully.
“All of it. Maybe the beaches? We can do a side-by-side comparison of Devon and the California coast. Ooh and seeing Austin and Seb again will be amazing.” I pause.
"Yeah, that will be fun." Sam grins over at me.
I look at the itinerary again. It isn’t just this, it’s everything else he’s done for the last few months too.
The times he’s listened to me talk about work all evening, the times he’s come to collect me when a shift’s run late, the way he’s always checking in on me.
I blink hard and take another sip of my drink. These are thoughts for another day.
***
Just over a week later, we’re sitting eating lunch on a coastal path.
I feel amazing. When I looked in the mirror this morning my freckles were back in force, looking like they used to do after long summers in Sidmouth.
And just like all those years ago we’ve been doing long walks, admiring the scenery and constantly taking pictures.
Along the way we’ve met all sorts of people, and striking up conversations with strangers has started to feel fun again rather than scary.
“Can I ask you something?” Sam looks oddly nervous, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
“Sure,” I reply, tucking into my biscuit. The grass is warm beneath me, and I loosen the zip on my jumper.
“Will you come swimming with me tomorrow?”
I go still for a moment. He wants to go swimming?
For the last few months I’ve been wondering if, no when, he’d want to go swimming again.
I know him, and I saw that over the last few weeks something had shifted inside him.
But I wasn’t sure whether it would be enough, or whether he’d want to talk about it.
I’m so glad he knows he can have these conversations with me.
Hearing him say it out loud feels like its own kind of victory, proving that he’s learnt not to bottle everything up.
Our hotel has a pool in it. It’s tiny. But still. It’s a pool. I looked at it yesterday evening when we arrived, and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since. I know he spotted it too.
“Of course.” I smile softly. “What’s brought this on?”
“I miss it,” he tells me. “It’s taken me a bit of time to realise that. But I did really love it. I think by the end I was really struggling to disentangle swimming from my anxiety. So instead of enjoying it, I started to resent it. But I think I’m ready to try again now.”
I put my biscuit down and reach over to squeeze his hand. He squeezes mine back.
“If you like, we can go really early when less people are around,” I offer.
“Thank you.” The smile he gives me is wide, eyes crinkling at the edges.
“And if at any point you don’t want to swim, just tell me and we can stop.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky promise.”
He smiles at me, blue eyes bright. “Truly thank you, Kath. You have no idea how much I appreciate your support. It means… well it means everything to me.”
The excited look on his face fills me with a quiet kind of happiness.