Chapter 17 #2
It was always Lizzie who would be the first to declare, ‘I’m not playing any more,’ when Will’s bossiness would take over the game.
Her juvenile pout would always do the trick in softening him up into letting someone else have a go on the swing, or with the biggest stick.
Jacob and I never got involved. As soon as the bickering started, that was always our cue to slip away and do our own thing.
Sometimes we’d watch them argue from afar, tossing acorns and little pebbles at them from the treeline, watching as they all blamed the other for the attack.
We’d stifle our giggles then make a break for it as soon as their backs were turned.
‘Come on, we’ll leave him to that one,’ Jacob says. ‘Let’s get the rest of them in.’ I can’t mask my laugh as I refuse to take my eyes off of Will, already in the next field, swearing at a pig that I’m sure is running rings around him on purpose.
Without Will here to boss us around, we manage to get the rest of the pigs inside without a hitch or a struggle. Once they’re all penned in and fed, the three of us stand at the door of the barn, watching Will dive through the mud trying to tackle the same pig that hasn’t yet given up.
‘Should we help him?’ Callum says, chewing on his lip, his look of sympathy too deep to hide.
‘In a minute,’ Jacob replies. ‘He’s been far too uptight at the minute, thinking he owns the place.
He needs a little humbling, especially if it’s a pig teaching him a lesson.
’ So, we watch him, until our bodies cramp from laughing and tears streak through the mud on my face each time he opts for a rugby tackle and ends up face-first in the gloop of the field.
Even Jacob laughs out loud. Though the sounds he makes are muted and muffled by his hand, his shoulders bounce up and down and the sight of it makes me forget about my muddy coat, and my freezing bones for a moment.
He’s always hidden his laughter, as though each giggle is thieved, or each chuckle is forbidden.
I’ve never understood why. He smiles broadly, chipped teeth on full display, when it’s just us two, so I know he has nothing to hide, nor be ashamed of.
Though, it does make me feel special, as though I am privy to a secret few have ever been shown, and seeing him smile in his fully unreserved form is a privilege that can’t be explained to an outsider.
‘Okay, okay,’ I say between gasping breaths, ‘he’s been punished enough. Let’s get him.’ And with that, the three of us sprint from the barn like monochromatic mud-stained Powerpuff Girls and save Will from a lifetime of humiliation.
‘Two hot chocolates for my apprentices.’ Grandad delivers two mugs to Callum and me as we sit on two low stools by the fire.
Despite having showered and draped ourselves in blankets, we both still shiver so aggressively that the stools tremble against the uneven tiles of the kitchen, but Grandad’s look of pride is enough to make it all worthwhile.
‘I should have told you about old Peg.’ Grandad shakes his head.
‘She’s my oldest sow. I was meant to have sold her years ago.
I only managed to get one piglet out of her in all these years.
She has been good for nothing as far as farming goes, but I can’t bring myself to sell her.
You notice how her eyes look in two different directions?
’ He chuckles. ‘I could just never bring myself to part with her … when she looks up, one eye at you, the other on the food bucket. She’s a menace, like.
Never once been well behaved, always the first to escape, and encourages the others too.
But your Granny loved her, just her innocent little face. ’
‘You kid’s did good.’ Mum adds, passing us each a plate of food to try and warm us from the inside out a little faster.
‘I was always useless on the farm – I’m glad I never passed that onto you two.
Maybe we should have moved here a while ago.
’ She chuckles, but Callum and I share a look that only the two of us can discern, and neither of us reply.
‘I’m going to head up to bed,’ I say after finishing my tea in silence. Wearing my blanket like a cape, I float over to the stairs.
‘Already?’ Mum says, a shade of disappointment in her tone. Guilt rises in my stomach.
‘Yeah, I’ve got some work to do, and I could use an early night,’ I say, offering her a truce in the form of a smile that she returns. With a soft ‘night’, I make my noisy exit up the creaking staircase.
Sitting with my hot chocolate at my bedroom window for a while, I savour the day in my mind.
With each meeting, Jacob seems more like himself.
Perhaps he’s finally forgetting about what passed between us two years ago.
Or perhaps it doesn’t trouble him so much these days.
Maybe seeing me again has made him realise he doesn’t have the same feelings as he did before.
We’ve both changed, and maybe we’ve both changed enough that what once felt like love has settled back to the innocent friendship we’ve shared for a decade.
I can’t say it has changed for me though.
With each passing day that he feels more like himself, I’m just reminded of how much my body, my soul, has longed for him.
My love for Jacob is threatening to be just as strong as ever.
But having my best friend back, even in the small doses, feels like enough to help me get through Mum’s thoughtless comments, or the reality of just how much everything else has changed.
Perhaps I just have to be content with his friendship.
After two years without him, I know that I’d rather have another chink appear in my heart every time I see him than be cursed to never see him at all.
Maybe one day I’ll get used to the pain.
In the distance of the darkness, a light flickers softly, like a curling flame just strong enough to catch my eye.
The rain has passed over for the evening, and the night sky has cleared until the stars are visible and the waning moon lights up the fields with a silvery glow.
Moving closer to the pane, I see the light is hardly visible, quivering in the window of the treehouse.
My breathing quickens until it casts a fog on the glass and I have to swipe it clear with my sleeve.
Discarding the blanket on the floor, I no longer feel the cold as the thought of him, calling me there, after so long, after the last time, after everything, fills me with a feeling I haven’t let myself feel for so long.
It’s Jacob. It has to be. It would never be Will in the treehouse, and Alfie isn’t trusted with matches, so it has to be Jacob.
In the place that’s full of our memories.
From the sound of crockery clattering against the sink downstairs, it’s evident that no one else has followed me to bed and they all still sit in the kitchen, guarding the back door.
And it’s not like I can all of a sudden decide I’m not tired and going to go on a walk alone in the pitch black without it looking weird.
So, I have no other option than to sneak out.
Sliding up the window, I assess my obstacles.
First is the fact that my room is on the first floor.
I can’t jump; I’d easily break a leg. And I’m definitely too heavy to shimmy down the Victorian drainpipes that I’m sure are fastened to the house with nothing but a prayer.
My only option, that doesn’t immediately scream imminent death, has to be the horse-chestnut tree that has a stray branch reaching just below my windowsill.
I’ve cursed that tree many times, when it’s knocked against the panes in the middle of the night, or dropped its spiky conkers that I’ve traipsed on in my bare feet. But today, it is my saviour. Hopefully.
With a shaking breath, I pull myself up onto the ledge, twisting around until my legs hang out of the opening, and I stretch out my toes as far as they will go to land on a branch that can hopefully bear my weight.
With a few heart-stopping moments, and very, very, tightly clenched buttocks, I finally manage to take my first step out onto the tree and quickly descend before I think too much about what I’m doing and realise that I’m not some nimble character in a fantasy novel with too much plot armour.
Finally, back on solid ground. I make a run for it through the garden. My feet snag on the debris left behind from all the storms of the week, but I don’t care. The treehouse is soon in my sights, and the child-like excitement that flows through me is not like anything I’ve felt for so long.
‘We haven’t done this since we were kids, Wolfie,’ I call breathlessly as I make the short climb up.
‘I was starting to think you’d forgotten—’ I pull myself through the hatch, but the blood is thumping in my ears too loud to have heard the voices inside, my eagerness too childish, too thoughtless to have noticed the two shadows in the doorway.
So, when I reach the entrance of the treehouse, expecting to see Wolfie in his shorts with his encyclopaedia, and instead find ‘Jake’ cross-legged and facing Pen, both of them shrouded in the romance of candle-light, far too close to just be having a friendly chat, I freeze.
It’s too late to leave without being spotted.
They both look at me, open mouthed, wide-eyed, like I’m some wild animal clattering through their home and disturbing their peace.
I’m sure my face wears my shock in a similar way, though the profound sadness that creeps in and stings at the corners of my eyes is something I can’t imagine either of them are experiencing right now.
‘I—I’m so sorry,’ is all I can mutter, before I leap down from the full height of the tree, my foot smashing into something sharp enough to send me limping back to the farm as fast as I can, not stopping once to see if Jacob watches me go.