Chapter 5
Story
It’s eerily quiet when I take my coffee out onto the patio. The air is damp from the storm last night, and it’s still dark, though the navy sky is lightening in the distance.
Fog rolls down the hills, gradually turning a deep burnt orange when it hits the horizon.
In lieu of switching on the patio heaters, I grab another couple of blankets from inside, plus all the outdoor cushions, and get cozy.
Oxford, our family golden retriever, plods outside, and I lift him onto the bench to join me. Plumping the cushions around us, I wrap us both in more blankets, and his head rests on my thigh.
It takes me back to when he was a tiny puppy and used to curl up in my lap while I revised for my GCSEs. His tail never stopped wagging, even when I was lamenting quadratic equations and struggling with my Latin verbs—neither of which I have ever used since.
Ten years later and his wag is still there, though not quite as energetic. His enthusiasm, however, sparkles in his eyes.
My one worry every time I returned home was that he wouldn’t remember me, but the second I walked through the front door, he bounced over and covered me in kisses. It was the same greeting whether I returned from the shops or was coming home from university for the weekend.
Oxford was the one I found it hardest to leave when I went to Australia. His fur mopped up my tears the day I decided to go. Tears from leaving Hendricks by the fountain. Tears from leaving a life I thought I would have.
He lets out a loud, contented groan as I stroke through his silky fur and sip my coffee. It’s followed by a deep sigh I feel in my bones.
“I know, Oxie. I know,” I groan back.
He sighs again, his own way of communication.
“Exactly. What am I doing here? What am I doing, full stop?”
A lump forms in my throat, but I swallow it down with another long sip of my coffee, then take a breath that finishes in a wide yawn.
“I really need to sort my life out.”
I can’t even blame it on the jet lag because that disappeared a couple of weeks ago. This tiredness is purely self-inflicted. It’s more than five days of sleepless nights that I thought would get better as the week went on, but it hasn’t.
This tiredness is evidence of a losing battle with myself to get over the boy I met when I was six. It’s one I’d pushed so deep down that I almost convinced myself it didn’t exist. But my mind has been playing tricks on me.
I thought I was fine.
I thought I could do this.
Every day, I’ve regurgitated an old memory I once swallowed as a bitter pill because every day, I’ve had to look at a carbon copy of my childhood best friend and try to act like it hasn’t affected me. My heart has finally reached its capacity for lies and can’t take any more.
Day one, I gave myself grace. I was doing okay. Better than okay under the circumstances.
I was thankful Celeste had warned me about the morning drop-off because it gave me a couple of extra minutes to prepare.
I’d seen Hendricks once since I’d returned to Valentine Nook, and I could do it again.
But that first time had been a blur, distorted by a torrent of emotions at a reunion after a necessary and brutally painful absence.
It hadn’t been enough to commit him to memory.
The second time was.
When I left, Hendricks was a man on the verge of becoming an adult. He was strong and broad, but his muscles still had that gangly quality.
Not anymore.
Six years and Hendricks has turned into an absolute rig.
Even under his thick jumper and body warmer, it was obvious there’s a strength to him that’s come from more than just lifting weights at the gym.
Hendricks has grown into his size and his width, and if the craning of my neck was anything to go by, his height.
He’s taller than I remember, much taller.
Under my brief assessment, the only thing I could see that hasn’t changed was his nose. Long, strong Roman with the bump down the middle from the time he broke it playing rugby, but it has still somehow remained perfectly symmetrical with the rest of his face.
The bump offset the prettiness of his clear blue eyes, long lashes, and full mouth.
Pretty was not a word you could use now.
Where he’d always been fresh-faced, now a thick layer of dark brown scruff covered his jaw and hid the dimples he used to flash at any opportunity, much to my annoyance. He and Miles both. A hard-set mouth replaced the smile I loved so much.
Fun, sweet teenage Hendricks had owned my heart and broken it, but this guy . . . this guy? This guy could demolish it.
This guy had me slack-jawed to a mortifying degree, and the longer he held my gaze, the longer I felt like I was being stripped bare until he could see every single piece of me. Even the pieces I always kept hidden from him.
The longer we stared, the quicker everything I’d blocked out came rushing back.
But in typical Miles fashion, he ruined the moment. Or saved me. I’ve yet to decide. Because if my heartbeat stalled when it saw Hendricks, it gave up altogether when I realized the impossibly beautiful blond woman holding the hand of a familiar-looking little boy was with him.
By day two, the shock had worn off.
But when the school bell rang for the start of the day, and the blonde brought Max to school without Hendricks, sadness took over.
Sadness turned to an anger I thought I’d moved on from already. It turns out I was just sticking a Band-Aid over a bullet wound that reopened exactly a year ago, and I’ve spent the week riding the stages of grief. The first four, anyway.
I can’t see myself accepting this situation any time soon, just like I refused to six years ago. This time, it’s infinitely harder.
Avoiding Hendricks is one thing, but I’m spending all day with his mini-me—Maxwell Burlington—who, I’m loath to admit, is the cutest kid I’ve ever come across.
He’s exactly like Hendricks was at his age, and it’s impossible to see anything else. I’ve tried.
Every mannerism, every smile, even his handwriting, big and round, belong to Hendricks. The eye rolls I’ve caught a couple of times are all Miles, however.
I’ve tried to laugh through it. When Celeste asks me if I’m okay, I’ve brushed it off as new-term tiredness.
The supply closet off my classroom has become a place to cry without being seen when the ache in my chest becomes too overwhelming to hold it in.
Max is a part of Hendricks’s life I know nothing about. He’s a living, breathing reminder of why I ran away.
Max is proof that I left Hendricks standing alone by the fountain. Proof we lived the past six years without sharing every single detail like we used to. Without sharing anything.
Hendricks moved on, and I only thought I did.
Our combined worlds stopped spinning that day.
We went our separate ways, and up to a week ago, I had only heard snippets of how his life continued without me. My mum would share an update on the Burlingtons that I pretended not to listen to or show no interest in, when, in reality, I was salivating over every morsel.
One thing she failed to mention was the blonde. Max’s mother, I’m assuming. Stepmother, perhaps.
I don’t know why I’m surprised, because Hendricks always did the right thing. Growing up without a father left a huge hole for him, I know that much. He said she wanted to keep the baby, and he would have done everything he could to make it work with her.
I haven’t asked anyone for confirmation. Not my mum, not Celeste. I don’t know if my heart can take any more disappointment if I make it real.
My first kiss wasn’t with Hendricks.
Neither was the first time I had sex.
But I always held on to the hope that we were somehow waiting for each other, and the humiliation of it burns. Of course, Hendricks isn’t single. When has he ever been? Why would he be?
The blonde has the future I always thought I’d have. If that wasn’t cruel enough, I’ll be reminded as such every Monday to Friday during term time until my contract finishes. I’m counting down the days.
I groan again. “What a fucking mess.”
Oxford lifts his head as he hears footsteps coming toward the back door, and my mum appears with a coffee in one hand and a plate piled high with an entire loaf’s worth of toast and marmalade in the other.
“You’re up early.”
My stomach rumbles as the scents of toast, hot butter, and citrussy sugar hit my nose, and I pick up a slice. “Couldn’t sleep.”
After I shift along the bench to make space, she sits down next to me. The warmth of her body provides extra protection against the nip of the morning.
“Are you okay, love? You’ve been quiet this week.”
“I’m fine, Mum. Just tired,” I reply, ignoring the urge to cry. Maybe I’m getting my period.
“Probably the weather. Not like the wall-to-wall sunshine Sydney has right now.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not quite.”
“We should have come to visit you this Christmas. It would have been less dramatic.”
I manage to laugh with her and pass my crust to Oxford. He gently takes it between his lips and chews noisily, then snuffles up to me for the next piece.
“How’s Dad this morning?” It might be early, but I know he’s been awake for hours.
Mum rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh. “He’s fine. Grumbling away already, but I’ve taken him tea and toast. Now I get to enjoy some peace and quiet.”
I chuckle through another bite. My dad was in the hospital for a week when he broke his leg.
It was pinned in two places, and I truly believe the doctors were glad to see the back of him when we picked him up.
My dad is not one of those people who are good at sitting still.
Therefore, any type of forced recouperation is as painful for those around the patient as it is for the patient themselves.