Chapter Twenty-Seven
What do you do when your heart is in pieces, and the reason for that heartbreak lives just a dividing hedge away?
Bo, newly sensible, newly adult and entirely modern, did what any other self-respecting woman of the world would do when their heart had just been stomped on: she noped the fuck out of there.
She woke in the morning, handing Willa a can of soda before throwing all her clothes into her battered old backpack. It was the backpack that had made the journey with her from Sydney, and now she was packing it to make the journey in reverse.
“I can’t stay here,” she told Willa, sorting through shoes. “I just can’t.”
“So, don’t go home,” Willa suggested, a hand on her forehead to block out the early morning light. “Come and stay with me.”
“No.” Bo was firm. “I need distance. Hampstead isn’t distance; it’s a train ride.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“No. I need to get away. I need space from . . . well, everything.”
Willa appeared to think for a moment. “At least go and talk to Mr Two out of—” she stopped. “Go and talk to Max before you make any decisions.”
“We talked last night,” Bo said tersely.
“When?” Willa looked confused.
“You were passed out,” Bo replied. “It was the middle of the night.”
Willa blushed. “I am sorry, you know. About the drinking . . . and then, for what I told Max.”
At that, Bo stopped her fervent packing. She softened, reaching out to lay a hand on Willa’s arm. “I know. Why’d you drink so much? You don’t normally drink that much.”
Willa shrugged. “I know. I just . . . I wanted to know how it felt.”
“What, being drunk?”
“Yes.” Willa’s blush deepened. “I wanted to know what he . . . what he sees in it.”
He. Berg.
Bo sighed. “He doesn’t see anything in it, Wills. It’s an addiction. An illness. He doesn’t do it for fun or for kicks. He does it because he can’t stop himself.”
“He’s stopped now.” Willa’s voice was quiet, but there was a tremor in it, bitter and brittle, like glass about to crack. “He’s finally stopped.”
“Yeah, and you know how much fucking work it’s been for him to get to this point.” Bo paused. “It’s good he’s stopped, Wills. A miracle, even.”
“Yeah, it’s wonderful.” Willa’s voice grew oddly flat. “But it wasn’t for me, Bo.”
Bo sighed. “Wills—”
“It wasn’t for me,” Willa said again, before Bo could finish.
“All those years . . . all those meetings . . . all that work . . . and it wasn’t for me.
And I’m trying not to let it eat me up, I really am.
But I spent years trying to save him, Bo.
Years and years, yet when he finally saved himself, I’m not there to help celebrate the rescue. ”
Bo reached over, stroking Willa’s arm. “Have you ever told him?”
“Told him what?”
Bo gave her a look. “Do I need to say it?”
Willa sighed, flopping dramatically back on Bo’s bed. “Maybe.”
“You’re in love with Berg. You do know that, right?”
“I’m with Scarrow,” Willa returned, her voice still weighted with a cold and flat tone.
“While being in love with Berg,” Bo returned. “You’ve been in love with Berg for years.”
“I’m still with Scarrow. And Berg is with Kara. So, what does it matter?”
Bo closed her eyes, thinking of Max. “It matters.”
Willa kicked Bo with her foot. “Don’t go. I need you here.”
“And I need space. Just for a while.” She sat on the bed next to Willa. “I can’t stay. Not here. Not with Max so close.”
“Your conversation with him didn’t go well then?”
“To say no would be putting it mildly. I really hurt him, Wills. And he really hurt me.”
“Did you tell him you love him?”
Bo went red. “No. I didn’t need to. He figured it out on his own, didn’t he? Not that it matters. It never mattered.”
“You just told me it matters,” Willa protested.
“It does. It matters to me. It doesn’t matter to him though.”
“I don’t know.” Willa appeared to think.
“Last night, while I was talking to him — this was before I knew who he was, right? Anyway, I was chatting with him about nothing and the whole time he was just staring down the garden at you. When you started walking towards us, the way he looked at you . . . it was like you’d hung the fucking moon or something.
I don’t know, Bo . . . my Spidey sense tells me there’s something there. ”
“Your Spidey sense was three sheets to the wind last night.”
“Maybe so, but I still think . . .”
Bo sighed, cutting Willa off. “Leave it, okay? Max and I . . . we’re done.” She swallowed painfully. “Can you do something for me, though?”
Willa nodded.
“I’ve sent Ida a message letting her know I’ll be away for a while. Can you ask her to water my plants?”
“Your plants?” Willa frowned.
“Yes, my plants. Here. Just until I get back.”
“Max would be able to—”
Bo shook her head though, giving Willa a soft smile. “I can’t ask him to water my plants. Will you ask Ida for me? Please?”
Willa nodded, even as she frowned.
“You shouldn’t be running away. You should tell him.”
“And you shouldn’t be marrying Scarrow. You should tell Berg,” Bo retorted, and Willa sighed.
“We’re a bit hopeless, aren’t we?”
“More than hopeless.”
Willa hugged Bo. “If you need anything, let me know.”
“Thanks.” Bo gave a sad smile. “But all I need right now is space.”
* * *
She turned up at Lisa’s office thirty-two hours later, her backpack slung over her shoulder, her hair unwashed and lank. Lisa opened the door and gaped in surprise, pulling her in for a tight hug.
“I thought it was another one of Nick’s flower deliveries, but it’s you. Bo, what are you doing here?”
Bo shrugged. “I wanted to see you.”
Her sister peered at her. “I know you sent that email about wanting a meeting about financial planning, and I meant to reply to you, but I got snowed under with something and didn’t have time. You didn’t have to fly twelve thousand miles to remind me.”
“This isn’t about financial planning.”
“What’s it about then?” Lisa asked, and there was a sharp curiosity in her gaze that made Bo shift on her feet. Once a journalist, always a journalist, Bo realized. Lisa sensed a story here, and she knew all the tricks to get it out of her.
“I told you: I wanted to see you.”
“Well,” Lisa replied, though she didn’t sound convinced. “I’m glad you came.”
“Can I stay with you?”
Lisa gave her a look. “What about your mother?”
“What about her?” Bo was wary.
“Well, does she even know you’re here?”
Bo shrugged. “I kind of got on a plane and didn’t tell anyone.”
For a moment, Lisa was quiet. She strode across her office, sinking into her chair, looking at Bo keenly. “Are you back for good?” she asked Bo plainly, and Bo shook her head.
“No. Just for a while. I needed to get away from London for a bit.”
“Money trouble?” Lisa instantly asked, her face worried. “You said you wanted to talk about financial planning, and I know you’ve been sending your mother money.”
“Not money trouble.”
“Work trouble then?”
“No. Actually, I might have some news about that.”
“So, it’s not money trouble or work trouble.” Lisa sighed. “Man trouble?”
Bo said nothing, chewing on her lip.
“Oh, Bo.” Lisa, true to form, didn’t ask any questions. She simply, reliably and comfortingly went straight to what she knew best: practicalities. “You and Nick are worse than the plagues of Egypt, bothering me with your dramas.”
“Nick?” Bo puzzled to hear her brother’s name. “What’s wrong with Nick? Is he okay?”
“Oh, he’s fine. Still off in Singapore pretending everything is fine. Of course, we all know it’s not, but God forbid anyone tells him differently.” Lisa pursed her lips for a moment, before nodding to her coffee machine. “Do you want one?”
“Yes. I’m still on London time.”
“Tired?”
“Exhausted.” Bo dropped her backpack, falling into the seat across from her sister’s.
She knew this office well. Everything about it, from the smell to the decor to the image of her sister working at her desk was ingrained in Bo’s mind from a young age.
She couldn’t remember a time when Lisa hadn’t been in this office, working hard to keep their family newspaper alive and profitable.
When their father had died, Armstrong News had been split three ways, with a third for Lisa, a third for Nick and a third for Bo’s mother, Margot.
Lisa and Nick had thrown themselves into the work, but Margot preferred to be a silent partner.
Why toil day after day and ruin her nails when a shareholder’s cheque would arrive anyway?
“It was the worst day’s work he ever did,” Lisa always said about that inheritance.
She’d always maintained that Margot’s third should have been Bo’s from the start, held in trust till her majority, but what did it matter now?
Geoffrey had left her half of his property, so even if Margot spent every cent of her father’s money, Bo would still have something for herself.
And Mum probably will spend every cent, Bo thought tiredly. She’s as bad with money as Berg is with alcohol.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Lisa asked casually.
“Not really.”
“Okay.” Lisa, true to form, only wanted the details Bo was willing to share.
It wasn’t that Lisa wasn’t interested in Bo or Bo’s problems; it was simply that she didn’t want to pressure her into revealing them.
Lisa was a good journalist, and one who knew when to investigate, when to put all her training to use.
If Lisa wanted, she could get on the phone right now to a hundred reporters or investigators in London, all of whom would happily dig into Bo’s history to work out what was going on. If she wanted.
She didn’t want to, though. Lisa was happy enough for Bo to work through her own problems in her own time and only come to her when necessary. Nick was obviously a different matter.
Bo frowned when she thought of Nick. Like Lisa, she knew her brother was unhappy. Like Lisa, she knew her brother had some unresolved issues he hadn’t worked through, and like Lisa, she worried about him.