Chapter 23
Theo
The drive back from Elie is a long, slow exhale.
Two hours at most, I told myself. A short Sunday check-in with enough time to show face, drop off biscuits, and pretend I wasn’t using the detour to hold my pieces in place.
Things with my mum have been better, in that low-grade, stable-since-seventeen way where nobody’s waiting for a phone call in the night.
But there’s still a weight to seeing her, like stepping into a version of myself I thought I’d outgrown.
Apparently, heartbreak makes me nostalgic for emotional minefields.
I could tell myself all this, and it wouldn’t be wrong. But the simple truth is: I just wanted my mum.
So I stayed overnight.
The road along the coast unfolds before me like a ribbon dropped by a careless giant.
The Monday morning traffic is bearable. Sunshine glints off the North Sea, turning it into a sheet of silver foil.
It’s not spring yet, not really, but the light’s doing its best impression.
One of those rare mid-February days in Scotland where the sky remembers how to be blue and everything smells faintly of potential.
I grip the steering wheel tighter. The words from an hour ago are still ringing in my ears, bouncing around the car’s quiet interior.
‘I was afraid you’d harm yourself, Mum.’ I said it so plainly, the sentence dropping into the space between us like a stone.
For years, that fear had been my secret roommate, the silent passenger in every car, the shadow in every room.
Mum set her teacup down with a soft click against the saucer. Her hands didn’t tremble. ‘Oh, sweetheart. I know, I was very unwell, but I would never have done that to you.’ Her voice was calm, rooted in a balance that took her years to find.
I nodded, polite and adult, while something in me unfurled and exhaled. This is good to hear. But the younger me, the tiny, petrified project manager of our broken family, didn’t know that.
The car dips and rises with the coastal road. Each curve reveals fishing villages nestled into rocky coves. Gulls are wheeling overhead, ancient church spires punctuating the sky.
‘How was I supposed to know? We weren’t allowed to talk about it.’ I told her. ‘At least I wasn’t.’
The truth hung between us in her sunlit kitchen with the gingham curtains and small sculptures crowding the windowsill – rough hands cupped together, a line of heads with closed eyes, a single bird curled in on itself.
She’s been sculpting again for the past two years.
For almost a decade, she couldn’t bring herself to touch the stone.
The silence was thick with ghosts. The ghost of my dad, always away. The ghost of her depression, a stone blanket smothering every conversation. The ghost of me at thirteen, checking her breathing while she slept.
A tractor pulls out ahead, and I ease off the accelerator, welcoming the forced slowdown. The road narrows here, hedgerows pressing in on both sides, creating a green tunnel that opens suddenly to a view of fields rolling down to the sea.
Mum’s depression wasn’t something we ever discussed. Dad was at sea half the year, and when he was home, he pretended everything was normal. So, I became the one who made sure bills were paid, the house was clean, food was in the cupboards, and neighbours didn’t get suspicious.
At thirteen, I learned to forge my mother’s signature on school permission slips. By fourteen, I cooked a week’s worth of meals and froze them in portions. At fifteen, I knew exactly how to answer when teachers asked why she never came to parents’ evening.
Mum’s face crumpled, lines appearing where there weren’t any moments before. Then her arms were around me. A real hug, not the careful kind. ‘I’m so sorry my illness did all that to us,’ she whispered into my hair. ‘To you.’
I couldn’t feel my hands for a moment. Years of vigilance, of scanning rooms for signs of danger, of managing everyone’s emotions before my own, all acknowledged in one sentence. And in the space of a breath, over a decade of tension began to unspool from my spine.
A flock of birds rises suddenly from a field, startled by something I can’t see. They wheel and turn as one, a dark cloud against the blue sky, before settling again.
No. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t my job to carry it all alone. I was a child trying to contain a catastrophe I didn’t understand. The revelation sits heavy in my chest like a boulder.
My mother got help when I was seventeen.
Therapy, medication, a support group. She improved enough for me to leave for university in Edinburgh without the constant dread of what I might find when I came home.
But I still spent every holiday, every free weekend at home when Dad was away with the Navy.
The road turns its back on the sea. Fields give way to small clusters of houses and, eventually, to the outskirts of Stirling. Traffic thickens, forcing me to focus on the here and now.
By the time I pull into the car park, the sky’s gone grey again, and my shoulders are locked tight. The sudden silence wraps around me.
My phone pings with a text from Charlie:
Brodie texted me that the volunteers are about to climb your so-called boyfriend. You there?
My boyfriend, right. Yeah. The word lodges behind my breastbone, thin and precise, as if I’ve swallowed a pin and every breath drives it deeper. I text back:
Almost. 2 mins. I got this. See you later!
But do I? I check my lipstick in the rear-view mirror. Blot. Reapply. Perfect my smile until it seems good enough to fool a crowd, if not the man who’s seen me lose myself beneath his hands.
The childhood that calibrated me – that made me hyper-vigilant, always scanning for emotional weather changes – also made me fantastic at my job.
At reading rooms, managing crises, anticipating needs before they’re voiced.
But perhaps it’s time to stop running everyone’s emotional weather stations and live in my own climate.
I step out of the car, smoothing down my dress. In two minutes, I have to face Finn. Three days after I let him walk away. No, since I pushed him to, and he didn’t disagree.
I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and walk toward the venue. Time to play the part. Not the broken-hearted girlfriend he’s leaving to go to France – the one who never fell in love with him to begin with.
The MacKenzie Sporting flagship store gleams with that specific retail shine, its windows filled with mannequins in overpriced activewear.
The Kick Off Kindness – Meet & Greet with the Rebels was my idea. Good for one of their biggest sponsors, good for the team, good for the agency.
There’s a reason why my ex stole my ideas.
They’re great. And they work: the queue stretches past two storefronts on Stirling’s High Street.
Teenagers with phones ready, middle-aged men in jerseys, mothers with small children in oversized Rebels kit.
All waiting for a glimpse of the new team in town. All waiting for the man I pushed away.
Deep breath, Theodora. Walk in like your heart isn’t currently beating somewhere outside your body.
The smell hits first. New trainers and floor cleaner with overtones of nervous sweat. The acoustics amplify every sound. Shuffling feet, excited whispers.
And there he is.
Finn stands cornered by two volunteers in matching MacKenzie Sporting polos, clutching their clipboards. His hair catches the light, that pink faded to the colour of candy floss. He’s nodding, lips pulled into a smile, but I recognise the tight line of his shoulders and the way his knee is bobbing.
Swallowing takes longer than it should. It’s him, down to the restlessness he thinks no one notices. And somehow that’s worse than seeing a stranger. It’s worse because I know that body. I’ve kissed that jaw. And now it belongs to someone I don’t get to touch anymore.
‘I’m telling you, the name tag is weird smack in the middle,’ one volunteer says, squinting up at his chest. ‘Side placement’s more natural.’
Her colleague leans in. ‘Right, but… Well, everyone knows who he is. D’you reckon he even needs one?’
‘Excuse me.’ I step forward, professional smile clicking into place. ‘Theo MacMickin, Elite Edge. Thanks for helping with the set-up.’
They turn toward me, startled and a little flustered, as if I’ve caught them debating whether to smack a Hi, I’m Finn sticker on his nipple. Which I kind of did.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ I add smoothly, reaching for the roll of name tags on the clipboard. ‘Let’s go with first name, upper left. Branding stays consistent, and we keep the focus where it belongs.’
Their expressions change into careful neutrality. No one mentions why exactly he’s so famous now that he doesn’t need a name tag.
I lean in for a quick peck on the cheek, the bare minimum required for our public charade. The familiar scent of his aftershave seeps past every flimsy defence I’ve built since Friday. The scrape of his stubble on my neck, the sound he makes when he’s close… I lock it down. He’s not mine to miss.
I pull back too quickly and paste on my brightest smile. ‘Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?’
Chris, the store manager, appears. Anxiety radiates from every pore. ‘We’re ten minutes behind schedule. The queue’s getting restless.’
‘Everything’s under control.’ I scan the room. ‘Where’s Scottie?’
Chris’ face falls. ‘How should I know? Not my circus, not my monkeys.’
Nothing to do about that now, so moving on. Brodie’s trademark scowl is firmly in place. Jamie’s beside him, lost in his phone, and his expression is as inscrutable as ever.
‘Right.’ I turn back to Finn. ‘Ready?’
He finally meets my eyes, and I hold his gaze. It’s like pressing on a bruise only to check if it still hurts. It does. It’s all there. The wanting. The regret. The way he used to look at me right before he kissed me like it might kill him.
God help me. How am I supposed to survive this?