Chapter Fourteen
Dear Diary,
Soz. I’ve been MIA for, like, years. But I have something I need to say, and if anyone else ever sees this, I WILL DIE.
This summer, Ren got hot.
Like hot, hot.
It’s his fifteenth birthday soon, and I swear it was like BOOM – puberty just smacked him in the face. He’s grown a foot since June, his spots are completely gone, and he’s actually good at football now instead of falling over his feet.
I mean, usually, I’m the one who’s good at football, but he’s caught up, and I kind of love it. We push each other, and I don’t know why, but it makes me feel… weirdly giddy.
I think it’s because it feels a little bit like flirting.
Which is SO stupid. Like, we could never be together. Our families would have a meltdown, and it’s not like he actually likes me like that. It’s probably just because he’s the only guy I hang out with. He’s literally my only option.
… Right?
Anyway, I just needed to tell someone.
Love,
Lydia.
Lydia
‘Wait. You kissed?’ Amy squeaked, nearly dropping her drink.
Two days had passed since the kiss. Two days spent avoiding Ren in Everly Heath.
Two days spent trying not to replay the stupid, reckless kiss in his apartment.
And now, I was avoiding him in another country – Wales.
North Wales, specifically, just at the foot of Snowdon, the largest mountain across both England and Wales.
Gen, Amy, and I sat at the breakfast table of the Red Dragon B&B after a sleepless night.
Not because of the beds. The rooms had been perfectly cosy.
Mandy had good taste – she never picked a place that wasn’t up to scratch.
But I hadn’t been tossing and turning over thread count.
Ren had kissed me. And now, as he sat at another table with Jade and Amara, lazily picking at the bacon and sausage on his plate, my brain was stuck in an endless replay of that kiss.
Scene by scene. His hands, his lips are on mine. The way the playback would slow, stretching every moment to something almost unbearable, only to speed up again – his lips brushing mine, his husky voice in my ear.
You have no idea how much I want you – and how much of it is not friendly.
Pure torture.
I watched as Ren leaned towards Jade to make a comment that had her laughing. I clung to my spoon until it dug into my palm.
‘Are you gonna kill someone with that?’ Gen asked, her eyebrow raised. ‘’Cos fine. But you need to warn me so I can get some solid alibis.’
I released the spoon, pushing away the yogurt and berries.
‘You should eat,’ Claire said as she sat her plate next to us. ‘You look a bit peaky, love.’
‘I’m okay, but thanks, Claire.’ I smiled, but it came out like a grimace. I hated that I was bringing down the energy. I baulked when several of the ladies asked if I was okay this morning, as if sensing my low mood. I needed to pull myself together. I needed to put up a better front than this.
So I pulled the yogurt back towards me and ate a spoonful as Claire smiled. I swallowed, hoping I wouldn’t bring it back up.
‘So what next?’ Amy asked a few moments later, lowering her voice so she wouldn’t interrupt Claire and Gen’s conversation about our route to Snowdon today – our most challenging hike yet, with steep climbs, scrambles and rough landscapes.
‘I don’t know. I just left.’ I bit my lip. ‘I think I should just… ignore him?’
‘Ignore him? Can you do that? Can you forget and be friends?’
‘I don’t know, Amy. I’m not sure we can ever be friends. It would mean rewriting that night. It would mean being happy if another woman came into his life, leaving lipstick smudges on his cheeks and cold cups of tea on his nightstand.’
Amy shot me a sympathetic smile. ‘That sounds like you want to be more than friends.’
I groaned, ‘No. It would never work. We’ve been there, and we ruined it. I would never want to risk that again.’
‘So,’ Amy whispered. ‘What was the kiss like?’
‘Don’t make me talk about it, please.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Amy shot me puppy-dog eyes. ‘I’m living vicariously through you here.’
‘It was…’ I thought about his palm on my jaw, his hands on my waist as he effortlessly lifted me on to the island. My cheeks warmed. ‘Something else.’
‘Wow. That good, huh?’
‘Yes.’ I bit my lip. ‘But it can’t happen again.’
It didn’t matter that I’d woken up this morning from a dream where we continued our kiss, feeling his body pressing me into the mattress, him settled between my thighs, and I woke up agitated and confused.
Amy and I glanced over to Ren, but found he was already looking at me. His gaze was intent, unwavering, eyebrows drawn like I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite crack.
I looked away fast as heat rushed to my cheeks.
But when I dared another glance, he winked.
The sheer cheek of it stole my breath. My eyes narrowed. His grin widened.
He knew we were talking about him or, most likely, about the kiss.
‘Bastard,’ I muttered, stirring the yogurt pot.
‘Just ignore him,’ Amy said, but it came out like a question.
I needed to get this under control. We needed boundaries. Last night was a moment of weakness and I wasn’t planning on repeating history.
Hiking was fucking bollocks. I mentally chanted the sentence again and again.
My fist clenched as the wind whipped around us, sparking a cacophony of groans as we made a slow trudge up the path to the top of Snowdon.
The mountain looked fearsome and impenetrable in the grey, heavy clouds.
At this point, I didn’t know who on earth thought it was a good idea to bring together nine strangers and make them hike up through the mud and wind and rain.
Rain splattered over me with another gust of wind, whipping my hood from my head, making me gasp.
The skies were grey and rumbling. While Mandy had insisted it was just another rainy day, I wasn’t convinced.
The weather felt oppressive.
We’d begun the day by walking to the Cae’r Wyddfa Campsite at the base of Snowdon. It was a popular site with a lot of amenities for hikers. We had set up our tents and eaten snacks before heading to the Walkin Path, the most challenging route up Snowdon.
I tried to stop my nerves from fluttering. This would be a real achievement. Something to tick off.
But it was so much more challenging than I’d expected.
We passed waterfalls and climbed up steep rock scrambles for nine painful miles, and I cursed every single step.
The group was silent, apart from the odd groan and Mandy’s attempt to cheer up the group with phrases like ‘Halfway!’ and ‘Almost there, team, you’re doing so well!
’ The cloud broke away enough for us to see a distant, blurry view of the lakes that Mandy informed us were Llyn Llydaw and Llyn Glaslyn, which Mandy told us translated into English as Brittany Lake and Blue Lake, respectively.
‘Legend has it—’ Mandy shouted to us over the wind and rain whipping around us, ‘—that King Arthur’s sword was thrown into Llyn Llydaw, returning it to the lady of the lake, before Arthur was placed on a boat and found his final resting place through the mists to Avalon.
’ She grinned, her face bright against the storm.
‘Easy to imagine on a day like this, isn’t it? ’
Ren lingered near but didn’t speak to me as we walked side by side and began to reach the Snowdon summit, our breaths haggard.
I rolled my ankle on a stone and Ren was there, at my elbow.
Those deep brown eyes searched mine, looking for signs of pain.
It made me miss Peggy. She would have been a welcome distraction from the vile weather and tension between Ren and me.
But Ren had left her with Pat and Steve and their pug, Noodle, after Mandy suggested that some of the ascents might be challenging for her.
‘You okay?’ Ren asked, voice low and strained. My eyes tracked where his elbow touched my skin.
‘Fine.’
He stepped back, dropping his hand and we continued up the well-trodden path.
The last few metres to the summit were slow, as we made our way carefully up the narrow stone steps to a trig point – a large stone table – on a platform.
Ren offered his hand as he pulled me up to the platform, standing close to me, so everyone could fit on to the summit.
There was a 360° view – although the visibility wasn’t great with the weather.
Mist clung to the mountains as if they were whispering secrets, curling around the peaks and giving the air a sharp tang of metal.
The lakes below were grey and dark. It added to the atmosphere – ethereal, otherworldly.
Around me, the girls hugged each other, laughing, gushing over the achievement.
I stared out at the view, and felt…
Nothing.
What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I feel anything? This was a huge achievement. I’d climbed the biggest mountain in Wales, through stormy weather and difficult ascents.
But I felt nothing.
‘Hey.’ A warm, familiar hand landed on my shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’
I looked at Ren, and the words came tumbling out.
‘What is wrong with me?’
Ren’s eyebrows drew together, ‘What do you mean? There is nothing wrong with you—’
‘There must be. Who gets to the top of a mountain and just… feels nothing? Who pushes and pushes, through rain and exhaustion and blisters, and still comes up empty? I should feel proud. I should feel something. But I don’t.
I just keep pretending. Smiling when I’m not okay.
Making jokes so no one asks questions. Pretending I’m fine with the fact I have no job.
No place to live. Pretending I’m okay with the fact I’m almost thirty, the decade when you are supposed to have your shit together, and I’m starting from scratch.
And I’m on this hike, thinking it’s some sort of Eat, Pray, Love expedition that will magically sort everything.
Except it’s not, is it?’ I shook my head, the words speeding up.
‘I mean, look at us. I’m acting like everything’s fine between us.
Like what happened didn’t matter. Like I don’t care what we lost. No one back home even knows why.
I haven’t told anyone. I can’t even say it out loud. ’
I looked up at him, throat tight. ‘Is that normal?’
Ren sucked in a breath. ‘No, Lyds. Probably not. But it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. You just process things differently—’
‘I know.’ I cut him off. ‘And I think you were right. About me pushing things down. Avoiding the truth. It needs to change. I need to stop hiding.’
He shifted, turning me gently to face him. ‘I couldn’t agree more—’
‘It’s not healthy. I’m tired of pretending.’
His eyes scanned my face, his palms moving up and down on my arms. ‘And I’m tired too. I’m tired of pretending—’
‘So you win,’ I said.
His mouth parted. Eyebrows lifted. ‘I win?’
‘We can be friends.’
‘Friends.’ He echoed the word as if it didn’t quite land.
There was a beat. His eyes flicked to my mouth, then back to mine.
‘Isn’t that what you wanted? To be friends again?’
‘I thought—’ he ran a hand across his face, voice catching. He glanced to the women behind us, and whispered. ‘We kissed.’
‘The kiss was a mistake. We both know that. We’ve been there, done that.
’ I gave a forced laugh. ‘And I think we can agree that we don’t want to repeat the same mistakes.
Mistakes that could mean we don’t speak to each other again for years.
’ I shifted my weight, holding his gaze.
‘I’m sick of pretending I didn’t miss you, Ren.
Because I did. I missed my best friend,’ I said, words tumbling now, because if I didn’t say them fast, I might choke on them.
‘And having you back this week – I just – look, you win. I missed you. I want us to go back. To before. To when it didn’t hurt like this. ’
But I saw it – that flicker of something raw before he shoved it down again. And suddenly, I felt exposed. Had I read this wrong?
‘Unless you aren’t comfortable with that—’
‘No, no,’ he said, eyes a little wide, like he was worried I’d jump off the sheer drop behind us. ‘It’s not that – I’ve missed you too. So much.’
He paused, as if he might say something else.
But then he just smiled, softly uttered, ‘Friends. Of course.’