Chapter 19 #3
Before they knew it, something had hit the back of the moped.
Milly remembered spinning, the moped flying out from underneath her, Ada’s hands loosening from around her waist where she’d been riding pillion.
They’d both flown off in opposite directions, Milly into more traffic and Ada to relative safety.
Her leg had shattered, her collarbone had broken, and her shoulder had dislocated.
There’d been raw areas of skin, shattered bone and cuts and bruises.
Milly had come off far worse than Ada and Ada had felt guilty for it for a long while afterwards.
Milly closed her eyes. She could still remember the pain of that moment as the memory seeped into those now-healed bones.
She forced herself to remember that pain wasn’t real.
Not anymore. At the time, she hadn’t known how they’d made it to hospital, how she’d been sent back to England.
It was all a blur made worse by the pain meds she’d been on.
But of course, they’d needed help, and both had been sent back to England in a whirlwind of medical experts, casts and special flights.
‘You’re remembering it all, aren’t you?’ Ada asked softly.
Milly squeezed her eyes and a tear escaped. She wiped it from her cheek. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be! It was the worst time of our lives.
My parents were terrified, and I only had a fractured arm and a few cuts and bruises.
You needed skin grafts, Milly.’ Her friend wiped a tear from her own cheek.
They’d only been wearing normal clothes when the accident happened, and thankfully helmets.
The skin grafts had been painful, and Milly thought of the patches Theo had stroked his fingers over gently, lovingly.
They weren’t everywhere. Only in a few places.
‘I understand why your parents were terrified,’ Ada continued. ‘But you have to let that go now, and so does your mum.’
In the months that followed Milly had needed a lot of support from her family.
The only problem was that her dad had been half out of the door before the accident and afterwards, as soon as she was discharged and sent home, he’d gone completely, leaving her mum heartbroken and alone.
Together they’d made it through, supporting each other as much as they could.
Her mum had insisted she have some counselling to deal with the nightmares and shock of the accident, but she had refused to go herself.
Milly had a feeling she should have. Her response to that trauma had been to try and wrap Milly up in cotton wool, to protect her from the world and, as a result, Milly’s own reaction was to stop taking any chances whatsoever.
She didn’t go out. She stayed close to home.
If she and Ada went anywhere they went together and weren’t ever out late or with people they didn’t know.
She hadn’t wanted to cause any more worry than she had already, and whenever her mum had started to fuss, she’d give in and take the path of least resistance.
That’s how she’d ended up at the firm and with Tom, who was attractive enough, but had never made her heart sing. Not like Theo did.
Now, as she thought it all through again from the bedroom she was sleeping in, in Copenhagen, she realised she’d been living a life that her mum, albeit kindly, had wanted for her and not the life she now wanted for herself.
When she thought back to the eighteen-year-old girl who’d been excited to jet off to India, who was excited to start her course and planned to move to London to live the high life, she couldn’t have been further away from the woman who’d left England at the start of the summer.
‘Milly,’ Ada said gently. ‘What do you want to do?’
Milly wiped another tear from her eye as the weight of her confusion lifted. Fear still scrambled in her stomach, but this was the bravest she’d felt in a long, long time. ‘I want to stay here and start a new life that makes me happy. With Theo.’
‘Then that’s what you should do. And you should definitely tell Theo how you feel.’
‘I will,’ she replied, nodding to herself. ‘But after the cooking festival. Bookings for our events have been a bit slow and he’s so worried about it being a failure. He needs to focus on that. We’ll get that out of the way first and then I’ll tell him I’m staying. Although …’
‘Although what?’
‘What will we do when you come back?’ Milly could see her own face in the corner of the screen, her eyes wide with panic. She didn’t want Ada to feel pushed out, but she also couldn’t stay in her room forever.
Ada laughed. ‘Oh, Milly! Calm down. We can deal with that later. For all we know, you might be moving into Theo’s room before I’m back.
’ She wiggled her eyebrows teasingly and Milly giggled.
‘And to be honest, I’m planning on applying for some more assignments.
There’s already talk of one or two among the crew here that I’m interested in.
I’ve got irons in the fire. I love Copenhagen, but I love it being a base.
You know I love travelling around and this job has given me so many opportunities already.
I’m not ready to give that up yet. If I ever decide to make it permanent, we can deal with that then.
’ Milly’s grin was so large, Ada laughed again. ‘You really are in love, aren’t you?’
‘I am. Now, tell me more about the foxes and what they’ve been up to today.’