Chapter 33
SPENCE
‘Dad?’ I prise my eyes open. ‘Dad!’
‘Wuuhffnnnn?’
‘It’s half-nine, she’ll be here in an hour!’
My eyes try to close again.
‘Dad!’
‘I’m up, I’m up…’ I shuffle against the headboard.
‘Why are you still in bed?’ Georgia sits down. Hair wet from the shower and… is that mascara? I can feel myself frowning. When am I not these days?
‘What’s with you?’ she asks, one eyebrow perfectly quirked. The same way Heather does.
Over the past few weeks, Heather has become… not part of our family. That’s not it. I don’t know what it is, not quite, but… I reach for a glass of water. Knock it back. My mind is candyfloss. Woolly. Sticky. ‘I was up late.’
There are things that need to be said. If we’re going to make this work, I want to be part of her life, Spence. I’m not the same kid who ran away when things got tough. I could move here permanently or… you could come to Scotland? Both of you?
At first, I’d balked at the idea. Moving to the other end of the country? No. No Way. But as we’d talked, and she’d told me about her family who wanted to meet Georgia too… well. Let’s just say that the idea didn’t sound completely out of the realms of possibility.
Maybe we’ve been stuck here for too long.
Waiting.
Heather stayed long after Georgia had gone to bed last night. We started to make sense of the past, of a possible future. Having her back in my life, in our lives, has become freakishly easy. Which makes me uneasy. Because this shouldn’t be easy. Things don’t just… slide into place like this.
She’s started coming over most nights. Staying late.
I keep waiting for it to feel off. To blow up in my face.
But right in front of my stupid face, Georgia and Heather are…
bonding. Georgia laughs with her like it’s normal.
Like she’s always been here. I don’t correct her.
Instead, I sit back. Watching the family we could have been. Still could be.
Heather is different now. She hesitates. Second guesses her actions, her words. As if leaving Georgia behind has knocked all that self-assured confidence to the kerb.
Back then, she had this way about her, this conviction that her life would turn out exactly as she had planned.
Kids flocked to her side in school, she always wore the right clothes, always liked the things that were popular.
I’d never really seen the attraction in the same way as my mates did.
She was too polished, too surface level.
But last night, I’d seen glimpses of something else. Not the popular girl who had it all, but the woman coming over to my house who wants back in. Who wants us. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think that we had a shot of something.
Last night, she’d stood, head leaning against the doorway, watching Georgia sleep.
‘I regret so many things, Spence,’ she’d whispered.
I’d stood next to her, watching a tear falling as she watched my daughter, our daughter, lost to dreams. The night light making her look more like the little girl she was. ‘But I don’t regret her.’
I’d leant towards her, brushing a tear away.
There was a moment then, a fraction of something.
She’d moved forward, head tilted up, my hand holding her cheek, my thumb running under her eye.
Her eyes met mine, and she’d moved a touch closer.
But then Georgia mumbled, turned over, and the spell was broken.
Georgia scratches her wrist, the eczema that used to hide in the folds of her chubby arms still irritating her.
‘So what were you doing?’ she asks now.
Almost kissing your mum. Looking at houses in Scotland. Scouring the job pages in Edinburgh, like a nutjob. Considering moving us halfway across the—Wait, technically it’s a different country, isn’t it? ‘Nothing, really.’
‘I’ll make you some toast.’
She rushes out of the room in a cloud of pistachio perfume. I sit on the edge of the bed. Head in my hands.
This could be good for us. Moving far away from here. Away from… Fuck. I push Alice from my mind.
My hands rest against the bathroom wall, water pounding the back of my head as I continue with my existential crisis.
I throw some clothes on. An old band T-shirt Alice got me from a gig we went to together years ago. Fuck’s sake. I pull on a grey one instead.
At the kitchen table, I sit with a strong coffee in one hand, a life-changing decision in the other.
‘Hey.’ Heather comes in. There is no denying that I’m starting to find her attractive. Blonde hair carefully curled, natural make-up. Smelling of something expensive. Exotic.
‘Morning.’ I smile, getting up. ‘Coffee?’
She stifles a yawn and laughs behind her hand. ‘That would be great. Didn’t get much sleep.’ She twists the rings on her fingers. ‘I thought I’d take her to Alton Towers?’
I nod, spooning grains into the filter. ‘She’ll like that.’
‘You could…’ I flick the machine on and turn my head. ‘Come too?’ She straightens the heart on her gold necklace. ‘If you don’t have any plans?’
‘I…’ No. Yes. Stay. Go. The answer ping-pongs in my head.
As I turn, Georgia’s eyes meet mine. Bright, almost pleading, the same way they would when she was younger.
Standing next to her mum, I can see the similarities.
I’d always thought that my daughter was all me.
But the more she grows up, I can see that they both have the same posture, the same slim neck and blue eyes.
My shoulders drop a touch. ‘Yeah.’ I brush my hair back. ‘Yeah. That sounds fun.’
‘Great!’ Heather smiles.
‘Dad will need mints though. One sniff at a rollercoaster and he turns green.’
‘No problem, we can get some on the way.’
I pass Heather her coffee. The tips of her fingers touch mine and our eyes meet. I give a small nod then take my hand away.
‘So, what’s your favourite ride?’ she asks Georgia and the two begin swapping notes on Wicker Man versus Oblivion.
Both sound hellish. But the hum under my skin quietens, replaced by something else.
I can’t put my finger on what it is, and it’s not until I see the photo later that day of the three of us, mid-ride, heads thrown back, mouths wide open as we hurtle along the tracks that I realise what that feeling is.
Hope.
A hope that terrifies me.
Because for the first time in years, I think I can see a future that looks completely different from the one I’ve built.