Chapter 18 #3
My stomach bottomed out, anger pumping red hot through my veins.
Anger at everyone that had ever left him.
Anger at anyone who’d made him feel like he wasn’t good enough.
Myself included. I wanted to tell him that he was worthy and deserving and that I for one couldn’t imagine my life without him.
But when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.
Luca nodded, my silence all the confirmation he needed.
I watched him walk away, his stride quick and decisive.
A jolt went through me when he didn’t turn back, my fingers outstretched as if trying to delay the moment of separation for as long as possible.
I felt it then. My heart cracking and something inside of me unexpectedly shattering.
Even though I thought there was nothing left to break.
‘One. Two. One. Two. Testing. One, two, three.’ Ivan’s heavy breathing echoed down the microphone he was holding in one hand, the other shoved deep into the pocket of his cardigan of choice for the evening. Black with tiny gold stars scattered down the back.
‘Ladies and gentleman, if you could please take your seats, the show will begin in five minutes.’
Fresh tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them away.
I walked quickly over to the empty seat on the end of the row beside Mum, trying to ignore the searing pain in my heart.
The very thing I’d been trying to avoid by keeping Luca at arm’s length, and yet here I was, aching in places I’d forgotten even existed.
‘All OK, love?’ Mum’s tone was purposefully light in a way that told me she knew everything was categorically not OK.
‘Fine,’ I whispered, digging my fingernails into the soft flesh of my palms in a bid to feel something, anything but the crippling pain in my chest. An old wound ripping open at the seams. I could feel Mum’s eyes on me as I stared into space, unable to do anything but keep looking at the damp patch on the floor.
‘Jenny, love?’
I didn’t move. It was like my whole body was immobilised, finally broken beyond repair.
I smelt Mum’s hairspray as she leaned in closer, that retro floral scent of L’Oréal’s Elnett that instantly transported me back to when I was little, bare feet kicking off the end of Mum’s bed as I’d watch her getting ready, the hairspray tickling the back of my throat.
‘Jenny, is it Joe? Is he here right now?’
The sound of Joe’s name prompted something inside me to snap and my head spun round so fast I felt the tip of her nose brush against mine.
‘No, Mum,’ I hissed angrily, having to work to keep my voice from getting any louder. ‘Joe’s gone, all right? I’ve not seen him since my accident and it’s becoming increasingly clear that I’m never going to see him again, OK? Are you happy?’
Mum’s eyes crinkled at the edges, wincing at the sharp sting of my voice. I sighed, pulling the programme out from where it was bunched beneath me, pretending to read.
‘You know,’ Mum said slowly, as my fingertips scrunched at the edge of the programme, ‘when someone or something we love dies, it feels like the whole world has stopped, frozen at that precise moment because the thought of life carrying on seems impossible. But no ice ever freezes so thick that it can never thaw, Jenny, and quite often that thawing can reveal hidden beauty beneath.’ She paused, clearly hoping that I’d ask what she meant.
What possible beauty could have come out of losing the very person that made my world turn?
When I refused to play the game, she continued.
‘Like the reminder that life’s short, Jenny.
Too short to take any of it for granted, and that we have a duty to make the most of every precious second, because every single one is a gift.
By my calculations there’s still—’ she paused, each of her fingers touching her thumb in turn ‘—189 days left of the year. 50, 60, maybe even 70 odd years left on this planet for you, if you’re lucky. ’
‘What are you saying?’ I huffed impatiently.
‘I’m saying you’ve still got time, sweetheart.
Time to take a first step, time for doors to close and others to open.
Time to say “goodbye” and “I love you”. My point is there’s still time,’ she repeated, her fingers squeezing mine with such urgency I felt my eyes prickle with tears.
‘There’s no correct timeline for life, my darling.
You do things at your own rhythm, in the order that you choose.
Don’t let what anyone else is doing dictate your next step or make you feel like a failure just because you’re taking a different path.
You’re never too young, or too old, or too late.
Happiness can still be found even in the darkest of times, you’ve just got to be willing to let it in.
’ She inclined her peroxide-blonde head over to where Luca was crouched beside the bench of children, simultaneously tying Kiki’s shoelaces and pulling a silly face to crack a smile from an anxious-looking Andrea.
A drop of water plopped onto the programme in my lap, blurring the words to nothing.
I looked up, frowning at the roof before realising that it was me, big, silent tears rolling down my cheeks and into my lap.
I took a slow, steadying breath. ‘I don’t know, Mum,’ I sighed wearily, twirling my engagement ring round and round my finger. ‘I’ve made such a mess of things and I think it’s too late to fix it.’
‘It’s never too late, sweetheart,’ Mum said wisely, patting my knee as the lights went down. ‘Have you been to Joe’s exhibition yet?’ she whispered in the dark as the children marched single file onto the stage to rapturous applause. I frowned, wondering what that had to do with anything.
‘You know I haven’t. So, you can stop passive-aggressively leaving the flyer all over the house for me to find,’ I huffed, annoyed she’d brought it up – although not as annoyed as I’d been on finding the flyer inside the fridge when I’d gone in search of orange juice that morning.
‘It’s the final night tomorrow. Your last chance to see it before it closes,’ she pressed, a teasing singsong to her voice that made my jaw clench.
She managed two seconds. Two seconds during the dying-off applause before she leaned in once more.
‘Letting go is not forgetting, sweetheart. It just means that you find a way to survive without them, of remembering them without pain. I think you should go and see it.’
‘OK!’ I hissed through gritted teeth, stabbing the clicker of my pen with excessive force against my notepad. ‘If I say I’ll think about it, will you drop it?’
Mum sat back with a little humph of satisfaction, her lips pressed tightly together as though there were something else she was desperate to say.
But then everything around me fell silent.
Except for the beautiful, almost angelic sound of Kiki in her sparkly velvet dress standing centre stage, singing the opening lines of ‘This Is Me’ from The Greatest Showman.
Little Kiki who’d barely uttered a single word since her mother died a year ago, her unwavering voice so full of strength and hope that it filled the entire hall, bursting through the holes in the leaky roof and spilling out into the night sky.
It filled me too, touching every fibre of my being from my head right down to my toes, a pressure building inside of me like a balloon ready to take flight. Ready to soar.