Chapter 18
Eighteen
always remember to dress for the weather
Dylan
When Max said he was staying behind to work on this week’s video while we trek to a rock formation, relief surged through
me. I haven’t been away from him for longer than an hour since we got here, and I haven’t been able to get my head on straight
about that moment we shared in the cabin with him always there. Because he sounded . . . desperate. Like I’d be doing him a favour if I let myself really feel what’s been bubbling under
the surface these past few weeks. I don’t know what to do with that.
And now we’re on mile four along the coastline, accompanied by jagged boulders and whitecapped waves and gently swaying grass,
and every step reminds me just how much there is to see.
After the third time Jude stops to get a stone out of her shoe, she groans. ‘Days like these, I am reminded why I’m a city
girl.’
‘We have pebbles in London,’ I point out, plucking yet another blackberry from a bush and popping it in my mouth.
She waves a flippant hand and lifts her trousers to step over a particularly muddy patch of grass. ‘Let me have this.’
A voice says, ‘Duck!’ from behind, and we squat so that Fiona and Greg can lift their joined hands over our heads without breaking apart.
They walk ahead, arms swinging, and it hits me that that’s the future I want.
Holding hands for thirty-five years. Not Jeremy shrugging out of my grip when I tried weaving our fingers
together, muttering, ‘Not now, Dylan,’ and walking a step ahead of me like he was worried I’d try again. Not a relationship
that fell apart after four years because of the single thing I couldn’t compromise on.
The rest of our walk is uneventful, but when we reach our destination I take a moment to admire the view. If London has skyscrapers,
Pembrokeshire has this. A vast arch of rock protruding from the ocean, casting a shadow over the Atlantic.
‘Toby,’ Jude calls out, ‘what type of rock is this?’
Toby moves closer and clears his throat. ‘Most of this area is a combination of sedimentary and igneous rocks. It’s from the
Ordovician period.’
Jude eyes him appreciatively. ‘That was hot.’
‘Sorry?’ he asks, his ears reddening.
‘The eruptions that created the igneous rock,’ she says sweetly. ‘Must’ve been very hot.’
His throat bobs. ‘Probably.’
‘Would you mind taking some pictures of me?’ she asks him, and I consider telling her I can do it before I realise this is
part of her plan, and then Bertie swoops in during the second of hesitation anyway.
‘No Max today?’ he asks.
‘He stayed behind to work on a video.’
‘Ah man, that sucks.’ He clicks his tongue. ‘It’s just you and me.’
‘And everyone else,’ I point out, assuming he’s joking.
But he looks at me with a smile I can’t fully decipher and says, ‘Come with me.’ I let him lead me to the middle of the outcrop,
and his hands rest on my shoulders. ‘Do you feel that?’
I wait a few seconds, briny air fluttering my T-shirt sleeves. ‘Is there something specific I’m supposed to be feeling?’
‘The call of the tide,’ he says with a shrug. ‘The whisper of the moon.’
‘Oh. That.’ The restraint I exhibit not physically reacting to this makes me question if I’m as nice as I think I am, which
is immediately followed by a wave of guilt, because Bertie’s only ever been friendly.
‘Close your eyes. It’ll help.’ I don’t really want to, but I do as he says. He’s closer than I expect when he whispers, ‘Do you feel it now?’
‘I think so,’ I say, because I don’t want him to feel bad. But really, all I can think about is that if I believed in auras
and vibes and the call of the tide, the proof wouldn’t come from Bertie. It’d come from the way my heart races when Max looks
at me in a certain way, how our eyes meet even when I don’t want them to. It’d come from how it feels to wake up pressed against
him. How electricity hums between us when he stands too close.
If I believed in those things, I’d say that something far bigger than me is in control.
But I don’t, so I open my eyes and step back to say, ‘I only feel it a tiny bit, actually. I guess I’m not ready for all of
that.’
‘There are ways, you know,’ he says, ‘to enhance your energy. You, me, intertwined. Combining our life forces would be . . .
boom.’ He mimes an explosion.
This cannot be happening. He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. ‘I don’t know . . . I don’t know if that would be a
good idea.’
‘Don’t worry, when I said boom,’ he mimes the explosion again, ‘I didn’t mean it would be dangerous. Only transformative in pretty much every conceivable
way. Biblical, in a sense.’
I’m suddenly particularly glad Max isn’t here. I don’t think I’d be able to handle his stupid smug expression. He and Bertie have been looking for exactly
the same thing this whole time. I just na?vely believed Bertie when he told me he wasn’t.
‘It’s great being your friend, Bertie,’ I say in a rush. ‘It’s so great that the universe put us together platonically.’
‘Platon—oh. You’re not into the idea of entwinement?’ Considering his usual inability to read the room, I send a silent thanks to his precious moons and tides that he’s getting this. We don’t need to make it any more awkward than it already is.
‘I’m just . . .’ I search for the words ‘. . . not at the right stage of alignment yet?’
‘Sure.’ He shakes out his hair from its bun, shark-tooth necklace bouncing with the movement. ‘You know what they say: when
you’re not aligned, you’re a circle.’
‘So true,’ I reply, and he starts to stretch where we stand. And when he bends to take his shoes off, I take the moment of
distraction to run back to Jude, who’s no longer terrorising Toby.
‘Someday, Toby will realise that I’m not flirting with him as a joke,’ she says, looping her arm through mine as we walk ahead.
‘I have no expertise to offer. I could barely get my ex to pay me attention when we were together.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘And that is why he’s your ex.’
I laugh, but it has no humour. That’s actually not why he’s my ex. He’s my ex because, after four and a half years, it turned out we wanted different things. ‘He struggled giving
me his time. He didn’t have a lot of it, with work and stuff.’
‘Weren’t you also working? And studying at the same time? And looking after your sister?’
‘Yeah but . . . his job was really demanding.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Bet he was too.’
I spin my bracelet, running the familiar frayed ends through my fingertips. ‘He could be kind of . . . difficult. Didn’t have
the most patience. So I tried to be easy, to keep things running smoothly, but even that wasn’t enough, in the end. All that
time, wasted.’ I let out a sigh. ‘And now I’m back to square one.’
‘It sounds like you dodged a bullet.’ She gives me a small smile, then hooks her arm through mine and leads us in a loop around
the viewing area. ‘But just so we’re clear, I don’t think that picture-perfect life of yours will be quite as fulling if you’re
not with someone who puts you first. The right man wouldn’t turn away if you ever needed to be difficult, you know.’
‘I hope you believe that for yourself, too,’ I say carefully.
I catch a glimpse of wistfulness on her face, but then she gives a short laugh and it’s gone. ‘I am a fundamentally difficult woman. But I can also be very easy, if you get what I’m saying.’ She glances over at Toby and mutters, ‘You’d think I could figure out how to get into the
guy’s pants. I have a PhD, for god’s sake.’
I register her words. ‘Sorry, did you just say you have a PhD?’
‘I did,’ she replies, plucking a strand of blonde hair off my top and letting it float away in the breeze. ‘I wanted to become
an academic, originally.’
‘How’d you end up doing this?’
‘I started posting during my studies, and as time went on, I realised I was more passionate about it than academia. And it’s
been way better financially.’ She zips her jumper up to her chin and it reminds me of how chilly I am in my T-shirt, now that we’re
not hiking. ‘But this isn’t my final form. I still have so much more I want to do with my platform.’
‘Do you like being your own boss?’
‘I love it. I couldn’t go back to working for someone else.’
‘I’ve never worked for myself. I’ve only ever worked in hospitality.’ I offer her my hand while she steps on to a boulder.
‘I think coffee shops are my favourite.’
‘Would you ever run your own?’
Old, secret dreams I locked away a long time ago flash through my mind. The smell of fresh pastries and rich coffee and the
sound of my own playlist on the speakers. But the sensible part of my brain catches up, and I reply, ‘I’m going to be an accountant.’
‘Oh right, yeah,’ Jude says, jumping off the rock. ‘I forgot about your career plans.’
And it’s weird, because for the briefest moment there, I kind of did too.
I don’t have time to think about it, because a familiar deep voice calls out, ‘Great view, isn’t it?’
Max lazily strolls from the car park towards us, hoodie strings uneven, smile sharp on his face, hair sticking up in all directions, each step closer putting more of my cells on high alert.
‘What are you doing here?’ Jude asks.
‘Eileen dropped me off on her way to town. She needed to get some kitchen supplies.’ He slings his arms over my and Jude’s
shoulders. ‘Did you miss me?’
I glance at his feet, his long laces a permanent tripping hazard, and warmth seeps into my skin as he squeezes my arm, before
releasing us both.
He nods towards my goosebump-pebbled skin. ‘You know, for someone who’s always cold, you make some terrible clothing choices.’
‘I thought I’d warm up on the walk,’ I mumble. Truthfully, I’d set my jumper on the back of the sofa this morning, ready for
this hike, but I forgot it the moment Max stepped out of the bathroom in nothing but a minuscule towel and an offensive smirk.
Because this man fries my very practical, very organised brain. It’s like the mess he leaves at the far end of the living
room has seeped directly into my skull.