Chapter 27
JAKE
Paddington station was packed, and the chaos only heightened whatever emotion already had my body on high alert.
Annoyance. Anxiety. Regret.
Not something I typically dealt with before travelling, which was unusual for me. This was what I always did—what I always wanted.
So why doesn’t it feel like it?
I clutched Noah’s hand tighter as we weaved through the crowd, glaring at every asshole who rushed past without any consideration of the little boy beside me. After a minute I’d had enough, and picked him up to keep him out of harm’s way.
Unless he was tired, Noah usually fought against being carried, but he clung to my neck with his good arm, his gaze darting around then up to the vast arched ceiling, overwhelmed and unable to keep up with the franticness around us.
“It’s busy,” he said nervously, and there was something so endearing about him stating the obvious.
“It’s okay, buddy.” I dusted a kiss to his forehead. “We’re almost there.”
Fuck, I am one selfish dickhead.
I should’ve said goodbye back at the flat where he was safe, content, and stress-free, but I’d wanted this extra time with them both. I was pretty sure they wanted that too. At least, I hoped they did.
Maybe that was selfish too.
Behind me, Ellie stared at the floor, presumably watching where she was going so she didn’t run into the back of my legs, and pulled my suitcase—at her insistence because Noah refused to let go of my hand.
I didn’t want to let go either.
What the fuck am I even doing?
We soon made it to a gap in the crowd, away from the shops and cafes bordering the station, and directly beneath the giant live departures board. The Heathrow Express departed every fifteen minutes so I had roughly ten to spare before I needed to head to the platform.
Ten minutes to say goodbye?
Maybe I’d just catch the next train.
Or the one after that.
“Here we go.” I lowered Noah to the floor but stayed crouched at his level when he grabbed for my shirt. “It’s less busy here, isn’t it?”
He searched around, still clinging to me. “Yeah.”
“You won’t be here long anyway. Your mum’s gonna take you home soon.”
“Why are we here?”
“I’ve got to get the train, remember?”
“Why?”
“I’m going to the airport and I’m flying to New York. Remember, I showed you where it was on the map the other day?”
Noah frowned, fiddling with one of the buttons on my jacket. “But when will you be back?”
I sent Ellie a silent, desperate plea for help. I didn’t have a clue what to say or how to handle this. She watched us closely, her grip on my suitcase handle whitening with every second.
“Jake doesn’t know, baby,” she said finally. “He’s going on an adventure, and adventures don’t always have an end date.”
“But why?” Noah asked again, and instead of annoying me like those early days, his endless questions stabbed me right in the goddamn heart.
“Well, I planned this trip with an old friend ages ago, and I don’t want to let him down. I’ll be back though.”
“Well,” Ellie started. “We don’t—”
“I’ll be back,” I insisted.
If I held her gaze long enough maybe she’d believe it.
“Good!” Noah perked up, seemingly satisfied now, but I still had no idea what Ellie was thinking. Emotionally she’d clammed up on me in the last couple of weeks, even when I’d been buried inside her. I hated that she was hiding from me, even if I understood why.
We waited in silence for a few minutes, unable to look away from each other but unsure what to say.
I wanted to tell her so many things—how much I cared about her and Noah, the impact they’d had on me in so short amount of time and what that meant to me—but I didn’t know how, and was that fair?
To dump that on her and exit from her life for however many weeks or months? I couldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t.
Noah shifted restlessly, staring up at the ceiling again, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. It felt final in a way I hadn’t anticipated, and a frenzied kind of panic swelled inside me.
“I’ve got an idea. Come with me.”
“But your train,” Ellie murmured.
“It’s fine. I can always get the next one. There’s someone I want Noah to meet.”
“Really?” he wondered, sliding his little hand into mine.
Despite her confusion, Ellie followed along as I headed towards the statue displayed near platform one.
“It’s Paddington!” Noah immediately lit up at the sight of the bronzed Paddington Bear and rushed over.
“See, I told you.” I smiled as he gave the bear a hug, patting its worn, shiny nose where thousands of people had done the same. “Do you want a picture together?”
“Yeah!” Noah beamed, then posed like he was hugging his best friend while I snapped a couple of photos with my phone.
“Oh, your son is so cute,” a woman cooed as she walked past.
I met Ellie’s gaze. It wasn’t the first time we’d been mistaken for a family, but was it the last? I didn’t like the way that possibility made me feel, and that unsettled me deeply.
It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
Leaving is not supposed to be this hard.
Ellie found the courage to glance away first, and I ruffled Noah’s hair.
“Hey, so do you think you can hang out with Paddington while I talk to your mum?”
“Okay,” he replied, but didn’t look at me once, too distracted by the statue and the excitement of something new.
Snagging Ellie’s hand, I pulled her to one side.
“Nice touch with the bear,” she said knowingly.
“Eh. It’s purely for selfish reasons.”
“Oh?”
“Thought it would give us a moment alone.”
“To say goodbye.”
“For now.”
Ellie sighed. “You’re not obligated to us, Jake. I hope you know that.”
“I do. I’ve never felt that way about you. Ever.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Her gaze dipped to the floor again, her voice much quieter when she said, “We had fun, didn’t we?”
Thinking about the last few months made me smile. Nothing major had truly happened, but the moments I’d helped create, moments I’d shared and witnessed, felt momentous, and I hadn’t needed to be thousands of miles away for any of them.
Something pinched sharply in my chest.
“We did.”
“Will you promise me something?” she asked.
“Anything.”
I’d give her the fucking shoes off my feet if she needed them right now.
“No matter what happens, will you still be my friend?”
“That is never in doubt, Ellie. Never.”
Her smile split me in two.
“Ditto. You’re—” She paused to swallow. “You’re my dearest friend, you know? I don’t want to lose that.”
“You won’t. I’m not going away forever. Stop acting like I’m going off to war, never to return. I’m coming back.”
She nodded, but there was hesitance threaded through the motion, like she was trying to convince herself, and it wasn’t like I could blame her. I’d spoken at length about my trips abroad and much I hated coming home.
I’d made this bed and now I had to lie in it.
“Maybe if you get a chance you could text or call Noah sometimes?” Ellie said. “I know he’d love to hear from you.”
“What about you?” I played with the cuff of her denim jacket. “Would you love to hear from me?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Of course I would,” she admitted, gaze glued to her fingers smoothing the placket of my shirt.
“Then of course I’ll call. Maybe I’ll send some postcards. Noah would like that.”
“He’d love it.”
“Look at me,” I demanded softly.
We stared at each other for a long while, trapped in a silence completely at odds with the bustling station and tannoy announcements echoing around us.
“You should go,” Ellie said eventually. “You don’t want to miss your train because then you’ll miss your flight and it’ll be a whole thing.”
“Sounds like something I’d do though.”
We shared a laugh because it was true, but when we stopped, all that remained was more aching silence between us, and a growing chasm I couldn’t fill.
“Can I ask you something now?”
Ellie nodded, trepidation lingering in her gorgeous eyes.
“Can I kiss you goodbye?”
She blinked at me, then cracked a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
We checked on Noah, safely preoccupied on the Paddington Bear bench, then shifted closer, our movements completely in sync.
I cradled Ellie’s face with both hands and pressed our bodies together, and I’d miss that closeness as much as the scent and taste of her, and the way her smile made me feel more alive than anything. There wasn’t a sunrise or sunset that even came close.
A breathy-sounding gasp drifted between us as I wrenched her mouth to mine and we lost ourselves to a soft, lingering kiss.
I didn’t ravage her, however much I wanted to.
This time was all about savouring, printing our lips to memory, branding ourselves on each other in case we never got another chance.
Ellie pulled away first, and I’d never know if it was for air more than distance. She held herself millimetres away from my mouth, her eyes scrunched closed like she was desperately holding on, and I savoured her, memorising her face, until she found the courage to open them.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, pressing one last kiss to my cheek.
“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
“But it’s okay if we don’t. Remember that.”
“Is it though?” I wondered, surprising us both. “Is it really okay if you don’t see me soon?”
“I…” Her eyes flared with a mix of panic and shock, and her mouth dropped open, frozen on whatever she couldn’t say.
Her hesitation cemented something inside me.
Deep down, I wanted her to say it wasn’t okay, that she wanted me to stay with her and Noah, that even though I wasn’t the kind of person anyone ever depended on, the person anyone ever needed, that somehow she wanted to depend on me.
Somehow, she needed me.
That I was enough.
Instead, she closed her mouth and I watched the undulation of her throat as she swallowed, and I nodded in quiet understanding.
Silence was as much an answer as anything.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her, because she’d be upset with herself now, worrying that she’d hurt me, and maybe she had, but I’d get over it.
I had to.
“Jake.”
“It’s okay.” I squeezed her shoulder, dropped another lingering kiss on her cheek. “Hey, Noah. I have to go now.”
He shot off the bench and flung himself at my legs. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I know, buddy.” I bent over and crushed him to me, every tightening of his little arms like a lash to my goddamn heart. “I’ll be back soon though.”
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there like that, but somehow, eventually, I found the strength to pull away even though every fibre of myself bucked against it.
Ellie watched us with a shine to her eyes, and I felt like such a dick for getting some sort of sick satisfaction from that—that this was hard on her too.
I pressed yet another kiss to her cheek because I couldn’t fucking help myself, and as soon as I reached for my suitcase Noah started to cry.
“Hey, come on. Don’t let me leave to those tears. You’ll make me cry too, and I look like a right mess.”
His face crumpled, and he rubbed his knuckles against one eye. “You do?”
“Oh yeah, there’s snot everywhere. It’s disgusting.”
“Ew.” He managed a little smile.
The impulse to tell him I loved him, that I’d miss him more than I thought possible, was right there, begging to break free, but I knew it would only extend all this pain.
Instead, I kissed his forehead and gave him one last squeeze before wrenching myself away, despite everything telling me to push closer.
This was how things had to be.
I shared one last lingering gaze with Ellie as I waved goodbye, then turned my back on them even though my body hated it, closing my eyes at the sound of Noah’s sobs. Tearing myself away felt like tearing pieces of myself, and it took everything in me not to look at my heart I’d left behind.