18. Jack
Chapter 18
Jack
I spent most of the next two weeks replaying that day on the water with Morgan. Yes, partly because she’d read me like a picture book. And despite how hard I’d tried to tow the line of friendly but not too friendly, I’d opened up like that book had a long-ago-cracked spine. I hadn’t talked about my breakup in that much detail in years, and only two other people knew about my tattoo and why I’d got it: Phil and Chloe.
A fortnight later I was still shocked at how Morgan had taken a sledgehammer to my meticulously constructed walls, despite everything. Why did she care so much? And why was I glad she did?
But I wasn’t just thinking about me, and the revelations I’d had. I was thinking about Morgan, too: the curves of her body as she splashed around after lunch, the tentative touch of her hands on my back as she applied and then reapplied my sunscreen, the cackle she’d unleashed as she’d ruthlessly tipped me into the water. I’d set a firm boundary on our hike, and she’d respected it, but all of a sudden I was the one who was beginning to regret that it was there. I knew it was for the best, but I couldn’t help but imagine what our most recent adventure would have looked like if I hadn’t stopped her from kissing me on that mountaintop.
I thought about her – about that day – whilst I worked, when we were sat across from one another at Fatima’s and the pub, and at night when I was trying to quiet my mind. A montage of Morgan played on repeat, and I couldn’t press pause. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Which was why, when I texted her a few days after kayaking to see if she’d be free for a day trip away in a couple weeks’ time, I’d basically held my breath for the three minutes it took her to reply and say yes.
* * *
I took the scenic route to Manchester later that week; it only added about twenty minutes to the three-hour drive, but it meant that I got to admire rolling hills and charming villages rather than the monotony of the motorway. My phone showed the M6 in deep red, so I did my best to bypass as much of the traffic as possible. I rode with the windows down and the music up, trying to turn off my mind, where the Morgan Montage played incessantly.
I was on my way to collect Amy from her flat. She’d only stayed home for a few days before heading back, but then she’d messaged to say that she needed to move out suddenly, and apparently she didn’t have enough money for a train ticket. She’d texted me, I imagine because she was too embarrassed to admit to Mum and Dad how broke she was. She would have known that they’d have sent her money in a heartbeat.
Which was how I found myself cancelling my standard Friday night plans with Chloe and Phil to drive to Manchester instead. If my little sister needed me, I’d be there. In person.
The red lines leading into the city thankfully turned green as I got closer, so I pulled up in front of Amy’s building about fifteen minutes earlier than the ETA I’d sent her. I leaned over to read the parking sign to make sure I’d be okay whilst I waited, and then looked around. Despite all the cities I’d travelled to all those years ago – even living in them for a month or two at a time – I’d never been a city guy. I’d enjoyed being in New York for a few weeks when I was twenty, but seeing how busy everything was around me on a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer, I was already tired. I felt like an old man. I saw people spilling out of a stopped bus, huddling around standing tables outside packed pubs, walking their dogs in the tiny park across the street … none of it appealed. If I were questioning everything about my life all of a sudden, at least I could definitively say that I was a country mouse through and through.
I looked up across the street at the building that I knew Amy lived in, wondering what it was like to share a flat with people she didn’t particularly know, surrounded by identical units of people she didn’t know at all. I counted the windows up to the sixth floor where I knew she lived, and then my heart dropped.
I could see her looking out the window, and gone was the confident smile and pulled-together impression she’d given me a few weeks ago. She looked as awful as Mum had been insisting she was. In fact, she was too far away to say for sure, but she kind of looked like she’d been crying.
I decided to let her know I’d arrived, pulling out my phone to shoot her a quick message. I watched her as she looked away from the window and down, then back up to scan the street. I pressed myself into the back of my seat so she wouldn’t see me watching her when she spotted the Defender. A moment later she texted back to say that she could see me, and she’d be down in a minute or two.
When she did come down, she only had a single box, a suitcase, a duffel bag, and Dad’s toolbox with her. I took the box and toolbox from her, gave her a hug and helped her load her things into the car, which I’d prepared for the drive by putting the back seats down and lining the floor with an old blanket.
“Shall we go get the rest?” I asked, cracking my knuckles. Amy just blinked at me, confusion etched across her face.
“The rest of what?”
“Your stuff…”
“This is all my stuff, Jack,” she said, gesturing to the three things we’d already loaded into the boot. I tried not to balk at the fact that years of living here had amounted to just two bags and a box; I considered myself quite a minimalist, but even I would have needed more than that for my things, even without furniture.
“Okay,” I said, trying to save face. Not to embarrass her when I knew she was already on the edge. She was trying to act casual, happy even, but I’d seen her before, and I knew now it was just an act. So I had to be peppy enough for both of us, I supposed. “But you and I both know that box is full of crystals, so excuse me for assuming you had at least a few things.”
Amy flipped her middle finger at me, and I smiled. I handed her a twenty-pound note to go grab us some dinner for the drive home, and as soon as she was out of sight, I put the back seats back up so that her things wouldn’t slide around or fall over. Then I texted Chloe and Phil with a change of plans.
* * *
By the time we got home, Phil and Chloe were ready for us. I’d cancelled our Friday night plans when Amy had texted, but when I’d un-cancelled them before the drive home, they’d pulled through big time. Phil handed us both ice-cold beers as soon as we walked in, where we found a spread of hot pizzas waiting on the kitchen island and a rom-com queued up on the TV.
“Good to see you Ames,” Chloe said, wrapping her in a hug. “Important question first: meat lovers or veggie?”
“Veggie, please,” Amy said, cupping her hands in front of her and jutting out her lower lip, looking like Oliver Twist. Chloe plopped a plate with two slices of veggie lovers pizza into her hands.
When we’d been growing up, I’d hated how Amy tried to wriggle her way into my little friend group. She and I had been close, but it had always annoyed me when she’d tried to hang out with my friends. But the older I’d got, the more I’d appreciated that they were close, too. And when I got back from travelling and realised that they’d been keeping up with her just as much whilst I’d been away, it had given me a newfound appreciation for them. All three of them.
Still though, there were times when I began to regret how integrated they were. Like when we were done with our pizza and halfway through the crappy Netflix rom-com, the four of us squished together on the sofa, and Chloe started pestering me about Morgan.
“I hear kayaking went well,” Chloe said, her voice suggestive.
“Yeah, it did,” I said, trying to be as matter-of-fact, nothing-to-see-here as possible. “Wait, how do you know about that?”
Chloe shrugged. “I may have seen a sketch of a kayak over her shoulder on our lunch break on Monday. So I asked her.”
“You took her kayaking ?” Amy asking, balking at me. “You wouldn’t even teach me to kayak!”
“That’s not true!” I countered. “I’m the one who did teach you!”
“Only because Dad made you,” she said. “You said it was your happy time, and teaching a newbie would just ruin it for you.”
I cringed. I had actually said that; I remembered it perfectly. And I had meant it, too.
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to come up with an explanation for the three sets of prying eyes staring at me. “I just felt like she needed to experience it. She’s trying to be more adventurous this summer.”
Not one, not two, but all three of them smirked suggestively at that.
“Fuck all of you,” I said, sitting back and taking a long swig of my beer.
“Now that would be adventurous,” Phil said, “but sadly illegal in Amy’s case. So let’s keep it family-friendly, shall we?”
I rolled my eyes, a million other expletives running through my mind, but I was sure any of them could be twisted against me, so I kept my mouth shut.
“It’s nice that the two of you are spending so much time together,” Chloe continued. “I don’t think she’s got any local friends other than us since Cara left.”
“We’ve hung out literally twice,” I said, clearly too defensively, because Amy tilted her chin down to look up at me sceptically.
“Who is this Morgan person? Why haven’t I met her if she’s so important that you’ve hung out with her twice ?”
“Just someone from our D I never talked about Morgan with them, so they were getting this hot off the press, too.
“Next weekend,” I said. Really, anything for an appropriate change of subject!
“And what are you doing next weekend…?” Amy asked, drawing out her words like she was trying to draw the information out of me.
“I don’t actually know yet,” I said. It was sort of a lie; I had an idea. But I hadn’t fully decided yet.
“I’m sorry, you know you’re seeing her, but you don’t know what your plans are?” Amy asked. “That sounds like a date if I’ve ever heard one.”
I scoffed. “How can it sound like a date if we don’t actually have anything planned yet?”
Amy sighed and turned towards me, explaining as if I were a child. “When you have friends, you say ‘hey, do you want to do this thing?’ and you make plans around the activity. But when you’re seeing someone, you say ‘I’d like to see you again’, and then you make plans around the timing.”
“Yes!” Chloe said. “That’s absolutely right.”
“I don’t know,” Phil said, “I feel like sometimes we just pick days and then make plans around it.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Especially because I’m trying to help her try all these new things.”
“Oh, we don’t count,” Chloe said, waving Phil off. “We’re basically family. Amy’s right.” She turned her attention fully to me. “When you asked her to hang out for the day – and I’m assuming you asked her, because I heard you ask her to go kayaking, too – were you asking her because you were thinking, ‘we need to do more of these silly adventures, and I’m free at this time’, or were you thinking, ‘I want to see Morgan again’?”
I scowled at her, then took a deep breath and leaned my head back against the sofa. I thought about how I could answer that would contradict what she’d said, but I couldn’t. Because not only would I have sounded hella defensive, but she was right.
“Fine,” I said, sitting up suddenly enough that I spilled a bit of beer on my leg. “I wanted to spend more time with her. Can we not make a big deal out of it? I’m freaked out enough about it on my own as it is.”
I looked up at the three of them, who were all staring at me wide-eyed.
“Sure,” Phil said. “Sorry, mate.”
“Yeah, no big deal,” Amy agreed. Chloe just nodded.
“Thank you,” I said, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and turning up the volume on the TV. “Now can we please just watch Meg Ryan flirt with Tom Hanks?”
But as the little boy in the film spelled out F-O-X over and over, I descended into a spiral over whether Morgan thought next weekend was a date, too. And if she did, how she felt about that.