Chapter 27
Now
‘Are you hiding from me?’ I find Jacob in the barn, clutching both of Hope’s kittens in his hands as their mother slaps a bit of hay across the floor. ‘Your mum invited everyone back for dinner, but we couldn’t find you anywhere.’ ‘You found me,’ he observes.
‘I always do, eventually.’ I meet him in the middle of the room, and he hands me a kitten. The thing is hardly bigger than my palm, and she sits against my chest purring away from the heat. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I’m not hiding from you.’ He doesn’t look up from the kitten that’s fussing in his hand. ‘Like you say, you always find me, so hiding from you would be pointless.’
I take a few steps towards him, my breath trembling with each passing second. ‘I wanted to thank you, Jacob.’ I say, placing my hand on his arm, and forcing him to meet my eyes.
‘What for?’
‘What for?’ I roll my eyes. ‘For saving the day? For inviting everyone from London? For all of those photos? What you did … I never even thought someone could be so thoughtful. I was so ready to just accept defeat and give it all up, but you gave me a second chance, and that second chance was better than I could have ever hoped for. And those photos, Jacob – so many years of memories that I thought I just had to cling onto in my own mind – they’re the best gift.
They’re priceless, and I really don’t know how I could ever repay you. ’
Jacob’s eyes find the floor again and he takes a breath before he speaks. ‘You don’t need to thank me. That’s what friends are for.’
The words form a vacuum around us to steal the air from my lungs and stop my heart.
‘Friends?’ The question comes out of me deflated, hardly even voiced at all and full enough of my heartbreak for me to not need any other words.
Surely, we are more than that. There is no way this is all the act of a ‘friend’.
What about everything Pen just told me? She said it herself, they’re not together – he ended things with her because of his feelings for me.
And what about our late nights and the years of almost confessions?
All those times I have fallen asleep in his embrace?
What about all of the almost kisses, in the orchard, on the beach, or any place that we’ve been left alone in for long enough?
What about that damned kiss in the treehouse that we’ve both pretended never happened?
Are those the words and actions of a friend?
‘I’m sure if Freya was here, she’d have done the same. Or Oscar,’ he continues. Why is he continuing? Why isn’t he finally falling into my arms? Why aren’t we getting our happily ever after? Why are we all still pretending?
‘No, they wouldn’t, Jacob. They wouldn’t.’ I can’t summon any strength in my voice. It trembles in a pathetic whisper as I bite back the tears.
I step closer to him, reaching out for him, but he turns away, sets down the kitten, scruffs Hope on the top of her head, and mumbles something about being late for dinner before leaving the barn without looking back.
My own legs, however, have no strength in them to follow him. Collapsing onto a hay bale, I let myself cry freely and sob into the palms of my hands.
‘Mum’s looking for you guys,’ Will’s voice calls. ‘You need to get some food before—oh.’ His interruption comes too late as he finds me alone and breaking.
The hay beside me shifts with the weight of another and I blink through the tears to see his face.
Will places an awkward hand on my back in a way that would imply he’s trying to comfort me, but he thinks that if he presses too hard, I might crumble, or turn on him.
I’ve certainly been known to do the latter a few too many times, so I don’t blame him for his fear.
‘Do you need me to punch him?’ he whispers after a few more awkward minutes rubbing my back like I’m sick at a party after a few too many drinks.
I try my best to laugh, but it just comes out as a damp, snot-filled breath. Shaking my head, I try and swipe away the moisture on my face, but still the tears fall. ‘I really … I just thought we were more than friends.’ I sniff. ‘Was it really just nothing, all this time?’
Will sighs. I can’t work out if it’s out of sympathy, or regret that he bothered to get himself involved, but he gives me a tight smile that looks more like a grimace, and finally pulls his hand away.
‘All I know is that I’ve never seen him like he was after you left the last time. Whatever fight you had then really did a number on him.’
‘Wait, what?’ I swipe at my face aggressively, as though wiping away my tears would help me to hear him better.
‘I don’t know what you said to him, but man, it broke his heart.’
‘I broke his heart?’ I remember that night so vividly. Still, I wrack my brains for anything I could have said, any way I could have hurt him, but I’m only reminded of my own pain.
‘I don’t think I saw him for days,’ Will explains.
‘Usually, he’s like an animal, happy to wander the earth alone, but always comes home for food.
But no. That summer, after your Granny’s funeral, he just disappeared.
He came home a few days later, and then didn’t leave his room, as though it hurt more to be outside.
It took weeks for him to tell me it was because of you, and months before he went back to any sort of normal.
Mum hasn’t let him out of the house without a phone since. We were all worried sick.’
I don’t understand. Jacob wasn’t the only one suffering from sleepless nights.
For weeks after that, I could hardly function.
I’m not sure I even remember the days after that night in the treehouse.
It’s like my mind switched off and I kicked into auto-pilot, knowing that any more heartbreak might send me spiralling.
He was the one that left me there that morning, alone.
‘He was the one that made his choice,’ I say to Will, confused.
Will’s face mirrors mine, brows furrowed, head tilted just a little to the side as if nothing I just said registered in his brain as English. ‘I don’t know … he seemed pretty gutted if it was his choice.’
My head aches from all of this back and forth.
I have flicked through so many emotions in the space of half a day that I’m sure one more word from anyone will be enough to make my skull explode.
Massaging my temples with my thumbs, I try my best to make sense of it all: Jacob’s actions, his words, my conversation with Pen, Will’s revelations.
My throbbing heart is being pulled in every direction and at risk of being torn into several pieces.
‘What am I supposed to do, Will?’ I plead with him, my tears flowing anew.
Instead of answering, he pulls me tightly into his chest, burying my face in his shirt, not worrying about me soaking it.
Will has never been one for words, but on rare occasions, he’s given the best hugs – even if it’s just to muffle your sobbing after one of his ideas for a game has gone wrong and he doesn’t want you to run off crying.
‘Just don’t give up,’ he murmurs as my crying settles. Getting to his feet, he rubs his hand across the top of my head, sending my hair into a static mess, before walking away as though none of this ever happened.