Chapter 7
PAUL
‘Anyway…’ Holly said when I didn’t reply. ‘I wanted to stop by to talk to you. It felt weird seeing you like that at Willow’s and not saying hi properly. It’s been so long.’
‘Ten years,’ I offered up shortly. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking back to the months after Holly left Birchbrook.
She had messaged me when she arrived at university and gave me updates for the first couple of weeks.
I wondered if I should ask about visiting her but then the messages started to trail off and I still remembered the last message I sent that she didn’t reply to.
It’s not the same around here without you.
I was too embarrassed to contact her when she ignored that. And so the silence between us continued… until now.
I wasn’t on social media, something that most people in my life thought was idiosyncratic, I knew, but no one wanted me posting pictures of our new café latte or my opinion on last night’s footie, surely?
Over the years, my mum gave me updates on Holly via her mum and social media but there was no contact from Holly herself, and that told me everything I needed to know.
Her pink cheeks seemed to have deepened further. ‘Yeah, a long time for sure. I didn’t know what to do when Willow called me. I don’t know if you know this but I run an events company and she needs help in creating a winter wonderland over at the farm this year.’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, Willow wants us to serve food and drink like we do at her other events but I came over to tell her no.’ I kept telling myself that I would leave Birchbrook before the end of the year and saying no to Willow had been step one of the exit plan in my mind.
‘Why?’
I jumped as my mum was suddenly by our table. ‘Jesus,’ I muttered. She was like a ninja sometimes. I thought we’d talk about this alone, not with Holly watching.
‘We’ve done so well at Willow’s pumpkin patch and the pick-your-own trail,’ she offered.
‘Of course we will want to be at her Christmas event.’ She spoke briskly to me, as usual brooking no arguments.
I swallowed hard. How was she going to react when I told her I couldn’t help out any more at Birchbrook events ever again?
‘So, Holly, does that mean you’re back in Birchbrook then? ’
‘Uh, yes,’ Holly said, looking also startled by my mum coming over. ‘Willow is really desperate and it would be good for my business too, so that’s why I thought I’d stop by to talk to you…’ She turned from my mother to me. ‘I’ll be staying and working at the farm for a few weeks.’
Everything seemed to fade around us as I stared into Holly’s eyes. She was staying in town for a few weeks?
‘Isn’t that wonderful!’ my mum said, shaking me from staring.
I looked down at my drink; my mind was whirring with this information.
‘We’ve missed you in Birchbrook, haven’t we?
’ Mum said then. I looked back at her, at a loss at what to say.
She turned to Holly and threw on a wide smile, clearly trying to make up for my lack of response.
‘We all have. It’s great to have you back. ’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ Holly muttered.
She must have been thinking about what things were like in town before she left. I remembered how pissed off I had been with people – like Holly had anything to do with her dad being a cheating loser who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mum said firmly. ‘All water under the bridge. And we will definitely help at the winter wonderland. I’ll call Willow.
Even if I have to man the van myself, or my husband will if Paul has suddenly found something else he needs to do in December.
’ She threw me a glare and I shifted in my seat.
She was impossible to say no to sometimes.
And she was like a detective sniffing anything out.
I knew I’d have to come up with a reason why I wanted to back out.
But the thought of telling her about my leaving-town plan made me feel queasy.
‘I guess I’m nervous…’ Holly said, looking around. ‘It’s been such a long time.’
‘It’ll be okay,’ Mum reiterated. I wasn’t sure which one of us she was saying that to. ‘Have you seen Donna yet?’
Holly’s mum came into the café once a week, and I knew that her and Holly’s relationship was still as strained as when Holly’s dad left them. I’d giving up listening to what she said about Holly, it hurt too much, so I always found something to do when she was in here.
‘No. I need to go home to the city and pack some things then I’ll come back.
I’m going to stay at the farm so I can help Willow.
But, yeah, I’ll go and see Mum while I’m here.
I guess I just wanted to make sure it’s…
well, it’s okay… that I’m back?’ She phrased it as a question and her green eyes searched my dark-brown ones again like she was hoping to find a clue in there.
But I honestly wasn’t sure what I was thinking or feeling.
I took a long gulp of my hot chocolate to give myself a moment.
It sucked to look into her eyes and remember how I’d felt that day Holly had walked away from Birchbrook.
We were only eighteen but I’d replayed it countless times.
Things I wished I’d said or done. Regrets that still plagued me on sleepless nights.
But I could never show or tell Holly those regrets.
So, I shrugged instead. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ I said, hoping I was coming off as nonchalant as possible.
Then, I pushed my chair back and it scraped noisily on the floor.
I tried not to wince at the sound as I stood up. ‘Better get back to work.’
‘Oh, right, of course,’ Holly said quickly. ‘Well, thank you for the drink. It’s really great to see the café doing so well still, and everything. Hopefully, I’ll see more of you both over the next few weeks.’
I wondered if I’d still be in town for her to do that. I just nodded. ‘See you later.’ I glanced at Mum. ‘I need to write that email you asked me to send to that supplier; I’ll do it upstairs.’ I strode away as quickly as I could without breaking into a jog, feeling their eyes on me.
There was a door at the back of the café that led upstairs and I hurried towards it, walking through and closing it quickly before rushing up the stairs and through the next door up there. Then I was in my apartment.
Closing the door behind me, I groaned at the empty space.
‘What the fuck?’ I found myself saying out loud.
I sank down into my comfortable leather armchair that offered a view of Birchbrook. I looked out at the High Street and saw Holly leaving the café and getting into her car. It was the second time in my life I’d watched her leave but this time, she was coming back tomorrow.
The thought was something I both wanted and didn’t want in equal measure.
My leg bounced with nerves. I did have an email to send but I knew I couldn’t focus on that right now. I’d both hoped for and despaired that I’d never see Holly again. Now I might get to see her regularly around here for a few weeks.
She would be coming into the café. I was supposed to be working on the farm with her too. Suddenly, the festive season had turned upside down. Years of things never changing in Birchbrook. And now the world looked completely different.
There was a swift knock on the door and it opened behind me. ‘Paul, are you okay?’ Mum asked as she stepped in cautiously, hovering by the door, looking over at me in the armchair.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ I found myself snapping back at her, regretting it instantly when her face fell. I knew everyone in town thought I was grumpy, but they also never minded their own business so sometimes, it was no wonder.
‘Because I know how hard it hit you when Holly left town,’ she replied. ‘And you couldn’t wait to get away from her just now.’
‘It’s just a shock,’ I admitted, adjusting the beanie on my head. Sometimes, I forgot I still had one on inside, I was so used to wearing them. Holly had bought me one for my fifteenth birthday. I’d loved it so much, they were like my uniform now.
‘Of course it is. But…’ She stepped back to the door and waited a second before finishing her sentence. ‘Don’t push her away.’ With that, my mother left and returned to the café.
I exhaled loudly and deeply. I knew Mum thought I pushed people away.
She was right too. It was a defence mechanism that went back to that day ten years ago when Holly left.
I might have grown up now, but I wasn’t sure if I was wiser.
I didn’t open up easily. My ex, Rach, told me that she could feel me keeping my heart from her.
She broke up with me when I couldn’t disagree with her opinion.
I’d been single since then. Two years. Sometimes, I saw people happy in love and wished I could be like that but I didn’t know how.
That’s why I thought moving away might help A new place where I wasn’t surrounded by people who had known me all my life.
Maybe I could be different then. I was so close to telling my parents I was leaving but every day there was always something that stopped me.
And today, that something was Holly Wynter.
What if seeing her in Willow Connor’s kitchen was a sign from the universe?
But even if I did finally tell her what I’d wished I had said before she left, she wouldn’t care. She’d stayed away with no contact for ten years. I meant nothing to her.
I put my head in my hands as anger bubbled up inside me again. I’d snapped at my mum to hide the fact it hurt like hell Holly hadn’t thought about me all these years. Like I had thought about her.
I had to shake off what my mum had said. How could I not push Holly away? She’d done the same to thing me, after all.
And I sure as hell didn’t want her to break my heart again.