Chapter 34 #2
“I mean, if this is what you like doing, why couldn’t you be a consultant? Work for one of those big firms in London or something? It feels a bit silly, doesn’t it? Saving the farm with one big hurrah?”
She laughed, but the sound was hollow. And despite how much more self-assured I felt than I had four months ago, her words still hit exactly where they always did.
“I’m not saving anyone,” I said. “They would have been fine without me. But I’m helping make them stronger, and I love it.”
“Well, good for you,” she said, reaching out to pat my crossed arm with her hand. “Not everyone can be so content with so little. Take it from me.”
I was just about to finally bite back at her – so little?
I had so much here! I’d done so much! – when I caught sight of Teddy at the door, helping an older man inside, and I remembered what she thought of me.
How, despite the fact that I was directly standing in the way of what she wanted, she couldn’t help but tell me how proud she was of me.
How proud she thought I should be of myself.
She cared so deeply for me; certainly deeper than the woman accosting me now.
I straightened my shoulders and turned to walk away, suddenly not caring, maybe for the first time in my life, about having the last word.
But as I turned, I bumped straight into Patricia, flushed and happy from dancing.
“Chloe!” she exclaimed, pulling me in for a hug, the smell of mead – the Honey Rain, if I wasn’t mistaken – clinging to her. “This is absolutely wonderful. You should be so proud of yourself.”
“It really is impressive,” Alan added, which I knew was high praise from him. I threw my arms around him, too, despite his obvious discomfort with the gesture, and he patted my back awkwardly.
“I was actually just looking for you,” I said to Patricia. “The silent auction closed, and we raised over five thousand pounds for the rewilding trust!”
Patricia’s face lit up. “That’s incredible! Thank you so much, Chloe. Your hard work is really paying off for everyone, isn’t it?”
“Five thousand?” my mother interjected from behind me, and we all turned to look at her. Was she really still lurking? Was she not satisfied? “That’s not much, is it?”
I turned to see Patricia looking at her with the kind of smile that could cut glass. “Well, it’s five thousand pounds more than you’ve ever donated, so I’ll take it as a win.”
The silence that followed was delicious. I watched as my mum’s face drooped in embarrassment, then set into a hard line as she absorbed the jab as fuel for her own resentment. She huffed a bit, then took a step as if to walk away past me.
“I’m proud of myself, even if you aren’t,” I told her – quietly, tightly, steadily – as she passed. She paused mid-stride but didn’t face me.
“Chloe…”
But she didn’t correct me – didn’t say that she was proud. The omission hung in the air between us.
“I’m happy,” I said simply. “Really happy. And I know you think I could have ‘so much more’ if I just cared about the right things. But I do care. I care an awful lot about the right things, and about my people. And my life is sweet. I have everything I want.”
Well, almost everything, I thought, but I kept that bit to myself. Mum hadn’t earned the right to know anything about Teddy.
She looked like she wanted to argue, but Patricia was still standing there with that protective energy that clearly ruffled my mother’s feathers.
“I should get back to work,” I said, deciding to be the one to walk away. I owed that to myself. “Enjoy the rest of the festival.”
As I moved towards the warehouse windows, I caught sight of Teddy again, back outside in the pouring rain, moving parking cones and helping direct departing families.
She was soaked through, doing the grunt work without complaint, making sure everyone got to their cars safely.
I saw her hug Alice and Dylan as they left, and then turn away from them, before her face fell in what looked like sadness.
I felt a pang of guilt knowing she would be leaving in a few short weeks.
This was Teddy’s home. Not just the farm, or the job; the rhythm of the seasons, and the deep connection to the land and the work. And, yeah, it was starting to feel like home for me, too. But it broke my heart that we couldn’t both have what we wanted.
After last night’s misguided hook-up, I’d been up all night staring at the ceiling, trying to think of any way that we could both have everything that we wanted.
How we could both stay, if only so we could figure out if what we had was real.
And now that I’d met Dafydd, the spark of an idea formed in my gut.
If I wanted to explore that idea, I needed to get through the rest of the event, which was far from over.
But standing there, watching Teddy in the rain, I wanted nothing more than to run out into it and kiss her.
I wanted to leave the bright, dry, happy festival I’d worked so hard on to go stand in the pouring rain, even if all I could do was stand there next to her.
Help her move parking cones and direct cars. Get my hands dirty alongside her.
And that was the moment I knew for certain that I had fallen in love with Teddy Cooper. Because despite the fact that I was exactly where I’d wanted to be, she wasn’t in here with me, so I wanted to be somewhere else more.