Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
‘Want to take a break? Go for a walk or something?’
He glances back to the café, to the people still milling around in there, eating sausage rolls, the ultimate comfort food.
‘I think they’ll manage,’ she says. ‘Everyone should be giving you what you need today, not the other way around.’
He blows out a breath. ‘Yeah. Yeah, okay.’
They walk away from the café and along one of the woodland paths. She sees a squirrel scurrying up a nearby tree, listens to the crunch of gravel under their feet.
‘It was a beautiful ceremony,’ she says quietly.
He glances down at her. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t know what he would’ve wanted,’ he admits. ‘But I figured outside, in amongst the trees … I didn’t want him shut away somewhere,’ he says again.
‘I get that,’ Lissa says quietly. ‘And it’s a lovely place.’
‘I should have asked everyone to wear bright colours,’ he says with a frown. ‘He would have liked that.’
Lissa shakes her head. ‘I don’t think there are any shoulds with something like this.’
But Ash says, ‘We should have talked about it.’ For the first time today, she hears a trace of bitterness.
‘But I think we were both pretending it wasn’t happening.
And I just assumed I’d have years left with him.
Even though I should have known, after Mum …
’ He swallows that sentence, looking away from Lissa as if to hide his face.
She takes his hand, squeezes it. He keeps hold of it as they walk.
They find a fallen tree trunk in a clearing, and Ash moves to it, perching there. Still holding his hand, Lissa sits next to him. In the distance, she can hear a dog barking, a child squealing with laughter.
‘Will you talk to me about something else?’ Ash asks abruptly. ‘Distract me for a bit? All day I’ve been talking about him and I just … My head hurts,’ he admits.
She can see the effort it’s taking to hold it together. She wonders if he’s let himself cry, and whether he’s done that alone, behind closed doors. She wishes she could have been there for him – wishes she hadn’t closed him off so completely.
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Anything. What have you been up to since we …’
She does her best not to wince. She knew this would come up, but was hoping not to talk about it right after his dad’s funeral. But there’s no way of ignoring it now that it has. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmurs, ‘about the way I ran out on you.’
‘Yeah.’ He scrapes a hand over the stubble on his jaw. ‘I mean, it wasn’t ideal. Was it … That night, I thought you …’
‘I did,’ Lissa says firmly, guessing enough. ‘Ash, no, it was nothing to do with you. I wanted that night. I wanted you.’ She still thinks about it. On the nights she’s not plagued by nightmares, she wakes craving him.
‘I know it doesn’t make sense,’ she says. ‘I know I’m acting crazy. But can you try to believe me when I say it has nothing to do with my feelings for you?’ She frowns. ‘Or rather, it’s because of my feelings for you. Because I don’t want you to get hurt.’
He looks at her then, eyes reflecting the sunlight. ‘Surely that’s my decision to make?’
She bites her lip. ‘You can only make a decision with all the facts.’ And he doesn’t have them, does he? He can’t have them – not unless he somehow remembers too. And if he remembered, he would get it without her needing to tell him.
He looks at her for a long moment, then sighs. ‘I don’t think I can do this, Liss.’
‘Do what?’
‘Us. This.’ He raises their joined hands, then unlinks their fingers.
‘I don’t want to have you here one minute and not the next.
I’ll try to believe you when you say you didn’t mean to hurt me.
And I saw you that night – I know something scared you.
’ He hesitates, seeming to try to choose the right words.
‘You asked if I wasn’t a relationship kind of guy before, and I guess I haven’t been.
But things are different with you. I get that you’re scared to commit.
And I get why. I could try to convince you, promise not to hurt you, but I don’t think making promises like that is smart.
’ He shakes his head sadly. ‘We both know you can never be sure what the future will hold.’ He sighs again, closes his eyes briefly.
‘But I don’t want to keep doing this maybe-almost-nearly thing we’re doing. ’
She swallows and nods, because that’s totally fair, isn’t it? And because maybe this way he is taking the choice out of her hands, so she doesn’t have to be responsible for making the wrong one.
‘I’m leaving,’ he says abruptly, but makes no move to get up. And slowly she realises what he means.
‘Leaving? As in leaving Bath?’
‘Yeah. I’m not sure where yet. Maybe Brazil.’
‘Brazil?’
‘Yeah. Or, I don’t know, somewhere. I just … I don’t want to hang around, waiting. The only reason I came back to stay was because of Dad. And now …’
Something horrible takes hold of her insides. But … ‘I get it,’ she says, trying to keep her voice even. Trying not to let on how her throat is closing at the thought that he won’t be around any more.
His gaze slides to hers, and she wonders if he can hear it anyway. ‘Do you?’
She pushes the heels of her hands to her eyes. ‘I … I’m not being like this to hurt you,’ she says again, needing him to understand that. ‘Part of me wants so much to give it a go, but …’
‘That’s the thing, Liss,’ he says gently. ‘I don’t want to be a “but”.’
She swallows. ‘It’s just … I know this doesn’t make sense, but I …
’ How the hell is she supposed to explain?
‘Sometimes,’ she continues, a little hurriedly, ‘I get these flashbacks. Like stuff from another life. And I think they’re showing me …
’ She breaks off, because she can see the way he’s looking at her.
Not like this resonates, but like he’s ever so slightly alarmed.
She tries a different tack. ‘I went to see a … well, a psychic, I guess you could call her, and—’
‘Lissa. If you’re trying to think of a way to let me down gently, this isn’t it.’
‘I’m not trying to let you down at all.’ Her voice is small, pleading. ‘I’m just trying to be careful.’
He smiles, a little sadly. ‘I know you are. But Liss, there’s a whole world waiting out there.’ He brushes his knuckles lightly across her chin. ‘Let me know when you decide you want to live in it, okay?’
He gets to his feet, and she immediately does too. ‘I’ll walk back with you,’ she says.
‘No.’ He smiles again, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘I am so glad you came. And I know my dad would have been happy about it too. But I need a beat, if that’s okay.’
She wants to protest, to tell him she’ll stick with him, but he’s right, she can’t keep being there for him one moment and not the next. It’s not fair. So she nods.
He walks a few steps away, then glances back over his shoulder to where she’s still standing by the dead tree.
His gaze holds hers, and the corner of his mouth crooks up ever so slightly.
‘I love you, Lissa.’ Her breath hitches and something inside her catapults at those words.
‘I know the timing sucks, but … I guess I just thought you should know that, before I go.’
Her whole body prickles. She can feel her pulse thrumming at her throat. He hands the words out so easily. Perhaps because he knows instinctively just how little time there is to say how you feel.
She wants to say it back. She wants to – but she can’t. She hovers there in indecision while he waits. A choice. She needs to make a choice.
In the end, all she can get out is ‘Will I see you before you go?’
He levels a look at her. He must see it. Surely he must see what she can’t bring herself to say. But she worries from the way his eyes shutter that he can’t. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’ll come say goodbye when everything’s packed up.’
She nods, swallows. When she speaks, her voice is barely a whisper. ‘Okay.’
And this time, it is him, walking away from her.