CHAPTER SIX
Freya
Four days. That is how long it will be before I see Theo again. It’s James’ turn.
I kneel to brush his hair back from his forehead, even though it never stays where I put it, and there it is, that familiar tug at my heart.
Not sadness exactly. Something heavier. It’s like a hollow ache that settles deep in my bones and makes itself at home for the entire time that he’s gone.
Four days is all it takes for the silence to start circling.
“Bye, Mum!” he calls, already halfway turned toward his friends. I smile too brightly and wave like everything is perfectly fine. He disappears through the doors, swallowed up by noise and movement and the rest of his little life, and just like that the colour drains from the morning.
I end up sitting on the curb outside the gates, coffee cupped between my hands, grounding me as I lose myself in thought.
I hold it tighter than necessary, as if warmth could stand in for the weight of Theo leaning into me.
He is my rhythm. My internal clock. Without him, everything feels slightly off-beat.
“What’s up, sunshine?”
I don’t need to turn around. Clara lowers herself beside me with a theatrical sigh. “You’ll get piles sitting on a cold curb like that,” she says. “That’s what my mum always told me anyway. Although I’m fairly sure mine came from squeezing two entire humans out of my vagina.”
She says it far too loudly. I snort into my coffee and nearly choke. “Thank you, Clara. Exactly the imagery I needed at nine in the morning.”
She beams, knees knocking against mine. Clara has never eased into anything gently. She prefers to arrive loudly and make herself comfortable.
“So,” she nudges, “what’s actually wrong?”
“It’s James’ turn,” I say, staring into my cup. “I always feel a bit… lost at the start. Like someone’s picked up my routine and shaken it out without warning.”
She hums in sympathy for approximately three seconds before brightening. “Well. I am gloriously child-free this morning and deeply bored. If you fancy some mischief?”
I narrow my eyes. “Define mischief.”
“Excessive coffee,” she replies immediately, “and gawking shamelessly at the hot rugby player who’s just moved back to town.”
Heat rises to my face before I can stop it.
“Oh,” I say, far too quickly. “Is there a hot rugby player?”
Clara’s grin widens. I focus very intently on my coffee.
We met at baby group, back when Theo and Ollie were tiny and I was barely keeping my head above water.
I had walked in desperate for connection, desperate for someone to tell me I was not the only woman who had been left holding everything.
Clara clocked me within minutes. Claimed me.
Decided I was hers. She has not loosened her grip since and I am not complaining one single bit.
Clara only moved to Oakwood after she met Mark. She never knew the version of this town that held Rory and me like a shared secret. She doesn’t know that I don’t just recognise that rugby player and that he once felt like everything.
“Come on,” she says, bouncing to her feet. “Let’s go and annoy Mark. I need one of Rose’s croissants before I commit an act of violence.”
We wander down the meandering streets toward the café, and thankfully she leaves the rugby player alone for now. Instead, she fills me in on Eleanor’s divorce. Apparently, her husband cheated with a supermodel. Oakwood may be small, but the drama reaches impressive heights.
Rose’s Café smells exactly as it always has, buttery and warm and faintly sweet with almonds.
I knew Rose before she passed. She had that rare ability to make you feel important without trying too hard.
The café still carries her imprint. Old mouldings.
Soft colours. Mismatched chairs that should not work but do.
It feels like stepping into something safe.
Until you spot certain local celebrity rugby players near the till and suddenly the feeling of safety is gone.
He’s standing there all tall and easy and entirely too at home in the middle of a small cluster of people. He is laughing at something someone says, head tipped back slightly. My stomach knots and I can’t tell if it’s nerves, fear or butterflies.
“Oh look,” Clara shout whispers, excitedly. “We don’t even have to gawk from across the cul-de-sac. The fit rugby player is here.”
I attempt a smile but it feels fragile.
The queue has stalled because half of Oakwood appears to be cooing over him. Teachers. Parents. Curious onlookers. He handles it with that same relaxed composure he always had, like attention is something he is just used to.
I consider my options. Hide behind the sugar station. Dive under a table. Pretend I have never consumed caffeine in my life and must leave immediately.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
Clara glances at me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” I say, which is a blatant lie. “You grab the coffee. I’ll find a table.”
I wedge myself into a corner booth and pick up the menu purely for something to hold. My pulse is sprinting for reasons I refuse to unpack.
Do not stare. Do not blush. Do not behave like a teenager who used to write “F and R 4eva” on her notebooks.
I glance up. And of course, he looks up at the same time.
Bloody typical. It’s not a polite acknowledgement.
It is in no way casual. It’s direct. My cheeks betray me instantly, heat blooming as though I have no control over my own body.
I am a grown woman. I pay bills. I attend staff meetings.
And yet here I am, blushing like an idiot.
Clara slides in beside me and nudges my leg under the table. “Did he just…Wait… Why are you so…”
“Shh,” I hiss.
Rory’s gaze shifts briefly elsewhere, a smile thrown at someone nearby, and I sigh in relief.
Freya. This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.
It has been years. Entire relationships. Entire lives.
And yet one look and my face turns tomato red.
Clara leans closer. “Go and say hi.”
“No,” I whisper. “Absolutely not. He probably doesn’t even remember me.”
That is a lie and we both know it.
He looks over again. For a heartbeat everything narrows. The café noise fades. The smell of coffee and sugar dissolves. There is only him and the fact that Oakwood suddenly feels very, very small. I grip my cup like it might anchor me.
“Breathe,” I mutter to myself. “Just… be normal.”
Clara snorts. “That is not what you are currently doing.”
“You could say I knew him,” I admit, still not taking my eyes off him.
“Ah,” she says knowingly. “So we’re talking history.”
I don’t answer. Because explaining what he was would require admitting that some stories never quite end, they just lie dormant until someone walks back into your café and smiles like nothing ever happened.
And I am not ready for that conversation.
Not with Clara. Not with him. Not even with myself.