Chapter Forty-Three
In a shocked sort of stupor, I hobble slowly around the room on the crutches. My tiny flat seems suddenly cavernous without River’s hulking frame filling the space with all that presence and energy.
Fuck. Is he back in Bedlam already? Will Squish be all right? Will Mrs Casablancas be angry? Will River remember me? Remember us? My bottom lip starts to tremble again at the thought that I’ll never know the answers to these questions.
We did the right thing, right? We considered this. We planned this. We did what was best in a fucking impossible situation.
Right?
I grab myself a slice of tree cake – sugar for the shock, as Mrs Casablancas would say – but when I try to eat it, a wave of nausea comes over me and I drop it back onto the table.
I stare down at the RO & GB on the trunk of the cake, and then across at the oil painting River got for me.
My vision blurs with tears. But to my surprise, this doesn’t feel anything like when Henry left.
All that remained then was a sad, needy, desperate feeling.
Loneliness. Like without him, I was suddenly fifty per cent less than.
But River never felt like my other half.
He made me feel like I was the whole damn thing.
He showed me that I was the whole damn thing.
Suddenly, the box of rice containing my phone starts to shake, edging its way across the table, knocking over the posy of buttercups River had laid against it. I notice a synthetic blue light glowing from inside the rice. Oh my God. My phone has come back on!
‘You’re alive!’ I breathe, hobbling over and pulling it out as it buzzes with text message after text message. From Jim and Marisol and Mum and the mobile phone company and Henry (which I delete without reading). I hug the phone to my chest. ‘You pulled through!’
I’m reading through the messages when my attention is caught by the flicker of sunshine casting little beams of reflected light onto the walls.
As it glitters prettily over and over again, I glance around the flat, looking for the cause.
When my gaze lands on the hatstand in the corner, I press a hand to my chest. Because there, hanging next to the selection of Mrs Casablancas’ hats I’ve steadily accrued over the years, is River’s bedazzled Stetson, the sun bouncing off one oversized rhinestone.
‘He forgot his hat?’ I cry, limping over to pluck it from the stand.
‘He took his bag of jeans and Mrs Casablanca’s fucking dog, but forgot his hat?
’ I hold the Stetson right up to my nose and immediately sniff it like a perv.
It smells like him. Toffee and smoke and the vague scent of my shampoo.
He loved that hat. How did I not notice he wasn’t wearing it? Why the hell would he leave it behind?
I lift up the Stetson to put it on my head, but as I do I notice something stuck to the inside fabric with a safety pin. A small cream envelope. I gasp, my hands starting to shake as I open it. There, on a piece of lined paper, is River’s neatly looped handwriting.
Owl,
At the risk of being a sentimental old coffee boiler I had to write you this for the avoidance of doubt, should that doubt ever pop up.
I’ve never wanted anything more than to stay with you.
These last few weeks is the happiest, most myself I’ve felt in my whole damn life.
Even though I found London to be a little weird, and there are way too many niche museums, and as a nation your tea-drinking habits are insane.
You were there. And custard creams. And that made it my favourite place in any dimension.
I’m not a man who falls. But God knows I would have given up everything in Bedlam for you.
But that ain’t what you need.
Gertie Bickerstaff, you are all you need.
You’re not the sidekick, or the lesser sister or the back-up or the girlfriend forever revolving around what other people want from you.
You’re the leading lady. The Romantic Hero.
My romantic hero. I hope you know that. I spent my whole life so certain I’d never know what this felt like.
If not for you, I could have gone the rest of my days without realising you were right: love is the whole point.
When I’m sitting by the old cedar tree, missing you, I’ll remember that I once felt what the people on the etchings of the tree felt. And I’ll be so glad of that.
Perhaps you’ll visit me from time to time in the pages of those brilliant, if slightly inaccurate books. But when you do, remember the me who leapt off the pages into your world – that’s who I am. It’s who I always was. It just took you to set me free.
However many universes there are out there, I know that in every single one of them my heart belongs to you.
Yours with lots of (Operation) true love,
River Oakley
I laugh out loud, the laugh turning into a fresh round of sobs as I press River’s letter to my chest.
God.
My heart aches with a yearning so strong it makes it difficult to take in a full breath.
Behind the aching, though, there’s another more tentative sensation, nervously flitting about as if warming itself up for the spotlight.
This one doesn’t hurt. It’s light and curious, bubbling sweetly in my belly like a laugh on the edge of erupting.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt this.
Possibility.
I glance across at the drinks cabinet, all the ingredients there to make a highly potent Tucci cocktail that will help to quench the overwhelming confusion of emotions swirling around my body.
I ignore it and pick up my phone, scrolling down until I find the right number.
After a few rings I hear a click. ‘You’ve reached the voicemail of Melissa Murphy of Central Therapies. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’
I take a deep breath. ‘Hi, Melissa. This is Gertie Bickerstaff – you probably don’t remember me – I visited you for grief counselling four years ago and then sort of, you know, stopped coming without a proper explanation.
If it’s all right with you I was hoping I could make a new appointment, please?
I’d like to start up our sessions again. Thanks.’
Ending the message, I slip River’s cowboy hat onto my head. Then I grab my laptop, open up a brand-new document and type two words so full of potential, so full of hope, they make me giddy with anticipation.
Chapter One
I run my hand along the edge of the Stetson and smile.
I reckon it’s about time I figure out what I’m made of.
Just me.
A leading lady.