Chapter Seventeen #2
‘Sorry? For what?’
‘Just – maybe we shouldn’t have come out here. Iris said about the distance and weather last night. And my foot was hurting.’
‘Allie, you’re just trying to work.’
I gently remove the ice pack, brush a new wipe across her cut. Her perfect skin, cut like this, makes something harden in my chest.
‘I feel like I wanted to prove a point, though,’ she says, and there’s something about the way she’s talking that’s different this time.
Her words are looser. Without edge. No longer tightly packed in a jar.
It’s like the lid’s been loosened. ‘I did want to prove a point. That this is important. That this is what matters.’
‘Prove a point to who?’
‘You.’
I look up to meet her eyes. She looks sad. She looks tired.
‘Allie, you have nothing to prove to me.’
She laughs then; a real, ironic laugh. ‘I think that is the most untrue statement you’ve ever made. I feel like so much of my time since you arrived has been spent trying to justify myself to you.’
‘And me to you,’ I admit. ‘Because you believe I leaked our phones.’
‘You believe I leaked our phones.’
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘Not anymore, Allie.’
She swallows. ‘I don’t think you did it, either,’ she says, and the relief that rolls through my body almost winds me.
Silence again. And I want to ask so many questions, run headlong and reckless into the sunset with it, talk and talk and talk, but her eyes are watery and she looks so small that I step back from the metaphorical door that just cracked open.
She’s injured. She’s emotional. Vulnerable.
And all I want to do is hold her and keep her safe.
‘OK, then,’ I say, pulling out a small coil of bandage from plastic wrap. ‘Let’s get this wrapped up.’
‘I’m sorry I keep stopping you from filming,’ she says, watching me. ‘I know this is your work, too.’
‘If I’m honest, Allie, I keep forgetting I’m here for work.’
She cringes. ‘Gosh, really?’
‘No, no, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean . . . I like it here.’ I look up at her. And being with you, says that voice in my head again.
‘Do you really?’ she asks, and I love that I know she’s smiling before I’ve even looked up. It’s in the raspiness of her voice.
‘Totally,’ I tell her. ‘I keep thinking about the way the sky out here is the actual goddamn sky, you know? And how everything feels like . . . the centre of the earth but also, somehow, nothing, all at once. It feels like being on another planet. Another planet where birds are the daddy. And also, polar bears. And the legends who are Male 32, and Female 33. And Male 32’s magical ass. ’
She laughs. It’s music.
‘And you’re here. And I never thought I would ever get the chance to ever talk to you again. And OK, I thought for a while I didn’t ever want to but . . .’
She gazes at me, and I see her swallow. And all she says is, ‘I see.’
Silently, I bandage her foot. Allie watches me, then the sky. And like she was expecting it, rain begins to spit.
I hold out a hand to her, and she takes it this time. No hesitation.
Slowly, she stands, steadies herself on me, hands on my forearms, and I wait for her to move them, although I never want her to move them.
I want this weight of her body against mine.
Again and again, I find myself wanting to freeze time and keep the moment under a glass cloche I can watch from the outside, whenever I want to.
‘Sorry,’ she says again. ‘Just a sec.’
‘Take your time,’ I say. ‘We can stay like this all day. All night, if you want to. All . . . I mean, whatever, I’m down for all week.’
She laughs, but again says nothing, and I wonder – I hope – she’s just holding it all back, as Allie does, like a dam.
Because surely she feels this? Surely she is feeling this and wondering, like I am?
Because I can’t hide it any longer. How I feel, I’m sure, is starting to seep out of my veins, through my skin, covering me, like tattoo ink.
Allie says my name. Then, ‘I thought of this every day, back then. Just being with you somewhere,’ she continues, raindrops growing steadier, heavier.
‘Somewhere like this. Just us. And I wondered how on earth we would do it. I fought it for ages.’ She pauses, gives a watery smile.
‘Because it felt impossible, the idea of me and you. And the thing is – it wasn’t. ’
‘It never was,’ I agree.
‘But it is now, Milo,’ she says sadly. ‘Too much has happened. It’s too complicated.’
‘What if it doesn’t matter?’ I say. ‘What if . . . what if we just pretend it never happened? The note’s working well, right? We can just do that. Over and over.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Why not? Because you need the answers? The details of how?’ And now it feels like she’s somehow slipping away from me, and I feel desperate to hold on to her.
‘Yes,’ says Allie.
‘Then – then we can try to get them—’
‘But it’s already done,’ she says. ‘We’ve already been judged and discussed and picked apart and watched—’
‘So what?’ I jump in. ‘Seriously. I don’t care what other people who don’t even know us might say. What are they even going to say, anyway? Milo wears stupid crocheted hats and Allie cares too much about puffins?’
‘But we’ve not even spent a real, proper moment together, in the real world, and yet my life has already been on display. The level of exposure, Milo, it was—’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But none of that shit is real, Allie. We are. Like, what’s this even all about, if it’s not meant to be something? Couldn’t we just – try? Pretend we don’t come with this big, stupid, dramatic backstory?’
And she laughs and simply says, ‘Milo . . .’ in a wistful breath.
And there is so much in the way she says my name. Regret. Sadness. A wordless, ‘As if it could be that simple.’ A sigh that could also be a tentative, ‘Could we?’ A sigh that says, ‘Because we have go back to our real lives and say goodbye soon. And your life is a life I never want.’
Then she leans and says close to my ear, ‘And I should’ve said that I missed you too. Every day.’