Chapter Thirty-Two
The girl standing at the gate looked like she'd been dragged backwards through several hedges and at least one ditch. Possibly through a field as well.
Maeve had been in the kitchen, failing to make herself anything that might be construed as nutritious and considering eating cereal for the third day in a row for dinner when she’d heard rustling in the garden.
She’d been expecting Eejit, come to beg for a snack, or, more likely, a bite, but when she glanced out of the window, she instead found a bedraggled teenager staring at the cottage like she wasn't sure whether to knock or run.
"Mo?"
She was out the door before her brain caught up with her legs.
Mo's jeans were creased and mud-splattered.
Her hair had escaped whatever style it had started the day in and was now attempting several styles at once, none of them successful.
She had a rucksack over one shoulder and an expression that was trying very hard to be defiant but kept slipping into something closer to terrified.
"Hi," Mo said.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you, too."
Maeve looked past her, half-expecting Iona to materialize from behind a hedge. The lane was empty. No car. No taxi. Just Mo, standing there like she'd walked out of a fever dream.
"How did you even get here?"
"Train. Then a bus. Then I walked." Mo's chin lifted. "It wasn't that hard."
"It's a four-hour journey. More, with the bus."
"Five and a half, actually. The bus was late."
Maeve stared at her. Mo stared back. "I suppose you’d better come in."
Mo followed her inside, and Maeve’s brain ran at a hundred miles an hour trying to figure out just what the hell was happening here. Mo. Here. In her cottage. What… She took a breath and still couldn’t quite make sense of it. So instead she put the kettle on. "Tea? Coffee?"
"Tea, please." Mo sank into a chair at the kitchen table, her rucksack still clutched to her chest like a shield.
Maeve's brain was slowly starting to work again, which meant it was starting to panic. Shit. Iona. "Does your mother know you're here?"
Mo's silence was answer enough.
"Right." Maeve held out her hand. "Phone."
"It's dead."
"Then we'll charge it while I call her. Give it here."
Mo dug the phone out of her pocket and handed it over with the reluctance of someone surrendering a vital organ. Maeve plugged it into the charger by the kettle and pulled out her own phone.
Iona's number. She knew it by heart now, which was either romantic or pathetic, depending on how you looked at it. The phone rang twice, then clicked to voicemail. "Iona, it's me. Mo's here. She's safe. She's fine. Call me back."
She hung up and looked at Mo. "It was busy. She's probably calling everyone she knows trying to find you," Maeve said. "The school, the police, possibly Interpol."
"She worries too much."
"You took a train to Scotland without telling anyone. I think some worry is justified."
Mo hunched her shoulders and said nothing.
The kettle clicked off and Maeve made tea, grateful for something to do, grateful for actually knowing what to do.
This was all far out of her comfort zone.
So far out that she was probably in outer space somewhere by now.
Just what in the hell was she supposed to do with all this.
She thought about the time she’d almost accidentally kidnapped Hamish on the London train and shivered.
Glinna had been frantic in just those few seconds, God knew what Iona would be feeling right now.
She took the tea and sat down across from Mo. "So," she said. "Want to tell me why you're here?" That seemed as good a place to start as any.
"Not really."
"Tough. Tell me anyway." Echoes of her own mother’s voice caught Maeve by surprise and she almost laughed.
Mo took a sip of her tea. Set it down. Traced a pattern on the table with her finger. "I found your address on mum's phone. Last night. I was going to text you, but then I thought, what's the point? Texting never fixes anything. So I just… came."
"You came to Scotland."
"Yes."
"Without telling anyone."
"Yes."
"Because texting never fixes anything."
Mo's jaw tightened. "You ran away. When everything went wrong with the band, you came here. You hid. I thought maybe you'd understand."
Maeve frowned at this. She couldn’t exactly fault the logic, she supposed.
But still… She looked at this girl, this ridiculous, stubborn, clearly terrified girl, and saw something uncomfortably familiar.
"I did run away," she said. "But I was an adult.
And I was running from myself, mostly. What are you running from? "
Mo was quiet for a long moment. Maeve wondered if there was something wrong with her. Maybe she was sick, like Ellie. Maybe she was on the drugs, or, Lord help her, maybe it was alcohol. Maeve’s mouth went dry.
"There's this boy," Mo said finally.
Jesus. Was that all? Maeve bit her tongue and waited.
"At school. His name's Beau. He's in the year above me, and he plays guitar, and he's got this stupid floppy hair that he keeps pushing out of his eyes and I can't stop thinking about him.
" The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other.
"And he doesn't know I exist. I mean, he literally doesn't know my name.
I checked. I got my friend to ask him if he knew who Mo Faith-Nixon was and he said 'who?
' and that was it. That was the whole conversation. "
"Ah," Maeve said.
"And I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to make him notice me.
I tried being loud and funny and that didn't work.
I tried being mysterious and that definitely didn't work because apparently mysterious just looks like 'weird girl who keeps staring at you in the canteen.
' And now I've got detention basically every week because I keep doing stupid things to get attention and it's not even working, he still doesn't know who I am, and mum keeps looking at me like I'm broken and I can't tell her why because it's embarrassing. Because she wouldn’t even understand. Because… because I know she’s disappointed in me that I’m not behaving.
" She stopped, breathing hard, and stared at the table.
Maeve let the silence sit for a moment. "So you've been acting out because you're in love with a boy who doesn't know you exist, and you don't know how to handle wanting something you might not get."
"When you say it like that, it sounds stupid."
"Well, it is a bit stupid. It's also human." Maeve picked up her own tea. "Wanting something is terrifying. Especially when you're not sure you'll get it. The easiest thing in the world is to hide from it. Make yourself a problem instead of making yourself vulnerable."
Mo looked up. "Is that what you did?"
"For fifteen years." Maeve snorted.
"Did it work?"
"What do you think?"
Mo almost smiled. "Probably not, or you wouldn't be looking like that."
"Looking like what?"
"I don't know. Sad. Tired. Like you've figured something out but you don't know what to do about it."
Maeve blinked. Teenagers were horrifying. They saw everything. Had she been like that? She was beginning to understand why her mother had wanted all seven of them out of the house as soon as it was legal.
"Here's the thing," she said slowly. "Loving someone is terrifying.
There's no way around that. But hiding from it is worse.
Trust me, I've tried hiding. I've spent years hiding.
And all it does is make you smaller. Until, I think, you start to disappear.
At some point, you have to let yourself be seen.
Even if it means getting hurt. I mean, you have to play to win, right?
Even if that means losing some of the time.
Most of the time." Her stomach was starting to hurt.
Here she was, telling Mo exactly what she wished someone would say to her, and… it was working. Well, to be fair, she had no idea whether it was working for Mo or not. But her own head was starting to feel clearer.
"Does that actually work, though?" Mo asked.
Maeve thought about it, then shrugged. There was no point holding back now, she might as well be honest. "I have no idea. I've only really been in love once, and it didn't go well. To be honest."
Mo was watching her with an expression that was suddenly, uncomfortably shrewd. "Was it with my mum?"
The question hung in the air. Maeve could lie. Could deflect. Could change the subject and hope Mo let it go. She sighed. "Yes."
Mo nodded slowly, as if this confirmed something she'd suspected for a while. "It's complicated, isn't it?"
"Very."
"Why?"
"Because sometimes things happen. Things you can't take back.
" Maeve stared at her cooling tea. "I did things.
When I was drinking. Things I don't even remember doing, but that doesn't make them less real.
And your mother knows about them now, and I don't know if she can forgive them. I don't know if I can forgive them."
"Like running away?"
There was worry in Mo's voice now, and Maeve realized she'd scared her. Mo wasn't asking about Maeve anymore. She was asking about herself.
"Running away isn't unforgivable," Maeve said. "Your mother loves you to death. She'll forgive you anything. I promise."
Mo's shoulders loosened slightly. "You think so?"
"I know so. The way she talks about you, the way she worries about you, the way she lights up when you text her some terrible meme. You're the most important thing in her life. Nothing you do is going to change that."
Mo nodded, and for a moment she looked younger than fourteen, younger than the defiant girl who'd shown up at the gate. She looked like a kid who'd done something scary and was desperate to know it would be okay.
Maeve reached across the table and pulled her into a hug. Mo stiffened for a second, then relaxed into it, her face pressed against Maeve's shoulder.
"My mum would forgive you anything, too," Mo said, muffled. "You know that, right?"
Maeve didn't answer. But something shifted in her chest, some piece of a puzzle clicking into place.
Iona had come to Scotland. Months ago now, to get the band back together.
She'd stood in Maeve's cottage and made her pitch and never once mentioned the punch.
Never thrown it in her face, never used it as leverage, never even hinted that it had happened.
She'd just shown up, sheep bite and all, and asked Maeve to try again.
She'd already forgiven it. Hadn't she? She'd forgiven it years ago, maybe. Carried it quietly and never expected Maeve to carry it too.
Mo's phone buzzed on the counter. Then buzzed again. Then started ringing.
Maeve let go of Mo and reached for it. "Your mother," she said, and answered. "Iona."
"Is she there? Is she safe? Please tell me she's safe." Iona's voice was ragged, thick with tears and relief and barely contained panic.
"She's here. She's safe. She's fine."
The sound Iona made was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "Oh thank God. Thank God. I've been calling everyone, I thought, I didn't know what to think."
"She took a train. And a bus. Walked the last mile." Maeve looked at Mo, who was watching her with wide eyes. "She's resourceful, I'll give her that."
"Can I talk to her?"
Maeve handed the phone over. Mo took it and said, "Hi Mum," in a small voice, and then Iona was talking, and Mo was crying, and Maeve stepped back to give them space.
She stood by the window, looking at Eejit eating the grass by the wall in the fading light and thought that this had been a good place. A safe place. The perfect place. But now… it was too small, wasn’t it?
"Here," Mo said, handing the phone back to Maeve.
"Hey," Maeve said quietly. “You’re not to worry. I’ll bring her. Is tomorrow alright?"
Iona laughed almost hysterically. "Alright? It’s brilliant. Perfect. Exactly right. Thank all the gods she’s with you, Maeve. I’m so relieved it’s like I can breathe again."
And in that one second, it all fit together. Just like that. The forgiveness, but also the trust. Iona trusted her with her daughter, the most precious thing in her life. The daughter that was named after her, even after everything that she’d done, even after that terrible night.
A lightness took ahold of her, like she might float away any second, like every bone in her body had turned to air. And Maeve smiled, really smiled, for the first time in fifteen years.