Page 39 of The Next Chapter

Harper just smirks, which is worrying. Very worrying indeed.

Still, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she launches into a fifteen-minute monologue about the fact that her foster parents thought that it would be nice to take one of the row boats out on the loch today.

I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone to have such strong feelings against row boats.

They’ve always seemed like one of the more innocuous members of the boat family to me.

But Harper really seems to hate them, as evidenced by the fact that she’s swearing up a storm.

At least she talks a bit more now.

I’d hoped that I could maybe have a positive impact on her, seeing as we’ve been through something similar, even if Harper doesn’t know it. But as she gets ever more sweary, I do wonder if I’m actually corrupting her further.

She finishes, ‘… and then they asked us to take a selfie.’ Her voice is dark. Selfies are obviously up there with row boats and vegetables in the list of things that Harper hates. We’ve eaten all of the food.

‘What have you got against selfies?’ Noah asks.

‘Nothing.’

Harper looks down at her vegetable pile. It’s not the selfie she had an issue with.

‘I get that it must be weird, feeling like you’re playing at happy families.’

And I do understand playing at being happy. Sometimes I think I deserve an Oscar for my acting skills. Or if not an Oscar, one of the lesser acting awards. The equivalent of a British Soap Star award, maybe.

Harper pulls at a black thread from her hoodie. ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ she says.

We all sit quietly for a moment then, until the silence starts to get uncomfortable. For me, at least.

‘Well, I’m going to take these plates in.’ I go to stand up.

‘I’ve got it,’ Noah interrupts. ‘You cooked. We can manage it, can’t we, Harper?’

God, if they’re alone, she will definitely tell him about the ‘wife me up’ comment.

But I’ve got nothing. Instead, I’m forced to watch as Harper and Noah carry everything into the cottage and strain my ears for words that sound like ‘obsessed’ and ‘married’ while they’re doing the washing up.

I don’t hear anything but sit silently stressing about the whole thing, just to be on the safe side.

‘All done. Shall I put some music on, just for ten minutes?’ Noah asks. ‘We should let our food settle before we start work.’

He’s not looking at me any differently. Maybe Harper really is going to do me a favour and not say anything.

She plonks down in her chair as Noah passes over his phone to her so that she can scroll Spotify.

I’m not sure when exactly it was decided that Harper would have dictator levels of control over what we listen to, but that’s the way it is. I don’t mind, she has good taste.

She puts on No Doubt and her and Noah talk about music a bit.

I just listen because No Doubt were one of the bands Beyond Baton Rouge were compared to.

I notice that Harper never maintains the same level of vitriol for Noah that she does about almost everything else.

I think it’s because he’s just so affable, it’s hard to muster any hate towards him.

It’d be like hating on a puppy, or a cupcake.

But a cupcake that has this prominent vein running down the front of its bicep that I’m low-key obsessed with.

We drink and chat and when it starts to get dusky, Harper says that she needs to get back. I breathe a faint sigh of relief. She really did do me a favour. I make a mental note to source yet more Pringles tomorrow.

‘I’d better leave you to it anyway,’ she says louder than she’s talked all evening and I’m hit with a dose of dread, deep in my stomach.

‘Harper.’

‘You know, because you’re madly in love and she’s obsessed and wants you to wife her up .’ She uses air quotes and adopts a high-pitched voice whenever she’s relaying my bits. ‘Whatever the hell that means.’

I sink down in my chair, halfway under the table at this point.

‘You’re welcome,’ she says to me, winking before she walks off.

I have a feeling that Harper thinks that she’s done me a favour, so I can’t even be irritated by this turn of events. Maybe I can just crawl right on under the table and run away. Noah has those long legs, though, so he’d definitely catch me.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see that Noah is looking at me, even though I am very determinedly not looking at him.

Maybe I’ll just go swan dive into the loch of death and be done with it.

‘I didn’t say that to Harper,’ I say, still not looking. ‘She overheard me on Zoom to Seb, but it was a joke. He was winding me up. I’m not in love with you, I know there’s no… you know, future.’ Why does my voice sound weak when it’s the god’s honest actual truth?

Noah looks… oh god, he looks in actual pain. That’s how bad the thought of me being in love with him is. He’s rubbing the back of his neck and frowning.

I stand up. I need to do something. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower; I’m literally covered in sweat.’

I make a run for the bathroom, thinking that the cramped little space is not the place you might want to be when you’re having a mild nervous breakdown. It’s claustrophobic enough in here without adding all of the heavy breathing I’m doing.

I turn the shower on and then turn it to cold when it splutters to life. Plumber! We need a plumber around here! I clutch the edge of the sink and look at myself in the small square mirror above it. I look like an animal trying to get out of a cage.

I just need a plan. Plans make everyone feel better.

What I’ll do is stay in the shower so long that if Noah wants to flee, he can do so without me catching him in an awkward half in, half out of the door situation (this actually happened to me once. Seb still brings it up).

I’m in the shower now. It’s not even a hair wash day, but I shampoo twice and then condition the ends. My skin is tingling and wrinkly by the time I switch the shower off, realizing that in my mad dash I didn’t pick up any clothes.

Instead, I dry off and wrap a towel around me. My hair is soaked, running rivulets down my arms. I don’t know why, but everything just seems so hyper focused here; my skin feels rawer than it ever does at home. There must be something in the water.

I pull open the bathroom door to find Noah sat on the couch, one ankle resting on the other knee. The cottage is dark, the heavy curtains pulled across the glass doors for once.

I think a part of me hoped that he’d still be here. That he wouldn’t walk away. I needed him to not walk away. I don’t know if the realization comforts or terrifies me.

He puts down his wine and walks towards me.

‘Lily,’ he says and I feel it deep in my bones. He twists a piece of my wet hair between the end of his fingers and I’m not thinking about how something feels different this time. I’m not.

‘I don’t know how to do this,’ he says.

‘We don’t have to do anything, it’s like I said, about the future thing.’

I try to get the words out with some gusto, but proximity to Noah is scrambling my brain.

‘I want to try, though,’ he says, ducking down to whisper in my ear, making my skin break out in goose bumps.

And oh god, how is it possible to get what you want and feel so conflicted about it? Because in this world, where Noah realizes that he wants to stay, where Noah figures out how to do this, I’m still lying. It’s still ruined because he doesn’t know who I am.

But when his fingertips trail across it at the edge of my tightly pulled towel, I kind of forget the whole ruined bit.

My heart is racing super fast.

‘You want to try, like girlfriend, boyfriend try?’ And who doesn’t appreciate clarity at a moment like this?

He nods.

I feel like I’m losing my mind.

Especially now since his hands are working my towel, then tugging on where it’s tucked in on itself. Then it’s on the floor and he’s kissing me. His clothes against my bare skin feel illicit out here in the open.

I don’t want to think about how this feels different, I really don’t. But I can’t help it. It feels like I’ve crossed some sort of chasm that I didn’t know existed.

‘Take off your clothes, please.’ I hardly recognize my own voice, it’s desperate and needy and wild.

Noah pulls me towards the couch, and I go, willingly.

In some deep, dark crevice of my brain, the thought that I don’t want to acknowledge pushes to be acknowledged.

How am I ever going to give this up?