Page 54 of The Next Chapter

By the time we get back to the car park, there’s an ambulance waiting for Harper. I don’t know what worries me more, the fact that she goes into it willingly, or the fact that she endures her foster mum kissing her head over and over.

‘We’ll see you!’ I call to her. ‘When you’re back.’ I don’t know if she doesn’t hear or if she’s ignoring me. And then it’s just me, Noah and Lola standing in the car park, shaking.

‘Well, I never drink, not anymore, but I think tonight calls for a brandy.’

Lola’s day has been even more full-on than mine when you think that she drove to Manchester and back. In a day.

I go to follow her, but she turns around and says, ‘Go, your cottage is waiting for you, Lily,’ and walks away, leaving me with Noah.

‘Come on, you must be freezing,’ he says, and I am shaking. Though what exactly is making me shake is quite frankly a toss-up at this point.

I don’t argue. My brain is running static.

I can’t think. I just follow Noah through the gardens and into the cottage.

There, I sit on the couch, my back straight and my hands primly crossed in my lap.

Noah goes to get some towels from the bathroom.

He moves to sit next to me and tilts his knees so that they’re touching mine. It settles me, just an inch.

‘What a day,’ I say, thinking that it doesn’t cover everything today has been, not by a long shot. This can’t be the same day that I had a meeting with Mr Vandergilden, even if that was eleven hours ago.

‘So…’ I draw it out, thinking that if ever there was a time for honesty, it’s now. ‘You never knew that she had a baby?’ I ask.

Noah shakes his head. ‘She told me everything. After you left, she came and told me everything.’

I’ve started to shake again. It’s been an intense couple of hours, but also maybe I am colder than I realize. Noah gets up, switches on the kettle and goes to the bedroom, returning with the duvet. I wrap it around me, like a giant fluffy chrysalis. I look and am ridiculous.

‘No,’ he tells me, handing me a cup of coffee. Milk and sugar. Fuck my enamel. Oh dear, I’ve gone insane. ‘But it does make sense.’

‘How so?’ I ask.

‘Lola’s always been… how can I describe it? Not cold exactly, but just detached, from life. She’s never really let anyone get close to her. I think she missed you, all these years.’

‘She was in an impossible situation.’

‘I know,’ he answers.

‘I don’t hold it against her. You shouldn’t either.’

‘I don’t, Lily, don’t worry. I wondered a lot about why my parents didn’t give me up for adoption when I was younger. They obviously never wanted me.’

‘I’m so sorry, Noah.’

I hope he knows that I mean for his parents, for lying, for everything.

‘I know you said that you didn’t see a future for us. And the old me wouldn’t have disagreed,’ he starts, looking down at his hands. There’s a faint flush high on his cheeks. ‘But something changed for me. I like you, Lily, I want to try to make this work.’

I’m still shaking, but I nudge a little closer to Noah.

He takes the duvet and wraps it around his shoulders too.

I’m pressed up against his side. I start talking, thinking that I’m close to maxing out my capacity for unscripted emotional talks.

‘I really like you too, Noah. And not just because you’re so nice to look at, like, really nice.

Lola gave this whole speech about how you have to really go for the things you want in life sometimes and it dawned on me that I’m more like her than I realized.

I was running away from everything, from her, from you. ’

He smiles and a bit of his hair falls forward onto his forehead, a bead of rain on the end.

And no, nope, I cannot lose my head over a bead of rain.

‘But I just need to be honest, because I know I’ve given the impression that I’m this fun-loving, free spirit,’ I carry on, appreciating how his eyes have gone all soft around the edges, ‘but Noah, that isn’t me, it was all an act.

I’m not a free spirit, I’m not even particularly fun unless it’s in a very controlled environment.

I love to-do lists and adding things to to-do lists that I’ve already done just so that I get to cross them off.

That’s how I get my kicks. I don’t want you going into this believing that we should make a go of it to be based on completely false advertising. ’

‘Are you done?’ he asks at the end of my little soliloquy.

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Good. Because I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you haven’t been giving the impression that you’re all fun-loving and fancy-free.

I mean, sometimes, you are those things – people can be more than one thing at once, I reckon – but a lot of the time you’ve been you.

I’ve never seen someone eat so many vegetables on holiday.

I’m guessing you have health anxiety too? ’

I’m taken aback. ‘Yes, well, there is that. Several dead parents and abandonment issues. Comes with the territory.’

‘I don’t care about those things. I know about those things, and I still like you. Who doesn’t add things to a to-do list that they’ve already done?’

‘I don’t know, I always assumed well-balanced people?’

Noah pfts. ‘Lily, remember I have a favourite pen.’

‘You do have a favourite pen. And a favourite mug,’ I remind him. ‘That one with the hill on it.’

He laughs. ‘It’s actually Mt Kilimanjaro, but okay.’

‘Shush.’ I put a finger to his lips. ‘I’m having a revelation here. Do you think we’re… more alike than we realized?’

‘What, because we both like running, and notebooks, and we’re both writers? I think maybe you’re right! Plus, you did jump out of a plane.’

‘Yes, though for the record, that was a terrible idea. I won’t be doing that again.’

Noah’s smiling and I am a fool for that smile. I shove my wet towel at him. It smacks him in the chest.

‘But we’re different too. And that’s okay. No one is one thing all of the time. It’s like the scenery. People are always changing and impossible to describe. There’s just too much.’

‘I think you understand people better than you think, Noah.’

He smiles, wider this time. ‘I’ll have to go to Italy still,’ he says, stumbling over his words. ‘I want to travel. And I don’t know how the future might look, not really, but I know, it’s like you say, I want to try.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to not travel, it’s what you love.’

Noah looks at me.

‘There are things I think I could love more. All this time, I think I just needed a reason to come back.’

It’s me. He means me. I’m the thing that he thinks he could love more.

‘We can figure it out together,’ I say with determination. ‘I think that, if you wanted it, I could come sometimes. So long as I see the itinerary ahead of time, of course.’

‘Of course,’ he agrees.

And then he’s holding me close again. I can feel the rhythm of his heart beneath my ear.

I had absolutely thought that this would end with us both naked.

I’d hoped that might be the case, to be completely honest. But actually, burrowed under the duvet with Noah, watching the rain splatter against the doors of the cottage and feeling optimistic about the future for once, well, it’s just perfect.

The next morning, (okay, it’s closer to midday) there’s a tapping at the door to the cottage.

I yawn and Noah shifts in the bed next to me. I don’t want to wake up. I’m still tired from the sleepless nights I’d spent with Elton trying to slowly murder me in my sleep.

The knocking gets more insistent, so I pull myself out of bed, wrapping my dressing gown around me. I think I know who this will be.

Harper.

‘Harper.’ I smile at her. ‘You look so much better.’ At the edge of the garden, I can see Harper’s foster dad watching us.

‘You came back,’ she says, looking at me like I might be a puzzle in need of figuring out.

I think for a second. ‘I did. Do you want to go for a walk?’ I look out beyond her to the gardens. It’s not raining, but it’s not boiling either. The air is fresh and the grass looks impossibly greener.

‘You aren’t dressed.’

It’s not a no.

‘Give me one minute.’

I hurry back to the bedroom, rifling through my case.

‘I’m going for a walk with Harper,’ I tell the back of Noah’s head.

‘Okay.’ He twists around to look at me and I can’t help myself. I lean down and kiss him goodbye, feeling unbelievably smug at the fact that I can do that now.

‘Come on,’ I say to Harper, stepping out into the garden, closing the doors behind me.

‘I’ve got her,’ I call to her foster dad. ‘I won’t let her out of my sight.’ He nods and waves, his shoulders hunched and tired.

Harper won’t meet my eyes.

‘Let’s go down to the loch,’ I tell her, thinking that we’d better steer clear of the forest.

Harper follows a pace or so behind me and I wonder if she’s just here to punish me for going. That she’s going to subject us both to a long, stony silence. But then I’m the adult here, I need to go to her.

We reach the loch. It’s deserted, now that the summer is technically over. There’s a low mist rising off the water, ethereal and mildly spooky.

I sit at the edge of the dock. Harper sits next to me, swinging her feet off the edge.

‘I’m sorry I left, Harper. I shouldn’t have gone like that, without saying goodbye.’

She doesn’t speak for a minute, and I think stony silence it is. Until eventually she says, ‘Lola said that she’s your mum. Your real mum.’

‘Is that what Lola said?’ I ask.

Harper shrugs. ‘She said she gave birth to you and gave you up for adoption.’

I nod. ‘That’s right. My real mum died when I was eighteen, though.

Lola’s my birth mum.’ I take a deep breath.

‘Sometimes, the people who give birth to us, they’re not meant to be our parents.

It might not be their fault, or it might be, but it has nothing to do with us.

’ I hope Harper gets what I’m saying. I’m not being particularly subtle about it, so chances are she will.

‘It’s still fucking shit, though.’

‘Yep,’ I agree. ‘It is. I spent a lot of time trying to pretend it was okay when really, I should have just admitted how angry I was.’

‘I can’t imagine you angry. You’re all weirdly nice.’

‘I don’t get angry much, but sometimes I wanted to scream about how unfair it all was.’

For dramatic effect, I do a small shout across the water.

‘It’s fucking shit!’

My strange shout makes Harper laugh. I think it’s maybe the first time I’ve ever heard her laugh properly. She sounds so young.

She slaps a hand across her mouth, like she can’t believe the noise that she just made.

That makes me laugh and then we’re both laughing, our legs still hanging down.

‘I feel angry too,’ Harper adds, even though she’s smiling. I don’t tell her that this is news to literally no one, because then she shouts too, louder than I did.

‘I’m sorry that I scared everyone.’ Her voice is small now.

‘It’s okay, Harper. So long as you’re okay. I know that things can be unfair sometimes.’

I shout again, getting louder still and then suddenly, between laughs, we’re both shouting about how unfair life can be.

I’m breathless and my stomach squeezes from laughing so much but it’s cathartic, all the shouting. My voice is halfway to hoarse when I say to Harper, ‘I really am sorry that I left.’

She shrugs and bumps her shoulder against mine. ‘You came back, that’s what matters.’