Chapter Thirty

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship – Louisa May Alcott
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There was thunder and lightning and the sound of my heart exploding.

I clenched the CD tight in my hands, then dropped it into my lap as my fingers began to tremble, panic and fear rising swiftly inside me like the swell of a great wave.

It was like nature knew I was back in my old room, only me and my gramma in her house, and that Drew, my new comfort, was gone. It knew. Nature, the universe, knew, and it was torturing me for thinking I could ever be strong enough to be without him.

“Oh my God,” I repeated, voice cracking. I scrambled to get the phone, to reach the doorway, anything, but it was too late; the flashbacks had started. They started with the worst. My father’s cold body, that white sheet pulled up around his shoulders. Dead.

Instantly my pulse quickened to keep pace with the furious rain, and my mouth went dry, my throat constricting.

I could see his pale face, so lifeless and still he could have been carved from marble. He had lost all warmth by the time I had seen him.

As the lightning sparked and the thunder crackled, I found myself watching the journey to the hospital, my breathing becoming erratic under the strain of the memory. It had just been me and my gramma in the car, my grandpa bed-ridden by that time. The violent storm followed us the whole way, my thin twelve-year-old hands clenching and shaking, shuddering through my hair, swiping at my red, tear-soaked cheeks. My cheeks hurt now, in the present, from the memory, as though I was rubbing incessantly at them as I had been doing that night.

The drive had been terrifying and lasted days, though the hospital was no more than ten miles from Gramma’s house. When we arrived, it had been to a torrent of tears as thick-falling as the rain, and it was torture to sweep past endless sad faces in the blank corridors—so many people worrying about their own loved ones—to reach the room where my future disappeared. Everyone had been crying, and it had hurt. It’d hurt so badly. It was a keen, slicing pain inside that shredded each of my organs as though they were being grinded down the side of a cheese grater. My heart had faired the worse, each ventricle torn away from its neighbour. My brain has escaped the bloody damage, because it had already disconnected, but those few days that followed of it being separate from my body had done damage of its own; it had been reality starved, and now it was scarred because of it.

I clutched at my chest, feeling that soul-splitting pain as acutely as I had done That Night. My heart was erratic with fear, but convulsing with the recollections of fresh grief. I’d once seen a program on the TV discussing the possibility that organs had memories too, and I knew, as every crudely healed wound in my heart split apart, that it must be true. My heart remembered best.

I was on the verge of hyperventilating, yet I knew it wasn’t over. Those flashbacks just barely skimmed the surface, and the storm was still new. I would be subjected to an age yet of my very worse memories, all flashing, in Technicolor, before my dampening eyes.

“I can’t,” I rasped, but the sound didn’t even reach my own ears.

My gramma was asleep mere meters away in her room at the end of the hall. Drew could be on the other end of the phone that waited for me in the hallway. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t take myself to either of them, because I was stuck in place, my body so tense, so tight, it was holding itself captive, locked cross-legged on my bedroom floor. I couldn’t fetch help, and I couldn’t scream for it; my voice had all but deserted me.

I was deadly alone.

The visions kept coming. It was the funeral next. The eulogies echoed inside my ears, words I didn’t think I would be able to remember because I hadn’t been inside my head at the time.

Jack was my best friend, and had been since we were five-years-old. He was vibrant, playful, full of life. He could do anything—if he felt like it. The grievers had laughed softly at that, agreeing that my dad had been stubborn, but oh-so-funny with it too. I had just stared at my knees, at my black tights, water leaking from my eyes, from my heart, feeling like I was coming apart in a new way every second. Unable to ask anyone if it was supposed to feel this bad, unable to ask if it would ever get any better.

…And his stunning, lovely wife, and his beautiful, sweet, sweet daughter…I know he would never have wanted to leave them. Jack had never been scared of dying. He had only feared what he would be leaving behind.

I couldn’t remember who had said that, unable to even recall if it had been a man or a woman, but it started the tears flowing nonetheless, and I clamped my hand to my mouth as I cried, my body unlocking from the shock of encountering that memory, those words, that I’d never known I’d kept inside me. I scooted back clumsily, my hand slipping out from under me, making me jolt. Eventually my back hit the bed, and I shook against it, my shoulders quaking as those words spun around and around in my head. Never been scared of dying…only feared what he would be leaving behind…Never scared of dying…only feared what he would be leaving behind.

The memories were so loud in my head I could barely hear the thunder over them, the visions so explicit the lightning couldn’t make them any brighter. Only the rain seemed capable of fully permeating my ordeal, and I knew that was only because my heart was using it to keep beat, matching the excessive rhythm just so it didn’t totally shut down.

I couldn’t bear the eulogies; I couldn’t stand reliving the funeral, so I fought inside my head, forcing the visions on. I saw my mom’s face, and I realised immediately from the ghostly look in her eyes what memory it was I was reliving.

“I’m sorry, Ayah, I know this will shock you at first, and you’ll be very unhappy with my decision, but I think this is what’s best for both of us. We need a fresh start. So…Ayah, honey, we’re moving.”

I had gaped and stared, then cried and begged, pleading not to go, reasoning that we couldn’t leave Daddy’s house, we—we couldn’t leave Gramma! But we could, and we had. I could see us packing boxes and moving out as though the present-day me had been standing in our old lounge and sitting on our old lawn, watching my mom and my sobbing twelve-year-old self. When we had left, I had looked back one last time. My mom hadn’t.

There were brief flashes of goodbyes; saying it to my friends, saying it to my gramma. Nat, Jenny, and Cee’s faces had crumpled and creased, crying like only pre-pubescent girls could, but my gramma’s face had stayed smooth and graceful, the pain of being separated from me only visible in her eyes and the slight downward curve of her lips. She hadn’t wanted to make it any harder on me, nor had she wanted to make it any harder on my mom.

I thought of going to Gramma again then, just as a clap of thunder roared so loud it made me jump, shocking me out of my flashbacks. She was still only just down the hall, and maybe she was even stirring, awake, just unaware of how badly these storms injured me. And I could move, I could move my legs and my hands and I could probably get up, unsteady though I would be. But I didn’t.

I stayed slumped back against the foot of my bed, wrapping my arms around myself, gasping for breath as I forced the visions on, hoping that if I got through them fast then it would all be over quickly, hoping there was a finite amount of flashbacks set, as if they were queued up patiently, single-file, in the memory banks of my brain, each waiting to step up and take their turn. The faster I could get to the end of the line, the faster it would be over.

The next was quick, simple. Just me, young and miserable, lying on the floor of my new bedroom crying, alone.

Then I was in the other rooms of that Arundel house, watching my mom paint the lounge and wax the kitchen floor. She had been preparing and home-making, while I had just watched her sadly, feeling like no one understood, because clearly my mom was fine, clearly she was normal, going about her day-to-day chores, setting up a new home for us. In the meantime, I felt like I was being eaten alive from the inside...

But that was it. Somehow, I had reached the end of the line already. I had rushed through the flashbacks, urging each one on instead of dwelling on them and letting each one rip me apart a little bit more, thundering through them swiftly so there wasn’t time to start deeply sobbing, or to start rocking.

I was done. But the storm wasn’t. And as I sat there, holding myself, wincingat the flashes and the crashes, recovering, I realised there were more painful memories in my head, many more. They just weren’t coming. But maybe they should. They would come next time, during the next storm. It was possible I would be alone then, too. I had been alone this time, and I had survived. I hadn’t fallen as far apart as I usually had. It had been painful, and it had scared me, but I had survived. Alone.

So I let go of it. I sunk down onto the floor, pressing my face against the cool wooden floorboards, and I invited the memories to continue, to solider on. I willingly thought of more, choosing each flashback that came next, because I knew the only way to starve the memories of the fear they inspired was to rob them of it. So I did. I confronted them.

I thought about that evening in the new Arundel house, during the final week of my summer vacation, when the phone had rung in the middle of dinner, and I had watched my mother pick it up. She had greeted the caller, listened, and then had gasped softly, looking over at me, eyes measuring my face, my mood. My strength.

My grandpa had died, no more than two hours before, and the funeral would happen soon; he’d been ill for so long all the decisions for the service had been made, each by him. All that was left was to arrange it and ask people to come. We did. Of course we did. We went. But we didn’t stay.

We arrived late the night before the funeral, and we left the day after the service. My gramma had only had us, me, back for two nights, one day. Thinking about it now, that was even crueller than it had seemed at the time. But my mom had had work, and I, school. They were the perfect excuses for her to get out of that town—my town—as quickly as she could.

My hair fell down over my face and I pushed it away, trying to decide which memory to confront next. There were several more with the theme of goodbye—three more of my mom saying we were moving again, three more of me looking back, behind us, each time we left. But only one more of me saying goodbye to friends; there had been no one to say goodbye to the last couple times.

I could have thought through each of those times, but I didn’t. Nothing had happened in those towns, no real events, nothing of consequence. It had all been internal, everything important had happened inside me, and I knew that all by heart because I carried it with me every day.

So I skipped over all those memories. I skipped over all those years. Because they just didn’t matter. One thing did—I skipped straight to Honourshill.

It was changing now, I realised, what it was I was trying to do. I had decided to confront the painful memories, the fearful ones, but somehow that objective had fallen away. I was blocking out the storm, hearing only, just barely, the pattering of the rain, willing the rhythm to be soothing. The aching memories I had been thinking of had flashed through my mind because they were significant. That’s why they haunted me—because they mattered, because they were crucial to explaining my experience, my very being.

But not all my significant memories had been sad, or painful, or scary. I had new ones now, happy ones and exciting ones. I had alarming ones, too, but in a different way to the others. They were alarming not in a bad way, but in a warm way; they had been challenging and upsetting as they had been happening as real, live events, but as memories they were different. From this place now, in the present, my perspective changed them. They remained significant, but they were good. Honourshill was Good.

I remembered my first day in Honourshill, rolling to a stop in front of that unusual-looking house, with its pale yellow paintwork and duck egg blue windows and shutters. It was quirky and pretty and different, and I’d had no clue that I’d come to think of every inhabitant of that town in that same way. And with a smile.

Drew. I remembered Drew next, seeing him for the first time at the dinner party Cynthia had thrown. He had been fascinated by me right from the start. I had been fascinated by him, too, just not as deeply as I realised now. My calm distanced demeanour and need to over-think every word out of my mouth had quelled that interest at the time, forcing me to avoid his eyes and focus on Ericka, but from the start I had been able to tell he wasn’t an average guy.

And from the start, I had been attracted to him. I had just ignored it, told myself I was appraising his looks from an objective standpoint, merely observing people, as I was prone to. But it was different. I had decided he was attractive not because he was outright gorgeous, but because the way he smiled, the way he moved, made him gorgeous. His magnetism was in his air. It was intensity that made him smoulder, intensity that sparked from his dark eyes, and I had realised he was striking not because it was easy to do so, but because the chemistry had made such a realisation unavoidable.

After that, each memory proved the same thing; that only he could have broken through to me, because only he was interested enough, interesting enough.

I recalled him tricking me into working at the theatre, and the first time he called me Spitfire. And then I remembered the storm, how terrified I’d been, how I’d looked up, and he had been there in my ticket booth, so close his breath caressed my nose, one hand on my back, asking if I was hyperventilating, telling me his mom despised storms too. He had taken care of me—God, he had touched my face for the first time that night, and even then I hadn’t been too far gone to really feel it. Even when he touched my back it had made me gasp.

I had broken down, and he had helped me. More than helped. He had positively rescued me. And I remembered him rescuing me over and over.

I had sat for the portrait, and while explaining my past to him, I had broken down again, split apart. And his ever-warm, firm hands had scooped me up and held all my broken pieces carefully in place until I had been calm enough to generate some inner glue.

I dwelled on that night, the care he had shown me, how tentative and gentle each of his prompts had been to get me to tell him so much, everything. I had cried. Really, truly cried in front of someone for the first time in…I genuinely didn’t know how long. Drew had been a first for me in so many ways.

As I thought about him, a hundred flashbacks flittered through me all at once, tiny moments darting in front of my eyes, quick enough to leave no tangible mark, just barely giving me time to make out each one; there were too many hugs to count, each in a different setting, each warm and full and a little more pleasing than I had wanted to admit; times he had held my hand, my wrist, his thumb always slotting into my palm so I could hold onto him; glances, dozens of them, maybe hundreds, each one a little different from the last—some were subtle, covert, others intense and prolonged. Some sweet, some sad—wistful, thrilled, playful, pleased, awkward, confused, but all of them exceptional; I remembered a couple of piggyback rides, and sharing ice creams and lip salve on hot afternoons when our bodies were sweating and our lips cracked. And I remembered kissing—kissing his cheek, that first time; almost kissing on his bed one night; almost kissing him on my doorstep, and then here, in Everdale, kissing him briefly that morning, my mouth brushing the corner of his lightly, but enough to make me not want to pull away.

And it broke then. The spell of needing to remember everything, and the storm too, the rain slowing enough to catch my attention, to cause me to realise, when I listened, that the thunder wasn’t overhead anymore. I was able to count to fifty before I heard another distant clap.

I sighed against the hardwood floor, my breath heavy, my body as exhausted as my mind. There was something inside of me that still tingled with fear, that still didn’t like it when there was a flash through the window and the sound of thunder rolling away. The fear was still there. But it was a singular fear now. It was simply a fear of storms.

Before, I had placed so much more upon it; the fear of death, of being alone, of living, even. But I knew now that I just had to accept all that; that one day I would die. That there would be times I would be alone. And that living hurt, but it had to be done, because it made more sense to live and to be in pain, than to just drift, barely connected to life, and still feel hurt anyway.

The scary part about life was living it and still having unhappy moments. That’s what I feared about it. But it had to be done. And I understood that. Finally, I really, deep inside me, understood that.

With my hair sliding down in a sheath over my face as I lay on my bedroom floor, I fell asleep like a child.

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live – Dorothy Thompson
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I woke late the next morning, stirring closer to the afternoon than to dawn. My body ached from sleeping in that twisted position on the hard floor, one arm tucked under me, one bent down in front of my face, palm pressed to the wood. My knees had locked up during the night, and I could tell I hadn’t moved an inch as I’d slept, just slumbering straight through, my revelations and new feeling of acceptance comforting me for twelve hours straight. Things were peaceful in my mind as I awoke fully, and I felt happy inside just for feeling put together rather than pulled apart.

One of my first urges was to call Drew, but it was through pride, a joy that my request for him to leave had begun to pay off and so soon, as opposed to needing him because of my fear. I knew he couldn’t have known about the storm or else he would have called, no matter that I’d asked him to stay away.

I decided to leave it a while before I called him, showering and having brunch first, chatting for a while with my gramma too.

“Did you hear that storm last night?” she asked as she poured herself a cup of tea, coming to sit beside me while I munched my way through my cream cheese bagel and scrambled eggs.

I choked a little on my mouthful. “Uh, you could say that. Did you?”

“I must have only caught the tail end of it, because it seemed to be moving away when I woke up. How much did you hear?”

I was going to tell her everything. After making her read my journals, it only made sense to keep the lines of communication between us open and honest. But I held back, realising that she couldn’t have known of my crippling fear. She must have thought my childhood fear had been only that, and that I had gotten over it. Experiencing the storms was painful enough; after the first couple of times, I hadn’t wanted to relive them on paper too, so only my earlier journals, the ones she had not read, mentioned storms.

So I didn’t tell her. It wasn’t to keep her in the dark, but to give me a fresh start; I had reached new understandings, and I had done so all by myself. It was the only exclusively personal breakthrough I had reached. I wanted to keep it that way, just this once. All mine.

Maybe I wouldn’t call Drew about it after all. I would tell him, if and when it came up. But for now, it was mine.

“All of it,” I admitted, spreading a little extra cheese on my bagel; I wanted to gain a few more pounds. Another five, maybe ten, and I would look totally healthy, a natural and soft shape. My body had reflected my misery for too long, and I liked that it had started to round out this summer as I had changed. I smiled inside my head, promising myself to one day give Leta’s curves a challenge.

“Is that why you slept so late?”

“Pretty much. But I feel really good for it, well rested.” I smiled, taking a sip of my orange juice before I continued. “Actually, I think I’m going to call Nat again today; when I spoke to her yesterday she asked if I wanted to have a sleepover with the girls, just like we used to. I’m gonna tell her yes.”

Gramma beamed at me, creating a few extra soft-looking crinkles around her beautiful eyes. “That’s wonderful. Have you got any plans for today?”

“Why spending it with you, of course!” I cried, grinning, and she laughed, giving me happy butterflies inside.

It was Wednesday already. I knew I would have to leave on Friday, so I called Nat after brunch and asked if it would be possible for all four of us to get together before I had to leave.

“Of course! Cee’s got plans tonight, but I’ll order her to cancel them as soon as we hang up,” she trilled. I could hear the grin in her voice.

“Oh don’t do that, I can’t ask her to cancel anything. What’s she doing?”

“Nothing important. Honestly Ayah, it’s boring, she’s been looking for an excuse to get out of it anyway. And here you are! How early can you be at mine?” I’d forgotten what a steamroller Nat was. I laughed, pleasured by it.

I said I’d like to eat dinner with my gramma, so we agreed I would go over to Nat’s for eight o’clock.

“Awesome!” she exclaimed. “Hey, Ayah?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t eat too much at dinner. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted a sleepover just like we used to have. Pizza, ice cream, cookie dough, candy, chips, everything. I’m going to go to the grocery store as soon as I’ve called the others.”

I laughed again, thinking I could end up putting on the extra weight I wanted a little sooner than I’d imagined. “That sounds great. See you at eight.”

“You got it. Bye honey.”

I checked the time and found it was edging towards one in the afternoon. Gramma and I were going to go for a walk again, maybe go to the park and possibly even make a short shopping trip. She wanted to leave in fifteen minutes; Drew would be at work already, so he wouldn’t pick up. I decided to call him quickly and leave a message.

“Hey,” he answered after the third ring.

“Oh, hey,” I chirped, surprised. My body still reacted to the sound of his voice; my skin went fuzzy like a peach. “Aren’t you at work?”

“Yeah, but I recognised your gramma’s number.”

I tried to figure out which position he was working by listening to his background; I heard nothing. He was either in box or on ushering.

“Oh, well see, I don’t have long and if we talk properly I’m not going to want to hang up, so I’m going to pretend I got your voice mail and you can just listen, okay?” I declared, twirling the phone’s cord around my finger.

His laugh was so tender my heart translated it as him telling me he missed me. “Okay. Ahem. Here, let me make it authentic: Hey, this is Drew, I’m either busy doing something inconsequential or I’m saving the world. You know, one or the other. Leave a message after the tone and I’ll call you back. Beep.”

I laughed at his effort and held the phone tighter, just as I did whenever I left a voice mail. “Hey, superhero, it’s me. So I’m hoping you’re out getting cats out of trees or saving a child from a burning house, because I’ll be really disappointed if you’re being inconsequential.” I chuckled, tucking my hair behind my ear, and dropped the act, thinking about what I really wanted to say.

“Basically I just wanted to check in, and tell you we made the right decision. In a good way. Because I’m here and I’m dealing with stuff alone, and even though I love having you around, I’m actually managing it. The dealing with stuff, I mean. And, it makes me feel good. I feel really good today, actually. I even called the girls and we’re having a slumber party tonight, like we’re ten or something. I’m pretty excited about it, too, which I figure is a very good sign.”

I bit my lip, pausing. “I don’t really want to come home, not yet. Only because I should’ve come here earlier, and stayed longer. I’ll feel terrible, leaving my gramma again. I can’t believe I’ve only got two days left. But I’ve been thinking, maybe I can make this a regular thing, like buying a car—well, getting my license, then buying a car—and try to come see her as much as possible. She’d like it if you came once in a while too, you know,” I added, so he knew I saw him as much a part of my future now as I had before.

“I think she misses you. She really likes you. Not that I can blame her…” I had almost forgotten that it wasn’t his voice mail that I was talking to, that Drew was actually on the other end of the line, listening. It made it more intimate, somehow, to be saying these things straight to him. “Okay, I should go, probably. I just wanted to tell you things are good, and that despite not wanting to leave, I am looking forward to coming home. I want to see you. I’m worried you’ve dyed your hair some obscene colour in my absence.”

That made us both laugh, and with the illusion broken, Drew spoke up.

“It’s still brown, I promise.”

“Well that’s okay then. Mine, however, is pink. My gramma’s idea. She says I need to play up my femininity.”

“That’s not even funny, not about your hair.”

I smiled, leaning against the wall, thinking that sentiment made him so much like my dad. “Uptight. Don’t worry; it’s blonde, and long.”

“Good.”

A beat of silence passed between us, and I knew that had he been here, we would have been staring into each other’s eyes, letting the electricity crackle. I sucked in a breath and pushed off from the wall, catching myself. “Okay, so I’ll let you get back to work. I don’t want Colin to get mad and yell at me.”

“Yes, he’s very scary.”

Chuckle. “Very. I’ll talk to you tomorrow probably, to tell you what time I’m coming back, okay?”

“I’m not picking you up?” He sounded surprised. I melted for him, for thinking that, for being willing to do that. But I shook my head as I spoke, saying, “I’m not going to make you drive out just to drive back again, that’s stupid.”

“I don’t mind doing it.” I wondered if he really meant that he wanted to do it.

“I’ll probably get the train. You can pick me up from the station if you like?”

“I can do that. You can change your mind, though, it’s okay.”

I laughed, sounding and feeling warm-hearted. “It’s fine. I’m hanging up now. Get back to work!”

“Yes ma’am. Bye, Ayah.”

“Doon.”

It wasn’t until I hung up and thought back over the conversation that I realised I’d called Honourshill home. I smiled, leaning back against the wall; I was okay with that.

I can only go one way. I've not got a reverse gear - Tony Blair
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“Have fun!” my gramma called out, her voice following me to the front door.

“I will. See you in the morning. No wild parties while I’m gone!” I hollered back, and her chuckle flittered with me out onto the front walk. I had my pyjamas and fresh clothes for the morning stuffed in my bag, swung over my chest diagonally. My hair was in two long, Heidi-style braids, playing up to the idea that this slumber party would be just like the ones we’d had when we were girls.

With no license and no car to get me across town to Nat’s house, I had to resort to fishing my grandpa’s old bicycle out of the garden shed. It was gold—and brown in the creases of the joints, where it was rusting—and tall, but it was a comfortable fit. I tested the brakes warily as I pushed off down the street and then I was on my way, heading excitedly further back into my past.

It was a nice evening, cooler now that the storm had taken some of the heat with it. I breathed deeply as I cycled, able to smell the end of summer, the way the air seemed to be losing the musk it got from the heat, giving way to the freshness that came with fall. I didn’t even really think as I rode, just pedalled, breathing, glancing at the houses and the people I passed, enjoying the ride for what it was: a short journey somewhere fun.

Ten minutes later I was approaching the most intensely familiar part of town, the streets near Nat’s house where, two streets over from her, my old house was too. I considered taking a slightly different route than usual so I wouldn’t have to pass the house, wondering whether it would be healthy to avoid it, to bypass any possible dwelling. But I knew that was wrong. I was passing it by chance, and it was an opportunity to confront yet something else that I treated with such reverence in my mind.

My pedalling slowed as I neared my old street, but not through fear or because I was stalling, I just…wanted to go slow. Take my time. I was leaving soon, but I had no need to rush.

And then I was in front of it, putting one foot down on the sidewalk, training my eyes on the address of my childhood. Much like my gramma was, it was the same as it had been, yet not. The current owners hadn’t done anything drastic to it, no remodelling or rebuilding, but they’d improved it, brought it a little more up to date, giving it a little extra love. Most noticeably they’d put in new windows and repainted the front a rich cream, making it look newer, fresher. The old cracked paving stones that made up the front path had been replaced, and an array of dainty, bright flowers guided visitors to the front door. The fence was the same one that had been there when we moved, but the paint was fading badly now, chipped where the gate opened and closed, clipping the post; I imagined they would repaint it soon, wanting it to match the rest of the house.

It appeared nicer, neater, like whoever lived in it took great pride in it, even more than I had, we had. And I realised, spotting the tricycle in the front yard and the water wings left on the step by the front door, that it must be a young family that lived in it now, which was maybe why they had put so much effort into giving it a new lease of life; it was possibly their first house, their first real, true investment, and they wanted to make it a perfect home for their child, or children.

I found myself smiling. There was still a part of me inside that felt sad looking at it, still sad that I’d ever had to leave it, but that part grew smaller as I imagined how happy that family must be in that house. That home. Whether they had only one child or more, I knew first-hand that this house could help contribute to a perfect childhood. So I smiled, waving at the house just a little, with my hand down at my hip, feeling a bit silly about doing it. And I pushed off, on my way, wishing that family well, hoping they would enjoy themselves there for years to come and never have to leave if they didn’t want to.

From there it was only a minute to Nat’s. I arrived in spirits as high as they had been leaving my gramma’s, my short pit stop failing to dampen them at all. Nat and Jenny greeted me at the door, declaring Cee was on her way.

“I love your braids, by the way,” Jen squealed as she tugged the left one, laughing, while Nat gave me that hard, tight, happy hug I loved. I grinned when we pulled away and then followed them to the living room where we talked as we waited for Cee. She arrived ten minutes later and hugged me hello, just as Nat had, her plum hair falling into my face as she bent to embrace me in the chair I sat in. Everyone then got to their feet, Nat clapping her hands.

“Okay, come on, the pizza should almost be ready, and we’ve got tons of other crap to eat up in my room, so let’s go.” She herded us into the kitchen where she loaded us all with sodas and plates, following us up the stairs with one huge pizza that appeared to have every topping imaginable.

Five years later, Nat’s room was different, having been redecorated to suit a teenager, not a child. It reminded me a lot of Drew’s room, with the lack of visible wall space and the sheer volume of things. Like him, she too had a wall devoted almost entirely to a collage of photos, most of which depicted her, Jenny, and Cee in a number of intriguing situations at varied locales. There were several other faces in the photos I didn’t recognise, especially the faces of the boys, but otherwise it was just as I had expected, lots of laughter, silly poses, and sunshine glinting in the background.

A second wall was tacked with a different kind of collage: fashion spreads ripped from magazines and homemade sketches, reminding me Nat was into fashion now.

She had a double bed and two beanbags, one pink, the other yellow.

As I looked around, the girls got comfortable, moving in such practised strides through their tasks I could tell they had set up a system long ago; Jenny dealt with choosing the CD, a music-lover; Cee dragged the beanbags together and gathered pillows and cushions, creating the perfect space to lounge in; Nat shoved all sorts of items off her bed and brought all the food and drinks to the stretch of clear floor Cee had left in the middle of her circle of cushions. And I lingered, watching them, looking around, feeling strange yet thrilled to be in this room with them, back in their lives, being treated as if I hadn’t ever really left.

We all settled down, Nat calling Bean Gun (their version of shotgun, but for one of the beanbags, obviously,) for me, saying I should get one because they had to pamper me to keep me around, and saying it had to be the yellow one, because it matched my hair.

“I still can’t believe you’ve still got it long, it’s amazing,” Cee breathed, stroking a hand down a braided pigtail, her other hand holding a slice of pizza.

“Can we see it?” Jenny asked, tugging my other pigtail from beside me on the second beanbag, which she had seized with a grunt and a giant leap from beside the stereo, skipping the Bean Gun process.

Glancing around at their eager faces, I nodded, “Sure.” I untied the band of my left braid while Cee undid the right for me, and I combed my fingers through my hair, straightening it out so they could see its full length. Slumped in the beanbag as I was, my hair gathered in my lap, soft from my intensive conditioner, and light from the summer.

“Jesus,” Nat grunted, looking impressed.

Cee ran her hand down the length of my hair, saying, “It smells really nice, by the way.”

It felt bizarre, having someone other than Drew touching it. My gramma had been doing it all week, but that had felt natural and easy; she had been doing it all my life, with the exception of more recent years. Drew had been the first one in a long time, and I knew my hair meant a lot to him, how I let him see it, how I let him touch it. It didn’t feel like a betrayal, as such, to be letting my old friends share that part of me, too, but I liked it more when it was Drew’s eyes and Drew’s fingers, I realised. I liked Drew’s eyes and fingers more than most people’s anyway, regardless of what they were doing.

“Thanks. I normally wear it up—but that’s kind of complicated.” I reached for a slice of pizza, giving a shrug.

All three girls sunk down further in their seats, holding their plates to their stomachs or their laps, but all looking at me. Nat, as ever, took the lead. Her eyes were turned on my face meaningfully, encouraging me. “Go on then, you can explain. Tell us about your mom, too; you hinted something was up about that in the diner. We want to know everything.”

I looked at Jenny and Cee as though I wasn’t sure they did want to know, but they nodded back at me, Jenny with her mouth wrapped around her pizza slice, Cee with a small smile.

“Okay,” I agreed, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Okay, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning. When I left here…”

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence - George Washington
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It was later that night, around ten thirty, and I had told all my stories, explaining what I’d done to myself after we moved, the relationship with my mom, and at their particular prompting, all about Drew, how well we knew each other, what our relationship was like, why I had told him to go home.

Nat’s parents had arrived home around nine, her dad clutching her sleeping younger sister, Melanie, to his shoulder, smiling at us from the doorway. Jean, Nat’s mom, stood just inside the door talking with us, asking me for an update on all things Everson, while Roger put Melanie to bed. He was smiling again when he returned, and I was touched to see he looked happy to see me, not just out of politeness, but genuinely so. Roger had always been a special type of man—a really good dad. And he seemed almost moved by my presence in his daughter’s room. It made me wonder if Nat had been very sad when I left, and when we fell out of contact. I imagined Roger and Jean asking about me at the meal table, like parents did, asking Nat if she’d received a phone call, or an email, and then, over time, asking less, because they kept hearing the same reply: “No.”

I ached inside, hoping that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want to have hurt them, any of my girls, but I knew I must have if they had loved me half as much as I had loved them. And they had. I didn’t doubt that they had. Maybe still did, though not as strongly, that love weakened by time and distance.

Roger and Jean had disappeared after five sweet minutes of enquiries that had made me recall how well I had always gotten along with them. Now we were changing into our pyjamas, laughing as Jenny misjudged it when she stuck her foot into her bottoms and almost fell over. She caught herself with Cee, and they toppled against the bed, laughing. I tied the cord of my bottoms and pulled on my singlet, then sunk back into my yellow bean bag, returning to watching the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice with Nat.

“This is my favourite part,” she told me, nudging my arm with her elbow.

I recognised the part she was talking about. Elizabeth was running through the rain and came upon Mr Darcy. He was about to propose, and she was about to refuse.

“Did you know they weren’t supposed to do this bit?” Nat asked me, staring at the screen.

“What, argue?” I asked as they began to bicker on screen.

“No, almost kiss.”

Nat pointed at the screen, and it was happening now; Mr Darcy was arguing with Elizabeth about the manner in which she had refused him, Elizabeth arguing back that his proposal had been an insult. They bickered, heated, and then when he came right up to her, angry, they leaned towards each other, just a little, just enough, wanting it. “That,” Nat pointed.

“What were they supposed to do?” I asked, and Jenny chuckled across the room, rolling her eyes as she searched her bag for her shirt.

“Nothing, I don’t think. Glare, probably. But, when they were doing the screen-test Matthew and Keira did the almost-kissing thing, and the director or someone, I don’t know, thought it was great and wrote it into the script. It wasn’t in it before,” she explained, grinning at me, “Undeniable chemistry.”

I smiled back at her, seeing a romantic side to her she hadn’t had at twelve, when she had been all loudness and retorts and teasing, just as I had been. But that was a long time ago in the landscape of how a person’s personality morphs, particularly during adolescence. I figured there had probably been several boys since then, some hardening her, some softening, but all, probably, coaxing out the romantic in her that had been so reluctant before. I wondered if she had a boyfriend now. I opened my mouth to ask when Jenny spoke up, head popping out of the shirt she was pulling on.

“Speaking of undeniable chemistry,” she began, her eyes twinkling, and Cee chuckled beside her, throwing me a sympathetic smile that told me I was about to be teased. Or grilled. Or both.

I bit my lip, knowing what was coming.

When I had explained about Drew earlier they had been interested, fascinated even, but they hadn’t probed as deep as I had expected, they hadn’t made me uncomfortable. They knew there was something between him and me, they knew how much he had done for me that summer, and they knew he may or may not still be with Addy. But they hadn’t pushed past that, and I had been surprised. It figured they had been saving it.

“So what is really up with you and Drew?” Jenny prodded, tying her hair into a ponytail and shoving her feet into some novelty zebra slippers.

“I told you everything.”

“Um, not quite,” Nat said, and I looked back at her, finding her eyes were glued to the screen as she spoke.

“What do you want to know?” I itched a little, giving them such potential open access, but I knew these girls were ruthless when it came to getting information they wanted; it was just easier to ask and get it over with.

“Do you love him?” Jenny asked, smiling as she said it, that wide, sweet smile I had never forgotten. She came to sit back on the beanbag beside me. “Are you in love with him?”

I shook my head and yanked my fingers through my hair. “I—he has a girlfriend you know. I think.”

Drew and I must have been more interesting than Elizabeth and Darcy because Nat finally hit pause, staring at me. Cee swayed nearer, also dressed in her bedclothes, as curious as the others.

“Are you in love with him?” Jenny pressed, not unkindly.

I shrugged, but it was an uncertain gesture, not a cool one. “What’s the difference between them?”

All three girls narrowed their eyes, as though suspecting me of feigning ignorance. “Ayah, you know the difference.” Nat sounded like a teacher chastising me for playing dumb.

Sighing, I nodded, sinking down deep into my beanbag. “No, I know. But isn’t it supposed to be hard to tell? Even when you’re with someone, it can be hard to know. And we’re not together. I haven’t even kissed him. I haven’t kissed anyone.”

Now, all three looked at each other. “No one?” Cee echoed, face soft. It wasn’t full of pity, but it wasn’t full of belief either.

“No. I told you what I’ve been like. There’s been no one around, in any capacity, let alone romantic.”

They all seemed to need a minute to take that in. It made me wonder how many boyfriends they’d each had, not just Nat. I didn’t get a chance to ask.

“So, let me get this whole thing between you straight,” Nat spoke up as she leaned back on her elbows, directing a suspicious gaze at me. “Drew, who is gorgeous, spent all this summer pursuing your friendship, sketching beautiful portraits of you, giving you sweet, random gifts just because he felt like it, and who stares at you like he wants to devour you—”

I coughed out my interruption, “He doesn’t—”

“Yes, he does,” Jenny cut across me. “We saw it at the diner, remember? God, it was intense.” She glanced over at Cee, for confirmation. Cee nodded. “And I don’t even mean just in a lustful way,” Jenny continued, “There’s no way he can still be with that girl because he looks at you like you’re, like…”

“His,” Cee provided to which I blinked, stunned.

“So, he does all that,” Nat picked up again, bringing my gaze back to her, “And on top of that, he practically pulled you apart at the seams and stitched you back together. And he brought you back here, which helped even more. Right?”

I nodded. “Right.”

“And you’re potentially in love with him,” Jenny ended, face apologetic, like she didn’t want to be the one breaking the news to me.

All I could do was bite my lip again.

“Dude,” Nat breathed, and she shook her head. “You are so fucked.”

They all laughed, sweetly, as though it was endearing that I, the girl who had no romantic experience, who had never so much as been kissed, could be in love with my best friend, someone, furthermore, who was likely unavailable.

Nat shook her head again, not wanting it to seem like they were laughing at me. “No, seriously,” she said, and I could tell she was intent upon clarifying. “Because when he kisses you, and I’m sorry, it has to happen or else I’m going to cry for a year—when he kisses you, you’re going to lose your shit.”

I was able to see the humour in that. My grin was wry. “Well, now, doesn’t that sound attractive?”

“Actually,” Jenny piped up, “it really is. It’s great.”

“How great?” I wanted to know.

Jenny and Nat grinned at each other, and spoke simultaneously; “Incredible.”

Cee laughed, meeting my eyes, then shook her head. “I promise they’re not as trampy as that makes them sound.”

Only a second passed before Nat hurled a pillow at Cee for her comment. “Whatever,” Nat sniffed, rolling her eyes. Cee giggled, tucking the pillow into her lap. “Look, Ayah, just promise me something?”

“What?”

“You have to keep us updated on every little thing now. I will tattoo our cell numbers onto your palm if I have to.”

“Oh, yeah, she will. Because she’s a tattoo artist now, didn’t you know?” Jenny cracked.

“You know what I mean! You just, you have to tell us. This is better than that shitty soap opera Jen watches.”

“Hey!” Jenny objected.

“You watch soaps?” I asked her, surprised. It didn’t seem to fit.

“Pssh. Just One More Day. It’s great, Nat doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Jenny scoffed.

“She really doesn’t,” Cee agreed, nodding, “But in this case, she’s right. It’s shit,” she added, grinning.

“Augh!” Jenny grunted.

“Anyway, will you do it? Don’t make us lose you again,” Nat said, giving me a silly smile, but the joke didn’t reach her eyes—she was asking me in all seriousness not to lose contact with them again.

“I won’t,” I promised. “I’ll keep in contact now. I want to.”

“Good,” Nat chimed, and Jenny and Cee both echoed “Good!” together as they grabbed some cold pizza. Nat picked up the remote for the DVD player. “One more thing,” she piped as she hit the play button.

I reached for a handful of M&Ms. “What’s that?”

“When he kisses you, and you lose your shit, please don’t have sex with him right there, okay? It’s reeeaaally hard to get their respect back after that,” she groaned.

Jenny laughed. “Oh like you would know. You virgin!”

“I don’t have to have had experience with it to know stuff. I can be wise without having made the mistakes,” Nat defended, eyebrows arching into her hairline.

“Mmm hmmmm,” Cee and Jenny hummed together, the noise full of teasing.

As I watched them dissolve into giggles and begin to throw M&Ms at each other, I felt like I had missed out on so much, all the in-jokes and late night gossip sessions. But, instead of falling into self-pity mode, I chuckled, picked a few M&Ms out of my handful, and joined in, determined not to miss any more.

You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from - Werner Erhard
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All too soon it was Friday. My bag and boxes were packed, sitting by the door, and my gramma was hugging me goodbye, cradling my head.

“Come back soon,” she urged, surprising me by adding a soft, vulnerable, “Please?”

I pulled back, squeezing her hand. “Of course I will. I’m staying in contact now anyway. Just you wait, I start at my new school on Monday, so Monday night you’re gonna get a long, babbling phone call wailing about how my new teachers have put the fear of God into me about senior year.”

She laughed, reassured. “I’d like that. Oh! Wait!” She glided away, making me wonder what she’d remembered, and returned a moment later with my journals, holding them out for me. I touched the cover of the diary on top but didn’t take it back, shaking my head.

“Keep them. This way, I’ll have to talk, instead of bottling things up.”

Gramma smiled, nodding. “I like that idea. But, are you sure? You can do both, write and talk.”

“I know. And I probably will, eventually. But for now I need to stay in this mode, I need to keep talking. So I don’t slip back into old habits. Keep up the momentum, you know?”

After we hugged again, she put the journals on the floor so she could take my bag for me, freeing up my arms so I could grab one of my two boxes. We took them down to the cab idling by the curb out front—my gramma wasn’t able to drive me to the train station, as she didn’t have a car—and I doubled back for my second box, the one containing my dad’s things. I inhaled the scent of his cologne as I brought the box back to the cab.

My gramma and I embraced one last time, and I savoured everything about it, how she smelled, how tight she squeezed me, yet how soft her hand was on my hair. It felt different to be hugging someone goodbye for only a short while, not indefinitely. I liked it. It felt sad still, but there was a happiness in this hug there had never been in any others. A hope.

“Tell Drew hello for me, won’t you?” she said as we pulled away. She placed a kiss on my cheek. “Tell him I meant it, what I told him the other day, when he left.”

“What did you tell him?” I couldn’t stop myself asking.

She patted my hand, chuckling. “Just tell him, please?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon,” she said, reminding me of my promise to visit.

“You will. We’ll talk sooner. I’ll call when I get home.”

The last-minute comments and goodbyes lasted several moments longer, but finally I got into the cab and then I was on my way, leaving one Home, on my way to another.

A/N: This will be my last update while I’m 21-years-old. W00h00! Lol. I was worried I wouldn’t get this chapter out before my birthday on Thursday but thankfully I just about managed to squeeze it in before the madness starts. As ever I hope you’ve enjoyed it, but let me know what you think either way. Check your inboxes or below for your review responses. Mwa!

Special note: I already have an idea of what improvements and cuts need to be made in the redraft, but having your extra point of view is an indispensable tool, and I would love it if you’d let me borrow it whenever you see something that needs altering. When I finish the story I’ll need to cut out all the excess here, so starting now, (if you haven’t already) I’m asking anyone who’s willing to, to point out whenever something is confusing, boring, or unnecessary. This applies not only to individual phrases and lines of dialogue, but right through to whole paragraphs, scenes, chapters and even characters. If something doesn’t work, I’d love it if you let me know. If you can help me, not only can I make this story better, but I’ll also, like, love you forever. And I will. Really. I mean it :) hehe. Thanks. BIG kisses!

1.) Thanks to my buttercup fresh Beta, FutureWriter, for giving this chapter a clean yellow glow.

2.) To receive email notifications when I update this story send me an email with ‘Honourshill notifications’ in the subject line to sillymoo8 (at) hotmail (dot) com (but in the usual email format, obviously.)

3.) Current FAQ’s

Q: I’m just a little confused. Has Ayah gotten rid of Drew totally?
A: After seeing in this chapter that Ayah called Drew and intends to see him upon her return to Honourshill, I’m sure you’ve figured out that, no, Ayah never intended to cut Drew out totally. Her sending him away from Everdale was just so she could deal with some things on her own and become more independent. It might be romantic for Drew to be Ayah’s knight in shining armor, but it’s not very healthy and it doesn’t create a very balanced relationship. She’s hoping to address that.

4.) Thanks for reviewing:

Rach: No, use ‘amyway,’ it’s awesome! And what the hell are you talking about, impostering you? Thankies for reviewing gup. Mwa!

Gonzogrig: I was really surprised you said the last chapter puts Ayah in the right position to NOT end up with Drew and that, gasp, you would be okay with that! You’re right, most readers will kill me for that. But everything you said makes complete sense; yes, this story is a romance, but only because it’s about Ayah’s journey and this part of her life includes her first flirtation with love. And I kind of like that you’d be happy for her to end up alone, because you’re right, it would mean she’d finally be health and happy and independent, which she deserves. But, as you guessed, I’m not going to say what will happen, and her fate is sealed now, in temrs of what I plan for the story’s end. You’ll just have to sit tight and see what happens. Thanks for the wonderful review :) mwa!