‘Sure.’
I picked up my bag and jumped off the bandstand, and raced towards the tree. As I approached, Rachel stood up, shielding her eyes from the sun.
‘What’s happened?’ she said, squinting at me.
I stepped round her and peered up at the tree trunk at the place where Nick had carved his and my initials. And then I spotted it and my heart leapt.
‘Look at this,’ I said, my voice a whisper.
Slowly, Rachel turned, and peered up at the trunk. She reached out her hand and ran her finger over the brand-new carving that had appeared since we last looked, just below the other one:Rachel, April 2019. It looked worn, as though it had been there for some time.
As though it had been there for twenty years.
I waited, my heart in my throat, as she took it in. Then slowly, she turned to face me. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, her cheeks reddening. ‘This is… it’smad.’
‘You can see it?’
She looked back at the tree, then back at me, then shook her head. ‘I can’t get my head around it. Itcan’tbe real.’
‘But you know it is, right? You believe me?’ I so desperately needed her to.
She looked back at the initials and then back at me. ‘How can I not? But—’ she looked stern ‘—you do understand that this doesn’t change anything, right?’
‘What do you mean?’
A frown flitted across her face. ‘I know you really like this man, Ems. But he… it’s—’ She stopped. ‘It’s completely impossible.’
‘I…’ I’d been about to say I didn’t really like him, that he was just a man I’d met, but I stopped myself. Because Rachel had always been able to read me, often better than I could read myself, and I knew she was right. I didn’t know what was going on here, or why. All I knew was that, for the first time since Greg had died, I was thinking about another man. Ilikedanother man.
‘Oh, Em,’ Rachel said, and suddenly her arms were round me. I let my head rest on her shoulder and my tears soak into her jumper. When I pulled away, she pressed her hand against my cheek. ‘Is he still there?’
I nodded.
‘Go back to him. But promise me something.’
I nodded.
‘Don’t go falling in love with him, will you?’
I smiled. ‘I’ll try not to.’
Nick looked up as I stepped back inside the bandstand, a question on his face. ‘She believes me,’ I said. I didn’t tell him about her warning.
‘That’s great,’ he said, as I tucked my bag under the bench. When I looked back at him, he seemed thoughtful.
‘You okay?’ I said.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he said, unconvincingly.
‘Come on, tell me.’
He gave a small smile. ‘Am I that easy to read already?’
‘You must be.’
He sighed. ‘It’s nothing really. It’s just… I feel a bit sad that you’ve got someone to talk to about all of this and I… well, I haven’t, not really.’
‘What about your brother?’
