‘Find him?’
‘You know. In real life.’
‘No!’ I shook my head. ‘Absolutely no way. I am not just turning up out of the blue, I’d give the poor man a heart attack.’
‘Fine, fine.’ Rachel held her hands up in mock surrender. ‘But you need to think of something, otherwise you could spend the rest of your life sitting around worrying about it and that’s no good for you or Flynn.’
I agreed. The trouble was, I was still no closer to coming up with a solution.
Luckily, the universe came up with one for me.
The next morning after dropping Flynn at school I logged onto my emails as usual, fully expecting the same result as always. But this time as I scanned the screen, the breath left my body.
There was an email from Nick.
I stared at it for ages, the words blurring in front of my eyes until I couldn’t see anything at all.
Nick had replied, but there was no subject, and no clue as to what the email might contain.
My hand hovered over the mouse, ready to click. But I couldn’t do it. What if the words he had written made my whole world implode?
I picked up my phone and called Rachel.
‘Can you come?’ I said, my voice small.
‘Darling, I can’t right now I’m at work,’ she said. ‘What on earth’s happened?’
‘It’s Nick,’ I whispered, almost breathless. ‘He’s replied.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘I know.’
‘Okay, open it now. I’ll stay on the phone.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. I was completely paralysed with fear.
‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fine. It’s just words. Words can’t hurt you.’
I sat, frozen, with my mobile pressed against my ear, my other hand poised, ready to click. And then, I did it.
And I read the words that were about to change my whole future.
34
NICK
It took me a long time to decide whether to reply to Emma. On the one hand, how could I face her, after everything that had happened? The ripple effect of the letter she had written was so far-reaching it felt as though it would be impossible to look her in the eye.
On the other hand, just seeing her name got me thinking about her again, and all the feelings I’d spent so many years suppressing came flooding back.
In the end, it was the thought of what Andy would have told me to do that got me to reply.It doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past. You still love her. Go and see her.
And I knew he was right. I’d adored Dawn, she’d been my childhood sweetheart, the love of my young life. But there had been something special between Emma and I, something magical – and in all the intervening years since we’d been together, I’d never met anyone else like her.
I needed to know what she wanted to say to me.
Even then, though, it took me a long time to get the tone of the email right. These were the first words I’d said or written to Emma for twenty-seven years. They needed to be perfect.
