I square my shoulders.
Welcome to the real world where most people live.
“How can you live here?” he asks. “Just so you can make a point? Or force me to feel guilty?”
I turn to face him. “I don’t need to force you. Guilt is your preferred state of being. Guilt and abstinence. Keeping yourself beyond human emotions. The irony of it. Do yourPerllansknow you are the one that isn’t growing?”
Ugly words fly out of my mouth on autopilot. Because I too am hiding from my emotions. Every last drop of my energy is going into suppressing the need to fling myself into his arms.
He too is getting angry. Riled up by me, no doubt. “I didn’t drive 250 miles so you can psychoanalyse me.”
“Why did you come, then?”
“To bring you back.”
“Why? You think I need a lift? Because the only reason I haven’t gone back is lack of transport?”
“Because we need you.”
I stare at him in disbelief. Just for a moment, a tiny fraction of a moment, a stupid hope steals into my heart, then the word ‘we’ registers.
“I’ve already done all I can for the partners—”
“Not money,” he interrupts. “They needyou. With or without the money. Just you.” He says this like a challenge, as if it’s something I’m supposed to know already.
“They don’tneedme. They like me. I like them too. But they don’tneed—”
Again he interrupts me. “You really don’t understand. You can’t see yourself. You changed everything. Yes, Evan and Haneen have the vision and they are the heart of the community, and we all play a part, but you… you were the light, the creative light that inspired and gave everyone hope. You showed us by your example that we could do more. Without you, we wouldn’t have had the Easter opening. Or the press coverage. Even me… Even me.” He is breathing fast as if after a workout. “You think I run thePerllans, but three of them wanted to work foryou. Didn’t you see it? You are what makes everyone win. And we need you. Come back and help us win the fight.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he says, and his breathing slows down a little. “But you will. You always find a way, even when none of us can.”
My eyes sting, making me blink and blink to keep away tears.
“I’m so angry with you. I hate you.” The words come out in a whisper. “I travelled all the way to the other side of the country to get away from you and you followed me here to shout at me.”
“I didn’t shout,” he says quietly.
“But you’re angry. Why?”
“Because I’ve been trying to find your address for weeks. I’ve emailed you over and over.”
“I blocked you. You know that.” I can’t speak anymore because I’m crying.
Osian takes one step forward, then another, and pulls me into his arms. I try to struggle free, but he doesn’t let me.
“I believed you. For a time,” he says in a softer, warmer voice. “Before I found out that you did read them.” His hands rub up and down my back, warming me.
“How do you even know? TheY Tylwyth Teg?”
“Not them.” A ghost of a laugh. “Only Gmail read receipts.” His voice turns serious and intense again. “I could tell you were reading them, but later. Then you stopped, and it felt like a knife in the heart, like a real break up.” He lets out a groan that I feel reverberate through his entire body. “I tried everything; writing ‘URGENT’ in capital letters, or ‘Please answer’, and even at the end in desperation, ‘You were right’. But you never read them.”
I pull away and blink at him.
He wipes my tears with his thumbs, then pulls me closer and kisses me. Just a simple kiss on the mouth, but it’s firm, confident and deliberate. It feels like a signature on a contract.
“Evie, I’m not like you, that whole emotional intelligence business. It takes me a long time to work out how I feel. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.”
