And today she’d surprised me.
I released her and she reluctantly let go.
With her standing so close, I searched her face, needing reassurance she wasn’t going to tell anyone about this. As I did, I realized for the first time that Eilidh Adair was a teenage stunner.
Before … I recognized she was pretty in a vague, distant way. But it was the first time it hit me she wasmorethan pretty.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised again. Quiet. No drama. “This isn’t mine to tell, Fyfe.”
Grateful, I nodded. “Thanks.”
“Right.” She swung around and gestured to the room. “Let’s get this place sorted.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I’m going to.” Eilidh pulled her phone out of her back pocket, hit the screen a few times, and then pop music blared from it. She grinned. “Need some tunes to help us along.”
I rolled my eyes, my lips twitching, but I let her have that.
Then we set about tidying up my house.
We broke for a snack and a drink and we chatted in my kitchen about an audition she had in Glasgow in a few weeks. She’d been accepted into a prestigious summer drama schooldown there and had gotten some real acting work out of it already. Her parents weren’t happy about the audition, because the agreement was that she could only take on acting jobs during the summer. But Eilidh could charm most people into doing anything, so I wasn’t surprised she’d talked them into letting her go.
We were finishing up fixing my room when I noticed the time. “Come on, I need to get you home.”
“I can ride back myself.”
“But you won’t.”
We rode our bikes out of Ardnoch to a wee tiny place on the outskirts called Caelmore. It was where Lewis and Eilidh’s architect dad had designed homes for himself and his brothers and sister. Their five homes sat spread in a row overlooking the North Sea. I didn’t know of many siblings who’d want to stay that close to each other in adulthood, and I thought it was pretty cool that Lewis and Eilidh got to grow up surrounded by aunts and uncles and younger cousins.
We stopped at the top of the long, narrow country road that led into their small family estate. Eilidh hopped off her bike, and I had to straddle mine to keep my balance as she threw herself at me.
When she pulled back, she kept her hands planted on my shoulders and stared unabashedly into my eyes. With all the maturity of a wise forty-year-old, she said, “You have to know that your mum’s actions aren’t about you.”
Renewed anger flushed through me. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Your mum is a deeply selfish person, Fyfe. That’s not on you. You’re amazing.”
Her soft eyes made me wary. I gently nudged her away. “Eils.”
She released me with a sigh and a sad smile. “I know you think this is some stupid wee girl crush, and it’s never bothered me that you think that. But it bothers me today. Because I need you to know that you’re amazing and that’s why I like you more than anyone else. You’re brave and smart. You stand up for people.” I assumed she referred to the time I chased off those boys who were bullying her when she was about eleven. Her hero worship of me had started after that. “And next to me, you’re, like, the most ambitious person I know. One day you’ll get out of here and you’ll do amazing things because you’re destined to.”
I smiled indulgently. “Eils.”
“I mean it. You’re a special person.”
I inwardly ached because … I could see she really did mean it. “Eilidh.”
She shrugged, giving me a cheeky grin. “I know I’m just Lewis’s wee sister and my opinion doesn’t mean much. But I wanted you to know that. Oh, and I won’t tell anyone. Not Lewis. Not anyone. Promise.” She pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek before I could stop her. Then she hopped back onto her bike and rode toward her family home.
That nightas I lay in bed for the first time truly alone, I held on to Eilidh’s words. They kept the question of why my mum couldn’t stand to stay around me at bay, when usually it would have tortured me into insomnia.
Instead, I wrapped myself in the phrase “You’re a special person” like it was sleep medication, hearing Eilidh Adair say those words over and over until I finally drifted off.
One
EILIDH
