We need more peas.
I follow Aidan up the driveway to the door of the big house. A man who’s about as far removed from Aidan as it’s possible to be answers and ushers us inside. He ignores me entirely, but I don’t mind. Observing Aidan trying to hide his impatience for the rich dude’s waffle is amusing enough to keep me occupied.
When the man has left us—well, Aidan—to it, he turns to me with a dry grin. “No cuppa. Never get offered one at houses like this.”
“Did you really want one? I’ve never seen you drink tea.”
“It’s not the tea, it’s the humility. If I’d been offered one at the house where I fell, I might’ve been on the ground drinking it when that truck came round the corner.”
But then you wouldn’t have met me.And as soon as I think it, a wave of self-loathing hits me so hard I rock on my feet. Am I seriously wishing so much pain and suffering on Aidan just so I got a chance to be with him? To feel this way about someone else when all I truly want is for the earth to swallow me up?
Aidan shakes me. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. Come and look at this.”
He tugs me to a nearby weeping willow tree and shows me a handful of leaves. “Willow scab, see? And black canker.”
I peer at the dark brown spots marring the delicate leaves. “Does that mean the tree is diseased?”
“Yeah. It has a fungal infection too.”
“Will it die?”
Aidan walks around the trunk of the tree and examines more leaves. His scrunched-up frown is adorable, but I can tell he’s worried—and it’s different to the concern I’ve seen painted on his face over the last few days. This I can handle, because I know he has the answer.
“It could die,” he says after a protracted pause. “But there’s lots we can do to keep it alive.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll probably start with pruning.”
“That’s like cutting the toxic bits off, right?”
“Yup.”
“Then what?”
“Fungicide treatments. They have to be done regularly, though, or the disease will come right back.”
I wonder if he’s flinging a metaphor at me on purpose. I doubt it, because he’s got that look on his face he always gets when he’s talking about trees—the one that takes him away from me for a little while. He walks around the tree again, muttering under his breath, and I’m as captivated by him now as I was when we met, but this time there’s no plaster and bandages. No tubes protruding from him and dried blood smearing his skin. This time the pain we share is unseen, and for the first time ever, I feel like I can beat it.
* * *
Aidan
I thought he’d be bored watching me trim branches from the sick weeping willow, but Ludo hangs on my every word and even climbs up a few feet and does some of the elbow work for me.
He jumps down, eyes brighter than I’ve seen them since the first shot of sedatives were pumped in him. And the light is real too. At least, I think it is. Not being able to tell the difference scares the shit out of me.
“Do you want me to go higher?”
“Not without a harness.”
I brace myself for him to tell me he doesn’t need one, but he nods. “Maybe next time. Do you need to do anything else?”
“Just lecture the toff dude about anti-fungal treatments. After that I’m done for the day.”
“So we can get food and go home?”
“If that’s what you want.”
