So I took him with me.
We caught a north-bound train out of King’s Cross. My parents’ home was four hours away, but I liked trains. With my grandparents living in London, I’d spent most school holidays trundling from Yorkshire and back again. The rocking motion soothed me. Even the smell of musty upholstery was nostalgic.
I had no idea what Micah was thinking. He was still clutching my hand an hour after he’d gripped it so tight in the hallway. I had no inclination to let him go, but at the same time, I had no idea what it meant. How I felt about Micah wasn’t new. It was the intensity I couldn’t swallow. The uncertainty. I hadno ideahow he felt aboutanything, let alone me. Was he holding my hand because he wanted to? Or because he was drowning?
Either way, I wasn’t letting go.
“How many trains is it?”
Micah’s gruff voice startled me out of my thoughts. “Two, and a bus. This one to York, then onto Scarborough. We get the bus from there into Whitby.”
“That’s long, man.”
“Well, we could have flown EasyJet to Manchester, but that’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
His grunt was noncommittal, and he went back to watching goal clips on his phone, funnily enough, of his old team based in Manchester, a time in his life he seemed to cling to whenever he talked about football. He never mentioned his short-lived stint in London before the catastrophic injuries to his leg had ended his career for good, and I never asked why. I rarely asked anything of him aside from what he wanted for dinner.
Perhaps I should have. Maybe if he found it easier to talk to me, we wouldn’t be where we were right now.
We changed trains in York and travelled an hour to Scarborough. Then it was another hour on the bus. Micah fell asleep leaning against the window... still holding my hand. No one around us had noticed. Not that I cared. If anyone gave Micah a wrong look, I’d deck them.
I roused him at our final stop and helped him off the bus, much to his obvious displeasure.
“I can walk, you know.”
“Well, you don’t have to. My parents live over there.” I turned him towards the old town nestling by the harbour. “The white house.”
“By the pub?”
“Of course. You’ve met my parents, right?”
He grinned a little. He’d met my raucous parents a few times and always,alwaysin the Fox when they’d been passing through on a knees up. “You said they weren’t like that at home.”
“They’re not. But the pub isn’t their home, and that’s where they spend most of their time. Come on.”
“They know I’m coming with you, don’t they?”
“Of course. I messaged my mum while we were still in London. She went out and got an extra sack of potatoes.”
Micah’s eyes widened.
I laughed. Couldn’t help it. “Oh, you sweet city boy. Hope you weren’t planning on watching your carb intake while we’re here.”
“I didn’t plan anything at all.”
“Even better.” I slung my bag over my shoulder and towed him towards my parents’ house. It was a large cottage on the outskirts of the old town with amazing views of the harbour. As a child, I’d spent hours watching the sea roll in and out and imagining how I’d escape the village by boat and travel to far-flung lands. I’d got as far as London in the end, and I was happy with that, but occasionally I found myself wondering what would have become of me if I’d stayed.Nothing. You’d be pulling pints in a different pub.
Valid.
My parents weren’t home. They’d made up the spare room for Micah, a double bedroom in the extension on the side of the house that was accessed through an adjoining door in my childhood pit.
Micah finally released my hand and flexed his fingers. “This is your room?”
“Wasmy room. I moved to London when I was eighteen.”
“Leaving your Batman poster behind.”
“Hey, I had a thing for Christian Bale. Sue me.”
