Are you okay, baby?
Do you want me to come down there and be with you???
Cam would come too
Shit. I don’t have your address
God, are you okay?
I want to kill Alec. I can’t believe him
I hope you’re okay. This is so messed up
Cam quit. Wish I could leave too tbh
My stomach lurches. Cameron quit? Because of me? It’s exactly what Fraser was afraid of. The men are falling apart, and I did it.
I keep scrolling until I reach his last message. It’s a voice note. I steel myself before pressing play.
“Hey, honey.” Fraser’s deep voice comes down the line, and the tears I’ve been frantically pushing down all day stab my eyes.
God. I miss him so bad. He keeps talking, his voice strained.
“I don’t know if you’re going to listen to this, but… God. I’m sorry. I won’t keep messaging you if you don’t wanna talk. I bet you want some space. Just—” He takes a long, low breath. “Shit. Can you do one thing for me? You take care of yourself, okay? I know you were scared to go back to London. And it seems like your friends back in the city are pretty shit. So just…do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. S’all that matters to me. If that means blocking us, then you do that. Need you to be okay.”His voice cracks. I hear a muffled bleat, and he sighs heavily. “You wanna talk to your mammy, do you? C’mere, ye wee ball of lint.” Crumpet’s familiarbaasounds right up against the phone.“She misses you,” Fraser says. “Been crying for you all day. Call me if you want to, sweetheart. I miss you too. I can’t believe it’s only been a few weeks. I…” There’s a long pause. Another sigh. “Aye. I miss you.”
The voice note ends.
I let my phone fall back onto the quilt. I feel like my insides are being wrung out like a wet flannel.
I can’t believe it was only a few weeks, either. It felt like I was at Lochview for a lifetime. Long enough to change completely. To become a different person.
Long enough to fall in love.
I cover my face with my hands and finally let myself cry.
SIXTY-NINE
ALEC
Click. Click. Click.
My hand shakes as I press the staple gun into the corner of the flier and press it firmly into the corkboard.Click.
All around me, the Dewdrop hums and gossips. It’s Sunday lunchtime, and the place is full of the warm scent of gravy and potatoes. Half the village is here, eating and drinking. Outside, rain washes over the windowpanes, blurring the green of the hills. It should be a cosy scene, but I am anything but relaxed.
I feel like I’m dead.
Four days. It’s been four days since Summer left. Since Cameron disappeared. Since I ruined everything.
I pull a new flier out of my satchel and move to the other side of the community corkboard. The words blare up at me in black and white:
SAVE OUR FARM
The local council has announced a compulsory purchase order for Lochview Fibre Farm, with a deadline of one week. Scan the barcode TODAY and sign the petition to help save our land!
It’s shit. I know it is. I know nothing about marketing or design. I just don’t know what else to do. Fraser and I have spent the last four days travelling around the county, plastering every petrol station and corner shop and lamppost we can find with leaflets. We’ve reached out to buyers. We even tried making Lochview a Picturegram account.
It’s not working. We’re not getting through. Our account has five followers, and our pictures are only liked by spambots. The fliers aren’t attracting enough attention. None of this is working.
