I kept hold of her hand as we walked back to the lodges, everywhere quiet, just the glow of lights around the buildings and in people’s rooms signalling that we weren’t on our own.
“Do you wish we could go back?” Wren stopped as we grew closer.
“To when?”
“We first met.”
“I don’t know what I would’ve done differently.”
“Not to change anything. Just to be back there when it was easier. No responsibilities. When we didn’t have to adult.”
“You always adulted.”
She laughed. “I really didn’t.”
I wasn’t going to argue. “I think I found it harder then than now.”
“Maybe. I can see that.”
“Would you still have been with Jonah, with hindsight?” I don’t know why; the question was important to me.
“Yes. He was my first love. The biggest love of my life so far. I know I ended it and I don’t regret it. I don’t blame him either. Sometimes I wonder about getting in touch with him.”
“But you don’t.”
“No. I don’t think it would be healthy. For either of us.”
We sat down in a swinging seat on the decking, legs touching, hands still together. As if the last eleven years hadn’t happened.
“Is this healthy for us?”
She was silent for seconds and I didn’t think she was going to answer.
“Honestly, I don’t know. How much have we actually changed?”
“I have a few grey hairs.”
“Me too. And forehead wrinkles.”
I laughed. “You really don’t.”
The light from a nearby lamp caught her smile. “This is weird, Callum.”
She moved her hand away and I felt grief rip through me. A loss. Something’s hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen her back then.
“I know. It’s a false situation: we’re here, doing something unreal with this programme and…” I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say. She’d made it clear years before that she couldn’t be what I needed. I didn’t know then what I needed, so I was never sure if she was right.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel right now. Matt – the ex – my parents. There’s been a lot happen and I don’t know where I’m meant to be any more. Apart from I signed this contract for these months and after that, I have no idea. There’s a chance of a job in New Zealand that’s permanent or research in Alaska where I could start a PhD. There are things I probably should be doing or have done at my age and I’m nowhere near those milestones.”
I stood up, my legs unstable. “I know all of that and I get every word of it. Don’t think I don’t understand.”
She stood, faced me, her eyes whirlpools of thoughts I couldn’t read, her face stern. Then her arms were round my neck and she pulled herself up to me, her lips meeting mine, demanding a kiss I would’ve given her anytime.
Wren
It was probably something in the stars that made me do it, or the sultry heat of the night. What it wasn’t was common sense or rational thinking. I did it because I wanted to, because he was Callum and beautiful and my fixed mark even though he’d never been found himself. He tasted of the beer he’d had and him, his lips soft and the scruff he had rough against my face and he was him. Like I remembered, but better. More.
He froze his hands on my waist, not moving them, just like the first kiss we’d shared besides that fireplace in the small living room, as if I was still a virgin and he didn’t want to spook me, in case like an unbroken-in filly I fled.
