“Look.” He grabbed his tablet, opening up an app and finding Callum’s profile. Then he proceeded to show me what felt like dozens of pictures from Africa, some selfies, some taken by others.
There was one I vaguely recalled being taken by Jaime when we were sat around a campfire, telling stories and being entertained by some of the locals. Callum had been talking about the stars – it was the night we’d seen a meteor and both made wishes – and we were looking at each other, his hand on my arm, a marshmallow on a stick between us that I’d just toasted in the flames.
I saw what Seph did.
Two people who weren’t friends.
Two people who weren’t going to be platonic.
Two people who were oblivious to anything else in the universe except each other.
Seph was watching me, probably noting my reaction. “You can see it. So could Callum’s hundred thousand followers.”
“And his cranky female fans.” I smiled wryly.
“Not really. There are a lot of comments about how in love you look. And how romantic it is. A rumour went round that he’d proposed. I’m assuming that’s not true.”
I carried on looking at the photos; silly selfies and ones of us working, and then there were three of me, in Marrakesh, in a courtyard in the Bahia Palace. I was watching a butterfly, the sun and shade working together to create what was almost a spotlight. The first two had me focusing on the insect, the blue of its wings the highlight. The third was me looking at Callum, smiling, probably laughing, at the moment. I looked free and happy and I remembered the moment with enough clarity to create the same goose bumps that I’d had when my eyes had locked with his and everything around us had stilled.
“That’s the one that made me pause too.”
I turned to Seph. “Why?”
“Because you’re looking at him like you just saw your life.”
Was I? The man taking the photograph had been the boy I’d rejected. Why had I not seen him then?
“I’m not sure about that.”
Seph grinned. “I am. But maybe you’re just not ready to see it yet. Or admit it. Ready for the next episode?”
I nodded, happy to lose myself in another few episodes and not think about the man who had complicated my life with just one more night.
Callum
In the follow-up toPeter Pan, it was one of the lost boys who grew up and married Wendy. When Marie read it to me, I always felt angry on behalf of Peter, because it should’ve been him who married her. He stayed alone and lost, flying back to Neverland.
Never growing up.
I sat in the garden my father had created in the middle of a cluster of trees. It was a secret garden, not seen from the house and sheltered from the area we used for barbecues. The plants weren’t full yet, new to the soil he’d turned over. There was a pond, well shielded from any small children – or Seph – falling in it, and a water feature that trickled peacefully.
In another couple of years, it would be a mecca for butterflies and bees, probably birds too. The roses would be in bloom, the lupins and hollyhocks tall and full, and every other flower that Marie loved would be here. It was an ode to her, because my father was apparently a romantic.
He’d bought the stone bench locally, the material weather-worn and smooth, probably years old. It was cool to sit on, positioned beneath a maple tree, allowing a view of the pond and the water feature, perfectly sheltered from any wind.
There wasn’t any wind now. It was still. I was still. The stillest I’d been since Max had told me that our mother had an affair after I was born and she killed herself when she found out he wouldn’t leave his wife for her.
It’s very hard to grieve for something you haven’t lost. Instead you lose yourself. How do you tie your identity to a person that you never knew? What do you become without that root to feed you?
The weekend had passed in a blur. My siblings laughing and smiling, my niece and nephew running their fathers ragged while their mothers looked on and laughed. My parents relaxed, please to have us all under the same roof because it rarely happened and it needed to happen more.
We all knew it needed to happen more.
Both Marie and Dad had gone through health scares in the last twelve months; Claire had given everyone a scare when she’d had Eliza. Time was short and we needed to live.
Footsteps fell softly behind me and I knew it was my father. I was leaving this morning, heading back to London after staying for one more night once everyone else had left, needing the silence.
“What else has gone through that brain of yours?” He sat down next to me.
