It’s so hard not to think about him on this walk. To wonder where he is instead – who he’s with. To keep from imagining him on every twist and turn of the path.
“Angus!”
Am I imagining that too? But, no, Priya’s voice is real. She’s stops ahead of us, and is gazing upwards, pointing to a figure silhouetted against the sky.
“Mum! Rowan! Look!” she shouts again. “It’s Angus!”
“No, honey, Angus isn’t walking with us this time,” Lila says sympathetically. “I’m sure that’s just someone who looks like…” She trails off, her feet slowing. “It can’t be him? Can it?”
I peer up. His build does have a certain Angus-like quality to it. The deliberate stance. And then there’s the way his hands rest on the straps of his bag. Contained. He has dark, tousled hair, like Angus, but so do a lot of men. His clothes are non-descript colours: navy and grey. Again, something Angus would wear. Again, not unique to him.
I can’t tell.
I keep trudging upwards. Coming closer.
My heart speeds up.
I try to squash it down, but the feeling rises anyway, awful and exhilarating, sickening and aching, joyful and painful.
Hope.
“Rowan…” Lila’s hand brushes mine. “It’s him.”
It can’t be. He isn’t here. He’s facing the wrong way.
He isn’t here.
I need to run. Hide. What will we say?
We draw closer. It is impossible to deny. Those are Angus’ serious, dark eyes. Those are Angus’ full lips, drawn into a frown. That’s his tattoo peeking out of his sleeve.
“Angus!” Priya runs towards him, and he breaks into a smile, crouching down and swooping her up in a hug, his arms broad with muscle against her slight frame. He whispers something in her ear, and she nods seriously, and they both glance at me.
Our eyes lock.
The force of it takes my breath away.
Then he’s letting go of Priya, and undoing his bag, and he’s left it on the side of the path, and he’s walking towards me, and all that time, his eyes stay glued to mine.
“What are you doing here?”
It comes out more abruptly than I intend.
“I could say the same about you, London,” he replies, and thatvoice. The husky rasp of it. Even after a year, that voice does things to me. “Out here on my walk.”
“I’m hiking. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“And it’s notyourwalk. You can’t own a walk.”
“Says the English girl.”
We stare at each other. The world spreads out around us in every direction.
“Why are you here?” I ask again. “You’re going the wrong way.”
Angus shakes his head. He’s standing too close. My head is full of him. I want to lean into him. To rest in the warmth of his arms. To breathe in the woodsmoke smell of him.
