Felt afraid as if something awful might happen?
And on it went. I mean, are they serious? This is me almost all the time these days. But isn’t this the natural way to behave when you’ve learned that the worst possible thingcanhappen?
Aren’t I just…right?
Brecon Beacons, four months earlier
Charlie was parked up with a Gillian McAllister novel and an excellent view of the extremely steep hill that Oliver and Fearne planned to cycle down today. She squinted through the drizzle that sequined her windscreen. It turned the scenery around her into an abstract painting: streaks of burnt-orange bracken, the heavy gray of the rock face, and the smudgy shapes of her two favorite people at the very top, barely distinguishable from their bikes.
On the drive, Fearne had asked—as she did periodically—whether she could tempt Charlie to have a go.
“You can borrow my bike!” she’d enthused (she always said this, too).
“Would I really be the Charlie you know and love if I opted to spend my free time on a wet rock?”
“It’s so fun, though, Charlie!” Fearne had said, leaning forward into her seat belt to pop between Charlie and Oliver in the front seats. “And is itreallymore fun to spend your time in a stationary car?”
Charlie’s explanation—the coziness, the reading time, the fact that she was still part of things without having to throw herself down a cliff face—hadn’t satisfied Fearne, but Oliver hadn’t seemedbothered. He always took Charlie as she was. That was nice. It didn’t mean he was apathetic, just that he didn’t want to change her.
Charlie’s phone buzzed. She put her book down, using her car keys as a bookmark.
Hey, you doing ok?
It was from Berty.
It was the oddest sensation to see his name on her phone again. She and Oliver had been together almost ten months, and things were going dreamily. If they ever argued, it was because Oliver worried about Charlie, a trait that she found difficult because it reminded her of Berty, who had often been overbearing. But she’d recently met Oliver’s parents, who both struggled with depression, and had learned a little about the effect that had had on Oliver’s childhood. It was hardly surprising that he worried about her—it was what he’d grown up doing, as his mother and father dipped in and out of periods where they were almost unable to care for him. These days, when he fussed over Charlie, she felt much more comfortable reassuring him that she was just fine.
Oliver was the new life she had chosen, and she was committed to making it work.
The trouble was, she had spent twenty years with Berty. She had been so sure he was her future. When she had imagined building her family—when she’d started her very first mood board of the life she wanted, on the Isle of Ormer, with the wild cliffs and the checkered farmland—it had been Berty sitting beside her.I can’t wait for us to start our life there together, he’d said.
Oliver never said things like that.
She clicked the phone screen off and stared resolutely toward the hill ahead of her. It was heavily wooded, and those tiny smudgypeople had set off into the paths between the trees, so she could no longer see Fearne or Oliver, but she imagined their hunched figures zooming between the trunks. She was here with her wonderful best friend and her gorgeous boyfriend. Screw Berty. He’d left her, left that dream, left her absolutely heartbroken. She didn’t even need to reply.
What did he want, though? Why was he getting in touch?
The phone buzzed again.
I know Brianna will have told you I’m seeing someone, too—I’m happy for you and this Oliver guy and obviously not trying to interfere. I just worry about you sometimes. It would be nice to know you’re ok. X
Charlie breathed in sharply. Brianna hadnottold her Berty was seeing someone. They’d not spoken much lately—Bri could be so judgmental, and last time they’d hung out she’d launched into a great tirade about the “state” of Charlie’s life. Charlie had also noticed herself feeling a little afraid to speak to her about Oliver because she sensed Bri didn’t approve of him. Charlie kept up contact nonetheless, which Oliver found baffling.Why are you even still friends?he asked her once.She doesn’t seem to make you happy.
What a strange thing to say, Charlie had thought.That’s not how friendship works at all.
So yes, Charlie would have expected Brianna to tell her that Berty was dating someone. Why hadn’t she?
Charlie was so absorbed she didn’t notice the hum of helicopter blades above until it was loud enough to shiver through the car’s bodywork. The helicopter was a red one. It was flying low—very low, actually. Everything else was quiet. Aside from the helicopter’sominous, loudening roar, Charlie heard nothing but the wind and the odd bleat from a sheep grazing between tussocks of grass. She stared out of the windscreen and thought,Does he love this new person the way he loved me, with every fiber of his being?
The helicopter was close enough now that she could read the letters on its side, though it took her another moment to register their meaning. It didn’t help that the first line was in Welsh.Wales Air Ambulance Charity. Funded by the people of Wales.
She sat up straighter. The helicopter seemed to be heading toward a clearing on the hillside. It was landing, its blades loud as thunder now. Everything else was so still and quiet, moorland stretching out on either side of her car, but the space around the helicopter was a whirlwind. Trees bent and buffeted, grasses lay flat.
Her phone buzzed for a third time. This time, it didn’t stop.
She looked over at the driver’s seat, where she’d set her phone down.Fearne calling.It spun, slowly, in little lurching movements, like a child’s toy.
