And, for the first time, I let myself want more.
twenty-three
KIT
Never Let Me Go - Florence + The Machine
It started with a knock at the front door, late on a Friday evening. I hadn’t been expecting anyone, just a night alone in my Kensington home.
Maybe Scottie had lost her key?
Placing the wine bottle down mid-pour, I peered out of the kitchen and down the hall, trying to see if I could spot the interruption through the small window at the bottom. Another knock pushed me out of my chair, and I smiled as I passed the photos I’d recently hung in the hallway: Scottie and me in Paris, Windermere, London. Everywhere we’d visited over the last few months.
“I’m on my way,” I shouted, marching towards the door, the person’s impatience causing me to forget the safety checks. Ignoring the spy, I grabbed the key, twisting it in the lock.
The door opened a fraction, the safety chain pulling taut.
“Hello?” I peered out, trying to get a look at the tall figure, but their face was covered by the dim light.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” a man apologised. His voice sounded familiar, a memory scratching at my brain. “My name’s Jon. I’m looking for Scottie Rossi?”
“She’s not here.” I moved to close the door, assuming that I’d have met him before, perhaps screaming for attention in a paparazzi crowd. The press had been sniffing about for months, trying to get an exclusive on Scottie. They’d done just as much damage over the years as her father had.
“I’m not a journalist,” he insisted, his tone turning desperate. “I used to work with her.”
I paused, my blood turning cold. Had I known him? Was that why he was so familiar?
“With her father?” My eyes strained through the gap in the door, paying more attention to his face. I traced lines, crinkles at the ends of his eyes, soft laugh lines that highlighted a life well spent, a good tan from long days spent out in the sun.
A familiar chocolate-brown gaze that caused my heart to race.
It couldn’t be him? Right? With his American lilt, familiar build and height. It had been so many years…Thirteen?
“I didn’t know what he was doing,” he said, the words strangled. “I was her coach. I found out after. I’m here because I want to make it right.”
And when his head hung, catching on the light shining through the gap, my legs turned shaky under me. I swallowed, trying to speak, struggling through a dry throat, every ounce of my body in shock.
Finally, I managed to speak aloud the name I hadn’t let myself say in over a decade. Not even while alone, afraid of the memories I’d dig up again. Not since that cold winter, when I’d run away to Scotland and found more of myself than I ever thought possible.
“Jonah?”
On the other side of the door, a head snapped up to mine. That reaction was all it took for me to slide the security lock, the door creaking on its hinges as I opened it wide, my heart threatening to explode with anticipation.
The light from the hallway behind me shone brightly, revealing his shocked face clear as day.
It was him.
“Kit?” he gasped. The colour drained from his face, his jaw slackened. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
He was no longer a young man, but the years had been kind; his middle age still showed, still highlighting every feature that had made him attractive in his youth. Age suited him like a well-tailored suit. His dark hair was now salt and peppered with greys that gave him a grizzled edge, the lines in his face only refining it, distinguishing him.
He was the same Jonah. The same man I remembered from all those years ago. The only one that had ever made me feel like enough. Like I could fit with another.
“Neither do I,” I barely managed with a chuckle of laughter, trying to cut through the heaviness of the moment. The smallest smile crept onto his lips, his hand awkwardly rubbing at the back of his neck.
“I think maybe you should come in,” I added. “If you want, of course.”
Reality suddenly crashed into me, that January morning replaying itself. I’d gotten up an hour early, my bags packed the night before, and crept out of his house without a trace. I’d written a note, left it on the counter, and left, catching the earlier bus. Maybe it had been cowardly to leave like that, but we’d both known what had to happen. And I knew how much having to say goodbye, having him watch my bus pull out of town, would have stayed with me forever.
