‘I was going to go straight to Perranporth and get myself sorted.’
‘You didn’t?’ He’d planned to stay there last night.
‘No, I came straight here.’
‘You couldn’t keep away.’
‘I couldn’t,’ he agrees.
‘Did you feel compelled to draw on the sand again?’ I haven’t forgotten the grit on his fingers.
‘No, I felt compelled to seeyou. Drawing on the sand was just killing time.’
I smile against his shoulder.
He reaches down and caresses my cheek, gently lifting my chin so I’m looking at him.
‘I’m falling in love with you, Liv,’ he says softly, earnestly.
My heart almost bursts from my chest as I stare into his eyes, shining with emotion. Before I can open my mouth to reply, he continues.
‘And it scares the hell out of me.’
‘I’m falling in love with you too,’ I say, hoping to reassure him that we’re in this together.
‘That’s even more terrifying.’
His admission, along with the sudden haunted look on his face, makes me go still.
‘Why?’ I ask warily.
‘We need to talk.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
‘You’ve moved on from trees,’ I note with surprise when we arrive at the beach.
Tom asked if I’d be willing to take a walk with him, even though it’s still only about 7 a.m.
If he’s finally ready to open up to me, I’ll go with him when and wherever he wants me to.
‘They were never supposed to be my “thing”. I just like drawing,’ he says with a sweet smile, holding his hand out to help me step down from the boat ramp.
The tide has washed away a lot of the sand, so the level of the beach has dropped. Right now, the stream is spilling out onto rocks and pebbles so the tracks that will forever make me think of Tom’s apple tree are missing.
‘Any reason for the alphabet?’ I ask as we walk across varying versions ofA,BandC. Some are upper case, others lower, some seem to be in bold while others are in italics. All look as perfect as anything you’d see in print.
‘It’s not the alphabet,’ he replies.
Erm, it looks like an alphabet to me, I think, looking ahead toDs,Es andFs, and even further afield toLs,Ms andNs stretching out and interlinking with each other around us. But then I begin to notice other symbols etched into the sand, symbols that look like anxthat has been joined up at one side to appearalmost like ana, another symbol that’s a cross between an8and anS, and another that looks like aTthat’s fallen over, drunk.
‘Whatarethese?’ I ask, puzzled.
‘Aeronautical symbols.’
I grin at him and point at an italicised upper-caseV. ‘What does that stand for?’
‘Velocity.’
