He saw me standing with Dan and Amy in the churchyard and came over, his nose and eyes tinged red from crying.
‘Where’s Tom?’ he asks.
‘I thought it might be better if I came alone,’ I reply.
He gives me a small nod.
‘How’s Brit?’ I ask awkwardly.
He shakes his head and glances at me, then looks away.
I take it that means they’re no longer together.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask quietly as Dan and Amy step away to give us some privacy.
‘Not really,’ he admits. ‘My grandad’s distraught. I don’t know how he’s going to cope without her.’
‘He’ll have Liam to keep him company.’
Tyler moved into a house with some mates a couple of years ago. He now works as a mixologist at a bar in Newquay, where he lives. We trained him well.
He swallows and nods, then meets my eyes. ‘Congratulations, by the way. I heard the news.’
‘About what?’
‘What do youthink?’ he asks with a frown.
‘I’m now a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors?’
He shakes his head. ‘No.’
‘Buying into Seaglass?’
He sighs. ‘No, Liv. Theotherthing. But congratulations on those things too,’ he adds with a small smile, and my chest pinches at the proud look on his face.
‘I was going to text you about the other thing,’ I say seriously. I was hoping he wouldn’t hear about it through the grapevine before I’d had a chance to tell him. ‘And then this happened.’
About three weeks ago, I woke up in bed to find that Tom wasn’t beside me. He called half an hour later to ask me to come down to Seaglass.
When I arrived, he was standing at the main door and he beckoned me up to the balcony.
Down on the beach he’d drawn a geometric pattern on the sand – a series of triangles with one octagonal shape on the top. He creates sand art every few weeks or so – even more often in the winter when there are fewer people around – but in the last couple of years he’s taken to drawing abstract shapes and patterns, finding them to be even more relaxing than representational pieces. He’s done a couple of commissions for charities too.
I smiled at him. ‘That’s cool.’
‘Does it remind you of anything?’ he asked me, a secretive smile on his face.
I looked again and suddenly I saw it: it was a perspective drawing of a diamond solitaire.
‘It’s a diamond!’ I exclaimed.
And that was when he pulled the ring out of his pocket and got down on his knee.
I clapped my hand over my mouth, staring down at him in shock as his eyes shone with tears, and then I was a goner too.
‘Will you marry me, Liv?’
I nodded, because I couldn’t speak, and then he was back on his feet and slipping the ring onto my finger.
