And he came straight to see me?
I make a concerted effort to pull my hands down from my cheeks. ‘How did you know where I’d be?’
‘Dan.’
He and Amy have just celebrated their one-year-of-dating anniversary. I want to be happy for them, but all I can think about is the other anniversary that’s fast approaching.
I push the thought of Mum and Dad out of my head with a violent shake because Finn has seen me cry enough tears to last him a lifetime.
‘Do you want to come in?’ I ask, feeling skittish at being in such close proximity to him again.
‘Sure.’
I step back into the living room and he pulls the door closed, taking in his surroundings. The cottage may not be at its cleanest right now, but my parents did a great job when they bought this dark little Grade II listed terrace, updating the old-fashioned decor with a warm, bright, modern interior,stripping the floorboards and accentuating some of the original wooden features while bringing in colour with the fixtures, fittings and accessories. Colourful artwork hangs on the living-room walls, a whitewashed wooden staircase is on the left and on the right is a yellow coffee table and two pale blue sofas facing a flat-screen TV that is far too large for the space but that Michael deemed ‘absolutely, definitely necessary’.
‘Something smells good,’ Finn says as he follows me into the tiny galley kitchen at the back of the cottage, and to my mind he sounds awkward, trying to carry out a normal conversation with someone who has changed so irrevocably that she might as well be a stranger to him.
‘Roast chicken,’ I reply, opening the oven to give myself something to do and being rewarded with a faceful of steam.
I flinch and close it again. I should probably take the chicken out and let it rest soon, but it won’t hurt to leave it in for a bit longer.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I ask.
‘Are you about to eat? I can come back.’
‘It won’t be ready for a while.’
‘Okay, if you’re sure it’s not an inconvenience.’
‘Not at all.’ I fill the kettle and switch it on.
I’m finding it hard to meet his eyes.
After Finn left last summer, I fell so deep into a black hole that I couldn’t imagine ever climbing out. I had asked him not to contact me – a request that was tearfully repeated on the morning of his flight home. I was simply not strong enough to endure loving someone else and losing them, or worse,never being able to have them in the first place. How could Finn ever be mine when he lived so far away? It’s not as though I could leave St Agnes and go and visit him in LA. I had to be here for Michael.
As time has gone on, I’ve found the will to claw my way out into the light.
I know I did the right thing in asking him not to contact me and I’m grateful that he respected my wishes. But there have also been occasions when I’ve resented his radio silence.
And I’m shocked that he didn’t let me know he was coming.
He leans against the powder-green kitchen counter while I get down a couple of oversized purple mugs from a wooden shelf. He’s looking past me at the tiny gravelled patio and small lawn. A door opens onto the former, which is currently riddled with weeds, while the grass on the latter is over half a foot tall.
‘Your brother’s lawn is in need of murdering,’ he murmurs.
I snort and he smiles at me, not so widely that his dimples appear, but it sends the tiny gymnasts that resided in my stomach last summer into a frenzy of activity.
It strikes me that we were as intimate as it’s possible for two people to be, yet we haven’t touched since he appeared, let alone hugged.
‘How are you?’ he asks me quietly.
I swallow and pour hot water over the teabags I’ve thrown into the mugs. ‘That’s a big question.’
Upstairs, the toilet flushes. I look up at the ceiling and meet Finn’s eyes.
‘Michael will be here in a moment,’ I say.
‘I hope he had a nice poo.’
