I swallow and swallow, emotion gathering like a storm inside my chest. I need to cry, but once I start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop and the last thing I want to do is wake Michael.
‘Get dressed,’ Finn orders, climbing out of bed and reaching for his jeans. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
Tears stream down my cheeks as I follow him along a narrow path banked on either side by tall, prickly brambles and feathery ferns. We round a curve in the track and up ahead is the ocean, steel grey under the lightening sky. Heading off on the left-hand fork, we walk in silence past trees so bent and broken by the wind that their insides look as though they’ve been scooped up and spat out.
I feel like one of those trees: hollow, but still living. Half dead, half alive.
The line between the sea and sky is almost indecipherableand it’s so still I can barely make out the swell of rolling waves far below.
But the further we walk, the higher the sun rises above the horizon and the more vibrant the world around us becomes. The last time I was here, the dying ferns had turned the cliffs to the colour of rust. Now it’s a landscape of undulating moorland carpeted with a jewel-like crust of golden gorse, amethyst heather and emerald bracken.
When the water’s colour fluctuates from aquamarine to teal and the wind picks up, Finn slows to a stop. Up ahead is a rocky outcrop, and beyond it the green cliffs roll down to an expanse of creamy-white beach.
I cast a look at Finn. He’s staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched, the wind whipping his dark hair into a frenzy.
And it hits me: this is where they found his mother’s clothes, where she took her own life, jumping from the cliff.
I’mnotalone in my grief.
Is that why he’s brought me here? To share my pain?
‘I promise you it will get easier, Liv.’ He repeats what he told me last summer, his voice sounding low and tortured.
‘How did you cope?’ I ask with anguish at his pain – and mine. ‘You were so young.’
‘I’d already lived every day in fear, wondering how she was next going to hurt herself, hurt us. In some ways it was a relief when she chose to leave.’ He swallows hard and glances at me before staring at the ground. ‘I’ve never said that out loud to anyone.’
I loop my arm through his and press against his side.
‘Have you been back here since that day?’
It’ll be nine years, as of this Christmas.
He shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to come up here last summer.’
‘Whydidyou come back to Cornwall after all this time?’
‘My grandparents had been begging me to for years. They’ve brought Liam and Tyler to the States twice, but they wanted me to get to know them, really get to know them, on their own turf. And I’m still not sure that I have,’ he confides.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Liam’s all right, but Tyler … He’s so angry. I think he’s angry atmefor leaving, as though I abandoned him too, after Mum did. But I didn’t have a choice,’ he says jaggedly. ‘My grandparents didn’t have room for me – their place istiny. My dad was the only one who was willing to step up and be a father.’ He sighs. ‘I guess if my nan and grandad passed away anytime soon, Tyler and Liam would come and live with me.’
‘Wouldn’t you move back here if that happened?’ I ask with surprise. ‘If they’re still at school?’
I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows, and then his gaze reluctantly travels to mine.
‘I couldn’t, Liv,’ he says to me heavily.
‘Why not?’
‘It hurts, being here.’
I stare at him, my heart contracting.
His eyes are dark as he implores me to understand. ‘I have so many bad memories of this place. My life is in LA. My dad’s there, my older brother and sister, nephew, my friendsand my band … I was broken when I left Cornwall, but LA is home now. I’m happy there.’
I suddenly want to cry again. I bite my lip, fighting the impulse as he unloops our arms and puts his around my waist.
