‘I contacted her on Instagram,’ I admit.
‘Did you?’ He’s taken aback.
‘Late Friday night. I haven’t checked to see if she’s replied.’
‘If she has, she wouldn’t be able to tell you much – only my postal address. I don’t pick up my mail very often.’
I stare down at my coffee. ‘I saw her that day, the day I left. I came up to the cabin to say goodbye and you were in each other’s arms on the sofa.’
I lift my eyes to see him cocking his head to one side with confusion.
‘We weren’t doing anything wrong. I was upset. She was comforting me.’
‘I know. I heard. She told you to let me go, pointed out I didn’t want that life and you should respect my decision.’
‘All of which was true. Doesn’t mean I listened to her. I came down to the cottage to try to talk to you. I couldn’t believe you’d already gone.’
‘I couldn’t stay,’ I reply dully.
He shakes his head and looks away, his jaw muscles tense.
‘Sometimes I wonder how things might’ve panned out if you’d come to Berkeley Hall six months earlier,’ he says.
‘Before you and Beca got together?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I probably still would have struggled with your friendship,’ I admit.
‘How?’
‘You suspected she had feelings for you when you were interrailing – you told me about it on the beach. I would have been on edge every time you put her first, knowing that she wanted you and that one day you might realise you wanted her too.’
‘No one ever held a candle up to you,’ he states gently but firmly.
My heart squeezes at his words, but the vice around it tightens. ‘You prioritised her over me time and time again.’
He frowns. ‘I was just trying—’
‘I know you wanted to repair your friendship. I know it was important to you. I understood it then and I understand it now. But it washardfor me, Ash. I felt like I was drowning and you weren’t there for me.’
Compassion clouds his eyes and he sits forward in his seat, giving me his full attention. I’m leaning back in mine, my legs crossed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly. ‘I was going through so much myself.’
‘And I know you didn’t feel like I was there for you either.’
‘It was a stressful time,’ he agrees, reaching out to brush the back of his hand tenderly across the side of my knee.
I uncross my legs and place my foot on the corner of his chair.
‘I don’t know if you remember much about that day, but I’d gone to see my father,’ he says. ‘He told me a piece of family history that he had previously kept to himself,’ he adds ominously.
I’m all ears.
He reclines in his chair again. ‘My mother always said that our house had driven my grandfather into the ground. I didn’t think she meant literally. My father told me that his father committed suicide.’
I breathe in sharply.
