‘Leave her be, Tony,’ my mum said, and shot me a look so full of love and understanding that it was all I could do not to catapult myself straight into her arms.
‘Think I’ll go and sit in the garden for a bit,’ I said, already halfway to the back door. ‘I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.’
No one saw me duck into the flower bed, to the spot where the loose fence panels between the properties had never been repaired. I squeezed through the gap, the boobs I’d finally acquired that year making it a tighter fit than it used to be. It had been years since I’d snuck into the Bakers’ garden this way, but this morning it felt totally appropriate.
The next-door neighbours were too busy with their final preparations to notice me slip into their garden or silently scale the old tree. It felt weird doing so without Josh beside me, leaning down to hoist me up on to the platform, but I got there in one piece.
I sat on the old wooden boards, knees drawn up to my chest, as I listened to the soundtrack of my teenage heart breaking. I heard the removals van rumble away and Claire’s piercing shout as she called out Josh’s name.
‘Come on, Josh. We have to leave.’
His voice came from somewhere below me, startling me, because I hadn’t known he was in the garden. Perhaps we’d both been drawn there by the same impulse. And yet already a chasm had opened between us.
‘Are you coming or not?’
I heard his mumbled reply, and then the creak of their garden gate that no one had ever got around to oiling. Perhaps the new owners would do it, I thought morosely.
There were voices I recognised coming from the street. Mum and Dad had obviously gone out to wish their neighbours one final farewell, and from the sound of it they weren’t the only ones who had done so. The Baker family were well liked and would be missed by the residents of Elm Close.
I steeled myself and counted the slamming of car doors, not allowing my tears to fall until the fourth one had been shut. The engine roared into life, and with a short salute on the car horn, the Bakers’ car began to pull away. A sob tore its way from my throat, so loud that I almost missed the sound of brakes being hastily applied.
The collection of voices rose a little louder, but my attention wasn’t on them, it was on the vibrations pounding through the sycamore’s trunk as someone began to rapidly climb the tree. Josh hauled himself on to the platform as though it was a piece of gym equipment.
I didn’t say anything. Nor did he. We just looked at each other for the longest moment and then suddenly he was in front of me, reaching for my hands and tugging me on to my knees. My heart was hammering so loudly in my chest I was sure he could hear it echoing through the canopy of leaves. He released my hands and brought his own up to my face. They stayed there for a moment before his fingers gently swept my hair back from my temple andthen wound a pathway through the chestnut strands, as he drew me closer towards him.
Breathing was suddenly not just difficult, it was downright impossible. I had dreamt of this moment a thousand times, and in none of my fantasies had it ever felt this intense, exciting or terrifying. I’d never been kissed before. I had no idea how any of this worked. Practising which way to tilt my head and how to press my lips against someone in front of a mirror was a million miles away from everything I was experiencing right now.
I felt the warmth of his breath before his mouth touched mine. Somehow my head had gone the way it was meant to. There had been no embarrassing clashing of noses or teeth as his lips fleetingly grazed against mine. I gasped, and my eyes, that I hadn’t even realised were closed, flew open when I thought it was all over. I had just a moment to see something fiery in his gaze as his mouth re-joined mine in a first kiss that made me realise that every book I’d read or teen movie I’d watched had got it all wrong. His lips were firm, and although this was my first kiss I knew instinctively that it wasn’t his. He was too good at it. Too skilled at coaxing my lips to respond to his. His tongue slipped briefly into my mouth, and something really hot happened way down deep inside me.
A long low beeping sound broke us apart. I was panting slightly, and so was he. The car horn sounded again, even more impatiently this time.
‘Claire,’ he muttered, shaking his head in frustration. It wasn’t hard to imagine her leaning over from the back seat and pressing on the horn.
‘I have to go,’ he whispered.
I nodded.
Before turning to leave, Josh reached down for my right hand. Gently he unfurled my fingers before pressing something into my palm, and then curling my hand around it.
‘For good luck, and so you don’t forget me,’ he said, already swinging himself down from the tree.
I moved to the edge of the platform to watch him run across the lawn one last time, and seconds later heard the sound of his car door slam shut once again. This time when the car started up it didn’t come back.
I sat back on my heels, raising one hand to my newly kissed lips that could still feel the taste of Josh upon them. It was only then that I opened my hand and looked at the object he’d pressed into my palm.
I recognised it instantly as the piece he’d been working on the day before. Although twenty-four hours earlier I would have struggled to identify it, today a tiny, perfectly carved, wooden lily sat in the palm of my hand. I turned it around in the filtered sunlight and admired the miniature flower he’d crafted from a piece of driftwood. I brought the lily to my lips and rested them against the smooth wood. It was the closest I could get to kissing him, and for now it would have to be enough.
Chapter Seventeen
After the initial panic of finding me on the snowy ground, Josh went into ‘take charge’ mode. He headed for the lounge and set me down on the sofa beside the now-dwindling fire. With a gentleness I hadn’t expected, he slid the coat from my arms and extracted me from it.
‘Lie down, Lily,’ he instructed, repositioning a pile of scatter cushions to support me.
‘I’ll make the covers wet,’ I protested with a shake of my head, a move I instantly regretted. Tears of pain flooded my eyes. I was one blink away from letting them fall.
‘Fuck the covers.’
For the second time that day he slid his fingers through my hair. This time he parted the long chestnut strands at the back of my head. His sudden indrawn breath did little to calm me.
