Our footprints from the previous day were still visible in the snow, making it easy to find my way. But that didn’t calm the jittery feeling swirling in my stomach as I walked through the trees.
Using the torch I’d brought to light the trail, I reached the lake sooner than I’d expected. The moon was playing hide-and-seek in a sky of scudding clouds, making it difficult to check the lake for the jagged-edged hole I’d half convinced myself I would see in the ice.
My hands were shaking so much it made the torchlight difficult to follow as I swept it across the lake. It took several attempts before I was satisfied the icy surface was intact. I let out the breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding.
Now that my worst-case scenario had been eliminated, the sensible option was probably to return to the cabin and wait for Josh. But this wasn’t a night for being sensible.
There was only one other place I felt confident of finding in the dark. The treehouse. As I stood indecisively on the shore of the lake, I felt something pulling me there. Hadn’t Fletcher literally tried to do just that earlier today? Had Adam’s dog been trying to tell me that Josh was in trouble there? That was either miraculous or totally ridiculous, and how bad was it that I couldn’t work out which?
This time it took me longer to find our footprints in the dark. Each time I felt sure I’d gone wrong, I would spot the distinctive imprint in the snow from Josh’s work boots, like a tiny Timberland signpost.
The moon had obligingly found a clear piece of sky to settle in, and when I eventually emerged from the dense thicket of trees my relief was so great my knees were in danger of buckling.
I’m not sure what astounded me most: that I’d actually found the treehouse, or that my instincts had been correct, and thiswaswhere Josh had headed. I knew he was there from the flickering light filtering down through the branches above me. There was an orange glow dancing behind the treehouse windows, too bright for candles, too fluid to be a torch. It looked like the light from the storm lanterns we’d used when the power had been out.
I took a deep, steadying breath and made my way to the foot of the tree. That’s when I got my next shock of the evening. A solid, rustic-style handrail had been constructed and was securely fixed to the floating steps I’d climbed the day before. And at the base of the tree trunk was a new deck-like platform. Josh must have worked flat out from the moment he left the others this morning to have done this. Part of me wanted to askwhyhe’d done it. Another part already knew.
Even with the handrail, the climb still managed to quicken my heart rate as I ascended the tree. The wooden treads deadened the sound of my approach and, unaware that he was no longer alone, I got a truly unguarded glimpse of Josh through the large picture windows. He was facing away from the door, sitting on the floor and leaning against the timber wall with a six-pack of beers beside him.
His head was bowed, and there was something about him that looked defeated. I took a tentative step closer to the door and he must have heard the creak of the platform beneath me, for his head spun around. I saw it all on his face in those first few seconds before the shutters came clattering back down. I saw a depth of sadness I recognised only too well; it had been in every mirror I’d looked in since Adam’s death. And then, before he blinked the emotionsaway, I saw something that answered the questions as to why this treehouse had been built and why Josh was sitting in it in the dark the evening before I was due to leave.
I hadn’t seen that look on his face since the night six years ago when he’d pleaded with me not to marry Adam, declaring that however much my fiancé cared for me, he’d never love me as much as he did.
The past was spinning through my head as I reached for the handle and opened the door. Josh was working hard to rearrange his features, but it was too late. I’d already seen the truth ... and he knew it.
‘You lied.’
I hadn’t known I was going to lead with that. The words seemed to come from a place where I had relinquished all control and good sense to what I was feeling in this moment. They were the same feelings that had shaken me six years ago when Josh had told me I was about to marry the wrong man.
He didn’t deny it. He didn’t even ask what I was talking about. In this one moment, more than any other between us, we were so totally in tune that he knewexactlywhat I was talking about.
‘I had to.’
‘Why?’
He shook his head. He might not be able to control the truth his eyes had revealed, but he was keeping a closer guard on his tongue.
‘Whyisn’t important. I had my reasons.’
‘You didn’t change your mind. Youdidlove me back then.’
There was a raw anguish on his face that he didn’t bother trying to hide.
‘I did.’ He swallowed as though his throat had suddenly tightened up as it attempted to silence what was coming next. ‘I still do.’
I forgot to breathe for what seemed like minutes. My head felt like an impossible weight that my neck was incapable of supporting. My knees were similarly affected as they folded beneath me until I was also on the floor, kneeling beside him. My hand reached out for his shoulder, before it froze in mid-air.
‘But it makes no difference, Lily. What I feel about you isn’t the problem. It never was.’
My arm felt heavy, suspended in between the here-and-now and the what-could-have-been. I lowered it slowly to my side.
‘I don’t understand.’ My voice was small and sounded almost as lost as it had when he’d told my fifteen-year-old heartbroken self it would be best to forget all about him when he moved away.
Except I never did. Even in the Adam years, Josh was always there, locked away in a hidden part of my soul.
His hand reached for mine. I was shocked to see his was trembling.
‘I’m not the man you need in your life, Lily. I never was.’
