‘Very carefully, and with more grimacing than I like to admit.’
I don’t intend to laugh, but his deadpan tone catches me off-guard and I snort into my coffee. ‘Whyareyou so optimistic? I didn’t say anything last night because you can’t insult someone’s personality right after running them over, but there really does appear to be something wrong with you.’
‘Wrong with me?’ He grins, and it’s one of those lovely grins that reaches his blue eyes. ‘Maybe I’m just sunnily dispositioned. Glass half full and all that.’
‘Nobody’sthatsunnily dispositioned. It’s not natural.’
He throws his head back and laughs like I’ve told him the funniest joke he’s heard all week. ‘Maybe I just choose to be happy.’
‘Nobody chooses to be happy at eight in the morning after being impaled by a tent pole.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because most people would be angry and resentful, and you’re being inexplicably nice about it.’
‘Where does being angry and resentful get you?’
‘It’s a perfectly normal response to being run over by a campervan.’
‘Right, but after that. Once you’ve been angry and resentful, then what? You’re still injured, but now you’re injured and miserable instead of just injured. I don’t see the point. Being angry won’t help my leg heal any faster, so why bother?’
I stare at his beaming face. ‘That’s either very wise or completely deranged.’
‘Thank you.’ His smile gets wider and I can’t help smiling back.
We stand in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the morning mist rise from the distant hills. It’s beautiful here. There’s a timeless quality to it. Medieval knights probably stood in this exact spot and looked at this exact view, and there’s something magical about that thought.
‘This was the first place I ever felt like I belonged,’ I say without meaning to say anything. ‘Not just me personally, but all of us. My family, the other families who came here. We were all part of the community, part of the landscape. We all just… fitted.’
‘And now?’
‘Until yesterday, I thought I knew exactly where I fitted. Now I don’t think I fit anywhere any more.’
He nods like this makes perfect sense, which I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. ‘What changed yesterday?’
I look around at the van that’s become my temporary home, at the beautiful view outside and this strange man who’s made being run over seem like a minor inconvenience. ‘Everything.’
‘Then maybe’ – he winces as his weight shifts to his bad leg – ‘yesterday was exactly what needed to happen for you to be able to move forwards.’
‘Even the bit where I nearly killed you?’
‘Especially that bit. Best introduction I’ve had in years.’
Despite the chaos of yesterday, the uncertainty of everything and the complete upheaval of my entire life, I find myself laughing. Really, truly laughing, for what feels like the first time in months.
He might be right. Yesterday doesn’t feel like a mistake – it feels like something that had been waiting to happen for a long, long time, and all I needed was a push in the right direction, and despite being on the wrong side of the law, it might’ve been one of the best things I’ve ever done.
7
I should know never to utter words like that ever again. It does nothing but invoke a jinx from the universe.
After Reece has gone back up to the Kingfisher Arms with strict instructions not to overdo it on his leg, which I’m certain he’ll ignore, I decide that I’ve been living in yesterday’s clothes for far too long, and if I’m going to continue hiding out here, I might as well do it with clean hair.
The van’s shower-cubicle-slash-toilet is… cosy. And by cosy, I mean that I have to inhale to slide the door closed, and there’s a very real possibility I’ll get trapped in here like a particularly incompetent Houdini. But I remember Jared saying it’s got hot water and there’s a bottle of shower gel and one of shampoo, which is enough of a luxury for now.
I wrestle myself out of my clothes and dig through the binbags to find something else to put on. I shake out a pair of trousers and a T-shirt and hang them up on the curtain rail over the van’s windows because they’ve got a distinctodour de black plasticabout them, having been tied up in bags for over twenty-four hours now.
I get into the shower cubicle, planting my feet on either side of the toilet in the minuscule space, and turn on the water. The pressure’s not brilliant, but it’s warm, and it’s going to make me feel like a functioning human who can tackle the day ahead and whatever it may bring.
