“Just talk to me.” He sat down, softening his voice as he took Daisy’s hand. “This only works if we keep communicating. Remember what I’ve always said?” The tone of his voice shifted, as he placed his other hand against his heart. “You were this trapped little bird in a cage when I met you and I’ve spent every moment since trying to help you spread your wings. Trying to help you fly. You’ve got to let me help you. I told you that stepping out of your comfort zone wasn’t good for you. Doing allthis new stuff. It’s okay to be little predictable Daisy. It’ll keep you safe. And you have me,” he added. “You always have me.”
“I know I do,” she said, squeezing his fingers. He squeezed back and she took in his face. When he was sympathetic, the way he was now, his brown eyes were so warm.
“We don’t need anyone else. We’ve got each other. Other people mostly suck.” He smiled at her and Daisy thought of Clara and Tom and Dan. Three people she could immediately name who didn’t suck. Who far from sucked. She opened her mouth to say as much.
“So I think we can chuck this, can’t we?” Zack said, holding out the therapist’s card that Clara had given her and handing it back to Daisy who put it back into her pocket. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”
Daisy shook her head, finally able to be honest, because now that Tom was back with Sophie there really was nothing to tell.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tom
Tom couldn’t quite believe how much his life had changed in just a few days. He’d had a sell-out exhibition, Sophie had come back to him and he’d been offered a mountain of work from the editors who showed up at his private viewing. A newspaper wanted to use his photo of Stormy for a piece they were running on homelessness in the capital, and one of the upcoming shoots he’d been offered was a life-changing opportunity taking portrait photos of survivors of a recent plane crash in South Korea. Which reminded him...
“Hey,” he said, when Sophie appeared from the shower, wrapped in a towel. “You can absolutely say no and I’m not even definite that I’ll take it, but I’ve been offered a job in South Korea next year. Quite an incredible one actually... I was thinking if I take it, maybe you could come too?”
“Why South Korea?” Sophie asked, wrinkling her nose in that way he used to love. Did love, still.
“It’s some portrait photos for a charity raising funds for survivors of the plane crash there.”
“Gosh, that sounds full-on,” Sophie said.
He was watching her face for a reaction. After everything he’d noticed in the photos he took of her, he was trying to readher a bit better, pick up on the things she was feeling that she maybe wasn’t saying.
“You don’t need to answer now,” he said. “Just a thought.”
“Okay,” she said, turning to walk back into the bathroom to get dressed. “Is that more the kind of work you think you’ll do now, then?” she asked, turning back.
He nodded. “I think so. I might do the odd editorial bit, but stuff like that... it doesn’t change anything. It just makes rich people richer. I’m not sure that’s what I’m about.”
She stared at him and he smiled, checking her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning.
He didn’t want to tell her. If he told her she’d be too aware of it, and then he wouldn’t be able to keep reading her. Also, he didn’t want to go into the details of everything he’d learned about them while they were apart. He didn’t really want to mention them having been apart, at all.
“Just looking at you,” he said instead, and he watched her eyes light up. It was an answer she liked.
“Shall we go get some breakfast? Ineedcoffee.” Tom fleetingly thought about the flaw of Sophie’s he’d listed to his dad when they weren’t together. The only one he could think of.
“Definitely.” He pulled himself up so he was sitting. He had a funny feeling in his stomach, as though he were having to ask Sophie for permission to take the job. As though he needed her approval. He’d got so used to making his own decisions that it felt unfamiliar to him. But it would; it was early days.
“When did you want to go and get your stuff?” Tom asked, noting the free weekend they had ahead of them. He climbed out of bed and grabbed his towel, walking toward the shower. When she didn’t answer, he turned back to look at her.
“I was thinking we could take it slow, maybe? Like... date again?” She scrunched her face up and he tried to rearrange his features so they didn’t display the confusion he was feeling.She’d made a mistake. She wanted him back, but she didn’t want to rush it?
“Sure,” he said, turning away.
They went to their favorite café just up from the cinema on Upper Street. Tom held open the door for Sophie and pulled out the chair for her. He signaled for her to order first and he made it clear he’d be paying. It was normal, surely, for none of this to feel quite right? They had completely separated their lives over months and had no contact and now, here they were, back at it as though that break had never happened. As though in that time they hadn’t become slightly different people, people who navigated the world in a different way because they no longer navigated it together.
“So what else has been going on for you?” Tom asked, trying to discover a bit more about his girlfriend of past and present. He’d meant to ask her last night over dinner, but she’d ended up canceling because her rehearsal ran over.
“Not too much,” Sophie said, lifting a latte to her lips. She locked eyes with him and Tom felt nervous butterflies in his stomach. He wasn’t sure if they were the good kind or not. “I guess I’ve just been trying to focus on myself a lot,” she continued. “Figure out where I want to be. I’ve done loads of auditions, met up with friends I lost touch with. It’s been good for me, I think. How about you?”
Tom scanned through what was appropriate to say. Did he tell her that he was completely destroyed by their breakup? That he couldn’t eat, or sleep? That in fact... A flash of Daisy appeared in his head, knocking the breath out of him. In fact, his life would probably have spiraled completely out of control if that bus hadn’t broken down, throwing him directly into Daisy’s path. She had saved him. He hadn’t realized how true that was until this moment, but as he rewound through the last few months, every memory of how she’d helped him became crystal clear in his mind. She shifted his focus. She pulled him out of his pit of despair and got him thinking about himself again. Reminded him of how talented he was, and how much he was capable of. Daisy appeared like some sort of fairy godmother and now, like the one in Cinderella, she had gone and he didn’t even get to thank her properly. To say goodbye.
“I saw your Instagram. You’re flying. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about what I had to say, what with everything you were doing.”
