‘Nelly, I always think of you on your birthday. I will deal with Rex. Are you doing anything nice?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m going to see Aunt Polly. She’s struggling with the chemo. I was also planning to go swimming again.’
‘What?’ She looks shocked. ‘Are you swimming? You used to say it reminded?—’
‘It did remind me of Mum, but I have done a lot of thinking, and I read a brilliant book about how the water heals. Mum would have wanted me to keep swimming.’
‘That’s amazing,’ gushes Eva. ‘Nelly, I am so proud of you. That can’t have been easy.’
She hands me the gift. ‘Well, maybe you can take this with you and open it.’
‘Thank you, Eva.’ I look at the little blue gift wrapped up with a gold ribbon.
She remembered my birthday.
I watch as she takes out her phone and brings up a photo of Rex, the drummer.
‘Will you dump him?’ I ask.
To my amazement, she shrugs. ‘I might just use him for sex and fun.’
‘But I saw?—’
She turns to me. ‘He’s cute, he makes me laugh and we are going to some cool gigs. At least I know where things are heading. I might hang around for the good parts.’
My eyebrows arch. ‘Good parts?’
‘Nelly, love isn’t all about how it ends.’
‘But that’s all I have ever seen.’
She smiles. ‘One day you will see that love is about the glorious starts and the lovely middle bits.’
‘But what about the pain and heartbreak?’
She shrugs. ‘We all get through it, Nelly. Yes, there are days when you’re going through that, and all you want to do is lie on the sofa, eat cereal and binge-watch sad films, but it’s survivable. It also teaches you things like if you have suspicions about your boyfriend fancying your sister, it’s probably best to do something about them as opposed to ignoring the smell of her perfume on his clothes and pretending he didn’t murmur her name when he was asleep.’
An awkward feeling passes over me. ‘Really?’
‘Nelly, I blamed you when I had been ignoring the signs for ages. I got through the break-up. It was hard, but I did it, and I am still here smiling – aren’t I?’
‘You are, Eva.’
‘Sometimes, heartbreak is nothing more than a few days wandering around the house feeling sad and eating cereal. Sometimes you don’t feel right for a few months, like an annoying dose of the flu. Sometimes it is like standing in the eye of a hurricane as, once the winds stop, your old world has been destroyed.’ She looks at me. ‘But you will get through it. How was the picnic? You never updated me.’
‘There was nothing to tell. He does know how to put a good picnic spread together, though.’
She giggles. ‘I love it.’
‘I’m sorry about my curse, Eva.’
‘I don’t care about your curse, Nelly. You are more important than Rex’s secret dating profiles.’
We both laugh and I am flooded with a lovely warm feeling. Eva is back in my life and she’s not afraid or angry about my curse.
As I head back to the bookshop, I find myself reflecting on what she said about heartbreak. She says it’s survivable and love isn’t about the endings. Maybe there is hope for me?
38
