PROLOGUE
Dear Alice,
I’m trying to remember how this all started. When something shifted. What it was that tipped me from just knowing you, to needing you.
It might sound mad, but I think I might have even missed it while it was happening. Crazy when you think about it. The biggest decision in my life and I didn’t even register it happening. I was too busy being careful, too busy convincing myself there would be more time.
I know how you read the last pages of a book before the beginning because you always want a happy ending. How you listen to a song on repeat while you work so it becomes part of the experience. How you take your tea, how you laugh with your whole body. But there is still so much I don’t know.
I’ve loved you from a distance. I’ve loved you quietly, never expecting anything in return. I told myself that was enough. That having you just for one night was enough. And wanting anything more would just make everything about my life harder.
But time is the one thing I don’t have.
If I wait any longer I?—
I lean back in my chair, throw down the pen onto the kitchen table.
Then tear the page in two.
1
ALICE
There are times in our lives when we feel like we have everything worked out. A job, a partner. But life sometimes doesn’t end up like we planned, which is where I find myself as I grip the cardboard box tightly in my arms, my spider plant balancing precariously on the top.
I jam the unfamiliar key into the keyhole to number 76 Pinewood Road. My new home. The door opens straight into the living room: white walls, grey carpets, completely devoid of personality. But that’s a good thing. This is what I need. A fresh start.
Well, I mean, technically, it’s a re-start. I’m back in my hometown of Brookley, in the West Midlands. If you Google Shropshire, you will find fields, hills, talk of Tolkien and his inspiration for the Shire. And it’s true. There are still parts of my hometown that are like that, but honestly? You’re more likely to spot a Bargain Booze than a Hobbit. Still, the house sits opposite a park, and I’m close to town. There is a window seat from where I can just about see Haywater Bridge hunched over the River Severn. It’s where I plan to sit and watch the world go by, while I try to come up with some miraculous way to save my career.I dump the box on the floor, lift Spidey, and place him in the centre of the bay window.
‘There you go, buddy.’ I land my hands on the hips of my jeans and turn to the sound of Spence’s huff behind the stack of boxes in his arms. Georgia follows her father, eyes glued to her phone, despite holding a smaller box against her AC/DC T-shirt, which is tucked into her long, baggy jeans, resting above a pair of lilac Converse. She looks slightly older than her thirteen years. I remember when it was all sparkles and pirate outfits. We had to call her Captain George for six months; she refused to answer to anything else. And… to my shame, I remember thinking that having a baby at the age of seventeen was going to ruin my best friend Spencer’s life. But here they both are, two peas in a pod.
‘Where do you want these?’ Spence asks, blowing away his light brown hair as it flops forwards. I walk over and scan my scribbled writing on the side. ‘Kitchen, thanks.’
Georgia sniggers at something on her phone, thick blonde curls falling into her eyes. I smile at the way she blows them away in exactly the same way as her father.
‘What’s so funny?’ I ask her. She glances up, big blue eyes taking in her surroundings. She checks Spence is out of eyeshot before hurrying up to me and showing me a TikTok of a cat strutting around in a pair of sunglasses. I laugh and she leans against me.
I gesture to the room. ‘So, what do you think?’
‘Honestly?’ She plonks the small box on the floor.
‘Always.’ She looks around, a wince in her expression before she replies.
‘It’s a bit…’
‘Boring? Bare? Lacking in personality?’
‘Well, yeah.’ She exhales. ‘It’s not like your old place at all.’
It’s not, but then again, that wasn’t ever really my place. Ryan’s dad was a property developer, which meant we lived in a house way out of our price range.
‘I know.’
‘The window is kind of nice?’ She steps forwards and peers through at the road outside, the view of the park that leads to the bridge crossing the River Severn.
‘It is, isn’t it?’
Spence comes back in. ‘When’s the rest coming?’
