He nods. ‘A love story for the ages.’
He still doesn’t look anywhere but out in front of him. It’s making my stomach knot.
‘Give me your phone,’ I say, desperate to break the tension. ‘We should recreate the photo; you can send it to her.’
His gaze dips from the view, down to his feet. It’s the first time his eyeline’s broken since he got up here. I watch his thumbs twiddle and his breath falter as he continues to stare at his shoes.
‘She passed away just over a year ago.’ He swallows. ‘Breast cancer.’
My heart drops. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He shakes his head. ‘That’s always the first thing people say. Then they follow it with a slew of pity and act like it’s my first time ever experiencing sadness. And I get it, because no one’sgoodat dealing with grief. It’s a horrible, soul-destroying thing. Which is why it’s usually easier to keep the story to myself, avoid all the awkwardness and keep things light.’
I look closely at his features, gripped tightly in frustration, and feel a wave of that same feeling wash through me.
‘I get it,’ I say lightly. ‘I was four when my mum died. Too young to really remember the pain. But Idoremember going through primary school as the kid with the dead mum. That wasn’t great.’
He turns his head to meet me face to face for the first time since we got up here, eyes glistening with the tears he is holding back. It forces a lump straight into my throat.
The thing about grief is, no matter how long it’s been, how many happy memories you’ve experienced since, the feeling never really goes away, it just goes a little dormant from time to time. All it takes is one thought, one familiar smell or movieyou watched together or place you visited, and everything rushes back. It hits you like a tidal wave and wrecks your life just as viscerally as it did the first time. You never get over those feelings. You’re never just ‘healed’. It’s a cycle you battle with every day.
‘I can only imagine,’ he says softly.
‘Yeah, it sucked,’ I sigh. ‘But what sucks more is being too young to have any real memories of her. Sara and Paige have these cute stories and special moments that she’s able to live on through. All of mine are built from tales they’ve passed on to me.’ I pause, gathering breath again. ‘Tell me something about your aunt.’
He hesitates at first, looking into my eyes with so much sorrow that I almost retract my request. But then I see his lip twitch and his eyes light up as a memory flashes through his head in real time. You can never bring someone back, but you can help them live on as part of you. Listening to stories about how my mum smiled, how she laughed, what she stood for, was enough to make me feel like I had more years with her than I did. I love watching the way Sara, Paige and my dad spring to life when they recount the times that they all spent together. Bittersweet as it is, it’s enough to make all of the reliving worth it.
‘She was this beacon of joy. Always the happiest person in the room, even when she got sick. She saw everything in life as an adventure and if you were in her presence, she’d take you along with her. When she found out that I was gonna be the one taking her to chemo, she turned that into an adventure in itself. Every session she’d bring a different picture she’d taken from her year of backpacking, and she’d recount her time in that city in jam-packed unadulterated detail.’ He pauses to laugh. ‘It made me realise that I’d travelled obviously – but I’d never travelled the way that she had. Boozy holidays with the boys are not quite thesame as hiking up random mountains and jumping on ferries with strangers.’
‘So that’s your real story?’ I ask. He stares back at me, confused. ‘Your story– remember, the day that we met? You said, “Nobody solo-travels for this long without some sort of story.”’
He chuckles softly at my awful imitation of him.
‘I suppose that is my real story, yeah. But the thing about my friends and finding a stable relationship was true too,’ he says. ‘I actually promised her I would do this, you know, towards the end. She left me money for it in her will and everything. It got eaten up by legal fees and funeral costs, but the intent was there.’
‘That was really sweet of her,’ I say.
His lips curve into the tiniest of smiles that settles my stomach ever so slightly. ‘Yeah, the gesture meant the world to me – you could tell she really thought out her will. She left me the money, her travel photos and her engagement ring. Told me to hold on to it for my great love story.’
‘The diamond ring from the café,’ I say.
He nods solemnly, instinctively reaching for his pocket. ‘I carry it everywhere.’
I reach for the finger that ring once sat on, running my nails over its old placement. I cannot believe Noah trusted me to have a piece of his life, of his heart, sitting right there on my finger for so long.
‘She would have loved you.’ He glances over, meeting my eyes once again. ‘You’re the exact kind of person she was drawn to.’
‘Really?’ I ask in disbelief.
‘Yeah, for sure. You’re like, another ball of sunshine. The two of you together could have blinded everyone.’ His smile grows a little wider before he quickly pulls it back. ‘Can I tell you something that might come across creepy and definitely feels like an overshare?’
I nod back tepidly. What a way to begin. He takes a deep breath, looking out nervously to the horizon.
‘The day we met in that station was a rough one for me. It was, erm, well, it was the first anniversary of her death. I was in bits – wanted nothing more than to turn around and go home, had the tickets back to London loaded and everything. After spending all morning inside, I forced myself on a walk and tried to get some fresh air. I reached the fountain, looked up and asked her for a sign. Twenty minutes later, I found you.’
My mouth falls slightly open, pulled by the weight of his words.
‘You’ve made this trip so much easier, Amorie. It’s like, I don’t know, she sent you my way,’ he says.
