Page 16 of The Two Halves of My Heart

“Grace, look at me.”

I squinted my eyes open, blinking back the rain now running over my face. Oliver’s popped up from the branch under the one I was glued too.

“Grace, we need you to come down. Just come to me and I’ll help you. It’s not safe in this tree,” he pleaded with me, and I knew he was right. But that didn’t mean my limbs would listen.

“Now, I’m going to put my hand out. Crawl forward and take it. Then you can climb onto the same branch as me, and we can go down together. Mads is at the bottom. You won’t fall. I promise.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know. But we’ve got to go. Or Mads will run back and get our mum.”

“No, no.” The thought of having Vivien, or worse, my mum having to pull me from the tree was the motivation I needed. I relaxed my hold and leaned forward until I could take Oliver’s hand.

I inched forward, shuffling along the bark until I was where he’d popped up. He let go of my hand so I could twist around and lower myself down to his position. My feet hit the branch, and I followed Oliver again until I put my feet in the knot and stumbled back towards the ground.

Maddison and Oliver grabbed hold of me, and we ran, them yanking my arms from their sockets, towards the gate. We scrambled over and raced off down the track, not worrying about running this time. My feet scuffed the mud and my hair whipped around my shoulders in long tendrils, heavy with water. We all arrived at my door, my lungs burning, and my throat tight from racing.

“Thank you,” I said. I paused, just for a moment to look at both of them. Rain dribbled over their faces from their flattened hair, both their t-shirts sticking to their skin like mine.

Maddison turned around and started running back home, but Oliver waited a second more. He nodded at me, urging me into the house, and I offered a weak smile. He wouldn’t move until I was safely inside. My gut trembled, and my lip quivered, wanting to burst into tears and hug him. He didn’t leave me.

A final nod and I did as he wanted. I closed the door behind me and raced upstairs to the bathroom before Mum could see me. Tears burned my icy skin as I stripped off and jumped in the shower. The heat scorched my hand as I tested the temperature, but I needed to thaw out.

“Grace?” Mum knocked on the bathroom door.

“In the shower. I got wet.” The door and the shower disguised the lump in my throat.

“Okay, then. Don’t leave your wet clothes on the floor.”

After the coast was clear, I pulled on a soft t-shirt and slipped under the fluffy covers of my bed, desperate to warm up. I twisted on my side and watched as the rain continued to lash the window. No more thunder. No more lightning.

I hid in my bedroom for the rest of the day. Embarrassment at what the boys must have thought prevented me from settling into a new book because I couldn’t concentrate. My mind replayed the noise of the first strike of lightning and roll of thunder, their faces, their voices.

The summer didn’t last forever, and we hadn’t had a chance to do any of the fun things we’d planned, and the one time we could have had a real adventure, I was trapped, scared stiff up a tree.

One day, I might be able to see the funny side, but right then, I still felt the shiver of cold rain droplets over my body.

Hours later, as I was finally drifting off to sleep, a tap sounded at my window, and then another. It came and went, not quite in a rhythm, but enough to annoy me into getting out of bed. I pulled back the curtain and stared out into the darkening night.

Oliver stood below my window, looking up at me and gesturing with his hands.

I cracked the window. “What do you want?” I whispered down to him. My mum’s room was at the back of the house, but it wasn’t like we lived in a big house with five bedrooms. She’d hear Oliver if he wasn’t careful.

“I wanted to check on you.”

“You could have tried the front door.”

“It’s too late for that. I couldn’t sleep. Can I come up?”

“To my bedroom?” I checked what he meant, because my mum, asleep in the room next to mine, would have a fit if she found Oliver in my room at eleven at night.

“Yeah.”

“No. Hang on. I’ll come to you.” I closed the window and looked around the room for an idea. The only way I could see this working was if I went to him. And after earlier, I wasn’t standing outside in the middle of the night.

I crept out of the room and tiptoed down the stairs. The under-stairs cupboard had a couple of old sleeping bags, so I grabbed them and opened up the front door, throwing one at Oliver.

“What are these for?” he whispered back through the night.

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