Page 138 of Pansies

“You’re quiet,” said Fen, on the drive home.

Alfie knew he should say something. He was supposed to be thinking about Fen, and it was wrong to keep pretending.

But…would another night make all that much difference? Another night in Fen’s bed, in his body, maybe. Another day to hold his hand and see his smile. Make him laugh and bounce around and arch his brows and sayAlfie Bellin that tone of pleased exasperation or exasperated pleasure. If he did the right thing tomorrow, maybe it was okay to be selfish now?

Well, no. Of course it wasn’t. It was never okay to be selfish. But he wasn’t sure he had the strength to be good. He just wanted to be with Fen.

He tried to smile. “Naw. I’m fine. A bit tired.”

“Tell me about it. My dad’s exhausting with his leetMario Kartskills. Let’s go to bed early”—Fen checked his phone—“okay, earlyish.”

“Sounds great.”

It seemed kind of a waste not to seize the opportunity for sex, but for some reason, the moment he was under the covers with Fen all curled around and draped over him, Alfie’s dick packed up for the night. Abandoned him to his feelings. This deep, scared sadness. And this absolute content. There was something weird and a bit unravelling about lying here with a man he fancied the fuck out of with no fucking on the horizon. But at the same time,he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than this comfort—thiscare—that Fen didn’t know he was giving, his breath falling gently against the back of Alfie’s neck in the dark.

22

Dear Mum,

I’m happy. And I’m so sad. I don’t know how those things can coexist, but they do.

And it doesn’t feel like betrayal at all.

It hurts, though, with this scab-flaking, bark-cracking, pins-and-needles itch, finding meaning in my days again. To laugh and feel and want. To make choices in the present and think about the future. I’ve become so used to grief, I’m scared of what lies beneath it. My heart, I think, turned tender in the untouched dark. I’m full of small, gathered hopes that, if I let them, will fly away from me, as fragile as dandelion seeds.

The strangest thing is how close you feel right now. You really shouldn’t, because the shop is overrun by a goth teenager and her ludicrously camp boyfriend (who goes by the moniker of Straighty, by the way, which is short for Straightsteven—for he assures us, very sincerely, that he is all about the minge)1, and Alfie Bell is everywhere. With all his talk of local business and online presence and ethical markets. I’ve never seen this side of him before, so focused and confident—well, he’s always confident—but a little stern. And me, a little enchanted. He’s quitegood, you see, at pretending to be ordinary. And he so desperately wants to be.

“An ordinary bloke”—such a strange aspiration if you ask me. But I like it when he allows himself to be more clever than he’s comfortable being. Or more gentle, more playful, more vulnerable. More the man I’m sure he is and always was. And, yes. It’s taken him less than a week, and I’m probably as hopelessly, helplessly in love with him as ever. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe it’s sex or loneliness or sorrow or something else entirely. But I’m not going to question it. Not when he makes me feel so unequivocally good.

I’m not the person I was before you died. And I’m glad because I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be unchanged by the loss of you. I will carry it inside me like an oyster with a pearl until the day I die myself. But before Alfie came to South Shields, I thought there was less of me. That maybe the best of me was you.

I know now that isn’t true. I’m still me. We’re all built of pieces really, the things that have happened to us and the people we love, and change is as inevitable as the tide, smoothing us into sea-glass. It’s nothing to be feared. I have Alfie to thank for this as well. He found me when I most needed to be found and helped me find myself again.

He’s out, at the moment, planning something. Probably, knowing him, something absurdly romantic. Actually I’ve sort of been thinking a lot too. I’d tell you, but…well, I think I want to tell him first. I know you won’t mind.2

I’ll always love you, Mum. Never stop missing you.

Your,

Fen

23

Gothshelley insisted on closing. She claimed it was because Alfie’s face was annoying her, but he suspected she wanted to make sure they got a proper evening together. He had plans for some of it—though not until it got dark—but he was saved from having to stall and make excuses and probably end up ruining the surprise, because Fen also seemed to have something on his mind.

“Alfie?” he said, picking at the dry skin around his fingernails. “Can we go to Marsden Rock again?”

Alfie reached for those twitchy hands. Squinted critically at the calluses and chilblains. “I’m going to have to get you some E45. And of course we can. We can do whatever you like.”

“Okay. I just need to get something from the flat.”

Five minutes later, they were in the car, zooming along River Drive. Fen had what looked like a battered old shoebox cradled on his lap.

“What’s that?” Alfie asked.

“Letters to Mum.”

“Oh, right.”

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