Page 5 of When We Were Young

Sometimes, when I was about eight or nine, I’d imagine they were the stars outside, shining brightly. There were two that were often visible through the gap in my curtains, and for so long I’d say goodnight to those stars too.

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispers, and I stare at her. What has she got to be sorry for?

Her eyes are lightening, just the color of them. Blue fading to a hazy gray. Maybe it’s the snow that’s falling that’s changing them, or maybe it’s her emotion. But, oh, those eyes I’ve stared into a thousand times before. Eyes that spoke to me as we made love.

I take a deep breath and look at the ground, at the frost on the gravel and at her scuffed trainers and at my new socks with comets stitched on them. “Me too.”

I sigh, and I know without looking that Emma’s nose is getting pinker still. Her ears will be freezing too. She always got cold ears so easily. And I don’t know why I’m thinking of her cold ears, when this is it. This is the chance I need. The chance to talk, because we need to talk.

I need to explain—if I can.

I need Emma to listen—if she will.

I need to say sorry.

“I’ve just boiled the kettle,” I say, “if you want to come in?”

CHAPTER THREE

Emma

There’s a framed photoon Oscar’s coffee table. A simple wooden frame, with some cat hair stuck to the glass. Inside it, there are three people. His grandmother is at the front, to the left. She’s smiling widely, her wild hair so...wild. That’s one thing I remember clearly about her: her hair. Even in her seventies, it was magnificent.

Oscar’s a little way behind her, beaming at the camera. Looking happy. He’s got his arm around Celine, the name I know only from the captions on his Instagram photos and as the person who tags him in all those Facebook photos. She looks like she’s a few years younger than me. She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. A smile I stared at for hours last night, when I was searching through his older posts, trying to use her beauty to persuade myself that meeting Oscar again was a bad idea.

There was one photo in particular on Instagram that enthralled me. It was dated just over a year ago, and it was the two of them together. It burnt itself onto my retinas, and now, as I stare at Celine’s red felt jacket in this photo on Oscar’s coffee table, I realize she was wearing the same jacket in that Instagram photo, and I think her dress is the same too. And the weather, and the park behind. Taken the same day.

The roof of my mouth feels too dry. Oscar rarely took photos of us.

Oscar.

I allow myself to look at him in the photo, his arm around Celine. He looks happy. Happy, just like how I remember him looking when we took long walks at sunset along the beach. He’d sing then, and the air would be cold, but he’d keep me warm.

“Snuggle into me more,” he says as we walk, and he’s opening his coat, so I can get my arm around his back, under his layers.

I hold onto his hip as we walk, and he’s a cage around me. So warm. And he’s mine.

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