Page 56 of A Sky Full of Stars
‘Can I come in?’ Tristan asked as Charlotte opened the door.
‘Sure,’ Charlotte replied. ‘Er… why didn’t you just knock on the adjoining interior door? Would have saved you getting your shoes on!’
Tristan gave a brief smile. ‘I didn’t want to presume.’ He crossed the threshold and shook his head when Charlotte offered him a coffee. ‘I’ve had a couple at Gran’s, and I’ve got to talk sense to the AA when they come and pull my car out of the ditch later on.’
‘I never got the chance to ask,’ Charlotte replied, sipping her mug of coffee, ‘how did it end up there in the first place?’
Tristan gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I, er, lost focus on the road during the rainstorm and forgot about the rhyne. Thankfully, there’s been no rain for weeks so it had virtually dried up, but the deluge last night meant I couldn’t get the car back out again once I’d skidded off the tarmac. If it’d been full and running, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.’ He dropped his gaze from hers. ‘I shouldn’t have rushed off from Gran’s last night. In hindsight, I was in no condition to drive.’ He paused, obviously choosing his next words with care. ‘Thea, er, told me about the voicemail she found on her phone. I should never have got behind the wheel, the state I was in.’
‘You sounded really upset,’ Charlotte replied. ‘You had us worried sick.’
‘I know,’ Tristan replied. ‘You might say I deserved to skid off the road.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Charlotte chided. ‘I’m glad you weren’t hurt.’ The events that happened after Tristan’s car accident were replaying through her mind vividly again, and, as Tristan glanced back up at her, she could see he was thinking about the same things.
A long pause elapsed between them. Charlotte had never been good at filling silences, so she kept quiet. She was waiting for Tristan to make the first move, to acknowledge the true extent of what had happened last night. Eventually, he spoke.
‘Look, Charlotte,’ he began, his voice sounding more nervous than she’d heard him in the short time they’d known each other. ‘I don’t know where to begin with what happened on the gantry. You could have been killed if that platform had given way.’ He blinked furiously, and Charlotte heard an undeniable tremor in his voice. ‘Thea and Gran spent a long time with me last night, trying to get everything into a kind of shape, but if I’m being honest, I know that what they did is barely the beginning. There’s so much to process and I’ve got a lot to work through about Mum, Dad and the rest of the family, too. All this stuff with Great-Uncle Philip has pulled me right back into a place I’m not sure how to navigate.’
‘I’d be lying if I said last night wasn’t terrifying.’ Charlotte ached to reach out a hand and touch Tristan’s hand, but she held back. The events of the previous evening seemed to be acting as a barrier between them, and she wasn’t sure how, or if, they’d be able to break it down.
‘You risked your life to try to get me down from there,’ Tristan continued. ‘I should never have put you in that position. I’d completely understand if you decided you never wanted to see me again because of it.’ He gave a shaky laugh. ‘I feel lucky that we’re both here, having this conversation. If things had gone differently up there…’
That was when Charlotte knew she had to take the lead. The air between them felt suffocating, and she’d barely clawed herself back to a sort of calm before Tristan had knocked on the door. She knew she just wasn’t ready to relive what had happened between them.
‘Tristan…’ she began gently.
The flare of love in his eyes was almost enough to make her change her mind. But she had to stay resolute. ‘Last night was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. The thought that you, or I, or both of us, might not be sitting here having this conversation keeps running through my mind.’ She drew a deep breath, and then she did reach out to hold his hand. ‘If I’m being honest, I need to process everything. And if you’re being honest, I think you do, too.’ She squeezed his hand and felt the warmth of Tristan’s other palm closing over hers.
‘So, what are you saying?’ Tristan asked softly.
Charlotte took a deep breath. ‘I’m saying that…’ She swallowed. ‘I’m going back to Bristol tomorrow. And I think some space might be what’s best for us right now. You need to spend some time with Lorelai and Thea, and, as you said, work through the family stuff, perhaps with the help of someone who’s qualified to help you. I have to get my head around what happened last night, and I’ve got to finish the observatory archiving project and start a new term. I think we’ve both got plenty to think about.’
Tristan’s look of shock turned into one of resignation as he took in Charlotte’s words. ‘I understand,’ he said, and gently disentangled his hands from hers. ‘And for what it’s worth, I’m so sorry for putting you through all of this.’ He stood up from the table. Charlotte rose too, and for a second there was an awkward silence as they both felt their boundaries readjusting.
‘Can I text you?’ Tristan said softly.
Charlotte’s throat ached as she looked at him, and she heard a little voice of doubt whispering inside her mind. Was she doing the right thing, calling a pause on their relationship? She thought back to her screamed admission of love for him on the splintering viewing platform and was surprised he hadn’t brought it up. But then, he’d been so far inside his own head when she’d shouted at him, perhaps only the noise, and not her words, had registered? Her face began to burn as she realised that he might just be ignoring it, waiting for her to make the first move and tell him now their feet were on the ground again. But much as her heart was screaming at her to do it, her head was very firmly reminding her that she just didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to cope with it all.
‘I’d like that,’ she said quietly. ‘Tristan… I…’
It was the hope in his eyes that nearly broke her. ‘Yes?’
‘Never mind.’ She couldn’t find the words. Instead, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a hug that she hoped communicated more than she could verbally. His arms around her in reciprocation felt warm, right, and achingly familiar, and her sense of conflict grew about leaving things on hiatus between them. But it had all been too much: this whirlwind of a summer romance had swept her up and taken all of her control, and the drama of the past hours had thrown her back to earth with a bump. She needed time, space, and her normal, familiar world around her. She needed North West Wessex university, the archive and the counsel of her best friend, Gemma. She needed to go home.
They broke apart and Charlotte steeled herself not to kiss him. If their lips met, she knew she’d change her mind.
‘See you soon,’ she said sadly.
Tristan nodded, and then, before either of them could say any more, he’d opened the door and walked through. Charlotte sagged back against the tabletop, feeling it solid against the back of her legs. She knew she’d done the right thing, so why was her heart aching so much?
55
‘Right, hon, well, if you’re sure that’s what you want?’ Gemma’s voice was laced with concern, and Charlotte felt her throat constricting again as she tried to reply.
‘It is,’ she managed. Gemma had collected Charlotte and Comet from Nightshade Cottage the following morning, and they were now on their way back up to Bristol. Charlotte had said a fond goodbye to Lorelai, after filling her in on the information that Todd had recovered from Professor Jacobson’s interview. Lorelai had been devastated at the part her brother had played in the death of her son and his wife, albeit indirectly, but now Philip’s withdrawal from the family made a lot more sense. She’d promised to send Lorelai a copy of the audio file, and in return, Lorelai had given her the documentation that her brother had withheld from the observatory’s records room, that she’d been sifting through when Thea and Tristan had called in. It contained, to Charlotte’s trained eye, valuable information about the first discovery of Volucris by Martin and Laura and gave a very good case for getting them recognised as its locators. Charlotte promised it would take its rightful place among the papers in the North West Wessex archives, and was looking forward to finishing the story. Charlotte had also sent Lorelai the photograph of LBAS she’d found – she hoped it would be of some comfort to all the family.
As she sat in Gemma’s car, watching the miles mount up between her and Lower Brambleton, she couldn’t help ruminating on the twists and turns that had brought her to this point. At the start of the summer, she had had no idea of the secrets she was going to be uncovering in Lower Brambleton Observatory’s past, and how they were so heavily intertwined with the family of the man she’d fallen in love with. Those two facts felt now like the eclipsing binary itself: she’d uncovered the truth about a major discovery, but in the process the truth had triggered a response in Tristan that showed just how far he needed to travel along his own path of healing before he was ready to love and trust again. The two realities were in orbit together, one affecting the other as they took turns at taking precedence in her life and in her mind. She’d called a pause in their relationship, but she’d had enormous provocation to do so, having faced the very real prospect of her own death in a condemned building.
