Page 86 of The Best Book Boyfriend
“You can!” they cheer together.
“When will you tell him?” asks Megan. “A plan like this needs a deadline.”
“Soon.”
“Do it today.”
“He’s working today,” I sniff, reaching for another tissue.
“Tomorrow then?”
“He might be out.”
“Stop making excuses.” Hattie rattles me gently and I wipe away my tears. “No more torturing yourself like this.”
“I will, I promise. I just need to figure out what I’m going to say.”
Chapter 35
Luke
Twonights.That’sallit took for it to feel like Kara belonged here. Although that’s not entirely true. Having her in my home felt right from that very first dinner, and now that she’s gone the place is quiet without her.
My first day back at Sunshine was a usual busy Saturday, nothing I can’t handle, but after the week I’ve had, it was exhausting being on my feet all day. I took a nap on the sofa when I got in, then spent the rest of the evening in bed reading Kara’s latest book club pick and trying not to text her and tell her I can’t stop thinking about her.
I know I’m going to have to tell her soon, but something is holding me back. Guilt, anxiety, fear. Some awful combination of all three.
I don’t feel well rested, though my mood is getting better. I manage to eat a banana for breakfast, can’t stomach much else, then grab my keys to take a drive over to see Granny Annie. It’s only a thirty minutes to Ashden, back through the small town I grew up in, and into the driveway of one of the last houses before you’re back onto country roads.
Heather’s parents owned the house three doors down, but after she died, they sold up and moved to be closer to her sister and their grandkids in Wales. They still keep in touch, and I’ve been meaning to visit, but with lockdowns, and moving, and opening Sunshine, it’s just not happened yet.
My lovely wee Granny is standing in the doorway with her pinny on, waiting for me to arrive. I greet her with a hug and she pats me on the arm as she sends me out the back door. This is our routine. A quick hi, a bye, and then a proper chat when I come back in from the meadow.
I walk down the garden path, realising with a sadness that my Granny might need a bit more help than she’s been letting on. A lot of her plants have gone over, in need of deadheading and a good cut back. I’ll try to do a bit before I go home today.
At the bottom of the garden, I open the little gate and head out into the meadow. As a kid, this was my playground. I spent hours running around here, making up games, building dens, peeing in bushes, only coming back to the house when I needed to wolf down a sandwich and a packet of crisps for lunch. When Mum had weekends off work, we’d spend hours out here on a blanket, reading books and playing games. She’s often told me how guilty she felt that she wasn’t here to take me to school or tuck me in every night, but those memories from our days in the sun make up for it.
The tall oak tree sits in a circle in the middle of the meadow. Once a mown path kept the route clear, but that was my job and I’ve not been here for a while. Now it’s overgrown and patchy, but I can still make my way through.
I take a seat in my usual spot at the base of the trunk. Our spot. A perfect little nook for two, where ancient roots have breached the soil.
“Hey, Sunshine,” I say out loud.
Heather and I had our first kiss in this spot. It had been coming all summer long. We’d always spent school holidays dicking about together, exploring the woods, dragging cardboard boxes and bits of old wood out to the meadow and building a world of our own.
The summer we turned fourteen was different. We were almost adults, far too mature for anything that could be seen as childish. Awkward in our own skin, easily embarrassed. On school days, we struggled to balance not trying so hard we drew attention to ourselves with feeling like we mattered. It had always been easy when it was just us. There was no pressure to be anything else, but we spent that summer under the tree overthinking every moment, unable to find the language to express our feelings.
Heather had started to care more about her clothes and her appearance. She wore dresses and tight shorts now, not our regular tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts for climbing in. She’d bring a picnic blanket every day and we spent hours listening to music, one headphone each. At night I’d download music and burn mix CDs for us to listen to, carefully searching the lyrics to make sure there were enough hidden meanings to confess my feelings for her. We’d lay on our backs perfectly still in the shadow of the tree, trying not to move in case the disc jumped. I was always aware when we were lying real close. If I moved, I might touch her, but I wasn’t brave enough to find out if that would be a good or bad thing.
Sometimes we’d bring books and read quietly next to each other, or sometimes read sections out loud. She loved the power of words, and her passion for books was infectious. Sometimes she’d nab old romance novels from her mum’s bookcase and we’d roll about laughing at mentions ofrods, andmembers, andglistening orbs. It would make her laugh to know I’m reading romance again now.
We fantasised a lot. But the adventures we planned were less about our childhood missions to Mars, and more about the lives we hoped we’d live. We talked for hours about where we might go. The things we might see and do. Who we might meet on our travels. We talked about the people we hoped we’d become. We mapped it all out right there under the tree, making endless promises, never once saying the things we weren’t saying.
It was always ‘we’. There was never a doubt that we wouldn’t experience it all together.
She taught me how to braid friendship bracelets, holding one end tight between our knees while our fingers tied knot after knot until intricate patterns appeared. Mine were shoddy as fuck, hers a work of art.
We spent that summer inching closer and closer together, and by the final week she was reading to me while I lay with my head in her lap. She’d stroke my hair and sometimes sing to me. Sometimes we’d hold hands while we listened to music, and at some point we’d started to hug goodbye when we went our separate ways for dinner.
