Page 86 of Milo
I shake my head. “I want to say our goodbyes now privately.”
“Sweetheart, don’t,” he says, pulling me into his arms and kissing me deeply. When he pulls back his eyes are warm and loving. “You’ll see me in a week. It’s hardly any time, and you’ll be so occupied with moving into the flat Simeon found for you that you won’t have time to miss me.”
“I’ll always have time for that.”
He gives me that tragic-comic face. “I know. But time passes quickly. Now give me a kiss and don’t say goodbye. Just say see you soon.” I kiss him, twining my hands in his hair, and then force myself back.
“I love you so much,” I say quickly.
He squeezes my hand. “Ring me when you get there,” he directs. “Don’t forget.” He pushes a package into my hands. “Open it when you’re on the way.”
I nod and, taking one last look at him like a hoarder, I turn and make my way into the station. The train is waiting on the small platform, and in a flurry of movement I stow my case and fall into my seat. I stare out of the window, looking to see if I can see the car park, but it’s hidden from me by the ticket office. I look around. The carriage is empty, and my hands tighten on the package. I feel lost and suddenly very lonely and the package is like a lifeline.
Without even thinking about it, my hands tear open the paper and a bubble-wrapped object falls out. I open it to find a box of mixed-flavour teas and a red mug. It’s obviously handmade, and the squat shape of it is enchanting as is the rich, deep colour. I open the card. Niall’s scruffy handwriting makes me smile. It’s so him, as if he’s too impatient to have proper penmanship.
My darling Lo,
I hope you like the mug. It’s one of a kind, like you. When you drink your first mug of tea in the morning in your new place, I want you to think of all the wonderful things that you’re capable of doing in the coming day. I want you to also always remember that I’m so proud of you and I’m waiting for you when you’re ready to come home. I love you always.
Niall
I stare down at the objects in my lap.This mug is gorgeous,I think idly,but it would look better in the kitchen at home when I redecorate it.It’s the smallest thing but it’s like a bomb going off in my head, and suddenly I know with a blinding flash that I’m wrong. I’m so wrong. I hear myself laugh.What the fuck am I doing?
I’m leaving my home and my heart behind, to do what? Prove myself to arseholes like Thomas who don’t give a shit about me? I’m leaving Niall and all the people who’ve become my family to strip dirt from pictures in a city that’s so foreign to me now it might as well be on the moon. When I could do that at home and still have time to walk the woods with Niall, to wake up next to him and go to sleep in his arms. To decorate his home in vibrant shades, to laugh with Oz and Silas and watch Cora grow up.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” I say aloud and grin. “Well, they do say it does you good to know yourself. I’m stupid, but thankfully it’s not a permanent affliction.” Standing up, I gather my stuff together, moving quickly and feeling for the first time in my life that these decisions are all mine and they’re wholly and completely right.
Niall
Unable to stand and watch him get on the train, I head back to the car, sitting on the bonnet so he can see me as the train leaves.
The wind gusts around me, blowing my hair into my eyes and teeth and drawing wetness to my eyes, which is totally the wind, I tell myself. I can’t have sunk so low as to cry over a man leaving me.
I slump on the bonnet because of course I have, because it isn’t some faceless generic man, it’s Lo in all his complicated awkwardness and beauty. It’s him with his sharp-boned face andsoft full lips, his soft affectionate nature and the fierceness with which he holds me at night. Complicated and wonderful, he’s my Lo, and that’s how he will always be.
Since the night in the gallery, I’ve striven to believe that we can make a long-distance relationship work. That some cosmopolitan and arty man won’t sweep him off his feet. However, sitting now alone and dampened by the rain that’s starting to fall, I remember something I missed. Lo is loyal. He might be quiet and unassuming, but he’s the most fiercely loyal person I know.
I let that sink in so that when the train chugs out of the station and past my perch, I’m able to lift my hand to wave goodbye. Although I look hard, I can’t see him because of the rain that’s starting to come down hard now. Still, I imagine him sitting in his seat looking out at me while he prepares to conquer the world of painting restoration one quiet word at a time. It gives me the strength to smile in case he’s watching even though my heart feels torn in two.
The train vanishes, leaving me in the desolate carpark with the scent of diesel and wet leaves on the air. I sit for a few minutes, unwilling to get up and go because it almost feels like I’m abandoning him and us. Finally, when the rain has become a downpour, I recognise the idiocy of my actions and I slide off the bonnet and let myself back into the car and start the engine. I turn on the heater and wait for the windscreen to clear. The blades of the wipers are almost hypnotic, and I stare into the distance, listening to their comforting swish.
They must have lulled me into a stupor which accounts for the reason why, when there’s a thump on the window, I squeal like a little girl. The carpark’s gloomy now and the window’s steamed up, so I use the button to lower the window and then sit in stunned immobility. “You?”
Milo peers through the window. His hair is plastered to his face and neck, his skin is winter white, and his teeth are chattering, but his eyes are free from the panic that’s been in them since the gallery, and they’re steady and soft and warm again the way they always are when he looks at me. The way he’s always looked at me, I realise with a shock of recognition. “Me,” he says.
There’s a short pause while we stare at each other. “Why aren’t you on the train?” My voice is rough and hoarse, and his eyes burn into mine.
“I didn’t want to go,” he says simply.
“Not for me?” I say hoarsely. “Sweetheart, you know we’ll be fine.”
“I know,” he says quietly, cutting through my jumble of words as if he’s shouted. He doesn’t need to do that, I’ve discovered. He just speaks and I listen. I always have, even when he was a little boy following me and Gideon around. “I know we’ll be fine. I never doubted it. You and I are together now and nothing, no distance, no other person is going to change that.” There’s a stark simplicity to his words that makes tears form at the back of my eyes.
“Then why?”
“For me.” He swipes his hand across his face. “I love you, but if I’d needed to go I would still have gone. I think I needed to test it.”
“And you worked out the result when you got on the train?”
