Page 34 of Rewrite the Stars
I love spending time with Sophie, and I love going home every day to Jack.
We clink glasses.
‘So, back in the real world, what are your plans for your thirtieth year on this beautiful planet?’ Sophie asks me as she lies back again on the grass. One of the many things I love about her is how she always brightens my day by looking ahead, discussing the possibilities of the future and finding something to plan or look forward to.
‘Well,’ I contemplate, plucking some daisies from beside me. ‘I would absolutely love to get a break away from here, you know, and I don’t mean that I want to run away from anything. I just would love a change of pace, a change of scenery.’
‘Ooh,’ says Sophie, liking my style already. ‘So what are you thinking? A city break? A week in the sun?’
‘Paris,’ I say, feeling a gnaw in the pit of my stomach for a city I’d always dreamed of going to. ‘I really want to go to Paris.’
I picture it in my head – the most romantic city in the world with its boulevards and gothic architecture filling my soul and feeding my creative senses.
‘I’d also love to start writing some songs again,’ I confess. ‘I’d love to see if I could still do it, but I’ll need to search inside myself to find the courage! But I’ve a feeling it will come back to me one day soon.’
‘Yes!’ Sophie tells me. ‘You need to be true to your soul and Jack would be behind you one hundred per cent. Don’t ever hide your talent in a box in your head, Charlotte, or wherever you’ve been storing your writing since Matthew’s accident. Get it out there. The world deserves to hear the wisdom of Charlotte Taylor, and you know it.’
In a way I believe her. I can feel the urge to write niggling at me in a way no one understands unless they write themselves. It’s like an itch waiting to be scratched, a part of you that can’t be ignored.
‘I’d love to someday show that side of me to Jack,’ I say to Sophie. ‘He honestly has no idea how much I’ve hidden a whole part of who I am for way too long now.’
It does sadden me to think that Jack doesn’t know the depth of my passion for music, and it’s by no means his fault, only mine. I’ve muted it, I suppose, unable to separate my passion for writing songs from my history and long-time thirst for Tom Farley. Jack knows I can play guitar and that I use it to entertain the little people I teach sometimes, but he will never really understand how much it runs through my veins and is bursting to get out. If only I could let it.
‘Well, on that point, I think the main thing that struck me when I turned thirty was how important it is to make changes where you need to in your life,’ says Sophie from behind her Gucci sunglasses. ‘Relationships mean more, being around the right people, finding your own tribe you might call it, I suppose. Does that make sense?’
I put my glass down onto the dainty little wooden holder that Sophie bought for the occasion today and contemplate her words. I have so, so much to be grateful for right now. I’m healthy, as is all my family, even if Matthew is sometimes a grumpy bugger to be around when he’s having a bad day for any one of many reasons, from the serious to the simple things. I have a job in a school I adore, I have the most beautiful home in the city in a top location, I’ve great friends both old and new, plus the man in my life treats me like I’m the most important person in the world. I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve plenty to celebrate today, and lots to smile about.
I lift my glass again and raise it to my new close friend, Sophie.
‘Here’s to my next trip around the sun and all it brings,’ I say to her, feeling a tiny glow of excitement at all I have to look forward to in my life. ‘I’m glad I met you, Sophie. You’re one of my tribe for sure.’
Even though I don’t like to admit it, Sophie gets me, more than even Emily or Kirsty does. She knows I’ve an itch to travel, she knows I’ve creativity and music bubbling in my veins, she knows I’m a free spirit longing to break free from the ties to my brother but that I am afraid to do so at the same time. It’s like she can see the real me behind the façade I sometimes feel I’ve created and, in many ways, the way we connect reminds me of the only other person I feel that way around. The one I’m so determined to disconnect from. I’m glad I’ve found a soul mate in Sophie; it reassures me I’m moving on at long last.
After a few hours’ shopping for new clothes, a trip to the hairdressers for a revamp of my usual look, which takes me away from the long tousled do I’ve sported for so long now into a sleek, slightly darker shoulder-length style with a blunt fringe (all booked and paid for by Jack), new Chanel perfume and some make-up treats from Sophie, I’m feeling spoiled and special in a way I haven’t done in a long time. So much of my energy over the last year and more has been consumed by fear and hope about Matthew’s recovery, but now, I decide, it’s time for me to really step up on my own self-care.
In the original plan, now that Matthew is on the up, it would be the perfect time to go and find Tom to see if we can start again where we left off. However, twelve months later, he has his new ‘actress girlfriend Joanie’ and I have Jack. I can’t keep thinking ‘what if’ any more. This is where life is taking me, and so this is where I’ll keep going.
Jack Malone loves me and he isn’t afraid to show it, not only in materialistic ways like he did today, but also by being there for me and cheering me on in so many ways in my teaching career when self-doubt creeps in. When I get home that evening, he has more surprises in store for me than I could ever have imagined.
‘Hang on a minute! You’re taking mewhere?’ I say to him, my lip trembling with raw emotion. ‘I don’t understand! When? How did you know?’
Jack pops open a bottle of champagne, expertly fills two flute glasses and hands me one, then kisses me on the cheek.
‘Happy birthday, beautiful,’ he says to me. ‘Let’s just say a little birdie told me this afternoon how it was on your wish list, so I booked it while you were off getting your hair done. We go at Easter when you’re off school so you don’t have to worry about taking time off. Is that OK? We’re going to Paris, Charlotte!’
A shiver runs through me from the tops of my shoulders to the tips of my fingers and I start to cry, totally overwhelmed that he would do something like this for me.
‘I can’t believe this! Oh Jack, I love you,’ I say to him, meaning every single bit of what I’ve just told him. ‘How on earth did I ever find you?’
He smiles at me and pulls me close to him, kissing me firmly on the lips, then lifts me up onto the kitchen table and shows me just how much he loves me too.
Chapter Nine
Easter Monday, Paris, April 2017
Igasp from the tips of my toes as a burst of colourful fireworks explodes over the banks of the River Seine, each pop making me jump a little more into Jack’s arms that snuggle round my waist from behind. Like a wide-eyed child, I gulp in the view through the window of the restaurant, totally mesmerized and pinching myself that I’m actually here in Paris, the most romantic city in the world.
‘I just can’t believe we’re here.’ I can see the lights of the Eiffel Tower from where we’re enjoying our aperitifs in the upper-floor champagne bar of this haute cuisine restaurant. I can smell the finest of food welcoming us in, and the sound of jazz piano music tinkling in the distance over the chitchat of other loved-up couples is making me feel very excited indeed.
