Page 56 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
I do not know if he is alive or dead. I do not know if he will make it to safety, or what will await him if he does.
He is gone, like water that I try to hold in my hands. It slips away as if it was never there.
As I stare out at the open ocean, watching the slow approach of the boat that is coming to take me back to the mainland, I wonder if I imagined the past six months. Was he ever really here at all?
The Welsh men shout at me. I linger too long for their liking, but I cannot leave our island without saying goodbye to the place that has been my home for so long, and has made me realise what a home truly feels like.
Eventually, I step into the boat and I feel like I disperse, like seafoam across the waves.
‘Oh, come on! That’s literally the ending of the original Little Mermaid story. She lets the prince live and turns to seafoam. This is nothing but a storybook, as I’ve said all along! And step! Step, Mickey!’ Ren taps his finger on the page. ‘On legs! Not on bloody flippers!’
Everything I was before is different now.
I leave part of me behind on this island. I am unlikely to ever see this place again. When they discover the vessel I am responsible for destroying, I will not be permitted to return. I do not know if I would want to. Now I have seen what life is like when I am not alone, I do not want to be discarded for such a long time again.
My heart aches for him. Maybe it would have been better if I had never met him at all, for now I know what I am missing, and I don’t know how to return to life as it was before.
I don’t know if I will ever discover his fate, but he has changed my life forever, and both of our hearts will always be on this little island, for good.
‘That’s it?’ Ren says. ‘We did all of this and we don’t even get to discover the outcome? He’s just gone?’
‘Thatcan’tbe it.’ Ava desperately flips through the rest of the pages, but each one is frustratingly blank. ‘Maybe she kept her notebooks! Maybe you have them in your shop too! I know we’ve been through everything, but they might bereeeeallywell hidden!’
I tell her she’s welcome to have another look, but a lot of my stock has already been taken up to the castle ready for the antiques fair next weekend, and wealltriple-checked for anywhere that other diaries or notebooks could possibly be hidden.
‘Maybe that really wasitfor her too,’ I say carefully. ‘Maybe we’re never going to know becauseshenever knew. Maybe he never did come back. That’s the problem with real life – sometimes you don’t get a neatly wrapped-up movie-ending. Sometimes things happen and you never truly understand why. That’s why I’ve always made up stories about the things in my shop – because I have to accept that I’m never going to know the real truth behind them, and stories are nicer. In stories, people who deserve happy endings always get them. In real life, sometimes they don’t, and feelings are ugly, messy, and complicated, so it’s nicer to believe in a ribbon-wrapped neatly tied up happy ending.’
‘So we just have to believe that he got back to her? When he left, maybe he headed to the mainland, and was waiting for her on this very beach when she got back?’
‘Well, it’s certainly a possibility.’ My eyes flick up and catch Ren’s, and I’m torn between buoyant enthusiasm and false hope. It might’ve been summer by then, but the mystery sailor was still injured, and whatever raft he’d managed to cobble together, it probably wasn’t the greatest feat of engineering. Ren and I share a look that suggests we also share an idea of the sailor meeting a watery grave that night, but I can’t rain on Ava’s parade like that. ‘Maybe she was so deliriously happy that she didn’t have time to write any more in her diary because they were so busy planning their future and living happily ever after.’
‘That’s a much better ending, Mickey. Let’s keep that one.’ She closes the diary and hugs it close to her chest. ‘Thanks for only reading an entry or two at a time. If we’d read the whole thing on the first day, Dad would never have let us come back to your shop. I purposefully dragged it out so we could spend more time together, but it doesn’t matter now he’s in love with you.’
It takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up with what she’s said.
Ren, who was leaning over the bench from behind to read the diary over our shoulders, pushes himself upright, his face blazing red enough to rival the centre of the sun. ‘Ava!’
‘But you are. Have you seen the way you look at her? And did you see the sand on your clothes last night? And your phone’s sitting in a bowl of rice! It doesn’t take a genius to work out how that happened! Honestly, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes…’ She clicks her tongue and sounds like such a scolding parent that it makes me giggle, and what she’s implying has made me feel fluttery and tingly anyway. ‘Besides, you’re always telling me to be honest, so you’ve only got yourself to blame.’
She knows exactly what she’s doing and is loving every second of winding him up.
‘Ava, there is a difference between being honest and saying things in front of people whentheyweren’t the intended listener.’ He’s come round to this side of the bench and is pacing in front of us. He glances at me and then back to her. ‘Would you mind? Hypothetically? If I was?’
‘I’d be so happy! Mickey’s the best thing to happen to us in foreeeeeever!’ She throws her arms around me from the side.
I squeeze her close and tug gently on her purple plaited hair. ‘You’ll always be his number one priority, and this doesn?—’
I was trying to reassure her that this doesn’t change anything, but she interrupts me. ‘Are you kidding? I don’t want to be his priority! If he’s distracted by you, maybe he’ll let me do something fun for a change!’
‘Oi! I’m not that bad!’ Ren protests, and we’re all giggling as we walk back to the car with Ren in the middle, an arm around each of us, with Ava carrying the giant teddy bear she won from Caryl last night.
‘Does this mean we get to spend more time in your shop, Mickey?’
I grin over at her. ‘Yes. And hopefully a few customers will spend more time in my shop now too, after your dad’s input and advice.’
‘And as a bonus, all three of us will actuallyfitin there after some of that stuff has sold next weekend,’ Ren quips.
‘I’d really dislike you if I didn’t like you so much.’ I give him a jokingly scathing look, and he responds by leaning over to drop a kiss on my cheek.
