Page 56 of A Cornish Love Story
‘Just the four of us again tonight, then.’ Orwell added a dusty bottle to our assortment of refreshments. It looked like cherry brandy.
‘Ethan can’t make it.’ I shrugged, when really I wanted to wipe the smirk off his face.
‘Man, his sister is a fiend.’ Freddy lay his head in Kira’s lap, and she took his beanie off and stroked his hair. I stared at my hands, taking the bottle of vodka when Kira passed it to me.
‘She’s causing lots of trouble,’ I agreed. ‘I just hope she doesn’t get in the way of his exam focus. He’s so committed to getting the grades he needs to study architecture.’
Kira waved a dismissive hand. ‘He’ll walk them. I’m more worried about you losing precious time with him. In a couple of months, we’ll all be off to different unis.’
‘We could do long distance,’ I said, then amended it, because my talk with Mum had cemented how I felt about him. ‘Wewilldo long distance, and it’ll be fine.’
‘Even if you’re still here, and he’s off enjoying the perks of university?’ Orwell asked.
‘I’m not going to be here.’ I chugged more vodka. ‘Mum’s doing better, and my grades are OK. I’m going to major in journalism and join whatever creative writing groups there are. And if we both get our first choices, Sheffield and York, we won’t be that far away.’ I loved the idea of being somewhere Ethan had lived for a little while. I was already looking forward to him giving me a tour of the city, showing me all his favourite parts, when he came to visit during our first term.
‘You’ve got it all figured out,’ Kira said. ‘And Ethan will be all in, too. That boy adores you, straight up.’She picked up the cherry brandy and I clinked my bottle against hers, my warm glow partly to do with the alcohol, and partly to do with Kira’s faith in what we had.
I got back to my room late, and tipsier than usual, so I sent Ethan a message:
Missed you tonight. Bit drunk. I love you. G. xx
I put my phone on charge, but my head was too full to sleep, so I took a reporter’s notebook off my desk. It had a plain purple cover, and was ring-bound along the top edge, but I wasn’t writing a story, or a journal entry.
I had decided the best way to get my feelings out about Ethan was to write him a letter, even if I never gave it to him. I could say everything I wanted to, safe in the knowledge that nobody would see it, that he wouldn’t understand how insecure I sometimes felt about us.
I lay on my back and chewed my pen. There were so many letters in the Cornish Sands series, and I loved how they made the plots tick forward, how each one was an insight into a particular character. Then I thought of the times Ethan had been in my room, under my duvet while I nipped to the toilet or had a shower; when I’d briefly let myself fall asleep in his arms. He might spy a notebook and – though he wasn’t a snooper – think it was full of stories, and I’d alwayslet him read those. I imagined him opening one and seeing page after page of letters addressed to him.
I needed some kind of code, but I was only starting to learn shorthand and my feelings felt too big for that. Then I remembered the letters between my favourite couple, Amelie and Connor, how I’d savoured each one, sure of a happy ending for them that never came. Well, with me and Ethan it would be different.
I knew exactly what to do.
I rolled onto my stomach and opened my notebook to the first clean page.
Dear Connor, I wrote, then proceeded to tell Ethan everything I was thinking, everything I was worried about. My drunk brain spilled it all onto the page, and I realized, even as I scribbled those first, unsure sentences, that I could write secret letters to the man I loved, under the guise of us being my two favourite fictional characters, and nobody would ever know, least of all him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Now
‘Istarted doing it before we broke up.’ I was still kneeling on the sofa cushion, and Ethan was trailing his hand up and down the outside of my leg, as if he was mapping the shape of me. ‘Mum suggested I write a journal, so I could get my thoughts out when I was frustrated about you missing things, looking out for Sarah.’ I winced.I’d always felt guilty for being annoyed with him, because I understood why he was doing it – until things went too far.
‘I hated it, too,’ he said quietly. ‘But you know that, at the time, I didn’t think I had a choice. But the letters …’
‘I was worried you’d find them, realise how upset I was getting, so I had to come up with some way to disguise them. I thought of Amelie and Connor’s letters,how I’d read some of them out to you, and thought, if you saw a letter with those names, you’d just think it was part of my Cornish Sands obsession and close the notebook. Then, later, once we broke up, the names Amelie and Connor made even more sense – I was still here, in Alperwick, and you were gone. It felt poetic, somehow, to keep calling us that.’ I shrugged. ‘When did you find them? During the build, I’m guessing.’
‘It was one of the workmen,’ he said. ‘The foreman, AP, brought them to me, as he did with everything unusual we found on site. If you discover anything old, you have to stop work and establish whether it’s historically important. Something like that can have a huge impact on the timeline.’
‘But a bundle of love letters tied up with ribbon don’t count?’
‘Not when they’re written in biro,’ he said with a smile. ‘Sarah, she—’
‘Sarah didn’t read them, did she?’ The thought made me feel sick.
Ethan adjusted the ice pack so it was against my shoulder and neck. ‘No, she didn’t read them. She didn’t get a chance because AP brought them straight to me, and when I saw the name at the top, Connor, and your handwriting—’
‘You remember my handwriting?’
He levelled me with a look. ‘How many stories did you get me to read?’
