Page 144 of Cherry Beats

Nothing will ever feel real without you now.

Presley.

Chapter Forty-Four

“Are you going to contact him?” Molly asked.

I shook my head, staring down at his pile of honesties in my hands.

“What?” she’d shrieked. “Tessa Lisbon, this has got to stop. You’re sabotaging your own happiness for what? Because you’re scared? Because you can’t—”

“He’s right, Molly,” I interrupted, holding up his last letter. “He’s right. This isn’t about him. This isn’t about us. It’s about whether I can handle loving someone famous, and I need to let him know when I’ve figured that out. I love him. Who wouldn’t? But this isn’t normal life. It would mean me leaving Hollings Hill, Bourbon, Fliss, BB’s… you…”

“If I fucked you like he did, fair enough, stay, but don’t use me or Bourbon as an excuse.”

“I need a few days.”

“And what about what Presley needs?”

I lowered the letter into my lap, raking over his words as I whispered, “Maybe he’s had it wrong all along. He isn’t the selfish one. He never has been. It’s me who’s selfish.”

“Oh, baby girl,” she sighed, her shoulders relaxing in sympathy.

It pained me to know I wasn’t as good with words as Presley was. If I could have texted him back with something that mattered, I would have, but the only things I could think to say were:Got your parcel. Thanks.And that wasn’t the woman Presley had fallen in love with.

He deserved more. He deserved the fearless version he met at the beginning of a story—the woman who didn’t worry and stumbled over her own feet as much as her words, only to laugh it off and somehow make it seem charming to him. He deserved someone whole, without any doubts or fears. Someone who wouldn’t wake up one morning utterly in love only to hear one bad piece of news and then run from him without explanation.

I had to learn how to be her again.

For both of us.

* * *

Early one midweek morning—after the media had all but cleared away, making it easy for me to slip out of the fire exit of my apartment—I stood outside my parents’ house, staring up at the simplicity of it, not recognising it as somewhere I once called home. I’d spent years there—years locked up in my room to escape the nauseating unit that I had to call my family.

I loved them.

I always would.

But nothing is harder in this life than knowing you don’t belong among the people who brought you into this world. You don’t think like them, you don’t laugh like them, you don’t find pleasure in other people’s pain like they do. You’re different, and that’s got to be okay. You never asked to be brought into this world, but you can honour the beauty of it by walking away and doing what’s right foryou.

The curtains were still drawn in every room, meaning they were all in bed. Regardless, I made my way up the path, inhaled a big breath of bravery, and then I knocked.

Three slow, precise, controlled knocks.

By the time anyone came to the door, those three knocks had turned to twelve. My mother opened it; her bird’s nest hair wild, and her eyes squinted against the light of a brand new day. Mascara bled under her eyes from the night before, and it took a second for her to register who was standing in front of her, bold and new, dressed in jeans, a black tee, and a blazer, while she stood there in a dirty old dressing gown.

“Hey, Mum,” I said smoothly.

She blinked, as if to wake herself as she readjusted and tightened the loose belt around her waist.

“Tess!” she cried with eyes alive, filled with fake mother’s love. Lisa Lisbon was used to working in a crowd. She knew when to stand taller, smooth her hair down, and make an impression.

I mattered to her now. In her eyes, I was the gatekeeper to a new life.

“My beautiful daughter,” she cooed, gesturing for me to step inside. “Come in, come in.” She peered out of the door and down the street. “Is Presley with you? Is he here?”

“Mum…”

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