Page 28 of Second Song

There’s no fucking way I want a single thing to do with them. I’m annoyed they won’t take my silence as a final answer, but pushy wankers pretty much describes them.

Rowan: Sorry they contacted you. Ignore them. I am.

That gets two blue ticks but no reply, which is fine by me. I don’t want one, not while my phone is also full of messages from my new headmaster.

Being wanted is weird. Exciting and new.

No.

Not new. That isn’t the right way to describe what travels with me back to Cornwall. I’m an adult, not a kid, but I might as well be sitting next to Mum on the way to a music festival. Her excitement used to fizz and, like her, I’m another shaken bottle now that my car is loaded with my belongings.

This excitement is a good reminder. Worry is less welcome. It hitches a ride with me regardless because Luke’s start-early offer comes with catches.

The first was to call him Luke instead of Mr. Lawson. I still squirm at the second condition he set even before I left that garden. Writing out my life path on that pad of paper wasn’t easy, not when there were sections I couldn’t find words for. Gaps I couldn’t make myself fill. Page after page that I finally tore out and folded into my pocket before returning that pad and pen.

The only reason I squirm now is that I’ll have to do it again before starting that trauma training, which means making a fuller version and being prepared to talk it through with that counsellor if I want to join his trainee cohort. That’s a firm rule—I have to ask for the training; Luke won’t enforce it, he just won’t keep me if I don’t volunteer for it.

His third catch is also cast-iron.

I’m not allowed to teach alone. He said this is a low-pressure short-term trial as much for me as for him. He needs an extra adult to bridge a gap between his absent teachers and the ones left carrying their load until the half-term break at the end of May. They’re stretched too thin, he said. For the next six weeks, I can help by taking over some supervision duties at evenings and weekends, and by helping in a classroom with an experienced teacher.

That part isn’t daunting. To be honest, not being in charge is a relief.

And if I can make progress with that life-path task? He says there’s potential for me to stay for longer. If I can finish what I started and agree to trauma training, he’d find work for me right up until the summer break starts in July. That would give me so much more experience before coming back for teacher training at the end of the summer, but for now, these next six weeks are all he’ll promise.

I’ll worry about the future later.

For now, a more imminent worry comes from spotting surfers catching white-tipped waves alongside the coast road.

Are any of them Liam?

I don’t think they can be. He mentioned other jobs and contracts taking him up-country. My rearview mirror still reflects the same expression a shiny brass plate did so often at school. Waiting for the red light above the headmaster’s study to turn green used to make me anxious. Today, a couple more unanswered questions lead to the same prickle.

I told Liam I’d be back in September, didn’t I?

Would letting him know I’m back early mean he’d want to see me again?

It’s a pointless question. I don’t have his number, and if he has social media, it’s as well hidden as mine. Plus, a week away has made me wonder if our night together was only hot enough to blister because we’d dodged death with each other—a twin reaction to surviving disaster. Everything felt so heightened, like nothing else I can remember.

Amazing.

While I’m on this questioning train, I ask myself another.

But does adrenaline really explain all that sharing?

I can still feel his fingertip on my belly, still hear his gruff murmurs about his life, his injury, medical discharge, and his lost friendships, all while Liam’s finger kept sketching. That kind of post-sex sharing is all so far out of my wheelhouse that I don’t have an answer. All I can do is make myself focus on the only second chance for me still in Cornwall. It’s waiting for me at Glynn Harber.

So is Charles.

He waves as soon as my car crunches across the driveway gravel, and yet his smile is another reminder of a surprisingly wide one Liam showed me, and it’s gutting to guess that I’ll never see it again.

Who knows what that does to my face. Charles peers through the driver’s side window. “Oh, no.” His sparkling, sunshine smile dims. “Luke already told you?”

“Told me what?”

That he’s changed his mind about me, of course.

Worse than that.

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