Page 91 of Kindling
“Good luck with the job, Kenzie. I truly hope you get everything you want.” It wasn’t a lie. There was still a tender part of Harper that would always love Kenzie. She was so many of her firsts, and she wouldn’t forget the way they’d laughed and grown together.
But that was over now, and she was ready to be somebody new.
Before Kenzie had time to respond, she walked out of the office and didn’t look back.
“Harper, darling! What on earth—?” Harper’s mother gasped, bewildered, as Harper stepped into the house. She was sopping wet from a surprise rainfall that had caught her just as she’d alighted the train, and had followed her all the way to the little cul-de-sac she’d grown up on.
“I’ll make us a brew,” Mum decided after her eyes drifted from Harper’s waterlogged loafers to her no doubt dripping mascara.
Harper kicked off her shoes. She left a trail of water as she followed Mum into the kitchen, but she would worry about mopping it later. “I need you to tell me that I’m not making a complete and utter mess of my life,” she blurted, collapsing against the kitchen countertop.
With raised brows, Mum flicked on the kettle. Her round face, so much like the one Harper saw in the mirror every day, was a comfort she hadn’t known she’d needed. She’d been avoiding coming home, knowing that if she did, she might curl up in her childhood single bed, with its sheets smelling of lavender, and never emerge. Or she’d spill everything that had happened in Scotland, including the parts her parents were better off not knowing.
In truth, she’d wanted to avoid speaking about it at all, so she’d holed up in her flat until the interview, watching regency romances that did nothing to prevent her from thinking about Fraser and his annoying, beautiful face.
“Here.” Mum took a fluffy lilac bath towel from the clothes airer standing by the radiator, her face soft with sympathy. Harper already felt better, especially when she buried her face in the freshly laundered fabric.
Smoothing Harper’s hair with gentle fingers, Mum stood over her. “Why don’t you tell me what’s to do? I’ve been worried about you. So has your dad.”
“Is he at work?”
She nodded, rubbing warmth back into Harper’s damp clothes. “Tell you what. Go and get your jamas on, and I’ll grab the biscuit tin.”
Harper released a sigh into her mother’s scratchy cardigan. She’d missed her terribly, and only really realised it now.
Pyjamas sounded perfect, so she ran upstairs. Her old room was kept the way she’d left it when she’d moved out at twenty-two, from posters of a baby-faced One Direction ripped fromWe Love Popmagazine, to the shelf of young adult fantasy books she’d devoured during her summer holidays – the ones that had made her want to write in the first place. In her teenage years, everything had felt simple in this room, and yet she remembered the harder times too. Crying after school because people were just so mean, and why couldn’t she be pretty and skinny like the other girls? Discovering that, actually, she quite wanted to kiss her best friend, who happened to be an aggressively heterosexual girl.Chloe had never spoken to Harper again after she’d confessed as much. Then there had been studying to the brink of exhaustion during exam season until she’d wanted to erupt with rage from the slightest noise outside her window.
She’d grown so much since then. She liked her body, most of the time. She was proud to be bisexual, even if she still fell forallthe wrong people. The only thing she wasn’t sure of now was whether she could confidently choose to pursue happiness over success. To remain unemployed for long enough to finish her book. To submit it to agents and publishers, even if she was only met with rejection. She didn’t want to fail. She’d worked her entire life not to fail, because her top grades and creativity were all she’d had to fall back on.
But that was why she was here. To figure it out. Maybe she would have to fail before she could move forwards.
She changed into pyjamas that were too small for her and unironically featured the wordsDare to Dream. Maybe it was time to replace her nightwear with clothes she hadn’t picked out as a seventeen-year-old.
When she headed back downstairs, Mum was on her way into the living room with two mugs. “Better?” she asked.
“Better,” Harper agreed. They sat down, Mum draping a thick blanket over them both and pulling a plate of chocolate digestives closer from the coffee table. Not much had changed since Harper’s youth. Her school pictures littered the walls, one for every year, so that her passage from a buck-toothed six-year-old to a spotty adolescent was here for any visitors to see. At least she looked nice in her graduation picture,beaming as she held her degree and threw up her cap.
“Go on, then. Tell me everything.” Mum patted her thigh.
Harper sighed, and began. She told her about all the things she’d discovered in Belbarrow, from her love of volunteering at the preschool to the way she’d helped local businesses with their marketing plans. She told her about the book, leaving out the detail about it being quite spicy, and how she was most inspired when she was out doing things. Living her life. And then she told her about Fraser – again, leaving out the spicy parts. How they had been so good, and then so bad. She recounted the interview, and Kenzie, and how she really didn’t want to go back to Brentworth. How she might have to return to Belbarrow if only to claim her laptop, and the closure she hadn’t allowed herself before.
Mum was misty-eyed by the end. “You’ve had quite a journey, darling.”
Harper’s own throat was thick with tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was okay before. I was managing. I dealt with the fact that my job lacked passion, and that I always felt on the outside of everything, even in my own relationships. But now it’s like that’s not enough for me.”
“Because you know you deserve better, you silly sausage.” Mum squeezed her hand. “Harper, I have always been proud of you.”
“I know. Because I’ve always worked so hard. But what if I stop?”
“You would never stop. Even if you never set foot in an office again. Even if you have to move back home to chase your dreams as an author,you’d still be working hard. And if you decided it wasn’t for you? If you fancied lying around in your PJs all day with me? Well, as long as you did the hoovering, I’m sure we’d make it work.”
Harper laughed through her sob, pressing her head against Mum’s shoulder. She smelled like home: like milky tea and lemony soap. “I don’t want that. I want to be important. I want to be really good at something.” She squeezed her eyes closed, tasting her own tears. “I always feel like I have to chase something. I want to feel productive, like my life is worth something, because then maybe other people will see it, too.”
“But your life isalreadyworth something simply because you’re kind and creative. It has nothing to do with your work or how you spend your time, or even how other people see you.” Mum kissed her hair lightly. “You don’t have to earn love or respect. You’re worthy of it just because you’re you. I’ve always known that, chicken. Why don’t you?”
She burned with grief for all the times she hadn’t understood such a simple notion. That she didn’t have anything to prove, especially not here.
She didn’t have an answer, but naturally, Mum did.
