Page 70 of A Cornish Love Story
I picked up my rucksack from the bedroom floor, heard a rustle from the bed and paused in the doorway, able to make out Ethan still lying there, his head resting on his arm. I wished I could slide back under the covers, tuck myself against him and forget that this wasn’t the real world, where there was a multimillion-pound house to sell and Ethan’s life was in Bristol, not here, and I had a chance to help Spence write her new book. I waited for the familiar flash of excitement, but it didn’t come.
I tiptoed quietly down the stairs and walked through the kitchen, into the living room. There was the fireplace I’d hidden my letters in, the table my shoulder had connected with when I was dancing, the sofa we’d sat on together. I slipped my sandals back on and turned in a slow circle, taking everything in. I didn’t have any photos of this room, but somehow that was better. Did I really need any more reminders of what had happened here, when my brain would force me to relive it far too often anyway?
I walked back through the gleaming kitchen, past its various fridges, and into the hall, with its blossoming bouquets and elegant staircase and those long windows bringing the outside in. I paused next to the panel Ethan had pressed so frantically when we first got trapped. I didn’t know if Sarah had done what she’d said and reset the system, and I didn’t want to risk saying something and making the voice echothrough the house, waking Ethan prematurely, if I didn’t need to. But then I noticed something on the digital display that hadn’t been there before, when the house had been in Panic Room Mode. ‘Unlock front door’ it read, and I pressed the button next to it and heard the thick, heavy clunk of the locks releasing – the work of only a moment.
I reached out and pulled the handle, and the door slid easily towards me. The fresh, rain-scented air washed over me, filling my nose and throat, the contrast to the locked, air-filtered box I’d been stuck in stark and overwhelming. I stepped onto the doorstep, then looked back.
I thought of Ethan, lying in the bed upstairs, and how completely he’d overtaken my senses, reminding me that nobody else had ever compared to him; that knowing him, sleeping with him a decade later was just torture, really, because he was even better – warmer and smarter and sexier – than he had been when I’d first fallen in love with him. I didn’t have a hope of forgetting about him now, but I knew I had to try, for nobody’s sake but my own.
‘Goodbye,’ I whispered. And then, because I couldn’t help wondering if Sarah was still there, listening to the commands we were giving the house, manipulating everything, I said, ‘Sparks, please look after Ethan for me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the voice said blandly, ‘I don’t know who’s speaking.’
Sarah had done what Ethan had asked. She’d resetthe system, and Sterenlenn didn’t recognize me any more. Tears filled my eyes and I swiped at them, brushing them away before they could fall. Then I stumbled down the front path, away from the house and into the slowly emerging day.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
March 2013
It was a testament to how little I’d settled into university life that when I decided to quit halfway through the second term, I could get all my possessions in a large holdall and a slightly battered cardboard box. The journey from York to Alperwick was doable on the train, but it was extra-long, with delays and cramped carriages, wailing toddlers and an atmosphere of unbridled disgruntlement, and I ended up sweaty and frustrated long before the final connection that would take me into Cornwall.
I had made a couple of friends in my halls of residence, and when I told them what I was doing, they tried to talk me out of it, to give it until the end of the year at least. But I had already made up my mind, and I hadn’t connected with them deeply enough tostay in touch once I was gone. I’d only met my assigned tutor three times, because I’d been flying under the radar since I got to York, so nothing felt like too much of a wrench as I filled in forms confirming the severing of my course and accommodation, stating blandly that my home situation had changed, and finalizing the return of most of my loan.
The spring sun was watery but determined as I got on the last train and leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the window, wishing I could block out the squabbling family sitting in the seats across the aisle. I tried to work out if I was feeling dread, resignation or relief at returning to my life in Alperwick, to Mum and our little terrace, but there was nothing but a bleak sort of flatness. It had been there since Ethan had walked away from me the morning after the prom, and had only intensified when I’d come home for my first Christmas break to discovered that the Sparks family had left Cornwall altogether.
I had sent emails to theNorth Cornwall Star,theWestern Tribuneand theAlperwick Paperswhen I’d decided to quit my course, hoping that they would see my decision as a sign of my dedication to Cornwall, a need to be back here, rather than a lack of sticking power. I needed to do something more than look after Mum, prove I could be productive and make something of myself, even if a journalism degree wasn’t it – at least not right now. I knew from Freddy that Ethan was in Sheffield, that he’d got the grades he needed, but I hadn’t heard from him at all.
I still hadn’t got my head around how it had ended so suddenly between us.
After Ethan’s visit the morning after prom night, my anger had faded almost instantly. I’d been sad, sorry for him and everything he’d been through, and even sadder that I hadn’t been able to put my frustrations aside and support him when he’d needed me. I’d expected to hear from him, to at least get a message once the shock had faded and he’d had a chance to process what had happened. But it was Kira and Freddy who had filled me in, a couple of days later when I’d met them on the beach. Freddy was off to Spain the following day, and I hadn’t planned to hang around long, wanting them to have some time to themselves, but Kira’s sympathetic expression when I greeted them at the edge of the sand told me she knew what had happened.
‘What a clusterfuck, eh?’ she said, after we’d had a suncream-scented hug. ‘I’m so sorry, Georgie.’
‘I can’t believe he did it,’ I said. ‘Although, actually, I can. He’s always put Sarah first.’
‘Yeah.’ Freddy wrinkled his nose. ‘Not easy for you, though. Especially now he’s gone for the whole summer.’
‘Did you get to say goodbye before he left?’ Kira asked.
My mouth had gone dry. ‘What do you mean?’
Kira and Freddy exchanged a glance. ‘Oh babe,’ she said quietly. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’ The day had blurred around me, seagulls and the crash of waves, the bustling andlaughter of the busy, summertime bay fading as Kira and Freddy took turns to update me on the news that, apparently, they’d found out from Orwell. Ethan had told him and not me, and it felt like one more betrayal; proof that it was over between us.
The Sparks family were going to a remote part of Scotland for amuch-needed break, according to Ethan’s father. They would be there for the whole summer, a place where phone signal was almost non-existent, then Ethan would go straight to Sheffield University, if he got in – and I knew he would because, despite all the distractions, he had worked hard. It was looking like he’d escape the careless driving charge with a caution, everything neatly swept under the rug by his dad’s lawyer because he’d taken the blame, and it had been his mum’s car that had been taken.
So that was it.
I’d dismissed him after the prom, told him he wasn’t who I thought he was, and there was no second chance, no opportunity to see him in person, apologize or take any of our angry words back. He was hundreds of miles away, and I hadn’t even got a final hug.
I’d listened to my friends, trying to take it all in, then I’d made my excuses and hurried home, getting to my bedroom before I burst into tears.
After that, my summer was hollow. Kira went to London and Freddy was in Spain; as the days passed, I ignored the sunshine and the beach minutes from my house – something people waited all year to experience – and wrote in my room. I wrote letters to Connor fromAmelie, and bits of stories that had been crowding my thoughts. I wrote a whole notebook’s worth of a love story about two people torn apart by the heroine’s conniving cousin, and I didn’t bother to change a whole lot because nobody else was going to read it.
Then I went to university and drifted through the first term. It was as if I was experiencing everything from behind a frosted screen, and when I came home at Christmas, it seemed as if Mum was getting worse again, and the Sparks family had moved away permanently. I should have kept going. I should have returned to my course and my boxy student room with renewed enthusiasm, but instead I’d limped on for a couple more months and now here I was, with all my stuff on the seat beside me, and Alperwick the only future I’d allowed myself.
The sun was a glowing red streak along a swiftly darkening horizon when I finally made it home, trudging from the station with my bag and my box, and the air was icy and bitter. The familiar landscape seemed worn, as if I was already tired of being back here, but the front room light was glowing around the edges of the curtains when I stopped outside our house, and I ferreted in my rucksack for my key. Before I found it, the door swung open, Mum standing on the other side.
