Page 53 of A Cornish Love Story
‘No nausea,’ I said. ‘Three, feeling dizzy or having balance problems.’
‘What about that?’ he murmured against my ear.
‘I felt disoriented when I hit the table, but I’m fine now. Unless you count being close to you. What aftershave are you wearing?’
‘Perspiration and regret. What about four?’
‘Four, being bothered by light or noise.’
‘And?’
‘You were the one bothered by Taylor Swift. Five, mood swings, feeling unexpected emotions or confusion, memory problems.’
‘Any of that?’
I laughed. ‘Confusion and unexpected emotions? Since I walked up the hill this afternoon. They haven’t got worse since I fell over.’
‘And memory problems?’ Ethan trailed his fingertips along my collarbone, his skin cold from holding the ice, and I licked my lips. There was a lot happening in my body and mind that I was struggling to make sense of, but none of it was to do with whacking into the table.
‘My memory is surprisingly strong right now,’ I told him.
‘Yeah.’ I heard him swallow. ‘For me, too.’
He stopped talking and the silence hung between us, but I no longer felt on the verge of a nap, because I was a bundle of charged nerves, waiting for what came next.
‘You know,’ he murmured, ‘it’s a good thing that I was here, that I could get the ice for you.’
‘Why’s that?’ I asked, but my throat tightened because I knew what was coming.
‘Because something tells me you wouldn’t do a very good job by yourself.’
I was transported back to the girls’ bathroom in sixth form, Ethan pressing damp tissue paper into my grazed knee, a gaggle of students walking in on us. ‘Maybe I wasn’t that bothered because I didn’t need to be,’ I said.
‘Right. Because smashing your shoulder open on a glass table is nothing.’
‘Ethan,’ I said with a laugh, ‘one, I didn’t smash itopen: it’s bruised, not cut. Two, it was a bump, not a smash, and that’s a whole different thing.’
‘What’s three?’ he asked, and I realized I was doingmy lists out loud again. Mum was always telling me I didn’t need to number my points before I said them, and I thought I’d got out of the habit, but … I froze, caught in a set of imaginary headlights.
‘What do you mean,what’s three?’ I whispered.
‘You know. Numbering all the reasons my assessment of your accident is inaccurate. What number will you get up to?’
‘Why would I get up to any particular number?’
‘Georgie.’ It was Ethan’s turn to laugh. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I turned around, so I was kneeling on the sofa cushion between his legs, looking down at him. ‘You know I put things into lists like that?’
‘Of course.’ He frowned. ‘You’ve done it ever since I’ve known you.One, we can’t go to the beach because it’s been raining all day and the sand will be sludge,Two, we can’t go to mine because Mum is home,Three, we can’t go to yours because your whole family will be there and they’ll probably be arguing,Four, the abandoned house is full of dust and rats. It’s a Georgie thing, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose.’ My voice was a scratch because I was all too aware of where else I’d used those numbered lists. I sank onto my haunches and trailed my finger up the front of Ethan’s shirt. ‘You know when you were redoing the fireplace in here?’ I said it in as casual a voice as I could manage.
‘Yeah?’ But suddenly he couldn’t look at me, his gaze set firmly on the storm beyond the window, andI knew what he’d found, and I knew that he’d read them.
‘Fuuuuuuuuck.’ I slumped forward, my head landing in the crook between his shoulder and his neck. His arms came around me immediately.
‘I wish you’d actually sent them,’ he said, sounding choked.
