Page 79 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
Mum, call me. Now.
Then a third message, just a sad-faced emoji.
Nothing from Dan, nothing to give me a clue as to what might have happened. I try calling her, but her phone is off, so I try Dan.
“I thought you were off-grid communing with nature?” hesays, and his voice pulls me right out of Eden, slamming me back into real life.
“I am, just checking in. Is Jess okay? She messaged me.”
“She’s being tearful and weird. Girl stuff. Sylvie’s taken her out for a milkshake. You don’t need to worry.”
“Has something happened with her friends? Is it Penny?” I ask. I hear clinking on the line, the sound of tools tinkering with a bike chain.
“I don’t know, Anna, it’s probably a storm in a teacup, you know what she’s like,” Dan says. But now I am worried. Something happened, she wanted to talk to me, and I wasn’t there. Now Sylvie’s taken her out for a milkshake. Running back down the hill, I see Will is stacking up logs.
“I have to go. I need to get back,” I tell him.
“Why? What’s happened?” he asks, his face shifting to concern.
“I don’t know, mother’s intuition. I want to catch an earlier bus home.”
“Okay, I’ll come with you,” he says, but then we look around at everything that needs doing—the blankets strewn in the grass, the cups and bowls from breakfast lying unwashed.
“There’s a bus at two,” I say, looking at the clock on my phone, then quickly start picking up the rugs, shaking them out, and folding them. Will strides across the glade and takes the rug from my hand.
“I’ll do this. You won’t make the two o’clock otherwise,” he says.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“If you need to go, you need to go. I’ll sort everything out here.”
So I run to the cabin to pack, and Will helps gather up my things. When I’m ready to go, he walks me back to the road and waits with me until the bus comes.
“Sorry to break up the party,” I say quietly, suddenly feeling awkward in front of him. We’re standing a foot apart, and I want to reach for his hand, but I don’t know what the rules are. Is it over now, or only when I step onto that bus?
“I guess it had to end sometime,” he says, taking a long exhale, reaching out for my hand. I savor the feel of it, the strong heat of his grip. If this is it, if this is all I get, I want to kiss him again. One more chance to hold him to me.
“Will…”
“This weekend, Anna, it’s been—”
But then my bus arrives, and he doesn’t finish the sentence. The spell is already broken. “See you around, Appleby,” he says, squeezing my shoulder.
“See you,” I say. As I get on the bus, I give him a wave before turning around to let my face crumple. I take a seat next to a window, and the noise of the engine and other people feels like too much. My ears need time to recalibrate, as though I’ve been living in a quiet wood for months rather than two days.
As soon as my phone picks up a signal, I text Jess, asking what’s wrong, to let her know I’m on my way back.
Just come get me,she types back.
—
When I finallymake it to Dan’s house, Sylvie answers the door. She’s wearing skintight cycling gear. I have never seen anyone look good in cycling gear before. Her face creases in concern when she sees me.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Shall we have a quiet word out here, mum to mum?” Sylvie whispers, stepping out into the street and closing the door behind her.Mum to mum?A month of being Dan’s live-in girlfriend does not make her my children’s stepmother.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, swallowing my anger in the hopeshe’ll spit it out quicker. Sylvie knits her fingers together, then bows her head, like a priest about to deliver a sermon.
