Page 23 of From Now On

‘I’ll see you soon.’ He kisses her softly.

‘Don’t forget you need to ring Simon, Charlie. Clarify what’s going on with New York. He’s waiting.’

‘I know.’

He stands on the platform, hands stuffed into his pockets, waving as the train pulls away. He doesn’t run alongside it, shouting his love, as they do in the movies. He thinks Bo would probably have done that for Mum.

At home he slips into the bathroom and locks the door. Runs the taps on the bath so no one can hear him as he makes the call he doesn’t want to make.

Says the things he doesn’t want to say.

Chapter Nine

Nina

Violet.

Charlie’s fucking rung Aunt Violet.

Chapter Ten

Charlie

Charlie buries his face in Billie’s fur. He’ll miss her. He’ll miss them all but he can’t do this, he can’t put his life on hold to be a substitute father. He’s not ready. He’s already been here for three weeks and it’s been awful, awkward. On top of failing miserably as any sort of role model, working from home is not working for him. Nothing is working for him.

He stands.

‘So… I’ll give you a ring. Soon.’

‘Don’t bother,’ Nina spits. Charlie can’t look her in the eye.

‘Duke?’

Duke rushes towards him and wraps his arms tightly around Charlie’s legs.

‘Please don’t leave us. Please don’t leave us.’

Violet peels Duke away from Charlie and clasps him by the shoulders. He shrugs her off and huddles next to Nina instead.

‘It’s better if you just go,’ Violet says. Since he called her she’s been like a whirlwind, spinning everything out of his control, asking that he stay until she’d organised her annual leave and then arriving with a suitcase,telling him to return to London. ‘And give them a few days to settle before you get in touch.’

This is what Charlie wanted. Someone who would take charge, who would know what is best. Someone who would raise the children and it isn’t as though Violet is a bad person, she’s just… different to Mum.

Still, it’s a wrench to open the front door and, when he steps outside, he feels four angry eyes boring into his back.

He hesitates for a moment, his head hung low, purposefully not looking at Pippa’s house. Again, he is walking away from her after she has been there for him through the worst of times.

Charlie’s emotions are tangled and he can’t unpick the guilt he feels from his shame and loss and he hasn’t yet left but he feels he will miss them, but is he telling himself this to ease his conscience?

If this is the right thing for him, it has to be the right thing for them too, doesn’t it?

Stuffing his hands in his pockets he strides away from the house, away from his siblings, away from the memory of his mother.

Away from Pippa.

He leaves them all.

Chapter Eleven

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