Just Haven't Met You Yet(53)

“Another day in paradise,” he says.

“Well, if leaving me is easy.”

“You’ll be in my heart.” He smiles, pressing a hand to his chest.

“Are we actually doing this? Are we having a conversation with Phil Collins’ song titles?”

“Oh, I could keep going all night,” Jasper says with a dramatic sigh, and I feel my cheeks begin to ache with smiling.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, turning toward the garden.

“Laura,” he calls after me, and I turn to look back at him. “I can’t wait.”

The words send a hum of contentment through me, and I raise my eyes to the sky, silently thanking the stars for their part in all this.




12 September 1991


Alex,

I’m so disappointed you aren’t coming this weekend, when it’s our last opportunity to see each other before you go to Greece. Surely you could find the money for the flight. Would your mum not lend it to you?

I can’t understand why you were so cross with me on the phone. I only borrowed the coin to make a way for it be to worn—otherwise, it will only sit in a drawer. I know you don’t believe me, but I feel its memories when I hold it, it shouldn’t be hidden away. I thought you would be taking it back to her after your visit this weekend. You will be so pleased when you see how it looks.

Let’s be friends again, please? Maybe I can find a way to come and see you in Greece once my dance classes break for half-term. I miss you every day, and the days you do not call are hardly days to me at all.


All my love,

Annie





Chapter 17




Once Jasper has driven away, I glance furtively back at the house. I’ll have to walk past the kitchen window to get to my cottage but don’t want to draw attention to my return. If I walk behind the stone wall, I can avoid the spotlight shining onto the lawn from the kitchen window. I pick up my case and carefully climb onto the low granite wall—oh, this is fine, easy as anything. I’ll just walk along the wall; I have the balance of an Olympic gymnast.

“AHHHHHH!”

I stumble on a lump in the rock, launch forward like a bat without wings, landing splayed across the lawn with a thunk. Pain alarms explode in my leg. “FUCKING OW! FUCKITY OW!” I cry. I know I said I don’t swear much, but I think breaking my leg buys me some allowances on the language filter.

As I’m lying there, lamenting that my adult gymnast career is over before it even began, the kitchen door opens, and I see Ted’s broad-shouldered silhouette standing in the doorway.

“Laura, what are you doing? Are you all right?” he says, running down the hill and crouching down next to me.

“My leg,” I say, trying to sit up, “I think it’s broken. Oh jeez, is that my bone sticking out of the bottom? If it is, I’m going to be sick.”

I’m not good with gore. When I watched that movie about the guy who got stuck up a mountain and chopped off his own hand, I couldn’t look at my hands for a week without gagging.

“That’s your suitcase handle beneath your foot,” says Ted. “Definitely no bone. Let me get you inside, and I’ll take a proper look.”

He helps me up, and I let out a wincing arrrghhhh-eeeehhh sound, like a fox with its tail stuck in a cat flap. Ted sweeps me up in both arms and carries me back to the house. I murmur protests, but he lifts me so effortlessly that we’re inside before I can articulate any sort of proper objection.

In the living room, Ted deposits me gently on the only remaining chair. The furniture that was in here earlier has disappeared; only boxes and piles of objects remain. There are a few lamps on the floor, the side tables they’d once stood on, gone. They emit a warm, low light, giving the room an inviting feel. Ted kneels down to inspect my leg. A thin line of blood trickles down from a gash on my shin.

“I don’t think we need to amputate, it’s just a cut. You must have fallen on a sharp rock.” He fetches a first aid kit, cleans the wound, and carefully applies a large adhesive dressing. “Did you twist your ankle?” He firmly holds my foot in one hand, and then with the other, gently presses the skin. “Does this hurt? Does it hurt?” he asks again, and I realize I haven’t answered, distracted by the feeling of his hands on my skin.

“No, it’s fine,” I say.

Ted carefully packs the first aid case away. He’s being all serious and professional; this must be his doctor mode.

“Dare I ask why you were dancing along the wall?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you, traipsing across the garden,” I say, weakly.

He tilts his face to meet mine.

“If I wasn’t disturbed by the car-side flirting and giggling, I don’t think I would have been disturbed by you walking through my garden.”

Now I wish my leg was broken and I was safely on my way to hospital rather than having this brain-meltingly awkward conversation. Clearing my throat, I roll my ankle between my hands to distract from having to respond. Ted picks up the medical bag and his lip twitches with the hint of a smile.

“Do you want me to help you down to the cottage?”

“Could I just have some water?” I ask in an exaggerated hoarse voice. Now that the leg-breaking emergency is over, I feel sheepish about how things were left between us, and I want to apologize before I go anywhere.