“Agreed,” Chloe said, sitting forward and wrapping her arms around my shoulders before planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek.
“Ew!” I screeched, wiping at my face. Then we dissolved into laughter and throwing pillows at one another again in the most ridiculous cliché of a girly sleepover, but I didn’t care.
We eventually got around to watching the film, too, and it was surprisingly bearable. I only teared up a little bit when Harry told Sally that he loved her, and then again when he said he wanted the rest of his life to start as soon as possible. But mostly I just laughed, and joked with my friends, and drank probably too much wine.
I’d have to figure out how to coexist with the man I’d thought would be my Harry, but I could do that. Because unlike what I’d thought before, this wasn’t his life I was hitching onto. It was my life, too. And at some point, without me even realising, I’d come to love it.
* * *
That night,I didn’t sleep. And as much as I wanted to blame it on Chloe’s snoring next to me in the guest bedroom, it wasn’t her fault. Or it was, but more because of her choice of film than anything.
Because of Harry and Sally, I couldn’t stop thinking about New Years. Not one full of love declarations and passionate kisses before the credits roll, but one of a hundred occasions where I would have to coexist alongside Phil whilst we drank champagne and hung out with our friends. The question remained: could I do that? Did Iwantto do that? And if I did, what did I want that to look like?
This was all assuming, of course, that Phil didn’t cut himself off completely. But I thought about the way Chloe had stood up for him; the way Jack and even Mum had been trying to get in there to help. I was pretty sure that no matter what, he wouldn’t be allowed to just retreat into caring for Ethel. He had too many people who cared about him.
When he’d rejected me five years ago, I’d wanted nothing to do with him. We’d only re-entered each other’s lives because I’d moved home, and enough had happened in the intervening period that I was willing to overlook our history.
But as badly as he’d hurt me, and as angry as I was at how he’d lashed out when he’d felt cornered, I didn’t want that this time. As hurt as I was, I didn’t want to have nothing to do with him. If I never saw him again, sure, I could avoid awkwardness, but I would be sad. Because the nature of our stupid fake relationship meant that– whilst to the rest of the world it looked like we’d been falling for one another, and maybe on some level we had been– we had actually developed a real friendship, probably for the first time in our long history. Sure, we’d known one another for most of our lives, and we’d spent time together. But it was the first time we’d had a relationship that didn’t hinge on other people.
And as much as I missed what we’d had romantically, I missed our friendship even more. The way he’d always known when to listen to me without teasing. The way he’d taken even the most outrageous parts of me seriously. The way he’d fought to include me in every way he could, apparently. The thoughtfulness he’d shown at every turn.
And that wasn’t even accounting for Ethel, whom I missed so badly I’d actually thought about crashing a physio appointment just so I could see her.
So yeah, I was hurt and angry and a little embarrassed. But I also missed my friend. And the difference between the me of five years ago and the me who lay awake in that bed worrying about her friend was that I didn’twantto dig my heels in anymore. I didn’t actuallywantto teach Phil a lesson or keep the upper hand, no matter how angry I felt. Life was already bashing him over the head enough. And if that meant swallowing my pride so I could show up for him when he needed someone the most, I could do that now. At least, I thought I could.
My oracle deck had told me the waning crescent signified endings, and I’d assumed that meant our relationship was over. But just as a new moon cycle came each month, maybe our relationship was just entering a new cycle, too. One that didn’t look like I’d hoped, but could be just as impactful if I let it. If I cultivated that impact.
As the sun crept up and filtered in through the window, I knew what I needed to do. So I packed up quietly and snuck out through the front door whilst the others were still asleep, waiting until I was outside to ring someone I knew would be up.
“Everything okay?” Jack asked when he picked up, sounding awake but alarmed.
“Yeah, it will be,” I said. “Are you at the house?”
“Just making breakfast,” he said. “Do you need me at Morgan’s?”
“No, that’s okay,” I said as I climbed into the Defender. “I’m on my way. But clear your morning if you can. I need your help.”
“Intriguing. What with?”
“With Phil,” I said, and I heard a sharp intake of breath on his end. “I think he needs an operations manager, and I know just the girl for the job.”
* * *
By the endof the day, we had what we needed. I’d egregiously abused my access to Anil’s number, and I’d gotten all the intel I needed to pull everything together. Mum was on board, Dad would be helping, and the rest of our friends had jobs to do, too. Now it was just down to Anil to get us in.
Jack left for Morgan’s as soon as we finished, but I rejected his offer of a ride. I opted to walk back up the path to Mum and Dad’s house instead. It still didn’t feel like home, even though I’d been back for a full year now; even though I’d grown up under its roof. But as I was beginning to understand, that didn’t mean I didn’t belong here.
I’d always had a sense of restlessness; of waiting for something interesting to happen. I’d felt like that starseed soul, on an alien planet. And as I’d tried and failed over the years to make myself fit with other people, I’d become even more restless, probably because I’d known that my fate couldn’t possibly find me if I wasn’t even being myself.
But it turned out that I didn’t need to figure out exactly who I was in order to be myself. I just had to let myself feel the love and passion I’d always had; to let the spiky bits of me exist instead of chipping away at them, even if that meant getting stuck from time to time. And as I walked up the dirt road, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was being truly faithful to myself and what I wanted. And I didn’t feel like an alien anymore. No, “home” didn’t feel particularly like home, but god did it look beautiful as the sun set behind it, casting the sky in pinks and lilacs and fiery oranges.
So as I reached the old stone farmhouse, I stopped in the kitchen to give Mum a long-overdue hug, headed upstairs to my room, opened all the curtains to let the light in, and finally started unpacking.
Chapter33
Phil
It took Anil and me nearly a week to take full inventory of what Ethel would need changed. We looked at everything in the house from the flooring to the clocks, and we mapped out what her next couple of years might look like in the best and worst cases so we could figure out if there were any major changes we needed to make. I’d had to start parking my car in the street so we could get the wheelchair past the cars, and I knew the Healey was likely not long for this world.
