Page 104 of Carry Me Home

I think about Cara’s hand on my back, warm and certain and here.

I think about Scotland, and lochs, and a life where I wake up every morning without looking out the window to see if the café shutters are open.

I think: This is the right⁠—

I can’t finish it.

I drink my pint. I let Cara lean into my shoulder. I let the evening happen around me.

And I try not to count the number of times Nina doesn’t look at me, which is all of them, which is the same number of times I can’t stop looking at her, which is also all of them, and the devastating symmetry of that is the thing I’ll take to Scotland and carry like a stone in each pocket for however long it takes to learn how to set it down.

Chapter Twenty-Two

TOM

Time breezes by like a kiss of wind when you are planning a major life change. I thought the month to sort the surgery, pack, maybe steel my resolve, would give me time.

It hasn’t.

The village moves on, the hanging baskets wilted under the glare of the sun, despite Dot’s ministrations. Isla soon-to-be-Harding is now looking like she wants to explode, or beat Kit to a pulp, whichever comes first, and Jude is starting to panic about starting university in September.

Time moves on.

And yes, I’m moving on.

But the café smells the same. Coffee and sugar and warm pastry, the scent that’s been the backdrop of a thousand conversations.

This will be the last one.

Nina’s behind the counter when I walk in. Her hands still on the coffee machine. Her face goes carefully neutral as she spots me walking in.

‘Tom.’

‘Nina.’

Dot’s in the corner with her crossword. Two tourists by the window, arguing over a map. Otherwise empty. Monday morning lull.

‘Can I get you a coffee?’ Nina asks. Her voice is bright and professional. The voice she uses on tourists, never on me, not until now.

‘No. I just—’ I stop. Start again. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow. For Scotland. I wanted to say goodbye.’

‘I know. Dot told me.’ She still won’t meet my eyes. ‘Good luck.’

‘That’s it? Good luck?’

‘What else do you want me to say?’

Say don’t go.

But I don’t say that. I just stand there, hands in my pockets, watching her wipe down a counter that’s already clean.

‘We’ve been friends for eleven years,’ I say.

‘I know how long we’ve been friends, Tom.’

‘And this is how it ends? Good luck and a handshake?’

She stops wiping. Looks at me finally – really looks, and her eyes are bright, glittering. Anger, maybe. Or hurt. Or the nameless thing that sits underneath both.