Page 55 of It Was Always You

Lily had secretly hoped he would give up on dating. It had been a bad idea on her part, but she appeared to have created a monster. And what the hell? He was talking about meeting the one? Dammit. This had well and truly backfired on her, hadn’t it?

She hit reply.

Go for it. Can you manage to dress yourself without me there?

She smirked as she hit send. And as expected the reply was lightning quick.

F off! Cheeky sod! Will let you know how it goes. Bye Cheesy.

Okay, so the childish nicknames were back, were they?

Later, Pee Pants.

She chuckled to herself as she sent her reply. This time, he didn’t respond.

TRACK 24

‘LOOK AFTER YOU’ (THE FRAY)

July 2024

Lily had been gone almost a week and was due back in a couple of days. She was on yet another trip for her job, this time to Portugal. The second anniversary of Eve’s death was looming, and Adam was relieved to know that his best friend would be back with him to help him get through it. She was only home for a few days, however, and was getting straight on another flight to cover yet another story in yet another foreign country for the travel vlog or whatever the hell it was.

Thankfully that was still the nature of their friendship; one needed the other and there they were. No questions asked. Except it seemed to be Adam doing all the needing these days.

The anniversary of Eve’s death fell in the school holidays, meaning Adam could take his time to wallow in his misery and reminisce about the happier times in his life when everything actually worked and he smiled frequently. The times when his world revolved around Eve and things were all about the future. Not the past. These days everything was about the past.

Lily arrived on his doorstep at eleven o’clock on the dreaded day. He hadn’t been sleeping and it was evident, he knew from looking in the mirror, thanks to the dark circles around his eyes and the five o’clock shadow covering his jaw.

‘Come on, Adders, I’ve got junk food, beer, and Monty Python on DVD. We’ll get through this,’ she said as she stepped over the threshold.

Just seeing her made a surge of emotions bubble up from inside again. With his chin quivering, he shook his head. ‘Two years, Lil. Two damned years. How does time go so fast?’ His voice broke.

Lily placed the bags down and wrapped her arms around him as he sobbed.

Eventually she pulled away. ‘Come on, you big cry-baby.’ She smiled sadly. ‘You’re getting snot all over my favourite jacket.’ She reached up and wiped tears from his cheeks with her thumbs.

He sobbed out a laugh. ‘Whoops, sorry ’bout that.’ He attempted to wipe the wet patches away.

Giggling, Lily slapped his hand away. ‘Oy, just because you’re grieving doesn’t mean you can cop a feel.’

With a smile tugging at his lips, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. She always managed to cheer him up. Even if she did make light of the most serious of situations. He knew that this was how she handled him. She was the only one who could get away with it, that’s for sure.

‘Have you spoken to Eve’s mum and dad?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘This morning. They came down to visit the grave. It’s still so hard seeing them. Her mum tries to put a brave face on things but…’ He shook his head and cleared his throat as he wiped at his eyes. ‘We went to the grave together and left some flowers.’

‘That’s nice,’ Lily said with a smile.

He sighed. ‘Her mum told me I have her blessing to move on.’

Lily’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, she says I’m too young to be on my own forever. That I’ve been sad for two years and it’s time I started over. I haven’t mentioned the date I went on before, it didn’t feel right, especially with it going nowhere. I mean I don’t even count it as a date really. But it felt weird her telling me to move on, Lil.’

She cupped his face in her hand. ‘Maybe it’s what you needed to hear, though, eh?’

After more tears and quite a few beers, they were both comfortably tipsy and stuffed full of cheese-loaded food.