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I check my welcome home banner is even. Then rework a knot, because I have to do something. The whole week, I’ve been like this. Jittery and unfocused, grinning at everyone.
Mum’s noticed the difference too. Gave me a hug yesterday, whispering in my ear that it’s nice to see my spirits are back.
I told her I missed Ethan.
She frowned and nodded. “Yes, I know.”
Finally Tom’s car pulls up and father and son emerge.
I shout Ethan’s name and his head snaps up toward the roof. He shouts back and starts running.
I struggle with the unhelpful door and leap down the turret stairs. His feet are pounding up, mine down. We meet on the landing, all limbs as we fling ourselves against each other, rushing out hellos and missed yous. We hug one another so damn tight it’s like we’re trying to fuse ourselves together.
“A year is too long. It’s too long.”
He pulls back, just an inch, and looks me up and down. “You’re my height now. It suits you.”
He’s a little broader. Like he swam twice as much overseas.
“God, you smell like salted nuts and stale deo.”
“The plane ride does a number on you.”
I crush him against me again. “I don’t care if you never shower. Just don’t ever leave again.”
He holds me until Tom clears his throat and props Ethan’s backpack against the stairwell wall.
“Wash up. Dinner’s ready in half an hour.”
After dinner, Ethan excuses himself for bed. He’s jetlagged, about to crash.
I help Mum clean up, breaking a plate in my rush to finish.
She shakes her head and sighs. “Go on then. Make sure to tell him you passed all your classes.”
I take the stairs two at a time and fling his bedroom door open. His bed is still neatly made, his bulging backpack on the armchair. “Eth?”
My stomach ties itself into a delicate bow and I’m biting a hopeful smile when I open my door.
There, curled up in my twisted sheets, Ethan sleeps.
I strip to my boxers and t-shirt like he is and slide in next to him. He stirs and I shush him. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake.”
When he wakes, it’s three in the morning.
I don’t care. I wake too. We talk, voices soft, words cocooning us. At first our words are warm, full of elation and relief that things are finally right again.
Then they change. I’ve finished high school; it’s my turn to travel the world.
I don’t want to. I say as much.
“You’ll start out with Maria and Rush for a bit, that’ll make it easier.”
I shake my head. “I just got you back. Nothing you can say could make me go.”
He sighs and takes my hand to his chest. His eyes hold mine.
The weight of him next to me, his body heat, his rivery scent . . . Nothing can make me want to leave this.
I shake my head.
Ethan cups my face. His hand feels larger somehow, but maybe it’s the way he’s holding me. More confident. Experienced. His thumb whispers over my lashes and coasts down my cheek, his fingers massage my nape. “I handwrote you letters. Four of them, one in each country, taped under the desks of the rooms I stayed in.”
I scramble upright; he looks up, grinning. “I needed you to have a reason to get out there.”
“You knew I wouldn’t want to go?”
“I need you to experience the world, so you can figure out what you really want. Who you really are.”
“I want to stay with you, at Mansfield.”
His eyes twinkle. “You also want those letters.”
I hit his arms until he pulls me down and they come around me.
I curse against the warm pulse at his neck. “I want those letters.”
This is not a letter. It is only my arms round you for a quick minute.
K. Mansfield, Letter
London, February.
It’s sealed in a Ziploc bag, masking-taped to the underside of an antique davenport desk. I pace the pocket-sized room where Ethan lived when he arrived here a year earlier. The ghost of his presence stirs around me as I read his careful handwriting.
Fin,
I’ve decided to write you letters. Old school style. Ford even found a fountain pen for me to use.
It’s been two months since I left Mansfield and not a day goes by when I don’t wonder what you’re up to. Every morning and evening I sit amongst the chimneys on the roof and imagine you on our balcony. I love it when I see the moon still hanging in the sky in the morning. I feel all jumpy inside. Like we’re sharing something again.
Is that stupid? Too flowery?
No, you’re grinning right now. You love it when I’m over-the-top.
I can hear your laugh. I think I’ll have to call right after finishing this. Calling you is the best part of my trip. I want to have adventures just so I can tell you funny stories, make you beg me to tell you more. Thank you for sneaking away from Dad and Maata with the phone last time. It was nice to hear how the kids are doing next door. I miss our tea parties. Glad you’re taking over those.
