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Chapter Twenty-One
Thorn
It’s been a few days and here I am, back on the doorstep, being indecisive. I try telling myself to just ring the fucking bell already! When I do, it opens immediately.
“I wondered how long it would take you to ring it this time,” are the first words Raven says to me when she opens the door with a massive grin.
“Oh, shut up,” I tell her, stepping into the wide hallway and giving her a good natured shoulder barge. “Are we alone?”
“Yeah, Phoenix is at nursery,” she tells me.
“No classes today?”
“No,” she hesitates. “I’m taking a break this week.”
“Why?” I pounce, smelling a story.
“I’m having a bit of a tough time at the moment. Don’t worry about it. What can I do for you?” She smiles.
“I came to apologise,” I tell her. She bites her lip nervously and I feel the need to clarify, “for freaking out and leaving. Not the kiss. The kiss was freakin’ awesome!”
“It was.” She smiles back at me.
“I should never have left like that,” I confess.
“Coke?” she asks and I nod in response.
“I’ll wait in the lounge, it might be dangerous if I follow you into the kitchen again,” I half-joke, making her laugh.
Whilst she’s fixing the drink, I take my time to look around. She’s made it cosy in a short space of time. She moves around the place like she’s at home here, comfortable, and I like that. I wonder if she’ll stay in Edinburgh when her degree finishes and what she might want to do with her qualifications. I’ve been clueless about my own future, only now I find myself wondering if I could have a life in this city too. If I could have a life with her. And Phoenix too, I realise as I look at a photo on the fireplace of the two of them smiling.
Framed pictures fill the small space and I pause when I see a picture of Raven and Lizzie; it must have been taken a few years before Lizzie came to West Prep because they both look young, and absolutely identical. I step closer to scrutinise the image better. Striking green eyes framed by thick lashes, wide rosy smiles and veils of long straight white-blonde hair frame their perfect heart-shaped faces. I can’t tell them apart. At all.
“Care to guess?” Her voice makes me jump and I spin guiltily like I just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
“Huh?”
“Do you want to guess which is me?” She nods at the photo. “Go on, you’ve got a 50-50 chance of being right.”
I peer at the photo so hard my breath fogs up the glass, but I’m none the wiser.
“That’s you,” I wildly guess, pointing to the girl on the right.
“Nope.” She laughs. “But good guess.”
“Damn, I couldn’t tell you apart at all,” I confess. “I wish I’d known you both together,” I add without thinking.
“That would have been awkward,” she jokes, and I immediately realise my mistake.
“Shit, I’m sorry! I didn’t think!”
“It’s okay, we were pretty close, but not that close!” She laughs, and I relax a little.
“When was this taken?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Last day of primary school,” she replies.
“Oh wow, I thought you guys were older than that.” She doesn’t reply, just shrugs and looks and the picture herself for a moment.
