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“Night, Freddy, I call after him, my fingers straying to my tingling lips. In the depths of my soul, I know it’s Freddy who will have to forgive me before our time is eventually done.
One thing is resoundingly clear to me. It sounds wrong when he doesn’t call me Amber French and that is something I need to fix.
Walking back inside, I head straight for Isaac’s room. When Isaac was a baby, I made a promise I would never tell him a lie. Obviously, this was a ridiculous promise to make, and I’ve tested it to the limits severely. Especially when Isaac came home in year three and asked where babies came from. That pushed the promise into more of a ‘guideline’.
He’s sat on his bed, Minecraft playing on his Xbox. “Hey.” I sit on the end of the bed.
“Hey.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“So, I want to explain what happened downstairs. What you saw.”
“Don’t bother.”
I raise an eyebrow at his tone. “Well, do you want to hear it or not?”
“No.”
“Okay.” I get up from his bed and walk to the door. “Don’t play too late; you’re back to school tomorrow.” He pulls a face in response, although I’m not sure if it’s at the prospect of school or just at me.
With a sigh, I trudge down the stairs to find Mum and put her to bed. She’s in front of the tv watching a gardening show. I sit next to her for a while, watching her hands worry a piece of material between her fingers. “What is that, Mum?” I ask gently, tugging it from her grasp.
In my hand is one of my dad’s old handkerchiefs. I used to think they were gross when I was young. Who’d want to snot in a rag and then put it back in their pocket? “You did love him, didn’t you?” I almost mutter the words to myself.
Mum turns to me, taking me by surprise. I didn’t think she knew I was there. “Of course, I did. I wish I’d told him.”
I let a beat of silence pass. “I wish you had as well.”
“Amber?”
“Yes, Mum?”
She looks at me, her eyes clear and focused. “I was wrong you know, back then. I should have let you be.”
With a gasp, I realise I’m talking to Mum in the present. She knows me now. She knows I’m here. “It’s okay,” I appease. It isn’t really, and I still have a lot of issues; her telling me I was a mistake being one of them. But I might not get to speak to her lucid again. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back. I should have done when Isaac was born. My life could have been so different if I hadn’t let fear stop me.”
Mum grabs my hand, her strength weak. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a reason to come back. Every girl should want to run to her mother, not away.”
I can see her focus slide away and I try to keep her with me. “Mum, can you tell me more about Dad when you guys were young?”
She smiles, but her smile is wistful, and I think she may be heading off to her rainbow land again. “He was so beautiful. Everyone said you couldn’t call a boy beautiful, but I always did. He was magic.” Her words make tears start to trickle down my face. I recall all too clearly when I first met Freddy and thought he was magic just for his single-handed ability to make me forget about anything else other than him. Is that how Mum felt when she met Dad? Was their instant attraction as deep and powerful as Freddy and I’s? Regret that I didn’t know this before washes over me in waves. “Don’t live in fear, Amber.”
And then she’s gone. The next time her eyes meet mine they are distant and confused. “Amber?”
“Yes, Mum?”
“When did you get home? I’ve been waiting up for you.”
The tears start to fall faster. “Not late, Mum. Come on, I’ll help you to bed.” I lead her from her chair and up to my dad’s old room.
Once she’s settled, I turn to my own room and shut the door firmly behind me. Today has been too much. Freddy made me feel things I didn’t want to or didn’t expect to feel. His parting words have left me confused and muddled.
I know I can’t have another relationship with him, ever. No matter how much I may desire him—and the evidence of that is clear for the both of us to see—there is no relationship we can have now. The reason I know this is because I won’t be able to run again. Then next time he decides he doesn’t love me enough, or our love is too easy and it should be harder, I won’t be able to run because of Isaac. I wouldn’t uproot him again.
I need to focus on Isaac and me, that’s all that matters.
Despite this fact, I still go and pick up Freddy’s locket. For the first time in ten years, I allow myself to open the casing and look at the picture inside, taken ten-and-a-half years ago on our first date. The day Freddy told me we could be something, and I foolishly believed we could be anything.
“You stupid girl,” I say out loud to myself before falling onto the mattress and dreaming unsettled thoughts of Freddy, a montage of tonight and the past.
When Isaac crawls into my bed, I wrap my arms around him. “It’s just you and me, Isaac,” I whisper. “It’s always just you and me.”
