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Is the bump on the head making me hallucinate?
I slump forward, my head hitting the pillow with a dull thud that’s probably not good for it, as I try to figure this out. But although I lie there until the candle closest to me has almost burnt itself out, Jett doesn’t come back to the cabin, and I don’t stop feeling like I’ve been punched in the gut.
Why did he kiss me?
And, even more importantly, why did herun?
After a while, Mum appears. Because if there’s one thing that would make this whole night even weirder than it is already, it would be that.
“Oh, good,” she says, bustling in, still in her Emerald View dressing gown. “You’re still awake. Jett said to make sure you didn’t go to sleep yet. I bumped into him while I was in the bar.”
“Jett’s in the bar?”
I pull myself up off the bed, ready to go to him, and insist that we talk about what just happened, but Mum shakes her head.
“Not anymore,” she says, coming to join me on the bed and ripping open a family-sized bag of crisps she’s taken from the room service cart. “He just popped in to speak to me, then he went off somewhere. He said we’re welcome to stay the night, though. I think the road’s still blocked. I hope so.”
“Where did he go, though?” I ask desperately. “Mum, where did Jett go off to?”
Mum shrugs.
“No idea,” she says, stuffing a handful of cheese and onion into her mouth. “Does your phone have any charge left in it? Mine died ages ago.”??I hand her the phone, and we spend the next couple of hours watching ‘hilarious’ videos on You Tube, untilshe finally falls asleep. I lower my head to the pillow, but don’t close my eyes. I’m too busy thinking about Jett and the kiss; about what it might have meant to him, and why he ran off the way he did.
This is a mistake,he said. It’s the second time he’s said these exact words to me since he arrived in town, which means they must be true.??I’m a “mistake” to him.
And, by the time I wake up next morning, after what feels like a few minutes’ sleep, I’m no closer to knowing how to correct it.
Of course, the video of me and Jimmy is all over the internet, which is an even weirder twist because if there’s one person I’d have put money on never appearing in a viral video with, it would’ve been Old Jimmy, the mad farmer. But there we are: me holding up the white sheet, on which the words, “Jett Carter” and “bawbag” are the only ones visible, Jimmy grinning toothlessly in the background. From the distance the clip’s been filmed at, the letters on the sheet look even more like they’ve been written in blood, which explains why a lot of the comments refer to me as Jett’s ‘psycho ex’. “Close down this movie,” I shriek wildly, before the sound cuts out.
Fantastic.
I wish I’d had a chance to warn Jett about this before he disappeared last night. I meant to; it came into my head briefly, when I’d asked about Jimmy. But then the evening had moved onto things that were much more interesting to me than sheep farming, and it got pushed to the side.
Then, of course, Jett almost threw me off him, before practically sprinting out of the room.
There was that, too.
He’s still nowhere to be seen when Mum and I leave the cabin and walk up to the clubhouse, where McTavish is waiting to drive us back down the hill to where Mum’s car’s parked.
“Nae idea where he is,” he says cheerfully. “He didnae say. He did make me promise to make sure ye see a doctor about yer head, though, Lexie. Ye will do that, won’t ye?”
I nod dumbly, with absolutely no intention of following this through. My head feels fine this morning. Messed up to a degree that’s unusual even for me, obviously, but physically fine. And I suspectphysically fineis going to be the most I can really hope for ifactually fineremains as far out of reach as it feels at the moment.
“Er, I meant to say, Lexie,” says McTavish awkwardly as he drops us off at the car park. “That pal o’ mine… the one who was trying to fix your car? He said there’s nothing he can do. It’s beaten even him. I’m really sorry; I was sure he’d be able to fix it for ye.”
“That’s okay,” I reply dully. “Thanks for trying, McTavish.”
“He says ye’d be best sellin’ it for parts,” he goes on, his eyes sympathetic. “Ye never know; ye might be able to get a few hundred for it.”
“Great. I’ll do that.”
I probably won’t do this either. The thought of losing my little orange car tugs at my heartstrings, almost as if it’s a person. Then I remember it wasn’t my dad’s car, like I’d always thought. And my real dad is almost certainly going to turn out to be Alan Reynolds (Because, between him and Lochlan, Alan is by far the biggest asshole, and that’s the kind of luck I have), which means the convertible doesn’t actually meananythinganymore. It’s just a rusty old heap of junk that’s worth less with every year that goes by.
(I’m going to try to avoid the obvious comparison between myself and my car here, so don’t you think it, either.)
“I’lldefinitelydo that, actually,” I repeat, more firmly this time. “No point keeping it, is there?”
“I suppose not,” agrees McTavish, rubbing his chin. “I’ll speak to him later and arrange to drop it off for ye. And sorry again, Lexie. Ye can keep using the other one, though; it’s yours for as long as ye need it.”
