Hello Stranger

by West, Jade

  “I’m not sure about that,” I told her again. “I’m not sure I want to fight another one of those scraps for myself. I’ve had enough of them already.”

  “So do it for me.” Her eyes were gold dust. “Fight that fight for me.”

  I finished my sandwich and brushed my hands together to get rid of the crumbs, and then I answered her.

  “On one condition,” I said, and she was nodding her head in a flash.

  “On any condition.”

  I tipped my head. “I’ll fight for you, if you’ll fight for me. Become a doctor, Chloe. Go back and study to be a doctor.”

  I saw her breath catch. “But I can’t… it’s complicated, and I’m not that much of a brainiac, and I might fail after all that work.”

  “Who’s the fatalist now?” I asked, and she smiled around another bite of ham sandwich.

  I watched her chewing, adoring her freckled cheeks for the millionth time.

  “Alright then, Dr Hall,” she said. “You have yourself a deal.”

  So we did it. We made a deal.

  With her standing in my shirt, buttoned up halfway, with the last of her ham sandwich still in her mouth, we made a deal.

  My fight, for her ambition.

  We went into Franklin Ward next morning, but this time my grief wasn’t bound tight behind a barricade, it was free to flow loose. I felt myself choking up inside, and this time I didn’t force it back down, letting it prick at my eyes between consultations with no self-cursing.

  It was liberating in the most blissful of ways.

  I was different that day, saying hello to the nurses on the ward with a new little pang inside. Friends. They really were my friends. And so were the other people reaching out to keep in contact with me after Mum’s funeral. My diary was already filling up, faster than I’d ever known. And it was a good thing. It sure did feel like a good thing.

  The train ride seemed new to me when we took the route home that night, Chloe sitting opposite with her beautiful smile on her face.

  I’d been travelling it daily for nine years straight, but this one was different, just like everything else was seeming to be. Churchley had bright blue benches I’d never noticed before, and one of them had a giggling toddler swinging his legs next to his mum. Eastworth had a rail attendant doubled up laughing with a little old woman and her poodle, and the station at Wenton had a man on his knees at the one on the far right, a paintbrush in his hand as he fixed the missing streak of paint on the door.

  A girl was playing hopscotch alongside the corner shop sign on Callow Road while her dad watched her from the awning by the doorway, and the line of oak trees by the Sunnydale Viaduct were fluttering in the breeze.

  That’s when I learnt my most valuable lesson of them all – watching the world outside those train windows and knowing in my heart that Chloe was noticing all the very same little snippets as me.

  Every moment truly is magical, just so long as your eyes aren’t blind to the wonders.

  We arrived at Redwood at the usual time, and those magical moments stretched out the whole walk back, hand in hand with the woman I loved.

  They stretched out the whole night through, sitting cuddled up in the armchair together with our noses in two different novels. They stretched out through a joint shower, with Chloe’s glorious hair smothered in foam. They stretched out through me kissing that pretty little wonder from her head to her toes, and sucking her clit as she cried for more. Always more.

  Then we slept, right through until morning.

  The magical moments continued from the second I opened my eyes and found her held tight in my arms. She yawned and stretched and smiled at me with her freckled face, and I felt my heart break free. Broken free by the love of my life.

  “I absolutely love your house,” she said to me as she skipped along to the train the next morning, the white rabbit in her still bursting to run on skittish legs. “I love your bookshelves even better though.”

  “I love how you love them,” I laughed.

  “I love how I love you,” she giggled back.

  I didn’t understand it, just how such love and positivity could come out of a future so bleak, but it did. It was bursting out loud and clear, even so soon after the revelation. It wouldn’t have stopped, even if I’d tried.

  That day I was smiling when the woman boarded the train at Eastworth, tapping her phone just like usual. I guess it was a shock to her, to see me smiling in my seat. She almost jumped back on herself, eyes open wide as I held up a hand.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Her smile was a picture.

  “Hello,” she said, and gave me a wave right back.

  Chloe’s smile was brighter than anyone’s, grinning across at me like I’d just completed a marathon rather than said some random hello to a woman on a train, but still that overzealous reaction didn’t hold back that strange little glow inside.

  The man with the messy blond beard didn’t curse under his breath at Newstone as he tried to find his rail pass. Not today. Not when he saw my smile as I held up a hand to him, wishing him a good morning as he passed my seat.

  The elderly woman at Churchley ditched her permanent scowl when I offered her a hello as she boarded, grinning right back at me from under her garish floral scarf and nodding her head.

  “Hello there.”

  Chloe didn’t comment while I was dishing out my greetings. Not at all. She dug herself deep into her novel, or tried to, even though I knew her mind was all on me.

  I could see it in those fidgety feet, dithering around on the carriage floor in the way I loved so much. I could see it in the burst of colour on her freckled cheeks, and the way her fingers were so quick as they turned the pages.

  The Sea Priestess.

  She was reading The Sea Priestess. Another one of my favourite novels of all time.

  She cleared her throat when we approached Harrow and her eyes were dancing with mischief, a pretty little joke in her smile as she raised her cover to show me.

  Oh, the memories.

  I raised mine up at her, still in those same seats on that same journey, just like when she didn’t even know my name

  Moon Magic. I was reading Moon Magic.

  “That’s my favourite novel of all time,” she said, with that same mischief in her smile.

  “What a coincidence,” I replied, but she shook her head.

  “Not a coincidence, Dr Logan Hall,” she said to me. “It’s fate.”

  And for once, after decades of not believing in such utter rubbish, I did now. I believed her.

  My fate truly was Chloe Sutton.

  54

  Chloe

  It was a bizarre feeling, pulling up outside Liam’s place in Hedley Road, like a whole lifetime had passed by since I’d lived there.

  “He’s expecting you?” Logan asked, and I nodded.

  “Yeah, he’s been trying to get me here for weeks. He’ll be air punching all night when I’ve taken my things.”

  He parked up and got out of the car with me, standing right by my side as I knocked on the front door. It took a minute before Liam appeared at the entrance, in his slob of a shirt with his low slung jeans, the headset still on his head from his gaming tournament.

  “Thank fuck,” he groaned. “Finally. I really was going to chuck it out as trash, you know.”

  He was lying. Liam might be a whole different creature to me, but he had never been that much of an asshole.

  I packed up the novels still waiting on the shelf, and Logan and I loaded up his car with boxes upon boxes of my essentials and trinkets. Books, and cushions, and random bits of furniture. The coffee table I’d inherited from Granny Weobley, and the sweet little chair I’d picked up at a boot sale when I was just fourteen.

  I gave the apartment one final look around before I left, setting my eyes on Liam one last time as he sat on the sofa, busy on his game tournament.

  This was my life.

  It was hard to believe that this was re
ally my life just such a short time ago.

  It sure didn’t feel like it had when I said my goodbye to the man I thought was my world and headed my way back downstairs to my man who really was. Liam barely managed a wave before I left him, and that didn’t surprise me. Me leaving him had hardly left a dent in his reality. His reality was all invested online.

  Logan and I drove back to Redwood with an audiobook on in the background, both of us caught up fast in the Arthurian trilogy. My things were rammed in the backseat, and I could hear them jangling, my heart a flutter of excitement to know that I’d be adding all my things to Logan’s house.

  Except it wasn’t Logan’s house now. Not anymore. It was our house. It was my home.

  The weekend was ahead of us, and that had a whole flutter of excitement of its own burning deep. We were heading to Pilsner, the safari park, the very next morning, to see the wolves and the elephants – there was one hell of a handsome hound there called Winston. And Wellington. There was a huge beast of an elephant called Wellington. I still adored Jackie’s elephant postcard, propped on her bedside table. I still wished I could’ve seen her face when she first touched his trunk.

  At least I got to enjoy a whole load of cool times with her. And Logan.

  I’d get to enjoy a whole load more cool times with Logan, too. Our road ahead was far from over. Even Mr used-to-be-fatalist had turned the corner on his predictions. We had so many awesome experiences to relive together and so many new ones to be made, and they were stacking up. They were stacking up so fast it made my heart sing.

  We had a weekend on the coast by Frensham Beach booked up in a few weeks’ time, and a night out with the other staff from Franklin Ward at a charity quiz next Wednesday, and then Jackie’s old neighbours were coming to the house for Sunday lunch – one of Logan’s culinary delights.

  Things were good.

  They were great.

  Really, really, really damn great.

  I told Logan so as we pulled up onto the driveway that night.

  “Life is brilliant,” I said with a grin – the new statement I said about five billion times through every day.

  “Every moment counts,” he replied with a smile – the reply he gave to that statement about five billion times every day.

  I took his hand from the steering wheel to squeeze it tight.

  “Your books will have to share their space with my books,” I laughed. “I hope they get on real well.”

  “I’m sure they will. I’m sure they’ll have plenty in common.”

  “And we’ll have plenty for the charity shops,” I said. “No place on our shelves for doubles.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “We’ll have to arrange a drop off in our increasingly busy schedules.”

  He leaned in for a kiss and I peppered another three in a row on his lips.

  “Let’s get your stuff moved in then,” he told me, and then he smirked his very best smirk. “I’m sure it’s going to be extremely super cool to have you as an official King Street resident.”

  “Super super cool,” I said, and set off on an unpacking gallop to get my stuff moved in.

  We really did live by the every moment counts mantra, and Logan took to it better than I’ve ever known anyone take to anything. His attention was always on the now, and his smiles were always bright, and he held me so tight in bed at night that I really couldn’t imagine being without him.

  We made friends upon friends, and he got to know my dog, Beano, and Mum and Dad would laugh with us across his dining table as we enjoyed takeaway pizza most weeks.

  Even me, embracing life in every moment with every single breath I ever took, wasn’t expecting it when Logan pulled a tiny little box from his pocket on Frensham Beach on our weekend break, and dropped down onto one knee in the sand.

  My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it, hear myself whispering oh my God, oh my God, oh my God over the crash of the waves.

  “Chloe Sutton, the most fantastic little jitterbug of all time, would you please do me the honour of becoming Mrs Chloe Hall?”

  Tears pricked, and they fell, and my nods were frantic, still not quite believing it, even when the sparkle of the diamond caught the sunlight.

  “Yes!” I said. “Hell, yes, Logan. Hell yes!”

  The ring was a perfect fit on my finger, and it was crazy, just how a hello, stranger on the train can turn into something that sets your life on a whole new road.

  I guess that’s fate, though, isn’t it? It rocks into your world and taps its magic wand and there you are, staring out at a horizon that blows your mind.

  Logan Hall still blew mine every day.

  As the incredible doctor in Franklin Ward, always giving himself so strongly to so many people that needed him.

  As the incredible bookworm who recounted words from the pages with a smile every time we read together.

  As the incredible lover, who made me wriggle and squeal in bed at night and beg him for more, more, more when my body was taking all that it could take.

  And as the incredible man I was in love with. The man who inspired me more than words could ever say, and soar my soul to the moon and back.

  Our wedding day was at Halsey. My dad’s arm was so happy in mine to be walking me up the aisle to a man they respected so much and had come to know so well.

  “I’m so proud of your choice, little one,” he said to me. “I’m so happy for the man you’re saying yes to.”

  And he was proud of my choice. I’d seen it every time he’d smiled at my fiancé and realised just what an awesome man I was going to marry.

  My mum was in tears in the front pew, giving me a thumbs-up as she saw me and dabbing a tissue to her eyes.

  Vickie, Romi and Wendy were sitting with Gina, and Richard and Nadia, all of them beaming with happiness as I made my way towards the man of my dreams to say the eternal I do.

  My college friends were in a cluster, and my schoolfriends were not far away, and my family members were sitting around Mum, grinning bright along with the others.

  It was everything I’d ever dreamed, bringing every one of my romance novel hopes to life.

  But it was the other side of the aisle that really made my heart soar. The groom’s side of the church, packed full with so many people Logan had come to know all over again.

  Friends.

  He had so many friends, from so many points in his life.

  It was just such a terrible shame that Jackie Hall wasn’t sitting there in the front pew, smiling her incredible smile with her twinkling eyes. But I felt her there. Her words of wisdom in my mind. Her cackle of a laugh. I knew I would always feel Jackie Hall.

  Logan’s gaze was magical, the love I saw in his stare was divine. It was all I could do to stop the tears from falling.

  He was the same beautiful man who’d captivated me on the way to Harrow every morning, with his glorious beard and his solid jaw. His eyes were every bit as dark as they’d ever been, and his brows were still stunningly heavy, but there was more there when I looked at him that day.

  He was alive in the most magnificent of ways.

  His suit was spectacular, the rose at his buttonhole was exquisite, and he looked at me with a wow as he took my hand in his.

  “You are the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever seen, jitterbug,” he whispered before the vicar led the service, and I believed him.

  In his vision, and his heart, I was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen, and my imperfections were loved every little bit as much as the rest of me.

  I was so happy there, feeling like a princess from one of my storybooks in my flowing white satin. I had twinkles in my hair from my pretty slides, and my makeup was a natural sheen that lit up my eyes.

  I handed my bouquet over to Mum and took both of Logan’s hands in mine, glad he had opted for no top hat so the beautiful patterns on his scalp were in the light.

  Then we did it.

  We said the words.

  We made the vows.

/>   Sure, every moment counts. Every second means the world. But that moment, when he slid that golden band on my finger, was the happiest moment of my life.

  I was the luckiest woman alive to be able to call myself Mrs Logan Hall.

  55

  Logan

  “Almost there, Mrs Hall,” I said, and she laughed at my side.

  “I’m sure I don’t remember it being this much of a trek last time.”

  I laughed along with her. “We’re not taking the wheelchair route this time, that’s why.”

  The path climbed, higher and higher, and my lungs were hot with my breaths, Mum’s urn gripped tight under my arm and Chloe’s arm wrapped tight around my other.

  The horizon was glorious, plains upon plains of green, and in a few minutes more we were right there at the top, with the wind zipping by us, a perfect bluster for our task.

  Glorious. It was absolutely fucking glorious.

  I was the luckiest man alive.

  It was the final day of our honeymoon – a beautiful trip around Wales. It had been Chloe’s idea to take Mum with us, sharing all of our beautiful moments together, and now we were calling back in on the Worcestershire ridge on the way home, both of us sure as steel this was where Mum would want to be.

  “I wish she was here,” Chloe said, and pressed even closer to my side. “She’d have loved it up here today.”

  “She’d have loved it up here any day,” I replied. “She loved every single minute she was breathing.”

  I wasted no time in taking hold of the urn and twisting the lid off. Mum was nothing but a cluster of white dust inside that case, but for once in my life the physical remnants symbolised so much more.

  “Here you go, Mum,” I said. “Enjoy the moment.”

  Then I scattered the first of her ashes.

  The breeze caught her and carried her away, handful after handful going back to the earth. Chloe helped me, both of us together, setting Mum free from her wooden case, and it was another of those moments amongst moments that steal your heart and take your breath away.