This Love

by Anna Bloom

  Too soon he pulls away and the dark star-flecked blues gaze directly into mine, holding them still. “I love you, Amber French, but I know I need to do this.”

  With his words, my heart smashes. I dig deep and try desperately to keep hold of the one piece I anchored myself to.

  My eyes rove over him, taking in every single inch of him until finally, they rest on the stick that months ago seemed like a far-fetched hopeless dream. Anger flares inside me at my months spent at the hospital.

  ‘Good bye, Freddy.” I say, my bruised fury not allowing any tears to fall.

  “Bye, Amber.” His voice is nothing more than a whisper.

  Spinning, I gather my dress in my hands so I can walk faster and faster as I pace away. I don’t turn, and I don’t stop. I walk away, leaving my prom, my school and my future as I thought it would be, under a thousand fairy lights behind me.

  AUGUST 2014: THIS LOVE

  MEALS ON WHEELS

  “Who was it?” Isaac calls down the stairs. Of course he does. Firstly, he couldn’t hear me earlier when I was calling for breakfast? Secondly, who exactly does he expect it to be, he doesn’t know anyone here?

  I do.

  Oh, God. I do.

  Leaning against the door I take a deep breath, my limbs still frozen in a never ending shocked spasm. That was much, much quicker than I expected. Much quicker. When I decided to come back, I had it in my head that perhaps one day I may bump into Freddy Bale, he would probably be married, and yes, it would sting like fuck (I do have double standards, I know this) and we would just casually wave across the street and walk along. My ideas were always surrounded by this comforting rosy glow.

  I never expected him to turn up on my doorstep within hours of me being home. I never expected for my lungs to fail the moment I saw him. And I never expected I would blurt out my married name — which isn’t even my real name anymore — and watch a flicker of hurt flash across his ocean blues.

  You were never in love with him. You were never in love with him. You were never in love with him.

  These words are the cement to my castle. The castle I have securely locked myself in for the last ten years, keeping my memories on the outside of the walls. I was never I love with him.

  It was lust. A childish crush.

  Okay, if I were to be honest, I would admit that the castle walls are sometimes made of jelly and prone to wobble. I have managed in the last ten years to reduce my Freddy thoughts to three a day, and I believe that to be successful progress.

  Now . . . now I’ve seen him, every moment we ever spent together is back in my head, just like it never went away. Freddy Bale.

  “Meals on Wheels?” My mother makes me jump out of my skin.

  “No, Mum, it’s Amber.” I peel myself away from the door and straighten up.

  “I know who you are, I was asking if that was Meals on Wheels at the door?”

  Looking at her in puzzlement, I shake my head. All the reading I’ve done has said this can happen — clarity one moment, forgetfulness the next. It’s harder than I thought.

  Mum might remember who I am right now but she hasn’t acknowledged that I’m home. “I suppose you're going to rush out with that Bale boy again and not spend anytime with your father and I today.”

  I take a deep breath and blink away the stinging tears. “No, Mum. I’m twenty-eight, remember? I came home yesterday to look after you?” Then comes the truly painful bit. “Mum, Dad’s dead, do you not remember?”

  She doesn’t. The dementia started not long after he died of a sudden heart attack last year. So when I said I hadn’t been home to the village in ten years, it wasn’t strictly the truth, I came home last year for three hours to cremate the dad I loved, and missed, but whose life my mum had ruined. Ironic that without him, her own life slowly started to deteriorate.

  “That boy,” she continues, still clearly stuck in the decade before. “He’s going to be nothing but trouble for you, Amber, you’ve got to stick to your plan, otherwise you will end up like me.”

  Tears slip out of the corner of my eyes. I will never be like her, she made sure of that ten years ago when she somehow convinced Freddy Bale to let me go.

  “I know mum, I will break up with him, I promise.” I soothe her and take her hand leading her into the kitchen and to the table that’s always been there. “I’ll make you some lunch, would you like scrambled eggs and toast?”

  “Meals on Wheels bring spaghetti Bolognese,” she says.

  Bloody spaghetti Bolognese.

  “Okay, I can do that.” I think.

  Turning, I go to tell her to take a seat but she’s already wondered off to the chair in the lounge, my dad’s chair.

  In the kitchen, I bang around the pots and pans, my frustration making me sound like a percussion instrument. I have things I need to be doing, I need to be unpacking, working out how we are going to fit into this dated house. I need to be working on my new project, my manuscript notes lay in the bottom of my laptop case but I know I can’t leave them too long, if I don’t write, I don’t work. If I don’t work then I don’t earn. It’s as simple as that.

  I need to not be here.

  I’ve made a terrible mistake in coming back. Looking at the faded walls of the kitchen, I know this, and not because of the house, the mess, or even the state my mum is in. I’m just not the same Amber who used to live here.

  I could kill Freddy Bale for turning up and making me react this way.

  “Do you need help cooking?” I glance up at Isaac leant against the kitchen doorframe, his sandy hair flopping in his eyes.

  I offer him the bravest smile I can muster. “Isaac, I always need help cooking, you know that.”

  He nods and shuffles into the room, his iPad still in his hand. It makes me grouchy. “Do you ever put that thing down?”

  “Yes, when I sleep.”

  I pull a face.

  “Very grown-up,” he retorts. Coming over, he slides the iPad onto the counter and gives me a big hug, the first one he’s given me in days, since I suggested the sudden move to the country. I lean in and smell his hair, relishing the wave of memories, which accompany the scent. “What is that?” He peers into the frying pan.

  “Bolognese sauce.” I give it a stir.

  “That looks nothing like Bolognese.”

  I peer at it too. “Yeah, I know. I think I’ve forgotten something.”

  “Tomatoes?”

  “Shit! The tomatoes!”

  Isaac frowns at my profanity and I offer him a helpless shrug, the kind of helpless shrug I’ve been offering him for years as I’ve bumbled from one disaster to another. One day he is going to cotton on to the fact I’m not very grown up at all, and then I will be in for shit.

  The bell rings again, calling our attention away from the terrible sauce. “Bloody hell,” I mutter, a flustered panic washing over me that Freddy Bale may have come back.

  “I’ll go,” says Isaac, as he walks towards the hallway.

  “No, no, no,” I practically screech. “I’ll get it, it’s probably another annoying neighbour checking on mum.”

  I needn’t worry too much as Isaac has already turned his attention to his iPad.

  The whole way to the front door I try and get myself to calm the fuck down. If he has come back then he clearly didn’t get the message I was trying to give.

  He won’t come back.

  If he has come back, maybe I should see what he wants instead of slamming the door in his face?

  I inch the door open, peering my nose outside.

  “What are you doing?” It’s Danni, standing on the front step a bottle of wine in her hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  Danni gives an elaborate sigh. “Jesus, Amber. You’ve been gone for ten years, you never said goodbye, you never got in contact with me, I have no idea why you’re back, not really. I thought I would come and check on you. Is that okay?”

  I let out a deep breath. “Yeah,” I give her a small smile
. “I guess that’s fine.”

  “Well so long as you’re sure.”

  Grabbing her hand, I pull her in before I check to see if Freddy is loitering down the driveway.

  “It’s okay, he’s left.” She smirks.

  “Left what, the village?”

  “No, you div, the vicinity of your house.” Danni spins in the hallway and folds her arms across her chest, evaluating me closely. “So you’re still in love with him then?”

  “No!”

  She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. Tapping one teal-polished fingernail against her arm, she contemplates what to say next. “So what’s all this bollocks about you being married?”

  “What’s all this bollocks about you being married, especially to the worlds most annoying bloke?” I fire straight back.

  Before either of us has a chance to warm up to our familiar war of come-backs, Isaac walks through from the kitchen, looking expectantly at me through his sand hair, which he blows off his brow with a practiced gust of air. “The Bolognese is burning.”

  “Oh, fuck!” I exclaim. Isaac looks shocked and with good reason. I glance between Danni and Isaac. My oldest friend and my most important person ever. “Isaac, this is Danni a very old friend of mine.” He rolls his eyes in greeting. “Danni,” I continue. “This is Isaac. My son.”

  VISITORS

  Danni opens her eyes so wide I’m pretty sure they will pop out of her face on cartoonish stalks. Silence hangs in the hallway as she thinks of something to say.

  She can’t.

  “Mum, the bolognese?” Isaac gives me the disparaging look he’s perfected over the last couple of months. He’s also started dong this “Ugh, ugh,” thing, where he throws about his arms and gets all agitated with me. I was worried he was suffering from seizures but the third doctor I harassed trying to get answers regarding my son’s mysterious illness assured me it's all perfectly normal and down to hormones which kick in at nine.

  Nine? I think he’s been suffering from hormone changes since he was six and learnt how to have an opinion different to my own.

  “Bolognese!” I shout, and dash to the kitchen. Danni walks in behind me, unscrewing the cap off the wine.

  A glance at the clock on the wall tells me it’s early, but hey, it’s been a big day.

  “You have a son?”

  “Yeah, and you?”

  “You had a child and didn’t tell me?” She sounds cross and a whole truckload of shocked.

  “Did you?”

  A cloud passes across her face. “Not yet.”

  “I’m sorry.” I try and detract all the attention from myself “And Grant? Really, Grant?”

  “He won me over!”

  “How bloody long did that take?”

  Danni laughs. “Seven years, thereabouts.”

  “I would have made it seven more! I thought he was going travelling again, you know, after . . .” I trail off. I’m not really ready to drag up the past yet. Not willing to talk about Freddy, the accident which nearly killed him, nor the six months I spent waiting for him to get better, or the fact he dumped me as soon as he got his legs back.

  “Things changed pretty quick after you left, Amber.” Her lips purse so I’m sure she’s holding herself back. I’m more than happy with holding back from the recriminations that could fly between us. My cheeks burn and my hands rise automatically, my fingers pressed against the warmth.

  “Yeah?” I can’t meet her eyes. “Things changed quickly for me, too.” I’m not proud of the person I was after I left home. It’s taken me a long time to move on from it. Isaac was the one who made me move on.

  “Amber?” Danni slams cupboard doors as she searches for wine glasses. There aren’t any in my mother’s teetotal house. I just take the bottle from her hand and swig out of it before offering it back to her. Once she’s had a sip, she continues. “Why the hell did you leave?”

  Taking the bottle firmly back in my grasp I gulp down some more. “We were all leaving anyway, weren’t we?”

  “Yeah, but not like that, we didn’t know where you were, we didn’t even know if you were dead. Just nothing.” She balls her hands into fists and adopts a pose Superman would be proud of. “Jesus, I can’t believe you have a child.”

  I don’t know what to say, I should say sorry but I had my reasons for leaving, no matter how pathetic they were. I try and spin them into an explanation that won’t sound too feeble.

  “I guess, I just thought my life was going to be a happy one here, and when that was taken away, I figured it better to split then be unhappy.”

  “And were you happy where you were?” Danni relaxes her stance and reaches over, placing her hand on mine.

  I think for a long moment, I think of the hours I spent with Isaac, just staring at him, revelling in him, but then I remember the loneliness and the eventual disappointment that I couldn’t make anything work in the long run. “No.”

  “So are you back for good now?”

  She’s asked the question I can’t answer, I dodge the inquiry with a clumsy distraction. “Come on, lets go into the outside.” I motion to the back door.

  “Amber, are you back for good now?” she insists again, walking after me into the overgrown jungle inspired garden.

  “Yes, probably, I don’t know.”

  Scrapping a chair, she sits in it uncomfortably. “Thing is, I don’t want anyone to get hurt if you decide to bail again.”

  My spine tingles. I know there is going to be a chance people will get hurt if I stay. Maybe me.

  “Well Isaac’s starting Woodford Green Juniors, it’s an important year, I won’t be going anywhere for a while.”

  “A year? You’ve planned for a year?”

  ‘Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

  She shrugs. “Nothing, I guess. I’m just wondering if a year is going to be long enough to put right all the things you need to.”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I wasn’t the only person to be hurt when you ran away, you need to remember that.”

  Who is she talking about? Mum? Dad? It’s way too late for me to make peace with my dad, no matter how much I may want to.

  “I’ll sort things with mum,” I say.

  “I’m not talking about your mum, Amber.” She shakes her head, like she’s stopping herself from saying more. “So how old is Isaac then?” She glances into the house where the T.V blares a staccato note. It could be Isaac, but then I guess it could also be mum. Actually, it’s more than likely mum.

  “He’s nine.”

  I wait for her to do the maths. It’s impressively quick. Her eyes open even wider than they did at the door earlier.

  “It’s not what you think. I was in a bad place when I got to London, I found myself some digs, got a job. I drank a lot, and well, I guess I tried to forget a lot as well. Then a few weeks later I noticed I didn’t feel too great and found out I was terminally sick with Isaac.”

  “What, you were by yourself?” This isn’t the question I’m expecting her to ask but I’m relieved when she does.

  “Yep.” My darkest hours were spent wrestling with myself about the right thing to do. “I never saw his father again to tell him.” This is my standard line. The one I’ve told Isaac. The one I tell myself.

  “Fuck, Amber. You don’t do things by half do you?”

  I take the wine bottle, which looks disappointingly near to empty. “So, what about you and Grant? How long have you been trying.”

  Danni’s shoulder slump her fingers rapping on the edge of her knees. “Three years. We started IVF last year, but still nothing.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again.

  “Nah, shit happens.”

  I snort some wine. “Does to me.”

  “I’ll tell you who does have kids!” She leans forward excitedly.

  “Who?”

  “Henry!” she squeals and stamps her feet onto the ground.

  “Ewwww,” I scream. I’m going to
go out on a limb and assume Danni’s husband’s older brother is still a knob-head.

  I’m so busy laughing and stamping my feet I almost slip and ask if Freddy has any children with anyone.

  Danni evaluates me, probably guessing at the thoughts I have whirling through my mind. She chews on her bottom lip, the exact same way she used to when we were kids and she used to want to tell me something but couldn’t.

  “I don’t want to know!” I state firmly.

  Danni holds her hand up in surrender. “Okay, okay.” She laughs and peers into the wine bottle. ‘Shall I go and get another one.

  A smile starts to spread across my face. “Okay, I’d better feed mum and Isaac though before I drink anymore.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back and then you can tell me all about you being married and how you haven’t mentioned your husband yet.” Giggling, she gets up from the rickety garden chair and marches for the gate, and with a desperate groan, I head into the kitchen and to the burnt bolognese. That is one conversation I’m not in a hurry to have. Well, that and any conversation involving Freddy Bale, because I have a sneaky suspicion the two conversations are intricately linked with one another.

  THE DEAL

  “I love you, Freddy.”

  It seems so silly to be telling him, but he’s giving me this reproachful look, with hurt flashing in the depths of his eyes. A look that asks me where I’ve been, and what I’ve been doing. “I’ve never forgotten you,” I whisper and then snuggle back down to sleep.

  A smooth finger touches my cheek, it doesn’t feel quite right, but then it doesn’t feel wrong either. It’s familiar, like a frayed comfort blanket you don’t want to lose. “Mum?”

  Mum. It means something. It should mean something.

  With a start, I wake. Freddy fades into very recess of my mind just like he always does when I get woken and Isaac fills my conscience in his place.