When I take Emilie upstairs for a bath, George sits at the end of his bed, chatting to me through the open door while she splashes about in the bubbles. Afterwards, he offers to read her a story, and I’m taken aback both by his suggestion and her eagerness to agree.
I go downstairs and top up my wine glass until I’m called back up for a bedtime kiss.
‘Night night, Emilie,’ George says sweetly from the doorway after he’s moved aside to let me in.
‘Night night, George,’ she replies adorably.
He smiles at me before leaving us to it.
I don’t know what to make of his behaviour.
When I get back downstairs, George is standing in the middle of the room, tapping on his phone screen. ‘Seven Nation Army’ by the White Stripes spills from a speaker near the TV.
‘This song!’ I exclaim. ‘It really reminds me of you. I think it was on almost every one of your playlists.’
‘You listened to my iPod?’ he asks with a cocked eyebrow.
‘Until it died on me. Why didn’t you take it with you? Were you initially planning on coming back?’
‘No. I knew I was going for good.’
I pick up my wine glass from the sideboard and sit down on the sofa, confused.
‘There’s so much I still don’t understand,’ I say. ‘And after what Ernie said…’
‘Don’t listen to Ernie,’ he grumbles as he sits down beside me.
I turn to face him. ‘But I wanted to listen to him. You’re such a closed book.’
‘And you’re not?’ He frowns at me.
I’m flummoxed. ‘No! I don’t think I am! I feel like you should be able to read every emotion that’s plastered across my face.’
‘I thought I could,’ he replies after a while.
‘What did he mean when he said that I was the one that got away?’
He gives me an exasperated look. ‘Come on, Leah,’ he snaps.
‘No! It makes no sense! Did you have feelings for me?’
‘Of course I bloody did! I was in love with you!’
My heart crashes against my ribcage. ‘But you left,’ I whisper dazedly. ‘You were the one that got away.’
He scratches his head, frustrated, and takes a large gulp of his wine. I wait for him to speak, hoping that the alcohol will loosen his tongue, the same way it’s loosening mine.
‘I thought you felt the same way about me,’ he says, not meeting my eyes.
‘I did.’
I’m stumped by the dark look he shoots me. He’s disbelieving, angry even.
And then realisation dawns on me and the blood drains from my face.
‘You saw Theo kiss me, didn’t you?’
His jaw twitches. A moment later he nods, a single, curt, brusque nod, before throwing the remainder of his wine down his throat. He gets up abruptly and stalks into the kitchen, refilling his glass.
I feel quite ill.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says tersely, coming back through with the bottle. ‘I know I need to get over it,’ he adds as he tops up my glass. ‘I didn’t want to talk about it – it’s in the past. But sometimes it hits me out of the blue and I’m just so fucking baffled.’ He sits back down. ‘I knew you liked Theo, but I thought your feelings for him were platonic. At least, I thought that most of the time, when I was thinking straight and not riddled with jealousy,’ he adds grouchily.
‘My feelings were platonic,’ I insist. ‘He was a friend – just a friend. You were the one I had feelings for.’
It’s clear George doesn’t believe me. After years of rejection from his parents and other adults who were supposed to care for him, he thought I’d rejected him too. No wonder he fled.
‘George, Theo was upset,’ I say. ‘He came to tell us both that his dad was sending him to Italy. We walked up to Hare Heads to talk and I knew he wanted my attention because usually I was divided, worrying about you, but he was in such a state that I decided to put him first.’
‘So you kissed him?’ He sounds bitter.
‘No, he kissed me,’ I reply. ‘And yes, I kissed him back. But I was crushed about him leaving. Nothing else happened between us for another year and a half.’
He reels backwards. ‘What?’
‘We stayed friends. But after you left, I was a wreck. There was no way I could think about being with anyone else. I mean, I couldn’t imagine falling for anyone ever again, but that’s teenagers for you,’ I say wryly.
‘I saw pictures of you with him on Becky’s Facebook page that New Year.’ He still doesn’t trust what I’m saying.
‘Hugging, right? Not kissing. Theo was my friend. That’s all. But when he came home for Christmas the following year, I started to see him differently. He said he’d always had feelings for me.’
‘That much was obvious,’ he mutters with only a trace of resentment.
‘But you were the first boy I ever loved,’ I say quietly.
George has been sitting on the edge of the sofa with his jaw clenched and his elbows resting on his knees. He’s been staring at the floor, but as soon as I say these words, he turns his head to look at me.
‘I chose you,’ I whisper.
He stares at me and I can practically see the cogs in his brain turning.
‘And you left me,’ I repeat, tears filling my eyes.
He looks stricken and then, suddenly, incredibly weary. ‘I don’t think I can handle this, Leah. After everything that came afterwards, everything I went through… And I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for you too,’ he adds hastily. ‘But now you’re telling me it was all a big misunderstanding? That’s too much.’
I brush my tears away. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have any regrets. I know it was awful, and I can’t imagine how you must have been feeling if you walked away from Hare Heads and climbed into the boot of a stranger’s car.’ I’m breathless with pain at the thought of him doing that, at the thought of him hurting so deeply at seeing me kiss Theo that he put his life at risk. ‘But if you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have got together with Theo and I wouldn’t have Emilie. And I loved Theo, George. Not at first, I promise you, not at first, but, God, I loved him,’ I say with a tearful smile.
I loved him so much that I followed him to London when he went to art college. Throughout most of our twenties, it was just the two of us. After such a hectic childhood, growing up in a houseful of troubled teenagers, we were free. Free of his family, free of mine – a thought that always comes with a pang of guilt – but we thrived on it. We had fun together. We made each other laugh. And when I fell pregnant by accident, Theo proposed to me and told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life in my company.
We went through rocky patches – his love wasn’t infinite and unwavering, and I know for a fact that he had at least two Italian girlfriends while he was at school in Italy – but we always made it through.
And I can’t regret it.
‘Would you really change it all?’ I ask George. ‘If you could go back, I mean.’
‘I don’t know,’ he admits, still hunched forward. ‘When I remember how I was at fifteen, I can see I was on a destructive path. Maybe if I’d stayed, I would have blown things with you anyway.’