‘Stop. You don’t have to say this…’
‘Yes, I do.’ My breath shudders. ‘I can’t get away from it. Even with the mess of Gabe and coming here, I still wanted you.’
The moon is passing behind clouds when I seek help from the sky, its light diffusing into a halo. I try to hold in my tears, but it’s pointless. One star pulses bravely, refusing to disappear.
Say something, Sam.
Anything.
He doesn’t. Just breathes out one long breath. As if he’s trying to expel everything he ever held inside for me.
I’ve just told him I am his. If that’s not enough, no other words will be.
He doesn’t stand, but he will soon. I don’t want to be the one watching him walk away.
‘Anyway, I need to go,’ I say. Emotion strangles every word. ‘I’m glad I got to see you. Safe journey home.’ It’s all so ridiculously formal, but how else do you escape a conversation when you’ve offered yourself to someone who doesn’t want you? In another time, had I been the person I wanted so much to be, I would be in his arms. That hurts more than not seeing him. A few steps and I could be there. But there’s a line between us I can no longer cross.
The gravel of the path crunches under my boots as I walk back to my car, the first chill of the night catching me. I pull up my hood to keep the breeze out and my tears in.
Sam doesn’t follow me. He doesn’t call my name.
I don’t look back.
Whatever I’d hoped might happen, hasn’t. I’m still alone. But I have been brave. Now everything’s out there, perhaps I can move on.
And when I sit, in tears, behind the wheel of my car in the staff car park, I realise something else.
I can’t stay at Eden.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sam
I’m yours, Sam.
No, you aren’t, Phoebe.
I should have been waiting for you.
Yes, you should. But you weren’t. And that was my answer. That and the note Sir John had for me. Time enough to arrange someone to get to the station, buy a rose, attach a note and leave it – but not time to call me? Even just to say goodbye?
I thought I’d put this behind me. I was so close to forgetting Phoebe Jones ever existed.
So why can’t I get her voice out of my head?
I haul another speaker up the ramp to the studio’s equipment lock-up. Niven passes me on his way back to the van and smiles like he knows. Probably because he does.
‘Stop moping and step it up, you great soft Southerner.’
‘I’m getting old, Niv. My strength isn’t what it was.’
‘Bollocks to that. You’ll still be skipping round like a goat when I’m crumbling to dust in a care home.’
I didn’t talk to anyone about seeing Phoebe at the festival as we drove back to London where the rest of band were catching their trains. Shona picked up on my mood, but I managed to evade her questions. Niven, however, knows me too well to be fobbed off. He’s like an annoying terrier biting your heel – you can tell him to sod off but he’ll keep doing it until you give him what he wants. I finally told him yesterday after his questions damn near drove me to distraction.
I didn’t want to talk about her. But I’m glad it was Niven who heard it.
‘You didn’t think you’d see her again,’ he’d offered, as we’d hunched over beers in the darkened hotel bar. ‘Must have been some consolation to be able to say all the stuff you wanted to?’
‘I wish I hadn’t seen her. It would have been easier to forget.’
‘I know, man. But life has a way of crapping all over your plans.’
‘Don’t ever try to write fridge magnet mottos for a living. You’ll starve.’
‘… From which beautiful roses can grow. See?’ He’d held out his hands like a court jester expecting applause and I had to laugh because Niven trying to be sincere is hilarious.
‘Can you not mention roses? I’ve developed a dislike for them lately.’
He’d rolled his eyes at that. ‘Russian things, roses – promise me you’ll never get romantically entangled with a lady brewer or whisky distiller. I am not avoiding alcohol if it all goes tits up for you.’
‘Noted.’
‘Listen, mate, you think you’re over her. But in my experience, it takes longer than you’ve had. I saw how you were about Phoebe. You don’t love someone for an entire year and then forget her in eight weeks. It just doesn’t happen like that.’
‘Make me feel better, why don’t you?’
‘Thing is, Sam, you come alive when you talk about Phoebe. Even now when it hurts. That isn’t going to go away overnight.’
I wish he hadn’t said that. And I wish I didn’t know he was right. See, I’ve tried to be angry with her and tell myself she was never going to be there. And that we didn’t have a hope. Twelve months apart was too long to really know what we wanted. I thought I was okay with that.
I just didn’t expect her to be so… beautiful.
Covered in mud, her hair half out of its band and her face flushed from the shock of meeting me again, she was still as stunning as the day I first saw her. And that’s what kills me. Because I know I’m not over this.
‘Can I say something?’ Niven is waiting by the equipment store.
‘Be my guest.’
‘Right. Tell me where to get off if you like and please, don’t hit me – but I don’t think you can blame Phoebe entirely for what happened.’
I can’t believe I’m hearing this. ‘How do you work that out?’
He sighs. ‘All that time you were searching for Frank, she kept asking how you were. She offered to help.’
‘She did help. I went to Edinburgh because she told me to.’
‘And did you tell her that, eh? Did you say, Phoebe, the whole reason I found my father is because of you?’
‘Yes.’ I’m sure I did…
‘Okay. But did you tell her what you were going through before that happened? Did you share the journey? And yes, you may roll your eyes because I sound like a life coach. But the fact remains, Sam, there was a hell of a lot you didn’t tell her.’
I dig my hands in my pockets. It’s exactly what Phoebe told me. I don’t want to hear it, but it’s not a coincidence they both said the same. ‘That was my prerogative.’
‘Aye, it was. Also your prerogative to tell her you loved her. Which you did – at the last possible moment.’
I glare at him, but I don’t have an answer.
‘Pal. Does it not strike you as odd that the instant she returns from Paris, Mr Handsome-Ass Actor is straight on the scene?’
‘She wanted him.’
‘Not enough to make it work.’ He lowers his voice, clapping a hand on my shoulder. ‘Or maybe he was in the right place at the right time to catch the fallout.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Well, it’s easy to look like a hero when the one she really loves doesn’t let her in. I mean, all he had to do was show up and open up. Perhaps she wasn’t running into his arms. Perhaps she was pushed there.’