“You were asleep.”
“Resting my eyes.”
“Good night?”
“Where did you go? I looked for you…after the stairs.” She knows I’ll know what she means.
“Home. Charlie and Felix needed to get back, and I didn’t…”
I didn’t what? Didn’t want to stay after that conversation with Hal? Didn’t feel like being at a party? Maybe.
“I didn’t want to walk back in the dark,” I finish.
Mira doesn’t believe me, but she nods anyway.
“How is he this morning? After the thing with his grandfather?”
“Hal? I’m not sure.”
The truth is, on any other morning lately I wouldn’t have come down here first. But this morning…I don’t know. I’ve never heard him sound like that before – so cold. In that moment, the Hal I had almost convinced myself I could tell anything to was gone.
And after seeing the girls from school…Well.
It took me for ever to remember their names, but I did. Eventually. Lying on my bed, staring up at nothing.
Emily, Yaz and Clare.
I used to take maths with Emily. I sat at the desk across the aisle from Yaz in English, and Clare was in the year below me. I didn’t exactly know them well, but it was only a year ago – and they looked at me like I was some kind of monster. Just like I was afraid anyone would if they knew, if they’d seen me when I was bad. And then I did the worst possible thing – ran away. Because that’s what mad, freaky Flora does, isn’t it? She runs away. Oh look, there she goes again.
I have got to stop running away. I need to run towards.
Towards what?
No idea.
But there must be something. Maybe it doesn’t even matter what it is, just that I know it’s out there.
See, Sanjay? I did get it. It just took me a year to understand it.
“Go find him. He’ll be going soon, no?”
“I guess so. A couple of days, maybe.” I wonder whether I should tell her everything I overheard.
“And then it’s finished?”
“Finished?” Something stabs at my insides. Finished. Yes. It’ll be finished. How can it be anything but finished after he leaves here? That conversation made the bargain he has with his father pretty clear – and I can’t imagine there’s a place for someone like me in Hal’s life if his father’s in charge of it. All I have of Hal is what’s left of Albie’s letters. And the worst thing is, that’s all Hal has left of himself too.
He’s traded his future for someone else’s past…and I think, if I was ever going to fall in love with somebody, that might be the kind of thing that would make me do it.
Maybe?
I don’t know.
I don’t even know what love feels like, I don’t think. I always thought it would be like the mania: bright and sparkling, like cut glass. Brilliant and sharp. But this…isn’t. It’s the sound of him laughing on the roof of the car, the warmth of his jacket around me. The smudges of dust on his nose.
Is it really so easy? So little and so big at the same time?
Either way, soon all those things will be gone and only the traces in my memory will be left, ready to be wiped away by the next twist of my brain.
Mira’s still watching me, waiting. “I said, the research will be finished.” She blinks at me over her sunglasses. “What did you think I meant?”
“Oh. Nothing.” I try to sound casual. I don’t quite manage it. Mira makes a loud “Mmmmm” of disbelief. “Anyway, there’s still some stuff to sort through – we haven’t quite figured out what happened, but I think we’re getting to the end.”
Of Albie.
Of us…whatever “us” is.
All we have left is stolen time.
“Look, I should get going. He’ll be waiting for me. I’ll catch up with you later?” Maybe by then I’ll have more of a handle on all this. Even if I don’t, maybe I’ll tell her anyway, because she’s right – whether she’s at Hopwood or in Bristol, Mira’s always here for the stuff that matters. Even if she’s hungover.
And I think this matters. I think it matters a lot.
“Later? Sure. If I live so long,” she mutters, and slouches even further back into her chair. I can still hear her groaning and muttering to herself as the break-room door swings shut behind me.
Sitting on the old Chesterfield under the window in the lobby is Hal. And beside him is his grandfather. They must be waiting for a car to pick Pa up. A jacket I don’t recognize is folded neatly over the arm of the sofa, which reminds me that I still have Hal’s jacket from last night hanging on the handle of my wardrobe door. He’s swapped his clothes from the party for grey jeans and a dark T-shirt, but I catch myself studying his face for any hint of his father. There’s nothing. In fact, watching him sitting beside his grandfather, leaning in to hear what the older man is saying and smiling as he replies, makes me see him even more clearly. He runs his hands back through his hair – and then suddenly he looks right at me in that way he always does, as though he can feel me watching him. Maybe he could. His smile widens and brightens, and he tilts his head to one side…and then his grandfather looks over at me too and even from here I can see his eyes are as sharp as anything.
“We were just talking about you.” Hal jumps up as I reach the sofa. “He really did leave last night, by the way,” he adds – meaning his father. “Don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t.”
I was. But.
He eyes me warily, then nods and gestures to his grandfather. “Flora, I’d like you to meet Pa – Marcus Waverley. Pa, this is Flora.”
His grandfather stands slowly, as though he’s off-balance, and looks me up and down, breaking into a broad smile. “Flora.” He holds out a hand.
“Mr Waverley.” I take it and he closes both his hands around mine, laughing.
“Marcus, please. ‘Mr Waverley’ makes me feel old. Older, anyway,” he adds, nudging Hal. “Hal’s been telling me all about you.”
I nod, keeping my mouth shut. It’s the only way I can guarantee I won’t spend the rest of the day worrying whether what I said was actually stupid or just felt it.
Marcus lets go of my hands, waving at the lobby in general. “Well, I must say your staff are doing a beautiful job of…”
Hal’s cheeks slowly fade up to scarlet. I shake my head and try to keep my own face from doing the same. “Sorry, but I think Hal’s promoted me. I am the staff. I work in housekeeping.”
This only seems to confuse Marcus for a split second, because then he shrugs and smiles even more warmly. “In that case, I’m very impressed. I know a little about keeping a hotel looking smart – yes, Hal, I do,” he interrupts himself, as Hal tries to say something, then carries on smoothly, “and it’s harder work than most people think. So good for you. And it’s nice to finally see my grandson getting along so well with someone his own age. His father never saw the point of friends, I can tell you…”
“Pa, Flora doesn’t need to know my life story right now.” Hal steps neatly between us in an uncanny echo of the way he separated his father and grandfather last night.