I could see it, but I felt it, too. Deep down, I didn’t believe Andy wanted me to be unhappy. He just couldn’t bear to be right when he’d warned me over and over again about going down that road with his sister, knowing I could break her heart in the end.
“You know I never meant to hurt Lillie, don’t you? I tried. I tried to make her happy, but?—”
“You didn’t love her.” I imagined Nina shrugging the way she always did when people around her made problems out of things that were never really problems to begin with. “I love my daughter more than anything, Henry. Always have, always will. But we warned her not to push you into something you felt duty bound to fulfil, and she did. Deep down, she knew.”
“Knew?” I frowned.
“That you loved her too platonically to be anything more than family to her.”
Memories of everything we’d been through together since losing my mum and dad flashed through my mind. All the things I’d tried to forget. All the moments I’d pushed down, desperate not to feel like a burden to the Hyde family, even though I couldn’t help myself.
“Henry,” she said, pulling me back to the conversation. “Can I ask you something? Have James or I ever made you feel like you owe us anything for taking you in after losing your parents?”
“Nina…”
“You don’t have to hide your true feelings for me. I—we—meant what we said the day you came to us. You’re ours now. Ours to nurture, to love, to protect. To mess up and get thingswrong with, just like with our other two kids.” Her huff of laughter made the corners of my mouth twitch. “Be honest with me. Have we been a burden to you all these years?”
“Jesus, Nina, no.” A lump formed in my throat at the thought of her thinking I felt that way. “No,” I said quietly. “You’ve been such a gift to me. You, James, Andy, Lillie… It’s me who let you down.”
“Says who?”
“We both know the answer to that.”
“Hmm. Well, my son is a stubborn, spoilt, handsome little devil, and while I love him and will fight for him every day of my life, I’m also not naïve enough to ignore his faults. He fights fights that don’t need fighting. He doesn’t know the meaning of struggle, and he thinks anyone who deviates from what is right in his mind is to be cursed for eternity. Forgive my language, Henry, but he can be a complete arsehole sometimes. A trait I’m sure he must have got from his father, surely not me. Or maybe his grandfather. He could be a real prat when he wanted to be.”
I laughed softly again, barely a sound, barely a movement, but her voice and her words made the world feel lighter all the same.
She sighed once more. “I love my Andrew, but he is not your moral compass. Your heart is your moral compass, son.”
Son.
Son.
Fucking son.
That one word had that lump in my throat forming into a snowball I couldn’t melt, until a sheen of unwelcomed tears coated my eyes, and I had to cough them back down.
No one had called me that in so many years, I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like.
Tears? What the fuck was happening to me? I hadn’t produced them in over a decade.
“Your silence displays your awkwardness in neon lights, you know that, right?” She laughed lightly. “So, let’s change the subject.”
This woman may not have been my mother, but I sure had landed on my feet when it came to having someone like her there to guide me through life.
“This girl…” Nina said. “Tell me about her.”
It was the least I owed her, so I did, without any further prompting or persuasion. I told her about the first time Phoebe had been staring at her phone before she’d smacked straight into me, and the sass that fell from her tongue so easily. I told Nina about the looks we’d given each other across the swimming pool, the volleyball court, and the way that, for reasons I couldn’t understand, this blonde woman with the tiny frame and the huge personality had stumbled her way into my chaotic life only to tell me about the chaos of her own. Every time Nina asked me a question about her, I didn’t hesitate to answer, as though I’d known Phoebe Turner my whole life and could write a thesis about her every personality trait, when in reality, it hadn’t even been two weeks. And when the story came to a close on the catamaran, and I told my non-biological mum about Andy catching us together and being disappointed with me, I let the silence linger between us.
“Are you there?” I asked, glancing at my phone screen when it had been quiet for far too long, before I pressed the phone back to my ear again. “Nina?”
“I’m here,” she said. “But I’m still waiting for the part where you say you messed up?”
“Well, Andy hates me now because of all my secrets and lies.”
“But you’ve been happy out there with Phoebe?”
Fuck, yes, I wanted to answer.She’s restarted my heart, imbedded herself in my bloodstream, dominated my every waking thought. “She’s incredible,” I said instead.
