‘When a family feud switched a traditional send-off to theGreatest Showmanat the last minute, it was a nightmare trying to sort the trapeze.’
I spied a shadow emerge from the distant treeline. ‘Right, anyway, I’m going to call my boyfriend.’
‘You have a boyfriend?’ Arthur’s bushy eyebrows shot up in surprise.
‘Would you believe it? A very nice one, actually.’ I went to remind myself of that, even as Elliot’s loping figure drew closer.
* * *
Seb had messaged me an hour ago asking if I could phone after eight. He’d just finished work and was at a bar with the brothers who ran the boat-hire when I called. I waited while he found a quiet spot to talk, my stomach curling up in disquiet. We’d spoken less than twenty-four hours earlier. The only positive reason I could think of for him needing to talk was that he’d decided to come home, and I was holding out no hope of that. Which left the huge list of negative ones my brain had been chewing over.
‘Hey, beautiful. How’s your second day been?’ he asked, which seemed to rule out one of those reasons – surely you wouldn’t greet someone you were about to dump with a compliment?’
We chatted for a couple of minutes but I found it impossible to concentrate.
‘Did you want to talk about something specific?’
‘Oh, yeah. The final energy bill for the flat came through. Turns out we’ve been underpaying. By quite a lot.’
Bywe, of course he meanthe.
‘How much is it?’ My mouth had turned completely dry.
‘Eight hundred.’
‘What?’
‘I guess those new hair-straighteners used more energy than we realised.’
‘Could it be a mistake? A faulty meter or something?’
‘I’ve spoken to them and there’s nothing wrong. There’s been those massive price hikes and it’s been nearly a year since I sent in a meter reading. But they offered a flexible payment option, two hundred a month. Only…’
Here it came. The hair-straighteners comment had prepared me for it.
‘I’m living hand to mouth; there’s no way I can pay. Now you’ve got the new job, are you able to sort it?’
He didn’t have to mention that he’d paid all of the rent and most of the bills for three years, while I’d chipped in an occasional token gesture and funded our food and barely-there social life.
Two hundred a month, on top of debt repayments and rent…
Yes, I could sort it, if I did nothing apart from work, sleep and eat scraps from the Barn kitchen for the next few months.
But that would of course obliterate any hope of saving enough to get out of Chimney Cottage to a place where I could rebury the guilt I’d been carrying around since coming back to Houghton.
I ended the call with Seb and spent the next hour pacing up and down my room in a frenzy of rising panic.
I’d been coping with living with Elliot, even managed those couple of conversations. It had helped, seeing that he was okay and the accident hadn’t destroyed his life. But the sticky notes, those brief chats and the loping run were reminders that he was doing okay because he’d had to fight and adapt and adopt a thousand different strategies just to get through each day. To compensate for what my stupidity had stolen.
I knew it wasn’t about me, that me not being here made no difference to him. But honestly, in that moment, as I wore a path up and down my green rug, I felt terrified that staying here indefinitely could lead to a complete breakdown.
I’d teetered on the edge of that precipice before, and the thought of going back there sent panic tumbling through my insides.
It was late when a thump on my bedroom door interrupted my pacing.
‘Jessie?’
‘What?’ I really didn’t want to speak to my brother right then.
