I felt overcome by the enormity of what she’d done for me. I sobbed as I realised the true reason why she’d struggled so hard with allowing herself to be vulnerable, let alone happy. My heart shattered at the injustice that I’d never be able to tell her how grateful I was.
I decided then that, one day, when I felt strong enough, I would find Nell’s family and show them that her sacrifice was worth it.
When Blessing found me applying the first coat of white paint later that Sunday morning, she took one look at my blotchy face and threw her arms around me, ignoring the roller dripping onto the carpet as I collapsed into a puddle of yet more tears.
Once I’d wrung myself dry and was insistent that I needed to stop thinking about it for now, we decided the best solution was a late brunch in the village café, accompanied by a long conversation about what else we’d like to do with the cottage, before heading back to apply Blessing’s choice of teal feature wall. For some reason, the second coat took longer. Possibly dueto my housemate insisting we stop to dance when one of her favourite songs came on, and this being her ‘top tunes’ playlist, so that meant basically every track.
We finished late afternoon, had a break for coffee and cookies and then started sawing furniture into manageable-sized pieces and feeding the bits to the fire pit Blessing picked up at the same time as the loungers.
‘Look at us.’ Blessing sighed once blisters forced us to give up on the saw, and we feasted on cheese and crackers in the warmth of the flames. ‘Two weeks ago, I was climbing out of a bunk bed covered in ancient My Little Pony stickers, kicking my way through Honour’s dirty school uniform to bagsy the shower, and now I’m here, with my bestie housemate, living like an actual adult, without Dad hovering over my shoulder lecturing about sharp blades, forest fires and the correct protocol for cleaning paintbrushes.’
‘I think this is the first time I’ve genuinely relished making my own decisions, without second-guessing what Mum would have thought. Well,’ I corrected myself, ‘apart from the vegan pasties.’
‘It was the pasties that kick-started this whole thing,’ Blessing mused.
‘You know what, it was before then. That day I overslept, something inside me shifted.’
‘What made you sleep through your alarm for the first time ever?’
I added another section of bedpost to the fire, debating whether or not to admit the truth.
‘I was dreaming.’
‘Oh?’
‘About the island,’ I added sheepishly.
‘Girl,’ Blessing said slowly. I didn’t have to look round to know she was raising one eyebrow, mouth curling up. ‘Have youmessaged him yet?’ she asked, after a long minute of what I pretended was companionable rather than a loaded silence.
‘Nope.’
‘Still thinking about him?’
I showed her the Instagram picture.
‘Oh, Emmie.’ I did look at her this time. Her voice was so uncharacteristically gentle, it knocked me off guard. ‘You really did fall in love.’
‘It’s only a photo.’ I quickly took the phone back and stuffed it in my jacket pocket.
She said nothing, reaching over and taking hold of my hand, kindly not acknowledging the escaped tear.
Blessing was right. We were doing great. Brimming with plans and possibilities.
I had to figure out how to stop feeling as though a big fat chunk of my heart was missing.
We spent the next few days building flat-pack furniture, adding soft furnishings and other finishing touches before moving so much of Blessing’s stuff into the room, it was virtually impossible to see any of the new décor. We then painted my room in a soft golden yellow that was the exact same shade as the Hawkins Farm winter barley. Meaning it was my own fault when, that first night back in my old bed, I dreamed about blue skies, shimmering meadows and the squawk of gulls swooping over the Irish Sea.
By Friday, we were so full of half-baked, half-bonkers business ideas that a formal meeting couldn’t wait any longer. We set up my laptop, Blessing’s iPad and two pristine notebooks on the largest worktop in the pasty kitchen, perching on ourstools with giant lattes and cinnamon whirls from Middlebeck bakery, feeling about as bad-ass businesswomen as we could get.
Blessing kicked things off. ‘Okay, if time, money and talents were completely limitless, what would you do?’
‘I had wondered about seeing if there were any pitches going at local markets.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘To do what?’
‘Sell pasties.’
‘If time, money and talents were unlimited, basically meaning that you could do absolutely anything you wanted, you’d sell pasties on a market stall? In which case, what was the point of closing Parsley’s?’
