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I smile into the sun and look up at the sky.
Laughter, fun, anticipation — a kaleidoscope of pictures shifts behind my eyes, all featuring Jeremy.
I love him. I still do.
We just got lost in each other for a while. And now I’m in a prison I’ve built myself, and I’m not sure how to escape.
The sound of the waves soothes my ruptured heart as I pick through the options I have in front of me. If he loves me like I love him, we can make this work. I can help him. We can get clean together and find our way back to this.
It’s a ray of hope I’ve needed to pick me up and keep me going.
The doubt and worry that it will be too easy to slip into bad ways niggles at me, like something on the edge of my vision, but I stay strong. We are strong enough. I can do this.
There’s time before the taxi is due, so I head back up from the beach. I tell myself it’s just a look — a glance — but as the house comes into view, the urge to see if he’s there grows.
This is the place he ran to. That we ran to, so it’s a possibility.
I walk down towards the drive, excitement bubbling at the prospect. But as I get there, it looks quiet. The windows are all dark, no car in the drive — nothing like it was when we stayed here. It reminds me of how it looked when I came here out of my mind with worry — another stab in my chest.
Looking back at that time, it was crazy how much I felt like I needed him. Frightening, even.
The back gate is open. It stops me from leaving, and I head in that direction. It’s banging in the breeze, and I open it to check if there’s someone in the garden, but it’s deserted like the house appears to be, with covers over the sun loungers and furniture.
As I peer in, the sense of loss pierces my heart so sharply that it throbs in my chest.
Coming here was a bad idea. I miss him. It’s that simple and being here only heightens that to an unbearable level.
The jetty calls, and although it’s technically trespassing, I want to go back to the place that I always thought of as ours. Just for a moment — maybe to say goodbye?
I cross the garden and through the gate and follow the familiar path with a smile on my face.
As I hit the start of the wooden planks, I look over towards where his boat is always moored, and I see the silhouette I recognise sitting at the end like we did for so many hours.
The hope that rose in me on the beach explodes in my chest and my face beams. But that all crashes in the next instance when I see that he’s not alone. Another girl is with him.
Jealousy worms its way inside my skin as I keep walking, unable to help myself until I’m halfway along the jetty.
I can hear them laughing together, and it crushes something inside.
This was our place. He said nobody came here. Yet here he is.
The girl turns then and looks right at me.
“Arch, who is this?” she asks him.
He turns to me, and his smile drops the second he recognises me. “Nobody. Don’t worry about her. Go back to the house.”
“Hey,” she starts, cross with his dismissal.
“I said go,” he snaps his command at her, and she obeys, standing, before walking back the way I just came, muttering as she passes me. I stare at her as she does and have to hold myself back from screaming at her.
Then, it’s just us.
We both look at each other for a few minutes, neither of us speaking, but the hurt and rage inside me only intensifies. He was laughing with her. How can he be happy here with someone else?
He breaks first. “What are you doing here?” He sounds tired.
“I’m in Cornwall for a few weeks, just like always.”
