Page 146 of Carry Me Home

I let myself in to the café. Lock the door behind me. Walk through the dark without turning on the lights – past the counter, past the chalkboard, past the pink bear in the corner that Tom won at the fete, which I’ve kept because I keep everything he’s given me, because apparently that’s what I do; I collect the evidence of a love I was too blind to see and too late to hold.

Upstairs, the flat smells of him. His aftershave on the pillow. The sheets I haven’t washed because I’m pathetic, because I wanted to keep the smell of him a little longer, because I am a twenty-eight-year-old woman who drove eleven hours to surprise a man and found him with his hands in another woman’s hair.

I sit on the edge of the bed. I don’t cry again. I’m empty of it.

I take out my phone. No messages. No missed calls. The last text from Tom, two days ago: Sorry, crazy day.

I put the phone face-down on the nightstand.

I take off my shoes. Lie down on the bed, on top of the covers, fully dressed.

The harbour sounds come through the window. The gulls. The waves. The halyards. The sounds of home, carrying on regardless, the way they always do.

I close my eyes.

And I try very hard not to think about the ease on Tom Darcy’s face when he looked at Cara, and how it looked nothing like the way he looks at me, and how maybe that’s the point – maybe ease is what people actually want, and the rest of it – the eleven years, the waiting, the desperate midnight drives – is just a story I told myself because the truth was too simple to bear.

He chose the simple thing. The easy thing.

And I drove eleven hours to watch him do it.

Chapter Thirty-One

TOM

Cara pulls back from the hug and wipes her eyes.

‘God. Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.’

‘You’re allowed to cry.’

‘I’m not. I’m a professional. Professionals don’t cry when their business partners abandon them for Cornish women.’ She laughs, watery. ‘I’m happy for you, I am. Believe me, I wish I could be angry. It just…’

‘Hurts.’

‘Yeah.’ She shrugs. ‘But I’ll get over it. I always do.’

We stand there in the staff room, the remnants of my goodbye party scattered around us. Paper plates. Half-empty bottles. A banner that says GOOD LUCK TOM in letters that are already starting to droop.

‘I really didn’t intend to lead you on, Cara, I promise you that.’

Cara blinks up at my face. ‘Oh, I know. Tom Darcy is too honourable for that, and I respect you for it. I do.’

I sigh. I am so goddamn tired. ‘I tried.’ I don’t know if I mean that I tried to be honourable, or that I tried with her. I don’t think either statement will help the mess I’ve made of it all up here.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. I reach up and do it for her, because her hands are full of crumpled tissue and because she’s been kind to me and because after everything she deserves at least this – the small, useless gesture of a man who couldn’t love her back but isn’t made of stone.

‘When do you leave?’ she asks and she glances over my shoulder, through the window, a flicker in her gaze.

‘Tomorrow morning. Early.’

‘Of course.’ She nods. ‘Well. It’s been something, Tom Darcy.’ She reaches for my face, hands gentle.

‘It has.’

‘You’re a good vet. Cornwall’s lucky to have you back.’

‘And you’re a great vet. Scotland’s lucky you’re staying.’