Page 41 of The Fall I Fell

‘Maybe four or five hours.’ He shrugs, unable to stop admiring the kittens.

‘Jesus, Jacob are you not cold? Or hungry?’

He rolls his eyes and presses his hand to my cheek, and the warmth of it spreads across my whole face in an instant.

‘Clearly not.’ I mumble, and tighten my dressing gown around myself.

For a moment or two, we stand side by side, simply observing in silence as two tiny creatures adjust to life on earth, completely clueless but leaning on each other to try and figure it out. Minutes pass like hours as we sit down on the hay, unable to take our eyes off the kittens as they cry out for their mother, who in turn licks at, and manoeuvres them, as their eyes still haven’t opened.

The awkwardness of meeting again completely melts away at the sight of those kittens, and we sit side by side in complete tranquillity.

‘How’s the exhibition coming on?’ Jacob asks after maybe an hour. His voice comes as a surprise, but I don’t jump. I thought he’d fallen asleep, propped up on the bale, but it seems he was just as transfixed as me, unable to fashion another thought while our minds were occupied with kittens.

‘Not great,’ I confess. ‘It’s like I sit down to do it, but nothing comes out. I scribble away at designs, or I sew some testers, and it’s like my brain has stopped working. I tried to sew an entire dress with no bobbin the other day. The stupid thing fell to bits as soon as I picked it up. Pretty sure I’m losing my mind.’ I laugh breathily, but there’s no humour there.

‘I can help you, you know, if you need it.’ I glance at his face and he stares back with all sincerity. ‘Me and Cal can give you a hand with some bits. I’m not sure how much help they’d be, but I know that even Alfie and Will would do anything for you. You know you only have to ask, right?’ He’s making sure to remind me that he is nothing more than a friend, the same as any of his brothers. I’m too tired to be hurt, and I know I shouldn’t be. He’s made it clear we’re nothing more, and I have to respect that.

‘You all have your own stuff,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to worry about mine too.’

‘I always worry about you.’

I lean my head against his shoulder, the tiredness filling my body, rendering me unable to truly absorb the weight of his words.

‘I’ll miss you, you know,’ he whispers. ‘When you’re off on your adventure.’

‘You’ll miss me?’ I can’t bring myself to look at him. ‘What about all of your adventures? Your photography, the farm, your animals. You won’t have time to miss me.’

He does a little laugh, though it comes out as more of an exhaled breath that blows a streak of hair on my crown.

‘You know … Me moving doesn’t have to be the end of anything?’ I say. ‘I’ll still visit in the holidays, just like old times.’

Finally, I sit up, and take in the whole of his face. In the dim light of the barn his eyes are glassy, a melancholy smile tugging on his lips. It’s like neither of us wants to mention that I wasn’t here last summer.

Friends, Ava. Just friends, I tell myself. These are exactly the conversations that friends have at 2 a.m.

‘You are so much bigger than all of this, Ava. Bigger than the farm, than me, than this whole county. You’ll go to Milan, you’ll see the world, and you’ll leave this place far behind. And I’ll cheer you on when you do.’

‘Don’t talk like that. You’re being silly now.’ I huff. ‘If you want to get rid of me, you can just say that.’ A childish pout crosses my lip in my tiredness, and Jacob pulls me into his chest and I lie again, against his shoulder, fighting sleep with all of my might.

‘I’m not ever going to forget about you,’ I say sleepily, and his arm wraps around me tighter. ‘How could I? You’re my best friend.’

‘I think it would be impossible for me to ever forget you,’ is the last thing I hear as I drift into a deep sleep, lulled by his heart beat and the protection of his arm.

Chapter 22

Two years ago

There will never be a summer like the one you have at sixteen. At least, that’s what my art teacher told me on my way out of my last exam.

We had nine long, languid weeks in the sun that year, when we didn’t have a single thing to worry about between June and September. We were on the cusp of being grown up. Sixteen feels like you have the world on offer and all you have to do is reach out and take it, and yet, you’re still kid enough to have Mum and Dad to fall back on, still naïve enough to enjoy it all without consequence. I could’ve stayed home in London if I’d wanted to, picnicking in Hyde Park, going to music festivals, or catching the train to Brighton and staying out on the pier until it’s dark and we’d have to sprint to catch the last train home. But my summers had always been in the country. And though the last time I saw Jacob, when he’d come to visit me in the city, something wasn’t right, I knew that everything would be okay once we were back to our familiar habitat.

‘Are you sure you can trust him to drive?’ I said to Jacob as we waited for Will to pick us up in his new car. He’d passed his driving test two months earlier, and had decided that we’re to go in convoy to the beach. And though that sounds like a delicious idea because the temperature hadn’t stopped climbing all week and I was desperate to wade in the coolness of the sea, I couldn’t help but imagine all that could go wrong with Will in the driver’s seat.

The Thorogoods had a tradition that every summer they’d spend at least a weekend at the coast, come rain or shine. Sian always said that if the sea air was good enough for sickly Victorians, it was good enough for them. And they were never too far away if they needed to be called back to the farm. This year, however, Sian and Dave had been so swamped on the farm that they hadn’t found the time – it had been a tough spring that was shaping up into a hot summer, and they couldn’t afford missing even a day.

I had always been so jealous when they’d disappear for the weekend. All my fun would stop, and I would sit alone in the treehouse wondering what they were getting up to. So, when Jacob mentioned heading out for the afternoon, just the boys and a few friends, I couldn’t say no, despite my reservations about who was driving. This was my chance to get a little taster of the famous Thorogood beach weekend.

‘You know he’s driven a tractor on the farm since we were twelve, right?’ Jacob had yet to mention anything about London, and neither had I. In all honesty, I was grateful. Perhaps he had just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, or he was just a little overwhelmed with the travel and the city, but back home, everything continued as if his visit never happened at all.