Page 54 of The Fall I Fell

But I do love you. I love you, Ava Matthews. I have loved you since we were eight years old and you couldn’t climb a tree without getting a splinter, and I could hardly form a sentence in your presence. I couldn’t explain it then, but I felt it. I have never not felt it. A decade of friendship has turned this into a love that I know will last for decades more.

I have made all of the wrong decisions, I let my jealousy blind me, let my fear of losing you get in the way of it all, but please don’t tell me I’m too late. If you’ll have me, I’ll apply to finish college with you in London. I would move to the edge of the world if it meant I could be closer to you. I would sleep on that tiny patch of your roof, under a starless sky, just as long as I knew I’d see you when I woke up.

I’m going to put it all right, Kitty. I’m going to fix my mistakes. I promise.

If you feel for me even half of what I feel for you, meet me back here, in the treehouse, before you have to leave.

I love you.

Yours always,

Wolfie

My chest heaves with the weight of my breaths. I feel like I am collapsing in on myself every time I read another word. That letter has sat in that box for two years. Two whole years, he has thought I rejected him. Two years I have wasted.

I refuse to waste any more time.

Still clad in my pyjamas, I leave my shoes at the door as I race across the fields through wet grass and cold mud. The sunrise glows amber across the horizon, but I don’t stop to admire it. The barn is my first stop, but when I swing open the door, there’s no one there, apart from Hope and her babies who yelp at sun in their eyes.

Sprinting into the yard of Hope Farm, it’s Will I find first, yawning on the bench as he pulls on his boots.

‘Where’s Jacob?’ I pant.

‘Good morning to you too,’ he grumbles, his voice hoarse from his early start.

‘Where is he?’ I rush, too impatient for his grouchiness.

‘Jesus, he’s in the orchard.’ Will yawns again. ‘He’s been getting up early and heading down there.’

I rush, grabbing his keys from the bench beside him. ‘You mind if I borrow these?’

I don’t wait to hear his reply as I hop into his tractor and strike up the ignition. I’ve seen Grandad drive his Betty, and I have been in this cab with Jacob so many times. How hard can it be?

Will swears loudly as I pull out of the farm, but he doesn’t bother to chase me down. The tractor hums across the fields until the orchard comes into view, but even with my foot to the floor, it isn’t fast enough. Abandoning the machine in the middle of a boggy pasture, I run the rest of the acre to him until the mud hits my knees and I am heaving for breath.

Jacob doesn’t notice me at first. He sits in the back of his truck, watching the sunrise across the orchard, as the last of the autumn sun fills the gaps in the trees.

Picking up an apple that had been forgotten in the harvest, I throw it just hard enough to hit the back of his shoulder and burst into a juice against his shirt.

‘What the—’ Jacob turns around, ready to fight back, but when he spots me, his face softens and he waves a nervous hand in my direction.

Taking a moment to absorb the scene, I can feel the tears prickling in my eyes again. I let that man believe for two years that I didn’t love him too. That I wanted to be friends, and nothing more. And here he stands, shrouded in sunlight, waving at me as though his heart isn’t broken, as though seeing me doesn’t renew his pain.

Unable to keep from him any longer, I storm forward, waving the letter maniacally in my hand.

‘I love you, too,’ I call out as loudly as I can, despite being out of breath only seconds ago, but Jacob only looks at me perplexed.

‘What?’ he says with furrowed brows.

I’m close enough to reach out to grab him now. Trying to summon the words again, I begin breathily, ‘I love—’, before giving up on words entirely, and pressing my lips to his. Without a second thought, he wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me into the back of his truck, pressing his body between my legs. With each second that passes, the intensity grows.

With him smeared in the mud from my run, he pulls away, just as breathless, just as hot.

‘I found your letter.’ He’s close enough that I only need to whisper, and his eyes clear with a look of innocent happiness as the weight of my words finally hits him.

‘My letter?’

I nod, holding him by the cheeks. ‘I never got it. I must have cleared it away in a rush with all of Granny’s things and it’s sat in that box ever since.’