‘Oh, my God. Enough about that already,’ Jackson declared dramatically. ‘You were focused on your mum and making things right with her in the time you had left. We get it. A friend is someone you can ignore without them feeling ignored. That’s right, Mel, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely,’ my friend said, throwing her arms around me in an enormous hug.
‘Now get out of here before that extortionately priced airplane ticket goes to waste.’
Chapter Forty-One
Watery autumn sunlight filtered through the trees outside the kitchen window, making an abstract pattern of shadows dance across the breakfast bar. My eyes followed them, trying not to count the minutes it was taking Rhys to reply to my message. I was used to the immediacy of his response and the delay was making me nervous.
He might still be at the hospital, I reasoned, even though he’d sounded sure Tasha would be discharged the previous day. Maybe he’s somewhere with no signal, or maybe his phone is dead, or he’s lost it.
Pretty sure the only thing lost around here is your good sense, a snarky version of me interjected. I ignored her and spent the next fifteen minutes watching the hands of the clock move. When it gets to ten o’clock, I’ll call him, I bargained with my conscience. Perhaps Rhys had been having the exact same conversation with his own, because before I had the chance to make the call, the phone rang in my hand, startling me enough to make me drop it onto the kitchen countertop.
I sounded every bit as anxious as I felt when I picked up the call.
‘Hello, Ellie.’
His voice should have calmed me the way it always did, but today my nerves were strung taut, like tripwires.
‘Hey, you,’ I said.
‘You came back early.’
There was definitely something weird in his voice.
‘I did. How’s Tasha? Is she home yet?’
‘Yes, she is.’ There was understandable relief in his reply. ‘She’s doing so much better.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. And it was. But I couldn’t help thinking we were both standing beside an unexploded bomb.
‘Is something else wrong, Rhys?’
Time seemed to stand still while I waited for him to answer with what I’d hoped would be an easy no. The birds outside my window ceased their chirping, the traffic stopped rumbling down the street, and my lungs forgot how to draw in my next breath.
Even though I’d been half expecting them, when they came, the words scythed me to the ground.
‘I think we need to talk.’
In a moment of insanity, I considered hanging up on him, because if he couldn’t say it, then none of this could be happening, none of this could be true.
‘Okay,’ I said, my voice decidedly shaky. ‘What’s on your mind?’
I heard his tortured sigh. ‘Not on the phone. Can I see you?’
The coward in me wanted to tell him that I was busy all day, but we both knew that wasn’t true. It was Sunday, the office was shut, and all my closest friends were still at the wedding that I now regretted having left.
‘Shall we meet for coffee? Or brunch?’ he suggested.
‘I’ve already eaten,’ I said, which was true. The fact that I now felt dangerously close to losing that particular meal was nothing I imagined he’d want to hear.
‘I could come to yours, or you could come here?’
I considered both options, knowing neither location was right. There was really only one place where this conversation should be held.
‘Why don’t I meet you in the park?’
I heard him swallow and imagined him closing his eyes for a long moment before replying.