Epilogue

Springtime at Glynn Harber

HAYDEN

Sound travels a long way in Glynn Harber’s valley. This group of hopeful student teachers can’t know that or they’d realise their voices also carry. I can hear some of their conversation from all the way across the clearing.

“I can’t see how this fits the curriculum, can you?” one of them asks another. “What is he actually doing?”

This candidate isn’t asking about me or about my mentor. His gaze is fixed on Asa, who has had the same growth spurt as every tree here now that winter is over. He’s flourishing, and I love to see it.

I don’t love to hear this said about my star student.

“Why don’t they make him pay attention? Both of the teachers are just letting him do whatever he wants.”

Being called a teacher is still new. My training has barely started. I’m taking this journey slowly, which suits me now a Doomsday clock isn’t ticking towards a diagnosis that used to scare me shitless—that terrified me into making hay for loved ones, even if it wasn’t what they ever needed from me. These student teachers hoping to ace their interviews and to score a spot here aren’t aware I’m barely more qualified than them, but here is something I don’t need a certificate to know all the way down to my bone marrow: Being here for three whole seasons has taught me how every brain is different and that Asa’s brain is wired for motion.

These observers also can’t know he’s worked hard all morning at sitting still and listening; at focussing on his work and not being a distraction to himself or to others in his classroom. This constant movement? It is vital to his self-regulation and is exactly what his brain needs to be ready for more classroom successes.

My bruised brain?

It needs the opposite to Asa’s giddy spinning, which Mitch mentions, and for once, his voice doesn’t boom out. Not because this is a secret. I’m done with keeping those from anybody. Mitch only murmurs instead of booming because he’s protective.

About me.

“You keep your arse parked exactly where it is.” He gets up from his crouch by my throne and lands a heavy hand on my shoulder to keep me seated and to drive his point home. Then he assigns a child to each prospective student teacher and comes back to me while the kids are busy showing off their knowledge. “Remind me why you’re taking it easy, big man.”

This is what Mitch does every single time he sees me fight what has actually been my key to healing. And that is what I’ve done since a whirlwind arrived in Cornwall at the end of last summer to draw me with bowed broad shoulders and burrs in my beard. I’ve had time to recover lately after taking a long and honest look at what Rae’s storybook mirror showed me. Now I get honest right in front of someone I used to hide from. “I’m taking it slow because Rae is coming home for the ceremony tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Part of me is beyond excited. Another part of me is nervous. Not about seeing Rae for the first time in over a month. I’ve got the collywobbles about planting a new time capsule with the whole school and some special guests watching.

I didn’t understand why Luke made organising this special event my job until I’d spent the winter collecting memories from each student and teacher at Glynn Harber to go inside it. Luke selected me as captain of the time-capsule project to weave me into the rest of his school. I can put a name to every single face here now. They are all my people, and these student teachers Mitch checks in on before he returns to my throne will be lucky to join a team like it.

His hand is heavy on my shoulder again as I admit, “I wanted to make sure everything was prepared. For the ceremony. And for Rae.”

“Because?” Mitch rumbles even though he already knows this answer. We’ve all seen the news. Rae’s never-ending tide of kids shows no sign of stopping.

“Because he needs a chance to recharge, you know? In a way that works the fastest for him because he won’t stay still for long. Which is why I went down to the headland last night to prep somewhere peaceful for him.” Mitch nods, so I guess he understands Asa isn’t alone in needing fresh air and space to decompress. Rae does as well. “I want him to have a good visit, and I don’t want to miss a moment of it.” Not when he’ll leave again just as quickly. “But last night, I tried to do too much after working all day, so I had to stop before I was finished.”

“Why?” Mitch asks quietly. Again, we both know this answer, but Mitch joining the ranks of my best coaches means I can say this and still feel accepted.

“Because injured brains need less stress and more rest. Need care, not extra pressure. I need to pace myself better than I used to.” I draw in a deep breath and make an honest self-assessment. “I’m good to go now. Thanks for coming to help, Mitch. It’s been a good session.”

He backs away. “And it’s good to see how fast you’re learning.”

I am learning. I had to after test results some people might see as disappointing. I’ll take having to make minor, if permanent, adaptations to my lifestyle over the other option. I’m lucky compared to so many other people, and I’m lucky I get to share what I love with these children, so you better believe I’ll pace myself for them too.

Which is why I pay attention right now, like I did last night on Stefan and Marc’s pretty headland where the moonlight was bright enough to see my own hands shaking. It was a signal to stop preparing for Rae’s visit. To rest, and to take it easy instead of going hell for leather like my days were numbered. But my slower pace today doesn’t mean I’m not teaching, so I go ahead and give these interview candidates a demonstration. I use a football to do that, and the moment I spin it on a steady finger, I have all their attention.

I also have Asa’s.

He still moves, only now I’m the centre of his orbit as I show him how the world doesn’t only turn through each day, it gradually tilts through seasons as well, like a sunflower seeking brightness. “In springtime, our part of the world tilts closer to the sun. What are the trees covered in now, Asa?”

“New leaves!”

“And what do those new leaves need to keep growing?” I tap my lips like I’ve seen Charles doing to indicate he is thinking, and Asa goes still for the first time this morning. He also has an answer for me.

“Leaves need light!” He looks up and points. “From the sun.” He spins again, but more slowly, which is his way of showing me he’s still thinking.

One of those prospective trainee teachers must notice the difference. He asks why light is needed and is enthusiastic about Asa’s answer. “Wow! You already know about photosynthesis. How does it work here?”

He listens to everything Asa has learned in this woodland, nodding along with his descriptions of chlorophyll and green leaves, and his enthusiasm about veins and roots and water. From oxygen to carbon dioxide and the atmosphere that surrounds us, Asa knows these woods and others like it are the lungs of the planet. He’s soaked up this learning for months and can now communicate it. Building on it is his next stage, and this smart teacher-to-be borrows my football to do it.

He rolls it to Asa. “What else spins like our planet does around the sun?”

I don’t mind giving up my throne for someone who tells a story and who uses actions to involve all the children. He demonstrates like Teo does at the football club we now run together, and this potential candidate can’t be much older than him. He also reminds me of Rae, because some people are born storytellers like him, and this candidate? He’s got the same energy that sparks question after question.

Pretty soon, a solar system spins in this clearing where children play at being planets as Luke arrives to collect his interviewees.

He stands to one side with me first and quietly asks, “How did they do?”

I look around at my busy children. All the adults with them are engrossed now despite their early mutters. “They seem fine. But that one…” I tilt my head towards the new sun Asa orbits. “He’s a natural teacher.”

“Who? Isaac? Oh, he isn’t here for a teaching spot. He applied for the school librarian vacancy. Bit of a risk. He hasn’t finished his degree yet.” He glances my way. “I made the wrong pick once already. I’m looking for an experienced librarian really, not someone unqualified. What do you think?”

He’s asking me to help make a team selection. To pick who stays on the bench or who will get a shot here, and who the fuck would have ever guessed I’d get to do that?

My throat is still thick when Luke leads them all away, the clearing emptying, although my work isn’t over. But pacing myself is my new thing, so I take a long break until the evening before I leave the school in my Land Rover and head to the farm to pick up from where I left off last night.

Sheep scatter when I park near the headland. One follows me on a walk with a stunning sunset backdrop and bleats as if it agrees with the statement I practise making.

“This can’t go on, Rae.”

This is what I need to tell him tomorrow based on how he looked the last time I saw him. Tired didn’t even come close. He slept like the dead and then told me he hadn’t had time or headspace to draw for weeks.

“Your well is empty, mate. Not a drop left in it to fill even a tiny vessel.”

I’ve learned all about that, and about candles burning from both ends lately. How they can flare brightly but then wink out twice as quickly. I don’t want the same for Rae, but I do want him to have a good visit.

I’m a practical person, better at actions than at waxing lyrical about love so deep I’ve given up trying to wade through it. I’m on this helter-skelter river ride with him for good, so I set aside trying to figure out how to say he doesn’t need to be everything to everybody, and I focus on the chores I need to finish.

The wood-fired hot tub still needs filling, and it takes a long time to heat. I could get it started early and fill the wood basket next to the stove. The evenings are still chilly, and?—

I stop at the highest point of the headland.

Smoke already rises from the woods behind it. I see that grey column, and for a startled moment, I mentally stutter.

Someone is already staying in the honeymoon tent?

Then I get moving, because yes, someone is already staying.

He got back early.

I find Rae already in bed, in a tent the stove has made warm and cosy, and despite practising what I need to tell him, I can’t say a single word when he rolls over and doesn’t only open tired eyes. He opens his arms, and I do exactly as he asks without speaking. I strip down to join him, and for all that I’ve got things to tell him before we have to say goodbye again, kissing Rae hello is more important.

RAE

Man, Hayden is a sight for sore eyes, and after the last month, mine have never been grittier. I’ll have to wait until later to rub them. Right now, my hands are busy. So is my mouth, but I guess that’s no surprise to this man who strips off his clothes with steady hands and slides under a thick quilt to join me. He knows how I tick—understands how once I have an impulse, I have to voice it.

“It’s only been four weeks.”

He nods, his face buried in the crook of my shoulder where his lips are soft and his beard can’t tickle now he’s clean-shaven. I’d miss his beard if this weren’t a signal he’s been kinder to himself lately—that he can risk a close shave with a razor because his hands will let him. I wriggle until I can kiss his jaw, my lips tingling at the faintest rasp of stubble before I let him get back to his nuzzling, and I keep talking.

“A single month, Hayden.”

He lifts his head away, and part of me is pissed off I opened my mouth and stopped him from continuing, but I’ve spent the last month planning this conversation, so I keep going. “Just thirty days, so why the fuck did it feel like forever?”

Hayden opens his mouth as if he has an answer. He shuts it just as quickly and dips his head again to pick up from where he left off, and when he sucks a taut stretch of skin where nerves always spark to life for him, I forget everything I had to tell him.

Or almost.

Here’s something we both learned after visits to specialists timed to coincide with my last few visits: When stress adds to damage already blocking a brain’s pathways, cognition can take wild detours. Put those short circuits under pressure and rationality takes a backseat. Primal drivers take the wheel, like panic and survival instincts, which are almost impossible to communicate your way out of while you’re busy glitching.

Explain how you think the world will end for everyone who is precious to you if you stop pushing a boulder uphill?

Irrational doesn’t even come close, but voicing any of it would be a lot. Too much. So silence becomes habitual, according to the doctors. And lonely, according to me, which means I need to let him know what I’ve made happen in the month since I last saw him, but first I need to push against his silence. I do that physically, both hands against his chest, and he rolls onto his back so easily for me. I prop myself up and look into eyes full of constellations I’d dot on paper if this weren’t more important. “You were about to say something, Hayden. What was it?”

This pause is long and drawn out, but that’s okay. It gives me time to map everything I’ve missed about his long and solid body. He’s still a lot while naked. Still firm in all the right places and soft where my fingers splay over evidence he’s slowed down enough lately to enjoy treats baked by Stefan’s mother. I kiss his bare belly and then get busy dragging off my own T-shirt and boxers before prompting him to spill whatever it was he almost told me.

“Go on. I’m listening.”

I also swing a leg over his hips, my cock against his, which sparks more heat than the stove. It’s good to rock there on him. To get even hotter. To kiss and sweat and lose time to this reconnection. Capturing his wrists is even better, because now I’ve really got him.

We’re chest-to-chest, both of us hard for each other, and soft too where it really matters. My heart must be, it squeezes so hard when he murmurs. “I was gonna say I missed you too.”

We kiss again, and fuck me but I’ll never tire of how well we fit together. His mouth is a warm and wet welcome home—or almost, because yes, we’ve spent plenty of winter nights here like honeymooners, but home this tent isn’t. I’ll talk to him about that just as soon as he spills what is really on his mind.

It will have to wait until after we get off now Hayden starts to fight my hold. His squirms tell me all he’s thinking about right now is us—me and him together—and about making me feel good, but he only has to look at me to do that.

My fingers flex over bones with old breaks and across muscle made by years of working hard for other people, and yeah, I’ve got a lot to discuss with him, but for now we’re fucking.

Only fucking isn’t the right word, is it? Not for this sudden roll and for me to be on my back laughing up at a giant who was only playacting that I could pin him.

Hayden smiles down at me, flushed but shadowed, and I have to see more of him. The lamp I reach for almost falls before casting him with a wash of warm gold. He’s molten and so is his mouth on my cock. He kneels between my legs and sets me alight, and I go straight from smouldering to an inferno, the same as ever, when he looks up. And this eye contact? This bond between us?

It’s everything.

I can’t let distance snap it.

Hayden sucks me down, only pulling off when the hand I run through his hair must clench without me knowing. He disentangles my fingers, then leans across me and gets busy with lube, and watching him open himself up for me like this will never get old.

I get my mouth on his cock while he’s two knuckles deep, and he lets out the kind of sound I’m pretty sure canvas walls can’t muffle.

We need bricks and mortar, and that’s on my list for later. Right now, I’m busy sliding a finger in alongside his, and his stomach hollows, quivering, and he squirms again. His hips lift, and I want my dick inside him more than breathing, so I do that.

I also want a whole lot more than fucking him like this in our future.

I want a front door to paint pink with him.

A bed no other newlyweds have slept in.

A place where my restless roots can sink into soil next to sunflowers we plant together.

For now, I show him how much I missed him, and he groans my name each time I fuck into him, like I’m the only person who exists for him. He’s everything to me as well—my reason for focussing harder lately than I have ever managed. I’m not saying medication and me are a marriage made in heaven, but trialling some this winter didn’t steal my art or my free will like I worried. It did help me zoom in on what’s important.

The tide I’ve been fighting?

It could drag me further from him, and I can’t let it.

I won’t.

My only reason for pulling away right now is to add more lube and to brace one of his long legs against my shoulder. Then I slide back inside, and he doesn’t groan my name this time. He shouts, and it comes with his fingers flexing, searching for mine, which he finds with his eyes closed and clasps as soon as I thread us together. And when I bottom out, his eyes open.

He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. I see love, and yeah, that’s what I want to see so much more of, so tomorrow?

I’m gonna go all out to make it happen.

HAYDEN

The morning before the ceremony is busy. I barely see Rae, who is also busy helping Luke. I catch a glimpse of him each time I pass the library, where he sits on an interview panel, and I can’t think of a better person to help pick new staff members for Glynn Harber. The kids here need help with their journeys. No one knows that better than Rae. He’ll spot candidates with the right potential, and one of those candidates arrives to take his shot just as I’m about to head outside with more time-capsule contributions.

This interviewee hesitates in the school doorway on a mosaic tile welcome he can’t be certain applies to him, and I know that feeling. I hesitated last night about telling Rae something needs to change for us, and by the time I was ready, he was fast asleep on my chest.

I couldn’t wake him. Wouldn’t . I’m his giant, not an actual monster.

Maybe I’m also a great big softy, because I can’t help telling someone who reminds me even more of Teo today that he doesn’t have to let wanting something so much scare him.

“You’ve got this, Isaac.”

He clutches a carrier bag to his chest. “I really don’t.” He confesses what Luke already told me. “I don’t even have a degree, and I’ve never had an interview in front of a panel. I’m not prepared.” His hair was wild already. He runs a shaking hand through it and loses his hold on his bag in the process.

I catch what falls out one-handed. This bulging scrapbook is a reminder of one that made my mum sob and smile in equal measure. If it holds even half as much heart, it will go a long way to convincing Luke that Isaac belongs here. “You brought a book with you?”

“Yeah, but it isn’t a real book, which the interview instructions said to bring—a storybook mattering to me I could share with children. This is just something I put together with my brother.”

“You made it?” I give him another helping hand by asking what I’m pretty sure will be at the top of Luke’s list of questions. “Why?”

He tells me, and I’m already running late with my ceremony preparations, but I can’t hurry this story he spins, this epic journey he paints for me with words and emotion.

I get goose bumps, and for a second time in days, my throat thickens. “You don’t think you’re prepared?” He’s come armed with what so many of the kids here need. “You get in there, and you tell them exactly what you told me. Go. Give it your best shot.”

I head out, striding towards where I’ll plant a new time capsule full of similar survival stories as soon as our guests arrive, but thank fuck sound carries a long way in this valley. It means I hear a faint question.

“And if I miss it?”

I turn. “At this school?” A willow tree nods in the breeze as if agreeing with what I tell him. “You’ll always get a second.”

And that’s what I aim for once the interviews are over and I corner Rae in a now empty library.

I still don’t know how to phrase what I need to say as he shows me an advance copy of a book the rest of the world won’t see until next Christmas. Seeing myself drawn on the cover means the right words come to me in an instant. Not with a lightning bolt of inspiration. Calm descends the moment I ask, “Which name are you going to sign?”

“Sign?” He blinks. He also comes to the wrong conclusion. “Oh, Luke won’t have the contract ready yet, but I suppose I’ll have to use my legal name even if signing Lewis Raeburn never feels right.”

“Contract? What contract?”

We’re talking at cross purposes, which Rae clears up.

He leaves a book to shuffle me behind a full bookshelf. It takes a moment to tune into the fact that he’s nervous. The clues are that he talks a mile a minute and can’t make eye contact. “Yeah, the contract I just talked Luke into considering. For me to teach here.”

My jaw must drop.

He closes my mouth with a finger under my chin, then seals it with a quick kiss. “Not full time. A job share with Sol so he can travel. Only for a third of the year. I can’t abandon my project.” He sweeps a hand through his hair the same way a stressed candidate did earlier on the school doorstep. “But I can pace myself much better.” He meets my eyes, and I see stars like on the cover of a book on the shelves beside us. His twinkle. “You’ve been a good example. And an incentive to get my shit together.” He says what I’ve struggled to put into words, only he makes it sound so simple. “I want more time with you, Hayden. Much more. As much as I can get.”

His next kiss lasts for longer.

I’m a big man. A fit one. I’m still breathless when he breaks off to tell me, “So I spoke to the Safe Harbour team. I can officially partner with them. Pool resources to do the same work without all the pressure on my shoulders. Share it with Reece and Rex. We’ll each dedicate a third of the year to the foundation’s face-to-face work. That leaves a third to?—”

“Draw.” I know he has another book in him. I’ve seen a familiar giant in his recent doodles.

“Yeah, and to do whatever the fuck we want. Together.”

He swallows, then pulls something from his pocket, and I’ve had since the end of last summer to get to know his expressions. This is a new one to me. He holds out a key, and triumph mixes with worry, two turbulent rivers merging.

“The contract with the Safe Harbour foundation comes with year-round staff accommodation.” He swallows again and this is hoarser. “You see, there’s a little cottage between the school and the moors standing vacant, if you wanted to make this permanent with me? It even comes with goalposts?—”

I stop him with a kiss to say yes, but he has another question, and here’s a sign that he is less scattered lately—he’s thought through this new joint project from start to finish.

“Do you think that would be okay with Kirsty? Rex says he’ll think of something else if you and me setting up home there brings back bad memories for her. For you, too. I love you too much to ever want that. I’ll be happy in a tent forever as long as I’m with you. Or in the stables, only Luke?—”

“Needs the space for his new teachers. It’s okay. My old home won’t bring back bad memories.” Not when so many good ones were made there. “But we can check in with Mum.”

A horn sounding in the carpark suggests we won’t have to wait for long for an answer. That’s Sol arriving with the special guests he has collected from the station.

My whole family will be here along with Aleksander and someone new who is special to Mum. Rae’s mum will be here too, with his sister Mia, and I need to meet them for the first time, but I’m not nervous.

The calm I felt earlier when I saw Rae with his own book helps me to say, “I love you too.” I steer him back to the desk, where I take the key from him and make a suggestion. “So much so that if your real name doesn’t feel right, why not try signing another?”

“You mean Rae? I can’t on the teaching contract. It isn’t legal.”

“Novac could be.” I nudge a book with a giant on the cover and offer him a pen. “You could try it out inside the cover before we put it in the time capsule. See if you like the look of your name and mine together.”

The horn beeps outside again, telling me to hurry.

I can’t. Not when Rae takes the pen and signs his book before adding it to a time capsule that students will dig up one day in the future. That excavation is decades away. There will be years and years before it happens. An entire lifetime, I hope as he loops his arms around my neck and we kiss behind another bookshelf while that horn beeps again outside for us.

Our families and the whole school will have to wait for longer.

Rae and I are busy starting our next journey.

The End.

Thank you for reading!