Chapter 8

Dan

Ipromised myself I wouldn’t think about Ivy. I meant it too. She’s just the mother of my daughter’s friend. We’re just two people who, if it wasn’t for our kids, may never have met. I don’t get involved. I don’t date. I … am fooling myself if I ever thought I could stop thinking about her. It’s been twenty-four hours and I’ve done nothing but.

I thought maybe we were on the same page last night, both wanted this. When she’d asked what we were doing, it shocked me a little. I thought it was obvious, we were taking things further, allowing ourselves what we wanted. Clearly, that wasn’t what she wanted. Or it is, but she won’t go there again because of her ex. I understand it, I do. Until her, I thought I’d never give that part of myself to anyone again either. Which is maybe why this hurts so much. What’s worse is that Cass is currently at hers, hanging out with Fallon, and I’m on my way to pick her up. Yeah, this not thinking about her was never going to work.

Her smile isn’t its usual beam as she opens the door, the eye contact we’ve been sharing so much of lately is non-existent, and the tension between us is palpable. She simply calls over her shoulder for Cass, doesn’t invite me in, doesn’t even make small talk. I’m sure I didn’t misinterpret our connection, so what the hell happened last night?

There’s barely a wave as we drive off either, and I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something, like everything isn’t as it seems.

“Are you going to ask Ivy out, or what?” Cass asks suddenly, snapping me from my thoughts.

“What?”

“Dad, you like her, she likes you, why haven’t you figured this out yet?”

“Cass, not this again. Not today, okay?”

She falls silent, but I can still feel her looking at me from the passenger seat.

“Fine,” I say as we pull up to the traffic lights on the main road. “Say it, whatever it is that’s making you bore a hole into the side of my head, say it.”

“You’re being an arse,” she begins.

“Language.”

“Screw my language. Dad, you like her, she makes you happier than I’ve seen you in a long time, and if you can’t see that, then you really are an arse.”

“It’s not that simple Cass, we—”

“It is that simple. Stop fucking around and ask her out. For real, none of this taking us out just to spend time together, no pretending you’re getting it on to get back at us. Grow up and admit that you want her. And tell her.”

As the lights turn green, I don’t even know how to start dissecting that. Do I tell her off for the swearing again? Ask how she knows we were faking last night? Or just wonder how she got to be so smart? Fuck.

“Cass, when your mum left, it—”

“Dad, please, she’s gone, she chose her life. But you get to choose yours now. You’ve been stuck for the last six years, doing everything for me. Do something for you.”

I pull over, cut the engine and sit staring out the front window for a moment. “When your mum left, I had no idea she’d even thought about going back to her old life, the one before us. She didn’t talk to me about it, didn’t consult me, share with me, nothing. I was completely blindsided. And then there was you, so confused and hurt, and I couldn’t fix it or make it better…”

“You did though, you made everything better, you loved me when she didn’t—”

“Your mum loves you, even then, she did. She just wanted—”

“Don’t make excuses for her. You’ve always done that. She made her choice, and it wasn’t us. If you love someone, you show them, you turn up, stick around, do the hard things. She was selfish. But that’s in the past. I’ve moved on. Now you need to as well. And I think, in your heart, you already have, haven’t you?”

She grins at me as I lean my head against the steering wheel. “Maybe.”

“Look, we moved the length of the country to get away from bad memories back home, so why not start making some better ones here? I have one question though. Why here? Why did you move us here?”

I can’t tell her that. It’s stupid. “Stuck a pin in a map,” I go with instead.

She eyes me for a second. “Bullshit.”

I’ve really got to get a handle on her language. But right now, I want to swear myself, everything is just getting out of hand.

“Dad. Why? Tell me why we came here.”

“Fine. You want to know? Because I spent a fortnight here when I was sixteen. In some tiny BB on the edge of town. My parents wanted to come visit London, see the sights, but all I wanted was to hang out at home with my friends. Until I got here.”

“And what happened when you got here?”

“The girl across the road,” I say, instantly transported back to that Easter.

“Who was she?”

“I never knew, never found out, never even spoke to her.”

Cass looks dreamily at me. “Tell me about her.”

“I noticed her on the first day, coming out of the house opposite. She was with another girl, younger, was with her most of those two weeks, actually.”

“What did she look like?”

“Small, long dark curls, wide smile. Just incredibly beautiful.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Hell no, I was all lanky-limbed teenage awkwardness. I didn’t speak a word to her the whole two weeks, just watched her from the window or while sitting on the steps out front. She smiled at me once, though. I don’t know who blushed more, me or her. I never even knew her name.”

“You should have spoken to her.”

“I should have. I’ve always regretted it. There was just something about her. My first real crush. Instant. And I’ve never forgotten her.”

Cass pulls a photo from her inner jacket pocket and hands it to me. “Is this her?”

“Fuck!”

“Language, dad,” Cass laughs. “So, is it?”

I stare at the photo, the smiling teenage girl grinning at the camera, huge green eyes, dimple in her right cheek, and all of a sudden there’s something so familiar about her.

“Where did you get this?”

“From someone who also moved here a while ago. Someone who moved here from the other side of town because she used to visit her grandma here on school holidays, used to come with her cousin, Laurel, stayed in a house on Oakley Street on the edge of town, right opposite a tiny BB.”

“Cass…”

“Someone who was extremely shy back then, who got her cousin to take this photo because she spent her whole Easter holidays crushing on this lanky teenage boy who came to stay at that BB, because, if you look again, you’ll notice she’s not centre of the photo, she’s off to one side. So she could get a photo of that boy.

I look again at the photo, at the background, the place behind her. Stone steps, peach curtains in the windows, and a teenage boy in a navy shell suit sitting right out front.

“That’s you, isn’t it?”

I nod. It’s all I can do. I’m stunned, speechless, and quite honestly, a little freaked out.

“In case you haven’t worked it out. That girl? It’s Ivy. She was fourteen in that photo. You see, coming here was meant to be, it’s not coincidence you both moved here, not coincidence you both remember each other all these years later—”

“She remembers me?”

“She does. She was looking through some old photos earlier, trying to find Fallon some for this family tree project we’ve got to do, and she just suddenly stopped. Was staring at this photo. Fallon asked about it and she told us the story of her Easter holiday crush. How she hoped every holiday that he’d come back, that she thought about him for years, her first real crush. That sometimes she still thinks about him, about what might have happened if she’d had the courage to cross that road and talk to him. How she sometimes wonders what happened to him.”

“It’s weird, but even twenty-six years later she still pops up in my thoughts now and then. I never dreamt she’d feel the same. I can’t believe I didn’t recognise her. That smile, those eyes.”

“I know. And she clearly didn’t recognise you either.”

“Did you tell her it was me?”

“No. She has no idea. And I wasn’t completely sure it was you. I told Fallon I thought it might be, and she sneaked the photo out for me.”

“This is all so surreal.”

Cass bounces in her seat a little. “It’s a second chance. Now, for the love of all things romance, go talk to the girl you couldn’t all those years ago.”

“What am I going to say?”

“Well, I’d start with ‘I love you’ and take it from there, but that’s just me, what do I know? I’m just a kid.”

I can’t help but smile. “You’re a pretty smart kid though, you’ve seen this all along, haven’t you?”

“The moment I met Ivy, I knew you and her were meant to be. There was never a doubt in my mind.”

“So you tried to set us up? Pushed us together.”

She laughs. “Oh, dad, you have no idea, do you? Think about it, I mentioned Fallon on my first day of school, I met Ivy that weekend. I ran out of their house every time you picked me up so you didn’t come to the door. I needed a couple of weeks to gather info, to work out the best way to bring you together.”

“The gardening…”

“Yep. That was my plan. Soon as I found out she volunteered, I had to talk you into it. And jeez, you took some convincing. I just wanted to get you two in the same place at the same time. And if that involved you lugging tree trunks around, getting sweaty, and taking your top off, so be it.”

“You’re a troublemaker, Cass Hunter. Paraded me around for your own amusement.”

“Paraded you around because I knew you’d be against getting to know anyone. If I could get her interested, that was half the battle won.”

“Except she was the only woman that didn’t speak to me.”

“I know, we had to adjust the plan a little then. Kick things up a notch.”

“We? So Fallon was in on it, too? Hold on, you and her, when Ivy caught you… Was that…”

“No, that was real. I mean, it did accelerate the plan somewhat, which was nice, saved us weeks of work.”

“What was your plan, then?”

“It doesn’t matter now. We didn’t really need it anyway, because you’ve both been hung up on the other for years and didn’t even know it. It was always going to end up here, it didn’t matter what me or Fallon did.”

“You really believe in all that? Fate and that stuff?”

She nods. “I do. Now stop sitting here and go back to Ivy’s.”

“No, not tonight. I think I need to take all this in first.”

She eyes me suspiciously. “Dad, do it now. You know how you feel, stop being afraid of getting hurt, or me getting hurt. Stop putting life off.”

I have an idea then. A slightly crazy one, but as soon as it enters my head, everything else ceases to matter. I have to do this.

“Okay, today, but message Fallon, tell her… Actually, just give me your phone.”