Page 52 of The Fall I Fell

‘Well … Jake got together with Pen after that night. And, well, they’ve been seeing each other ever since. I’m sorry, Ava.’ With every word, he held my gaze, his eyes showing no hint of deception, his face carrying the guilt of telling me.

I shook my head, slow at first and then harder, and harder still until I could hardly see him standing in front of me. ‘No,’ I said sternly. ‘No, it’s not true.’ He wouldn’t do that to me, not when he knew what I was going through with Granny. Surely?

‘He’s with her now, Ava. I passed them on my way here,’ he persisted, but still, I shook my head.

‘If you’re telling the truth, then prove it.’ My voice warbled.

Adam sighed. ‘Are you sure?’

I nodded furiously.

Digging his keys out of his pocket, he gestured to his car and got into the driver’s seat. He looked at me nervously as I climbed in beside him.

‘Let’s go,’ I urged, and he turned on the ignition and drove the small stretch of road to the village. I was too anxious to speak, and he was chewing on his lip like he didn’t want to do this.

‘Ava …’ Adam started but he tapered off as they came into view.

Pen and Jacob sat opposite one another around a small bistro table at a café that looked out across the village. The very same lips that kissed me only the night before, chatted away to Pen unreservedly, as though he was unable to control himself in her presence. Those fingers that caressed my skin, now fiddled with a wooden stirrer. It was the nervous fidgeting of a man in the presence of a woman who turns his brain to mush and sends his heart thumping. Those eyes that cried with me, that smiled with me, gazed upon her after abandoning me with only one measly note, scrawled with two pathetic words when I had been praying for three.

I couldn’t bear to look any more. My eyes fell to my lap, and the tears fell against the skirt of Granny’s dress that I had yet to take off.

‘I’m sorry, Ava.’ Adam’s voice was almost a whisper, and I was grateful that he took my silence as permission to restart the car and drive me home again.

‘You don’t have to be sorry.’ I finally spoke, gaze still fixed on my own quivering fingers. ‘You’re the only one who’s had the balls to tell me the truth.’ All day yesterday, Jacob had sat with me, danced with me, and lent me his shoulder to cry on. How could he not have told me he was dating Pen? That he had been for weeks?

‘I wish I wasn’t the one that had to make you cry, though.’ Looking up, I tried my best to flash him a reassuring smile, but his sad eyes still sloped in a way that made him look almost equally heartbroken.

Pulling into the driveway of grandad’s farm, Adam dropped me off with another sad smile.

Mum was in the kitchen when I made my walk of shame. I tried my hardest to sneak past her, but as soon as I took a step, she whipped around. ‘Are you okay?’ she fussed instantly, gliding across the kitchen to look at me closer.

‘I fell asleep in the treehouse looking at Granny’s photos.’ It wasn’t a lie, and it was enough to explain the roughness of my appearance, but Mum still looked at me with a raised brow. I was grateful when she didn’t push any more.

‘Are you all packed for our drive?’

I’d almost forgotten that we were meant to go back to London today. Normally, I’d fight, beg for just a few hours longer, get us delayed enough that Mum would complain about driving in the dark. But that day, I nodded defeatedly. ‘I’ll be ready soon.’

‘Will that give you enough time to say bye to all of your friends?’ Her suspicious gaze didn’t drop as I nodded once again without any conflict or resistance. ‘All right then, darling, you go and get yourself a bath and get packing.’

Mum always knew when to not bother with questions. She knew she would get nothing out of me in this state, but I also knew I wasn’t out of the line of interrogation. I was sure I’d be grilled in a few days, but by then it wouldn’t be so raw. I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek and excused myself to the bathroom.

Climbing into the bath, I let it fill around me until I disappeared under the water, and the warmth flooded through to my bones.

The Jacob I thought I knew was gone. That’s if he ever existed at all.

After an hour in the bath, the events of the last few days finally sunk in. I had no more tears left to cry, so I washed my face, and scrubbed every pore of my body until I felt almost human again. Maybe this was for the best. Lizzie, Alfie and Will would understand if I didn’t say goodbye – they would know I’m still upset after Granny. And this way, I wouldn’t need to see Jacob or talk to him again before we left.

I hadn’t realised then that I would avoid him, and the countryside, for two years.

Chapter 29

Now

‘You’re up early.’ Mum’s voice startles me as I reach the kitchen. The morning is still dark, and she sits in her pyjamas at the dining table, shrouded in the warm glow of a lamp. ‘Are you sneaking out again?’

‘Again?’ I almost choke, but Mum only chuckles.

‘Ava, I’ve been a teenage girl living in this house. Anything you’ve thought of, I tried it twenty years ago.’ She winks and I flush. ‘That bottom step always gave me away too.’