Page 80 of The Next Chapter

Noah steps back and unzips his rucksack again, pulling out a picnic blanket. It screams DATE! He spreads it just by the entrance. We look out at the ocean again.

‘I think so. But then I don’t spend a lot of time with people, so I’ll reserve judgement.’

‘How can you travel all the time and not talk to people?’

He shrugs. ‘It’s easy. I just watch.’

I think as I kneel down to help him that I don’t like that thought. The thought that Noah might just be a little bit lonely. But admitting as much is so far away from one-night only territory, it’s not even funny. Maybe when I’ve left, I could set up a WhatsApp group with him and Lola. I don’t think I’d find that one quite so draining.

‘Shall we eat?’ he asks. ‘I brought things you like.’

He means vegetables. Or salad. Or possibly vegetables with salad.

‘Sounds good.’ I kneel next to him on the blanket, right there on the floor, looking out on the ocean. It’s possibly the greatest ever setting for a business lunch.

Noah has brought little boxes of salad and chicken in a cool bag (cool bags, another thing I find ridiculously sexy). He unpacks it alongside drinks and some cutlery and we tuck in, sharing the boxes of food between us.

I’m cross-legged on the blanket. My shoes, while delightful to walk in, seem to make sitting a bit of a challenge. My feet feel huge.

‘You said you don’t do relationships. Is it because you don’t think that people are good?’ I ask Noah, feeling my heart pound. Why on earth I’ve ventured down this line of questioning, I don’t know. My aversion to silence will be the end of me. ‘Or am I not meant to ask about that? You know, because we just had a one-night thing. Feel free not to answer, there’s no pressure from me.’ Why? Why am I asking these things when we’d moved so seamlessly from fling to friend? Well, Noah has made that move seamlessly. I’m reading his books in the dead of night and pining after him.

Noah chews for a moment and looks like he’s thinking.

‘You’re fine, Lily,’ he answers finally. ‘Mum and Dad just… encouraged the worst in each other, so I never saw relationships as a positive thing, you know? Plus, I’m always leaving. It’s hard to make friends that last, let alone anything more.’

I nod along, trying to look unmoved but really eating up all this intel and setting it aside to analyse later. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, you’re really good at the friend thing, Noah.’

I mean because of the salad, and the lean protein, and the gorgeous cave picnic. Noah looks at me for a moment and I think look away, you crazy woman! But after breaking my gaze he starts to gather up the Tupperware. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘Are you done? Or do you need more time to make notes?’ I’m talking really fast and also gathering Tupperware, slamming the boxes into the cool bag with intent, annoyed that I made it weird.

‘I’m almost done, I just need to take some pictures.’

He isn’t looking at me properly and his voice sounds flat.

Urgh. It is awkward and weird. I’ve ruined our trip to the gold cave.

I need to get us back to where we’re meant to be. What we’re good at. Sort of friends and allies with a three-pronged plan.

He stands up and holds his hand out for me. My rise is much less graceful. Stupid huge shoes.

Noah takes a couple more photos on the perimeter of the cave and we head away. He’s not frowning anymore. He’s not smiling. It’s more a thinking crease that’s between his eyebrows.

We look back and Noah speaks into the cave as much as he’s talking to me.

‘I like you, Lily.’

And oh dear, I’m totally and completely fucked.

Chapter Thirteen

After Ma threw me out, I walked all the way into town with that guitar. Those first few weeks I slept on friends’, if you could call them that, sofas, always lugging the guitar with me. I never played it. Got into more trouble at school till eventually they found me a place in a home of sorts, for kids with nowhere else to go.

It was run by a devout couple, the Merrywells they were called. They really believed in that saying that cleanliness is close to godliness because they always wanted us to be real clean. And the place was bare, not that I minded those things. It was just different, a lot quieter than home had been. The Merrywells were sure that if we prayed hard enough and really believed, God would come to our rescue. Save us from our unfortunate circumstances.

That was the first time I played Pa’s guitar, sat on this single bed in a row of other single beds, looking at a cross on the wall. I didn’t feel anything when I looked at that cross. No matter how hard I prayed, I didn’t think there was some god who was coming to save me. I guess when I realized that, I felt lonely.

I don’t know if it was muscle memory, but it was like my fingers just knew where to go. And all the songs I used to sing with Pa came right on back to me. Pa had only ever played country music then, and I played those songs, but I started trying new things too. And singing, I’d never really sung before, but it just came so easy to me.