Hello Stranger

by West, Jade

  I tipped my head, the smile still on my face. “Ok, so maybe not a mountain. Not like Everest. But what about some smaller ones? Ones that make you feel like you’ve climbed Everest?”

  He was still thinking, but I guess I thought quicker than him on this one.

  “I did it when I was a little girl,” I told him. “My auntie lives near Wales, where they have the Malvern Hills. Have you heard of them?”

  Logan’s face was so serious. “Maybe, in passing.”

  “They’re super cool,” I said. “A whole row of them, and they feel mega high, and it’s brill being up there, and I’m sure they have paths we could push your mum’s wheelchair up.”

  He was looking for reasons to shoot my idea down as unfeasible, I know he was, but I kept smiling, kept nodding, and he couldn’t stop himself. Eventually he smiled back.

  “It would be a long drive, and quite a climb.”

  I shrugged. “So what?”

  “And we’d need to prepare her…”

  I shrugged again. “So, let’s go ask. See what she says.”

  His smile stayed on his face, and he tipped his head, staring right back at me. “You’re serious? You want to drive with me across country to some hills you climbed up as a kid, and push my mum’s wheelchair up a pathway until we reach the top?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I want,” I told him. And I was serious. I was as serious as it ever gets.

  He propped himself up on his elbows. “It would take some planning.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m sure that together we would plan it well.”

  “I suppose it’s feasible,” he said

  “Let’s do it then,” I said, and he laughed.

  “We can’t do it today.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  He laughed again. “Then you’d best go ask my mother.”

  I was up like a shot, bounding out onto the landing on skittish legs, not giving a shit anymore about being naked in front of him. I threw myself into Jackie’s clothes before I reached her doorway, and I couldn’t stop myself, I was straight in there, jolting her out of a crossword.

  Logan was behind me, footsteps loud and calm, but I jumped right in, heart racing fast.

  “Do you want to climb a mountain tomorrow?”

  She put her pen down and leaned closer. “What, sweetheart?”

  I pointed to the list on the wall.

  “Climb a mountain,” I said. “Do you want to do it tomorrow?”

  She was trying to fathom what I was saying, her eyes wide on mine, and Logan chipped in after me.

  “Chloe wants us to head to the Malvern Hills tomorrow and push your wheelchair to the top, and I said to her that–”

  “Yes!” she said, cutting him off. “Yes, I want to climb a mountain tomorrow! Count me right in!”

  I spun to face Logan, and I can only imagine how bamboozled he must have been with the grins coming from the two of us, both of us already set on the hill climb mission with everything we had.

  He debated it for a few seconds, fighting the rationale, or whatever he needed to do. And then he sighed. Sighed with a grin of his own.

  “Sure,” he said. “We’ll head to the Malvern Hills tomorrow.”

  I air punched. For real, I air punched, and so did Jackie. We high-fived and said how great it was going to be, and it was madness, just how well I felt I knew her already.

  We had a few minutes of enthusiasm bursting between us before Logan weighed in with the practicalities.

  “What about footwear?”

  Jackie found out I was the same size shoe as her and said I could use some of hers from when she could walk up hills.

  “What about the car journey?”

  Car journeys can be fun, and Jackie could take a nap, and I wouldn’t mind at all sitting in the backseat so her oxygen could stay charged and plugged in.

  “What about finding the correct route and working out the best way?”

  I shrugged at that. “We’ll do it.”

  That’s when that sparkle in his eyes matched his mum’s. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure we will.”

  It was so exciting that evening. I helped Logan make cottage pie and we ate it upstairs with Jackie. We laughed about old memories, but these were all good. Tales of Christmas and silly fun on holiday, and how Logan likes films from the 80s.

  I told them I liked films from the 80s too. I was still in love with the goblin king from The Labyrinth and had been forever…

  Almost as much as I was in love with Dr Hall.

  We laughed. We finished the crossword.

  Logan held my hand as we sat side by side by his Mum’s bed through the evening.

  I didn’t let him go.

  It was dark when he got his mum ready for bed.

  “Ham sandwiches,” she said and we both looked at her. “That’s what I’d like. Ham sandwiches and a cup of tea, on top of a mountain.”

  “I’m sure we can manage that,” Logan said.

  “And a biscuit or two for after,” she added with a grin that had me grinning right back.

  “I’ll get up super early and get everything ready,” I said.

  “I don’t think I’ll sleep,” she said, “I’m so excited.” She gave a little sigh, settled against her pillows. “So damn excited.”

  “You’ll sleep, Mum,” Logan told her. “Sweet dreams.” He kissed her forehead and hugged her. My heart melted for them both. I stepped quietly from the room. I wasn’t sure I’d sleep either.

  I was already back in his bedroom when he switched off her light and came back through, and I was ready for it. That unconscious fizz of want, knowing full well he was feeling it too.

  He didn’t give me a second before he was up against me and kissing me deep.

  “Wait!” I said, hands on his chest.

  “What?” he said, his breath hot on my mouth.

  “Have you got any ham?”

  “What?” he said again.

  “For the sandwiches. If you haven’t got any, we need to go buy some.”

  He let out a breath, thought for a moment. “Not fresh ham, but I think there’s a tin in the cupboard.”

  His lips touched mine. I pushed him away. “You think? Or there definitely is?”

  “Chloe, I’m sure there is.”

  “Go check,” I said, “Please, we need to make sure she gets what she wants.”

  He sighed, dropped a kiss on my nose. “Don’t go anywhere!”

  As soon as he was out the door, I did go somewhere. I stripped off and got into his bed, made sure both lamps were burning bright before I covered myself with the sheets.

  He was back a minute later, unbuttoning his shirt the moment he saw me there.

  “I guess this means there’s definitely a tin of ham in the cupboard,” I said as his trousers came off.

  “Two tins, actually,” he said, dropping his boxer briefs and kicking them away.

  I flung the sheets off me, my legs already parted for him. “Then we’re good to go,” I said.

  I was all over him, hands desperate for his skin, just as his were desperate for mine.

  He fucked me. Hard enough that I moaned at every thrust.

  He made me come so hard that my ears were ringing, and my breaths were crazy in my chest.

  I sucked him. I begged for him. I touched every part of him like he was the gold at the end of my rainbow, because he was.

  He was everything.

  It was when we were facing each other in bed in the dark that he spoke low and quiet to me.

  “Thank you for caring,” he said, “for Mum.”

  “Making sure she gets her ham sandwiches isn’t really caring for her,” I said.

  “Oh, it really is,” he said, stroking my hair.

  “Shit!” I said, suddenly realising.

  “What?”

  “Biscuits. She wanted biscuits for afters. What are her favourites? Have you got any? I mean, if you haven’t got any, her favourites, I mean, we’ll have to
stop somewhere on the way. She –”

  “Stop!” he said and touched a finger to my lips. “Custard creams. She loves them. I can’t stand them. But I know there’s a tin that’s full and there’s backup packets of the bloody things in the cupboard.”

  “Urgh,” I pulled a face and shuddered. “I hate custard creams.”

  “Something else we have in common,” he said.

  “We can hate custard creams together. Start a club even.” I laughed.

  He pulled me closer. “This is why I love you, Chloe. You’re such a hilariously cute little soul.”

  Love.

  My breath hitched.

  He heard it.

  I was waiting for it, the backtrack. The I said love, but I meant…

  But it didn’t come. He was silent.

  So I said it. Even though it was ridiculous, and almost everyone in the world would roll their eyes and say it was stupid and it couldn’t possibly be love after five minutes and all that stuff, I said it anyway.

  I ran my fingers up his neck, and teased them across his scalp, through his hair and over the patches of skin, back and forth, and then I said it.

  “I love you, too.”

  29

  Chloe

  Seeing Logan there behind the steering wheel, laughing along with his mum in the passenger seat, was a beautiful snapshot of their world. They were two peas in a pod, both of them caught up in the journey, and I felt floaty inside. So grateful to be a part of that.

  I sank myself into the backseat, trying my best to give them space together, but it was no good. They didn’t let me.

  “How is our little mountaineering instigator doing in the back?” Logan asked, his eyes fixing on mine in the rearview. “Don’t even think about taking a nap on us now, this is your day too.”

  I’d been up since before six, even though that was an alien time zone to me. I couldn’t stop myself, tossing and turning and excited about climbing the hills. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve, so buzzing for what was coming in the morning that I could barely sleep a wink.

  I’d still been buzzing when I made three lots of ham sandwiches into foil packs. Buzzing all the more to see Jackie, dressed and ready for the journey and actually sitting in her chair at the dining table. Logan had been buzzing, too. I’d seen it shining from him as he served up toast with peanut butter to his grinning mum.

  The day was great and it hadn’t even started. I’d packed up the sandwiches into a backpack along with a packet of custard creams, and dropped in two Kit-Kats from a pack I found in the cupboard. Who doesn’t like a Kit-Kat?

  Logan made up two flasks of tea, found some plastic cups, and we’d been ready to roll.

  Climb a mountain.

  I’d seen it so clearly on Jackie’s bucket list, and helping make it happen was an honour.

  I laughed. “No naps for me. I’m wide awake and doing great in the back,” I said, and meant it. I was doing great.

  The roads kept rolling and the views outside kept rolling with them. City, to town, to country. We hit Cheltenham before lunchtime, and that’s when the pings started vibrating my pocket. Liam.

  So when the fuck are you picking your stuff up?

  I’ll get rid of it myself if you don’t get your shit together.

  Don’t think you can bail out on me without bailing out your crap with you.

  He was right. I did need to get my shit together, and I would, but his messages were so at odds with the atmosphere in the car as we neared the Malverns that I was pleased when my phone bleeped out of battery. It was almost symbolic, battery flat and gone from my old world. I was glad.

  I settled into the seat and smiled as Jackie let out a roar of laughter at a memory, and this smile was all for myself. All for the glow inside.

  I may have been behind Logan and out of view, but that didn’t make any difference. I still felt that spark between us, the glow inside him meeting mine and blooming brighter. I may not have known him, not truly. I may have known barely a shiver inside the gale of his soul, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered around Logan. Nothing but instinct.

  It felt like no time at all had passed before the ridge of the Malvern hills appeared in the distance. Jackie let out a wowww that was so genuine it made me soar. We found the car park we’d plotted out the night before, and pulled up into a space.

  Time for the ascent.

  Logan set up her wheelchair from the trunk, and we helped her in, making sure her oxygen was fully charged and secure. I slung the backpack over my shoulders, and we were off. Along the track, climbing slowly along with the grind of the wheels, and every step was magic, the beautiful soul in that chair soaking in every breath like it was her world. Logan’s steps were steady and strong, and mine were a dance at his side, pointing out everything around us. Every wonder, every breeze, every tree rustling on the hillside. Jackie was singing on the same page, pointing out everything along with me, her smile bright enough to dwarf every smile I’d ever made.

  The sky was bright, with a stunning haze of clouds. The grass was green and the path was solid enough to keep the chair moving, and Jackie was more alive than I’d ever known alive to be, even in the body that was fighting for every breath.

  We passed people out with dogs, and families with tiny children skipping down the bank. We passed ramblers, and a woman zooming in the opposite direction on a bike with ribbons on the handlebars.

  We climbed, we laughed, we lived. The path narrowed and wound its way higher, and my breath caught in my throat as the crest of the hill came into view. It was magnificent in a way I’d never appreciated, the strength of the land dwarfing us as nothing but tiny sparks on its plains.

  “We’re going to damn well make it, you know, all the bloody way to the top,” Jackie said, and her words were caught with emotion.

  The last few steps on any ladder are the hardest. The final chunk of the road was tough. The path wound and faded to nothing, and I took hold of the chair along with Logan and we pushed together, working hard. Push. Push. Push. Harder. Harder.

  Jackie laughed over the bumps in the grass, gripping the arms of the chair as she cackled and bounced, and we were laughing with her, even though we were gasping for breath. And then we were there. At the very top. The wind whipping around us, wild and free, with the spread of the land sprawling right the way below for miles around.

  It was beautiful. I couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t from the exertion, it was from feeling the pure euphoria coming from Jackie. I’d have climbed Everest just to see her so happy. It was magic. Magic enough that I believed in fairytales all over again, looking at the world through the eyes of a child seeing their very first rainbow.

  When Logan took my hand in his, I had no words, I just squeezed back harder, and I was higher than the hills we were stood on. As high as Jackie’s squeal of joy as her arms rose to the sky in celebration. As high as everything I’d ever dreamed of and ever wanted, all tied up in the now.

  “I climbed a mountain!” she cried. “I’m on the top of a fucking mountain!”

  Logan knelt at her side, and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and held him tight. I’d have stepped aside and left them to their moment if she hadn’t beckoned me up to the other side of her chair. I knelt in the grass, and she held me too, pulling me close.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both so fucking much.”

  There was no thank you needed. Not in a million years. The thank you was all mine.

  The colours of the land below were a patchwork. Greens meeting yellows, and gripping the greys of the town as life trundled on below, oblivious to the heights. People going about their business, so many of them taking day after day without realising the miracle of life itself, just as I’d done for so many days of my own. Days with Liam, sitting and staring on as he played his crappy games like they were life itself. Nights with my mind spinning in bed, trying to dream myself to sleep, knowing deep down that I was a square peg in a round hole.

 
We found a little nook, sheltered from the breeze and it was a joy all over again to see Jackie with her ham sandwich.

  “Bloody lovely,” she said with a mouthful. “And tea never tasted better than it does up here.” She raised her plastic cup to us.

  Logan grimaced when she dunked a custard cream and I couldn’t help laughing.

  It was bliss. Crazy absolute bliss.

  We stayed on the hill for as long as Jackie could manage, but she faded fast. Exhausted.

  She was barely conscious as we made the descent, hardly able to move as we loaded her back into the car, but that didn’t matter. She was still flying high on the drive home, even if it was in dreamland.

  Logan and I kept the talk light as the familiarity of London approached, more talk about work and books and a whole host of other stuff scratching the surface. We were talking about the difficulty in estimating people’s time left alive when he asked me the question.

  “Given your absolute vocation was helping people through their medical challenges, what made you opt to train to be a nurse and not a doctor?”

  I laughed. “I hardly think I could be a doctor somehow.”

  He didn’t laugh along with me. His voice was deadly serious as his eyes met mine in the mirror. “What makes you think that?”

  I looked out of the window as I answered, trying to keep my voice light. “I’m hardly a super genius, and university and training would take forever and cost a fortune, and what if I didn’t make it?” I paused. “My parents were pretty hard up when I was young. Dad says that dreaming too high achieves nothing. I always figured nursing would be best for me. I love nursing, anyway. It makes me super happy.”

  “You make an excellent nurse,” he said, and I felt that burst of pride down deep.

  “Thanks.” Another goofy one-word response with my cheeks flaming bright.

  He carried on. “I think you’d make an excellent doctor too.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. “Maybe in an alternate dimension somewhere I’ll be one.”

  Once we were back on familiar turf I expected Logan to begin making plans to drop me back at Mum and Dad’s, but he didn’t.

  “You’ll need your uniform for the morning,” he said. “We need to call in and collect it from your parents’ place, yes?”