This Love

by Anna Bloom

  I open my mouth to speak but it just flaps around, useless and of no help.

  “Goodnight, Amber.” He steps away and walks down the path.

  “Night, Freddy, I call after him, my fingers straying to my tingling lips. In the depths of my soul I know it’s Freddy who will have to forgive me before our time is eventually done.

  One thing is resoundingly clear to me. It sounds wrong when he doesn’t call me Amber French and that is something I need to fix.

  Walking back inside, I head straight for Isaacs room. When Isaac was a baby I made a promise I would never tell him a lie. Obviously this was a ridiculous promise to make, and I’ve tested it to the limits severely. Especially when Isaac came home in year three and asked where babies came from. That pushed the promise into more of a ‘guideline.’

  He’s sat on his bed, Minecraft playing on his Xbox. “Hey.” I sit on the end of the bed.

  “Hey.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  “So, I want to explain what happened downstairs. What you saw.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  I raise an eyebrow at his tone. “Well do you want to hear it or not?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” I get up from his bed and walk to the door. “Don’t play too late, you’re back to school tomorrow.” He pulls a face in response, although I’m not sure if it’s at the prospect of school or just at me.

  With a sigh, I trudge down the stairs to find mum and put her to bed. She’s in front of the telly watching a gardening show. I sit next to her for a while, watching her hands worry a piece of material between her fingers. “What is that, Mum?” I ask gently, tugging it from her grasp.

  In my hand is one of my dad’s old handkerchiefs. I used to think they were gross when I was young. Who’d want to snot in a rag and then put it back in their pocket? “You did love him, didn’t you?” I almost mutter the words to myself.

  Mum turns to me, and takes me by surprise. I didn’t think she knew I was there. “Of course I did. I wish I’d told him.”

  I let a beat of silence pass. “I wish you had as well.”

  “Amber?”

  ‘Yes, Mum?”

  She looks at me, her eyes clear and focused. “I was wrong you know, back then. I should have let you be.”

  With a gasp, I realise I’m talking to mum in the present, she knows me, now. She knows I’m here. “It’s okay,” I appease. It isn’t really, and I still have a lot of issues, her telling me I was a mistake being one of them, but I might not get to speak to her lucid again. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back, I should have done when Isaac was born, my life could have been so different if I hadn’t let fear stop me.”

  Mum grabs my hand, her strength weak. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a reason to come back, every girl should want to run to her mother, not away.”

  I can see her focus slide away and I try and keep her with me. “Mum, can you tell me more about Dad when you guys were young?”

  She smiles, but her smile is wistful and I think she may be heading off to her rainbow land again. “He was so beautiful, everyone said you couldn’t call a boy beautiful, but I always did. He was magic.” Her words make tears start to trickle down my face. I recall all to clearly when I first met Freddy and thought he was magic just for his single-handed ability to make me forget about anything else other than him. Is that how mum felt when she met dad? Was their instant attraction as deep and powerful as Freddy and I? Regret that I didn’t know this before washes over me in waves. ‘Don’t live in fear, Amber.”

  And then she’s gone. The next time her eyes meet mine they are distant and confused. “Amber?”

  “Yes, Mum?”

  “When did you get home? I’ve been waiting up for you.”

  The tears start to fall faster. “Not late, Mum. Come on, I’ll help you to bed.” I lead her from her chair and up to my dad’s old room.

  Once she’s settled, I turn to my own room and shut the door firmly behind me — today has been too much. Freddy made me feel things I didn’t want to, or didn’t expect to feel. His parting words have left me confused and muddled.

  I know I can’t have another relationship with him, ever. No matter how much I may desire him, and the evidence of that is clear for the both of us to see, there is no relationship we can have now. The reason I know this is because I won’t be able to run again. Then next time he decides he doesn’t love me enough, or our love is too easy and it should be harder, I won’t be able to run because of Isaac. I wouldn’t uproot him again.

  I need to focus on Isaac and me, that’s all that matters.

  Despite this fact, I still go and pick up Freddy’s locket. For the first time in ten years I allow myself to open the casing and look at the picture inside, taken ten and a half years ago on our first date. The day Freddy told me we could be something, and I foolishly believed we could be anything.

  “You stupid girl.” I say out loud to myself before falling onto the mattress and dreaming unsettled thoughts of Freddy, a montage of tonight and the past.

  When Isaac crawls into my bed, I wrap my arms around him. “It’s just you and me, Isaac,” I whisper. “It’s always just you and me.”

  ROSES

  “Your bushes need trimming.”

  “I’m sorry what?” I sit up straight on the sun lounger and glare at Danni who’s just marching her way through the back gate like she lives here. It’s late September but a welcome heat wave has hit and everyone is still strolling around in shorts. I glance worryingly down at my bikini bottoms, checking I’ve got no escapees. It’s been a while since I had need of a trim.

  “Your roses, you div.” She laughs as she comes and perches on the other sun lounger. “Is this what you do with your time?”

  “No.” I pull a face. “I’ve been working.

  Technically the laptop’s been open, but that’s as close to work as I’ve got recently.

  “No you aren’t, you’re lying here dreaming about Freddy Bale and how much you want him.” Danni pokes her tongue out.

  ‘Sometimes, I wonder if you actually grew up at all.”

  “What, so I can be all boring and not give into my carnal impulses like you.”

  “I don’t want to know about your carnal impulses, thank you very much,” I grumble. Danni tells me a little bit too much about the time she and Grant have spent trying for a baby. It’s all just too much information, especially when there seems to be little chance of me having sex anytime soon.

  Not that I’d want to. Life is confusing enough right now.

  Since our kiss on the front step weeks ago, Freddy has done exactly what I asked. He’s stayed well clear. We’ve waved across the street to one another, and we’ve said “Hi,” in the grocery store. But I haven’t seen him alone, nor been kissed in a way that’s made me feel like I’m going to explode. I even saw him once on the school run, he was picking up Bailey, Henry’s son (seriously who calls a child Bailey Bale?) who Isaac has done the disastrous act of becoming best friends with. It makes me uncomfortable having the Bales that closely linked to my life and my son.

  “So, I was thinking family dinner tonight?” Danni leans towards me, her green eyes shining with a devilish dash of mischief.

  “I have family dinner every night, thank you very much”

  “You mean you have family dinner in the kitchen by yourself every night while Isaac plays his games and talks on line with his mates, and your mum stares at the telly.”

  “Yes. It’s perfect.”

  Danni leans forward. “Come on, Amber, what’s the worst that can happen?”

  The worst that could happen is I tell Freddy Bale I can’t stop bloody thinking about him, dreaming about him. Wanting him. Actually, that’s not the worst that can happen.

  “Danni, it’s a nice idea but I just don’t think it’s a good one yet. I’ve still got a lot I need to sort out.”

  She grins, her face lit with some terrible, naughty thought. “It’s done then, I’ll
pick you up at 7.”

  “Why are you going to pick me up? Surely I’ll drive if it’s at yours?”

  “You’re much better company when you’ve got half a bottle of wine in you.”

  “Charming.”

  “Make that a bottle.”

  I pull a face and settle back onto my sun lounger, eager to enjoy my free time, uh, writing time, and the summer sun still lingering in the garden.

  “Seven,” she sing songs and then waltzes back out the garden gate.

  At seven, I’m ready and fidgeting in a light cotton dress and cardi. I’ve drunk half a bottle of wine in preparation of having to see Grant Bale.

  “Isaac, are you ready?” I holler up the stairs. I hear him drag his feet all the way to the landing.

  “Ready for what?” he is still wearing half of his school uniform. Only half, his shirt, tie and underpants, apparently its the thing to do when hot. I’m not sure anyone would appreciate me walking around in a T-shirt and knickers.

  “Danni will be here in a minute, please cover up your superman pants.” And with that, I turn and check on mum again. I managed to have an almost coherent conversation earlier where I explained I was going out, and I was going to leave all my numbers and the phone on the table by the side of her chair, and if she could try not to turn the gas hob on while I was out, I would be eternally thankful.

  “Mum, you okay?”

  “Fine, fine. Where’s your dad?”

  “Not here, Mum.” She’s getting worse. She talks about him constantly and every time I have to tell her he’s no longer here, it starts her heartbreak all over again. I’ve been keeping my answers vague the last couple of days and it seems to be helping.

  It’s not lying, it’s just not telling the whole truth. It’s a bit like when she used to ask me if I’d been smoking out my bedroom window when I was younger and I’d tell her it was Danni who was smoking, which was true, but I didn’t tell her the whole truth in which I was smoking as well.

  She waves her hand at me so I don’t disturb her viewing of The One Show, so I leave her to it.

  A toot of a horn stops me from stressing out and flapping any longer. “Isaac, now!” I scream up the stairs, my nerves making me sharper than I would like.

  “What’s wound you up?” he asks stropping down to the hallway.

  “Don’t be rude, I’m your mother.”

  We pull faces at each other as I slam the back front shut behind us.

  I peer in confusion down the drive. It’s not Danni’s chavy four by four down the end of the drive but one of the old racing cars the Bale and Son’s garage is famous for.

  My stomach sinks to my feet, my tongue swelling and sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  “Cool,” Isaac whoops as I watch Freddy step his long legs out of the vehicle. I promised years ago after Freddy’s near death accident I would never step into one of those cars. Not ever.

  “Hi,” Freddy greets Isaac first, a flitter of shyness chasing across his features.

  I hold my breath, worried about how Isaac will respond to Freddy after finding us lock-lipped on the front porch but I needn’t worry. Isaac is about to explode with excitement and is frantically waving his arms around. “Dude! Is that your car?” Isaac’s voice is three octaves higher than normal.

  Freddy lets out a chuckle, which sounds on the border of relieved. “Dude.” He grins and leans against the car. “It’s one of them.” There is hesitation in his voice, like maybe he’s not sure how far to take the communicating with my son thing. His eyes flit to mine, and this time I see outright nerves pinching across the bridge of his nose. “Do you like cars, Isaac?”

  Isaac thinks about this with the deep, universe understanding clarity of a not quite ten year old. “Don’t know, mum’s car’s rubbish.”

  Freddy laughs again, his shoulders relaxing. “Well if you ever want to find out I know just the place.”

  “Cool,” Isaac states and then pushes past us to clamber into the hideously fragile vehicle.

  Freddy turns towards me, a hand running ruefully through his hair. “Still anti—Roadster 140?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well you’re not wrong.” Adjusting the hem of my red summer dress, I try and make the material stretch and grow. The dress seems much smaller and the material far thinner now I’m standing on the driveway with a breeze drafting around my bare knees.

  Freddy grins at me, sliding his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans and I marvel again at how the years don’t seem to have touched him at all. What is he? Thirty now? It doesn’t show. I on the other hand look haggard and old.

  ‘Well how about you get in and I promise to drive at twenty miles an hour the whole way there?”

  “What are you doing here, Freddy?” My tone echoes the confusion I have simmering under the surface.

  His grin widens. “Danni said you couldn’t drive because you can’t face a night with the Bale’s without being drunk.”

  There’s not much point disputing that fact, so I don’t.

  “Are you getting in or not, Amber?”

  His hand catches hold of mine, the breeze that was chilling my knees moments earlier vanishes and I begin to warm at an alarming rate as he guides me towards the passenger door. Isaac has already jumped in despite the fact he doesn’t really know whose car he is getting into. What was it I used to teach him about getting into cars with strangers? It’s good, though, because he wont see me blush the same colour as my clothes. It’s as I unwillingly pull the door closed that I notice Freddy’s T-shirt is the exact same colour red as my cotton dress. We are going to dinner with his family in matching outfits. This has got to be a return to town, stalking fail if ever there was one.

  “Buckle up, please, Isaac.” I shout over the backseat once I’m settled and trying my hardest not to hyperventilate.

  “That’s my line,” Freddy laughs. The memory of him lifting me into his truck on our first date and buckling the seatbelt up comes washing through me. I let out a breath. It’s gong to take more than wine to get me through this night. It’s going to take vodka and every shred of my sanity. “These are for you.” He reaches into the back, next to Isaac, and pulls out a hand tied bouquet of yellow roses, passing them to me with a shy smile.

  “Roses?”

  “Danni told me they’d help you remember to trim your bushes.”

  I bite back laughter and Freddy watches me in confusion until his face clears. “It’s some rude reference isn’t it?”

  “It might be,” I concede.

  “She’s a nightmare.”

  “Totally.”

  Freddy swiftly leans forward and places his lips against my cheek. I’m acutely aware of Isaac in the back but I think he’s too busy admiring the leather seats. “The lady in the shop said yellow roses are for friendship.” I can feel his dark blues searching for mine. “We can be friends, can’t we?”

  “I guess so,” I say around a massive lump in my throat.

  “I hope so.” And with his words, he puts the car into first and pulls away and for the life of me I can’t stop grinning no mater how hard I try.

  “Only friends, though.” I attempt to put a note of warning into my voice, but I’m not sure if it’s convincing.

  “Only friends,” he confirms a wide grin spread from ear to ear.

  DINNER

  “This isn’t Danni’s,” I state, somewhat unnecessarily when we pull up outside an unfamiliar house. I’m sure Freddy knows where his sister-in-law lives. Give the guy some credit.

  “Dinner’s not at Danni’s,” he says, switching off the engine and turning to face me. “It’s at Henry’s.”

  Isaac gives a little whoop, which reminds me he is even there. I’ve spent the short journey staring at Freddy’s jean clad thighs. I need to get a grip.

  “Henry’s? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t have come.” I fold my hand resolutely across my chest and a slow smile lifts the corner of
Freddy’s mouth. I watch it for slightly longer than is appropriate.

  “I’m guessing, Amber.” He raises an eyebrow. God it kills me when he says my name. “That’s why she didn’t tell you.”

  With that, he gets out of the car and walks around to my side. I watch him in the wing mirror; he looks mighty fine in dark jeans and the vibrant red T-shirt. Pulling open my door, he waits for me to get out. I don’t move.

  “Mum, have you forgotten how to open doors?” Isaac queries, looking at me in confusion as he clambers from behind my seat. I realise now he hasn’t actually been sitting on a seat. There is no backseat. What sort of mother am I?

  I roll my eyes at him but stay still, sat in my seat. Isaac runs up the path, knocks on the door and is allowed in. A woman I don’t know peers down the drive to the car but then sees Freddy and shrugs, shutting the door on us.

  Slowly, Freddy folds into crouch next to my door. “Are you really not going to come in?” He balances himself with one hand placed on the seat, next to my leg.

  “Henry makes me feel like a dick.” Freddy’s older brother always made his disdain for me acutely clear. Especially in the days after the accident when I was to blame for Freddy being late to the race and unable to check his own car.

  Freddy shakes his head. “No, Henry made the eighteen year old you feel like a dick, and truth is, Amber, I don’t know why. We all know he’s an arse.”

  I allow a small smile to escape. “Is he still an arse?”

  “Totally, but we’ve just learned to ignore him. Do you think you can do the same for one night?”

  I give a dramatic, overplayed sigh. “Okay, I can do that.”

  Freddy grins, “Good, now can you help me up, my knee gets stuck if I keep this up for too long.”

  “Oh my God, why did you do that?” I unbuckle and jump out of the car, holding both of my hands out for him to catch hold of.