At First Sight

by Hannah Sunderland

  AT FIRST SIGHT

  Hannah Sunderland

  Copyright

  Published by AVON

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

  Dublin 4, Ireland

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2021

  Copyright © Hannah Sunderland 2021

  Cover design by Caroline Young © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com

  Hannah Sunderland asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008365721

  Ebook Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008365738

  Version: 2021-01-08

  PRAISE FOR HANNAH SUNDERLAND:

  ‘Told with huge warmth and heart from start to finish’

  Miranda Dickinson, author of Our Story

  ‘A love story with a difference … uplifting and unusual’

  Gillian McAllister, author of How to Disappear

  ‘A delightfully romantic and endlessly enjoyable love story’

  Isabelle Broom, author of Hello, Again

  ‘Beautiful – I am a tiny bit broken’

  Lisa Hall, author of The Perfect Couple

  ‘Real and raw – I struggled to put it down’

  Anna Bell, author of We Just Clicked

  Author’s Note

  This book deals with loss, grief, depression and suicide. If any of these subjects are sensitive for you then please approach with care. I hope I have dealt with these important issues delicately.

  Dedication

  This book is for Matt, Mom, Dad and for all of those whose light at the end of the tunnel has ever seemed dim.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise for Hannah Sunderland

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Hannah Sunderland

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Is there any time more stressful than your lunch break? That small span of time that evaporates so quickly while you’re standing in a queue behind someone loitering at the till, who chooses their coffee at snail’s pace while you bob, impatiently, on the balls of your feet. All I wanted from life was a sandwich and to not receive a disparaging look from my manager when I returned to the office, sweaty and red-faced.

  I stood, fourth in line, in a queue that hadn’t moved in over three minutes. The person on the till was clearly new and, while I sympathised with his wide-eyed and panicked expression, my patience was running low. I jostled my packet of crisps and paper-wrapped hummus and red pepper sandwich around in my arms until I managed to get a hand free to check my phone. I shuffled a little closer to the till as the woman at the front of the queue received her coffee and trotted off to a seat. The café was filling up quickly and if this rookie employee didn’t hurry the hell up, I wasn’t going to get a seat.

  I caught the eye of the newbie’s supervisor who stood behind him, patiently watching, although I could see that his patience was wearing thin too, and he nodded a look of recognition my way. We’d never really spoken more than the usual niceties. I didn’t even know his name, his badge simply bearing the word ‘supervisor’ in worn black print, but I’d been coming in here for years and so we knew each other by sight. He had a shaved head, although the stubble that was always trying to creep through showed that his baldness was a choice and not a curse, and he wore thick-rimmed glasses, held in place by a silver nose stud.

  There was one table free in the corner over by the window and three people in front of me. The man at the front of the queue had a plastic KeepCup ready in his hands for the barista to fill, so it was fair to say that he wasn’t sticking around. The man in front of me already had a seat because the woman who was with him had darted off when a seat had become free a minute or two ago. So that left one other person, my rival for that one remaining seat. This café was my place to come for lunch, had been for years. But ever since they’d been featured in that issue of The Birmingham Mail a few months ago, it’d been getting busier and busier until there was no longer room for loyal customers like me who’d stuck with them through their experimental turmeric latte and chai tea scones phases.

  KeepCup man took his freshly replenished cup back from the dazed-looking employee and headed for the door. My one remaining rival for that coveted final seat ordered his drink, paid and stood to the side as the man before me moved to the till and ordered two teas. I gave a little inward whoop as he said it. Tea was easy, quick. I might just have a chance at that chair. As I’d predicted, his teas were served quickly and he turned away to the table claimed earlier by the woman I assumed was his wife. I quickly ordered my Americano, a swift and simple choice, and tapped my card against the reader. I sent the poor overwhelmed boy a cheerfully sympathetic smile before stepping to the side and standing beside my rival.

  I could see the barista in the background, putting the final sickly drizzle of caramel sauce on to whatever bastardised coffee monstrosity my rival had ordered and willed the girl beside her, who was just about done with my Americano, to move a little quicker. They turned at the same moment and presented the finished drinks. I nipped forward and grabbed my coffee, my fingers twinging at the heat that permeated through the cup as I clutched it, and turned to my table. Ha-ha! Victory was mine.

  But as my eyes landed on the table that I’d been about to dive in the direction of, I saw that a couple were already sat there, perusing a menu and hanging their coats on the backs of the chairs that should have been mine. I tossed my head back and groan
ed. My rival with the diabetic coma in a cup turned on the ball of his foot and headed for the door. Turns out he was never a rival in the first place.

  I looked around, searching for anywhere to sit, at this point an upturned box would do just fine. I pushed the sandwich up so that it was wedged between my less than generous chest and my forearm, the crisps from my meal deal gripped in my elbow, coffee in my left hand. I reached down with my free right hand and got out my phone. Twenty-seven minutes of freedom remained and I intended to spend that time sitting down. Over by the window was one of those annoying communal tables. It was rectangular and had several separate groups of people sitting at it. There wasn’t much room, but just there on the end was one space, next to a lone dark-haired man, his back to me, his shoulders hunched over towards the table. I clutched everything tightly and set off towards my last hope of a seat.

  I hated situations like the one I would shortly find myself in, where I had to share an enclosed, intimate space with strangers whom I felt like I should talk to, out of politeness, but whom I knew had absolutely no interest in talking to me, nor me in talking to them. My mother hadn’t tried to force many traits upon me when I was younger, but politeness had been something she had been stern about. She always tried to encourage me to smile at strangers who passed me by and strike up small talk with people in lifts. I had very little control over it, as if the politeness that had been drummed into me as a child took physical form and began overriding my ability to stay quiet. It happened all the time in taxis. One minute I’d be sitting, quite happily minding my own business and trying to distract myself with my phone, the next I’d ask the question that every cabby must hear a thousand times a day: ‘So, have you been busy?’

  Before the ride was over, I would know all about them: their name, every single one of their past employers, their children’s names and where they went to school. I’d leave feeling like me and old Mahmood were childhood friends and then we’d part, never to set eyes on each other again.

  I arrived at the table as my sandwich began slipping from my arm and I bowed to speak to the hunched man. ‘Excuse me.’ He jumped a little and turned to me with cornflower blue, darkly lashed eyes. It looked as though I’d interrupted a deep thought, which was lingering like fog on a wet autumn morning. ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ Before he could answer, the sandwich made its escape and slipped from my grasp. I jerked my arm upwards, clocking it with my elbow and sending it careening up into the air. It tumbled, rather more gracefully than I would have imagined, before falling downwards in the direction of the lone man’s head. I gasped inwardly as the sandwich slapped into the side of his face with a wet thud, flopping into his lap before dropping through his knees and thumping onto the floor.

  We stared at each other for a silent moment, the other people around the table sheepishly looking on or sniggering behind hands. I wasn’t quite sure if he was about to shout at me, or burst into laughter. ‘Ha-ha.’ I spoke it rather than laughed. ‘Guess hu-mussed the catch on that one? I guess that joke only works if you know that there’s hummus in the sandwich, which you didn’t and the joke wasn’t any good anyway.’ Oh, shut up, Nell. He pressed his lips together suppressing laughter or embarrassment, bent down and picked it up. He placed the sandwich down on the table in front of the empty seat and shrugged his trendily unruly eyebrows.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Thank you.’ I sat, arranging my things on the table. I already felt awkward as I peeled back the wrapping on my slightly misshapen sandwich and raised it inelegantly to my mouth. I hated eating in public when I felt as though I was being watched. I was not what anyone would call a graceful eater. I was one of those people who go into some sort of food-induced trance, where I become completely unreachable until the food is gone. I have no idea what I must look like when I do this. I have mental images of Henry VIII chomping down on a turkey leg, or a snake when a frozen mouse is dropped into its paths and it has to unhinge its jaws around it. It’s something that I’ve been trying to work on, ever since I became old enough to be embarrassed by it. It’s still a work in progress, much like the not speaking to strangers thing.

  The man beside me had resumed the position he’d held when I’d stormed in to ruin his calm, sitting with his head hunched over his mug of tea. The bag was still floating in the cup, secured by a white string that was folded over the handle. The liquid it was bobbing in looked to have gone cold. I wondered if he too was on his lunch break. I doubted it. He looked far too relaxed. He didn’t look dressed for work either, unless he was one of those arty types who work as graphic designers and their bosses don’t care about how they dress. It could be an office thing like dress-down Fridays, but it was Wednesday. Maybe he worked somewhere hipster? Wasn’t every day a dressed-down day for a hipster?

  He wore black jeans, purposefully ripped at the knees, and a dark grey shirt that was slightly too large for him. It had several tiny holes in it and faded artwork on the front – some sort of zombie film poster from the Sixties or Seventies. Over the shirt sat a stonewashed denim jacket that looked as old as he was, the sleeves rolled up to reveal pale forearms with a covering of dark hair. Despite all of the strategic sartorial distressing, he managed to not look like he’d just had a fight with a porcupine or had been living on the streets, which I applauded him for.

  He looked creative, as if he could also be an artist or a sculptor or something. Whatever his job was, he certainly didn’t look as if he worked in an office like the one I’d just left. I swallowed my bite of sandwich and took a sip of coffee, the liquid scalding me slightly as it passed over my tongue. I swallowed that too and I made the mistake of not filling my mouth with something before the words began to try and push themselves out of it. I made a strange ‘ku’ sound before jamming the sandwich back into my mouth and smearing hummus over my right cheek. He looked up from under his tousled dark fringe and observed my awkwardness for a moment, before going back to nursing his cold tea, staring down at the surface as if he was trying to read the tea leaves.

  The hand that clutched his cup wasn’t covered in paint or ink or clay and so I threw my guess about him being an artist out the window. I noticed a burst of hairline scars that crackled over the knuckles of his right hand, which lay balled into a fist on the surface of the table, the scars taking the pattern of forked lightning. A further glance caused me to notice that the nails of his scarred hand were slightly longer than those on his left and the ends of his fingers on his left hand were calloused. Musician – that was it. He played guitar.

  My mouth opened again to ask him what sort of music he played but, again, I stopped myself. Just eat your sandwich and shut up, I chastised myself. You don’t need to speak to him. You can bet a million pounds that he does not, under any circumstances, want to talk to you.

  ‘So, what are they saying?’ For God’s sake!

  He looked up at my question with that same fog lingering in his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ he asked in an accent that I didn’t quite catch.

  I awkwardly gestured to his cup and said it again, cringing inwardly as I did. ‘Your tea leaves, what are they saying?’ Why could I not just sit still and be quiet?

  He looked down at his used-up teabag and prodded it with the end of his finger. It bobbed pathetically in the milky water before settling again. He huffed a laugh that was so subtle it simply sounded like a heavy breath.

  ‘Not very much, to tell yer the truth,’ he replied and this time I heard his Irish accent loud and clear. ‘I don’t think they tell yer too much when they’re still in the bag.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘that must be where I’ve been going wrong.’

  We smiled at each other as the rest of the people around the table retracted themselves a little further from the conversation, as if they feared being pulled into its gravitational field. He unfurled his scarred hand and I noticed that he was holding something small and orange. I got a better look at it as he rolled what seemed to be a misshapen mar
ble between two fingers.

  ‘Wildly underappreciated game,’ I said, almost raising a hand to my face and slapping myself silent.

  He turned to me with a questioning frown.

  ‘Marbles.’ I pointed to the one in his hand. ‘Used to play it with my uncle.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he said, slipping the marble back into his pocket.

  ‘You play guitar?’ I nodded towards his hands, only then realising how creepy my observations were.

  ‘That’s right – among other things.’ Although he was frowning, his mouth was pulled up on the one side by a wry smile. ‘How’d yer know that?’

  ‘Fingernails. My ex used to play. I’d recognise the cause of those callouses anywhere.’ I blushed. Had I just inadvertently flirted with this man by casually dropping into conversation that I was single? I wasn’t usually this bold. It had taken me a year to even imply to my ex-boyfriend that I fancied him.

  The guy beside me was attractive, in that very specific musician kind of way, with large blue eyes lined with dark lashes and a chin dappled with dark stubble, which was interspersed at intervals with flecks of red.

  ‘Sorry.’ I nervously sipped my coffee and swallowed the bitter liquid. ‘I know it’s not the done thing to talk to strangers anymore, but I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘So, this is somewhat of a chronic problem for yer then?’ His smile grew a little until it was almost a full-blown grin and my stomach lurched like I’d just driven fast over the brow of a steep hill.

  ‘Oh yes, since birth. In fact, I left the womb plying the midwife with small talk.’ I laughed in that moronic way I did when I found something surprisingly funny. He countered with a laugh more musical than I would ever be able to muster.

  ‘Well, no need to worry, I don’t mind talking. Although, I don’t know how much I’ll have to say or how interesting it’ll be. I’ve never been what’cha’d call chatty.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll probably just talk at you until you die of boredom. So, if you’re okay with that then I’ll chat away.’