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Back Afterlove
Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

‘I just avoid talking to people unless I really have to.’

‘Words to live by.’ She closes her eyes and nods sagely. ‘So what do you drink, then? Tea?’ she asks when she opens them again. I shake my head and she blinks at me. ‘What else is there?’

‘Hot chocolate?’

‘Yes!’ she grins, turning to the guy behind the counter. ‘An oat milk latte and a hot chocolate, please.’

I take my wallet out of the front pocket of my backpack while the guy turns to make them up, but when I open it and take out a fiver, she waves my hand away.

‘It’s on me,’ she tells me with a wink. ‘You can get it next time.’

Next time.

images

The weather’s so nice, the sun smiling down on us as we sit crosslegged on the grass outside the Pavilion. I’m not the sit-cross-legged-on-the-grass type, mainly thanks to my mother who would no doubt be pointing out how many dogs have weed on this lawn if she were here. But I try not to think about it as Poppy sips her latte, leaving behind a faint crescent of red lipstick on the rim.

When she puts the cup on the small patch of grass between us, I see that some of the foam has bubbled up through the small hole in the white plastic lid and it’s all I can do not to bend down and lick it away as I wonder whether if I kissed her now, her tongue would taste of coffee.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asks and I look up at her, my cheeks hot, sure that she’s read my mind.

‘Huh?’ I manage.

‘You look worried. What are you thinking? Are you scared someone will see us?’

‘Of course not.’ Although, now I am. I can’t tell her that I was thinking about kissing her, though, so I gesture at my school uniform instead. ‘I was just thinking that it’s a shame I didn’t get time to change.’

She waves me off again. ‘Don’t worry about it. You look great. Exactly how I remember.’

When she smiles, I smile back, wishing I could say the same thing, but she doesn’t look how I remember. She looks different. Good different, but still different.

She’s in black skinny jeans and a white T-shirt that stops just above her hips and is tight enough – and thin enough – to let me know that she’s wearing a black lace bra underneath. I’ve only ever seen her in her Roedean uniform, so I don’t know what I expected. It was hard to picture her in anything else. She’s even wearing it in her WhatsApp profile picture so it’s almost as though I’m meeting her all over again.

The real her, anyway.