BooksBarbecue
Back Afterlove Save as PDF
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

Poppy shrugs, the corners of her mouth dropping down then back up again. ‘Don’t get me wrong. He’s really clever, but she’s brilliant. The history books will remember her. His bitterness is palpable.’

She looks away as a toddler runs by, his little arms outstretched to a seagull that flies off before he can grab it. She tries to smile, but I see the change in her immediately, the warmth in her voice when she just spoke about her mother cooling now that she’s talking about her father. It’s as though her whole body has drooped, like a pot plant left in the sun for too long, and I decide to change the subject.

Before I can, she turns to me. ‘Are you out?’

Her honesty winds me again and I blink at her, my lips parted as I try to catch my breath.

‘Sorry,’ she says, putting her head in her hands, her hair falling forward so I can’t see her face. When she straightens, she doesn’t look at me, she looks at her hands, her lips pressed together as if to stop herself from saying anything else. She stays like that for so long, I’m almost certain she won’t, but then she lifts her chin to look at me from under her thick eyelashes.

‘Before this goes any further, before we waste any more time, I need to know what this is.’

I don’t know how, but I manage to hold her gaze. ‘What do you think this is?’

‘Something,’ she says and I had no idea a word so small could feel so big. ‘This could be something.’

‘I feel the same way,’ I say before I can tell myself to wait.

To think about it.

She smiles and with that, she’s back – the Poppy I met on the boat – mysterious and mischievous. Her face back to the one I’ve stared at so many times on my phone, trying to memorise the colour of her eyes – blue, like the deep end of the swimming pool – and the stubborn sweep of her jaw.

Last night, I fell asleep counting the freckles dusted across her nose and dreamt of her laughing, the pair of us holding on to each other as we floated in a big black sea, the moon over us like a naked light bulb. Usually, when I dream about the sea, it’s bad. I’ve been having this same dream since I was a kid, where I’m under the water and just as I break the surface, someone grabs my ankle and pulls me under. But last night, it was nothing like that. I felt free – happy – and woke up with a smile, not unlike the one she is giving me now.