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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

‘My father, however,’ she continues with a pointed sigh, ‘likes to think of himself as liberal because he lives in Brighton, even though he technically doesn’t live here full time. He’s not, though. I’m pretty sure he voted Tory at the last election.’ She rolls her eyes and flicks her hair again. ‘So while he said all the right things, I can’t help feeling that he just thinks it’s a phase. Like being vegan.’

‘Is it?’ I hear myself ask and immediately want a hole to appear beneath my feet and snatch me up.

Did I really just say that out loud?

Luckily, when she turns to look at me, her blue eyes are bright. ‘I guess we’ll see.’

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By the time we approach the train station, I’ve forgotten about the kiss. We’ve wandered through the Lanes and sat outside another café Poppy loves on Sydney Street, her eyes closed and her face tipped up to the sun as she told me that there won’t be many more days like these, that we have to make the most of them. There’s something about the way she said it that made me feel like I was on the boat again, that made me hope that she was referring to the slow approach of autumn, not us.

When we stop outside the station, she turns to me. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

‘What?’ I ask as she squeezes my hand so hard, I feel the bite of her rings.

She doesn’t tell me, of course, and I brace myself, sure that she’s going to suggest that we get on a train to London. The way she looks at me, her eyes alight, makes me think of what she said earlier about her mother and how we’re just a pale-blue dot on a limitless cosmic canvas.

Maybe that’s all we are, but right now it feels like she and I are at the very centre of it and I’ve never felt like the centre of anything before. I’ve always felt off to the side, like I’m watching on. An extra in everyone else’s story. But here I am and here she is and I finally get the lead role and while I don’t know how this story ends, this is how it starts: outside this station, commuters bustling past in their effort to catch the 17:58, her hand in mine.

‘Do you trust me?’ she asks and I can feel her whole body shivering, shivering with some idea she’s just had and can’t wait to tell me. When she smiles at me, I realise with a joyous jolt that this could be it.

This might actually be it.

The kiss.