Contents ( 57)
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Sharon Gosling
‘Except you didn’t. Not really. Neither of us did,’ Edie said. ‘Did we?’
‘No.’
Edie’s head was ringing with shock, as if someone had whacked her around the skull with a cricket bat. ‘Fifteen years, Ezra, over one stupid misunderstanding…’
Ezra pulled her closer. ‘Don’t think about it.’
‘If only we’d been adults about it,’ she said. ‘If only we’d talked, properly. How could we have been so stupid?’
Ezra kissed her and then grasped her other hand too, looking down at them with a slight frown. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We should have talked. From now on we should always talk, about everything, so that nothing like that ever happens again.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And so here’s something you need to know. The day that I asked you to marry me, Gilly told me about your hands.’
‘My – hands?’ Edie glanced down at where theirs were joined. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s noticed that you’re beginning to find certain things difficult,’ he said. ‘That your mobility might not be what it once was. That’s why she didn’t want to go to college. She didn’t want you to be on your own if it’s going to continue to get worse.’
Edie took this in. ‘Then that’s why – when you came down those stairs in such a flurry, when you said that if I married you, Gilly would go—’
Ezra pulled her closer. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘That’s not why I asked you to marry me, Edie Strang. It was why I asked you then, but it’s not why I asked you. Edie, I’m pretty sure that if we hadn’t been such insecure idiots fifteen years ago, I would have wanted to ask you a long time ago. I don’t want any more misunderstandings. I love you, I want to marry you, and if I could turn back the clock ten years and do it then, I would. All right?’
Edie looked at him for a moment, and she believed him. She really did. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘All right.’
Ezra pulled Edie against him, tucking her head under his chin and wrapping his arms around her. ‘Good. Now let’s go and lay a ghost that’s been haunting us both for fifteen years.’
Gilly still wouldn’t let Edie see her final art piece, even as the girl packaged it up with her portfolio, ready to deliver it for assessment.
‘But why?’ Edie asked. ‘I already know that I’m in it. And what if I can help? Another pair of eyes is always useful, Gilly, didn’t I teach you that?’
Gilly, resolute, shook her head. ‘You’ve taught me that seeing with my own eyes is what gives me my unique perspective as an artist,’ she pointed out. ‘This is my exam, Edie, isn’t it?’
Edie sighed. ‘Fine. But will I ever get to see it? Because, I’ll remind you, I did actually have to sit for the damn thing. I am in it. Or at least, you said I was.’ A thought occurred to her and she said, suddenly suspicious, ‘Wait, is that why you don’t want me to see it? You changed your mind and cut me out? Is it just of Ezra now?’