The Cure

Chapter 47

Lola wondered what it would be like if it hadn't been winter, and windy; but even so, the wild weather made for some beautiful waves. She took out one of her last cigarettes, but the lighter wouldn't hold against the coming storm's insistence, and she swore under her breath.

'Thought you were giving up.'

Her head turned so quickly that it cricked. The low voice she had been so longing to hear. After a day like this, tiptoeing dreamlike along the traces of her childhood, the corners of her eyes buzzing with fatigue, she dared wonder, for one panicked second, if he was really there.

Nate's hands were deep in his pockets, his cheeks windbitten, and he smiled, sadly, shrugging, as if apologising for interrupting her reverie. For showing up at all. 'Hey.'

Her eyes welled up, and she sniffed fiercely. 'Hi.' She stared at him, trying to read his features for the bad news that she feared he brought. 'Is she still—'

'Yeah. She is.' The same difficult smile. 'She's a Nicks.'

Lola's heart fractured slightly as he turned about the bench, approaching her side carefully, and when she didn't move, her eyes fixed on the crashing surf, he pressed at her thigh until she uncrossed her legs, making space for him at her side on the rickety bench, and he sat, wide-legged, leaning his elbows on his thighs, bowing his head, turning his car keys about his fingers between his knees.

A simple, silent presence.

The roar of the wind was in her ears, and the creamy froth of the waves cowered under evening's arrival, their wild whiteness dimming. Lola's thoughts were still too muddled to unpick, too painful to consider, and so she had wandered blindly, in a white, whistling fog, since she had arrived, chasing the peace that she was certain she would find on its cobbled streets, as if somehow, stepping onto the train platform would transport her back to her teenage years.

Leave the sickness behind.

Seeing Rob and Matty had helped, kind of – their faces much unchanged, their churlish cheerfulness making it impossible to cry, and Matty's offer of a clifftop dog walk was the perfect excuse to retrace the steps of her youth.

The perfect ruse.

When they made it to the top, she had held her arms open against the wind, begging it to whip her conscience clean, making nonsensical bargains with the Gods that wrapped their breath around her to bring her mother back to health.

She had sworn never to smoke again, if only they would save her.

But she had felt stupid on the way back down.

Matty had a wife, two kids and a German Shepherd. Rob wasn't the puppy-fat, playful sixteen-year-old in love with her any more. He had his own boat.

And her mum wasn't at the door of 20 Wellsbury Street, curvaceous in her pink floral tea-dress, with a rude apron and peach cheeks, telling at her to hurry up, or she'd be late for school; she had been sick for years, and Lola should have seen it coming.

She should have seen it coming.

No cold wind would carve out her relief.

There was no peace here.

There was no peace anywhere.

Nate shifted, moving silently closer to her as she shivered, pressing his shoulder, his arm against hers, his head still ducked, crossing one leg over the other, ankle to knee, and she glanced at him; he was watching the waves, too, and the tip of his nose was red. She appreciated the warmth of his body, and leaned towards it, unknowingly.

And now he was looking at her, and fuck, if he was going to look at her with his eyes so full of tenderness, obviously she was going to cry. He had surely seen her cry more than he had seen her smile. She cursed inwardly.

She was suddenly enveloped by him; by a tight, unrelenting, constricting hug as tears fell unchecked over her cheeks; she snuck her hands out of her pockets and slipped them around his back, and his tight grip was renewed, his breath in her hair as he rocked her, pulling her closer still.

She barely felt the cold, now.

'Tell me what I can do,' she felt his words warm against her ear. 'Tell me what I can do, Lola, please.'

She pulled back, her eyes flickering over his face in the fading light, taking in every perfect feature, and he was pushing the wet fronds of hair from her face, tucking them behind her ear, his eyes flickering surreptitiously to her mouth, and she pressed her chin up slightly, inviting the kiss, and he bumped his lips against hers, squeezing his eyes shut.

'Get me inside,' she whispered against his kiss, with a quiet chuckle, despite herself. He drew back.

'Sorry?'

'That's what you can do. Get me inside. I'm fucking freezing.'

It was painful to see the tension flooding from his features as he laughed. He smoothed a thumb across her cheek, pressing another quick kiss to her lips, before swinging himself off the bench, half-jogging to the car and opening the passenger door for her.

She stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her duffle coat, cocking an eyebrow as she took the portrait in, looking at him in his expensive coat, his tight black Levi's, the hiking boots.

He leaned against the expensive-looking vintage Ford as she shook her head.

'Of course, you have a car like this.'

'It's my dad's.'

'Impressive country chic for a city boy.'

'When in Rome. Get in,' he huffed, pushing her shoulder so that she fell into her seat; the inside was mercifully warm, and she chafed her hands together.

She let her eyes fall closed as he drove; she hadn't slept properly for days, and the crying had left her skin-only, a skin with nothing in. She barely hurt any more.

And she knew that the reality that was waiting for her back home was white hot, and icy blue, beeping, and bleating, and stinging, and unkind, and unfair, and uncertain, and stinking of bleach; but here, in the front seat of Nate's car, smelling strongly of old leather, under the orange of the streetlights, juddering over familiar cobbles, she was warm, and safe.

She opened one eye to look up at him, and he glanced down at her, the arch in his cheek returning, the streetlights streaking his face intermittently.

'Nearly there.'

Maybe he would be her safety. Maybe he would be her peace.

A pair of strong arms, tight against the brutish waves of life's injustice.

He had come all this way.