Chapter Two
“If you could change anything, would you?” Sarah asked as they sat in the garden of Cheryl’s little cottage which looked down from the hillside to the beach below.
“would you?” she asked the blonde, turning the question back on her friend who was playing with the teaspoon in her cup of coffee.
“I wouldn’t change a thing” Sarah smiled after only a seconds thought. Cheryl envied the conviction that her voice held, knowing her answer would be completely different.
“I’d change everything” Cheryl replied quietly, taking a sip of her tea which suddenly felt like acid going down her throat. Sarah put her hand over Cheryl’s and squeezed it affectionately, knowing that she had probably said the wrong thing.
“do you still see her?” Cheryl asked, even the small task of saying her name was too much, but she knew who Cheryl was talking about.
“yeah” Sarah nodded, her eyes struggling to meet the younger girls..
She nodded and swallowed hard before looking away and down to the beach again. Sarah followed her gaze. “we used to walk down there every day” she said, a sad laugh finding its way from her lips.
Sarah looked at the girl sadly and took another sip of her drink. She sat back in her chair and listened as her friend poured her heart out, or what was left of it anyway.
“now I walk on my own. Sometime’s I see her face, but I know it isn’t her because I know she will never come back, not after what happened”.
“it was a silly little argument” Sarah replied. Cheryl shook her head slowly and put her cup down on the table that separated them. “it went so much deeper than that Sarah” she admitted, closing her eyes at the memories of the last night she had seen Kimberley.
“we were happy here once” Cheryl smiled, looking over Sarah’s shoulder to the boarded up cottage that sat a few hundred meters from her fence. At one point, Kimberley lived there, their lives lived so close together for so very long and now they were so far apart that she didn’t even know where the girl was.
“I thought that one day she might open her eyes and see…well you know?” Cheryl started, but couldn’t bring herself to say the rest.
“but she never did, and then when she met him, it nearly broke my heart. But if I could do it all again, I wouldn’t push her away like I did. I’d have told her I was happy for her and suffered the pain in silence” she finished, picking her drink back up and holding it in close to her, finding a little bit of solace in the warmth of the cup against her skin.
“she’s only at the end of the phone you know” Sarah sighed heavily at her friend.
“after all the horrible things I said to her?” Cheryl replied, shaking her head at the mere thought of getting in contact. “she doesn’t want to see me Sarah, and as much as if hurts, I have to respect that” Cheryl conceded, letting her eyes wonder back over to the cottage and the large ‘For Sale’ sign that adorned the fence.
“she never met anybody else you know” Sarah told the brunette, after giving it some thought.
Their eyes connected for a second, in that second Sarah was sure she could see a little bit of hope spark deep within the younger girls eyes. It soon faded though, and her eyes returned to their familiar look of acceptance and regret.
“come to LA for the week” Sarah said, changing the direction of the conversation when she realised that Cheryl had closed the book on their conversation about Kimberley. “it’ll be like old times” she went on, giving the younger girl one of her most pleading smiles.
“I can’t” Cheryl replied with a sad smile, although something within her was crying out to accept the offer. Another night alone was enough to make her heart numb.
“you can, you just don’t want to” Sarah replied disappointedly.
“I can’t do that to myself Sarah” Cheryl shot back, her patience with the conversation wavering.
“Its been over a year since we were all together. It’ll be a shame if you can’t be there” Sarah replied, trying her hardest to keep her tone light and friendly, when really Cheryl could detect that the girl was a little bit upset by her lack of enthusiasm at the reunion.
“I will think about it” Cheryl sighed, shaking her head at how hard it would be to go to LA and see Kimberley after all this time. Sarah’s natural smile returned to her face as she relaxed back in to her chair, glad that the brunette was at least giving it some thought.
-
She opened the empty case on to her bed and opened her wardrobe. All of her clothes were brightly coloured, a stark contrast to the mood she had been in for the past year. Some of the clothes were familiar and others had never been worn before. She pulled a few pairs of jeans out of the wardrobe and put them in the case.
A box at the bottom of the wardrobe caught her attention. She picked it up and sat on her bed with it on her knee, knowing as soon as she saw it what it was.
She opened the lid and put her hand in to the box, running her fingers through the shells and pebbles inside.
Every morning for a year, her and Kimberley had walked down the stretch of beach below their houses, and every day Kimberley had picked up a shell and searched the beach tirelessly for an identical one to give to Cheryl.
She didn’t know why she kept them all, but she did.
She thought back to one of their walks. Kimberley would come over to her house and they would walk down to the beach together, sometimes saying nothing at all to each other, sometimes filling the silence with mundane chatter.
They would walk arm in arm along the shore line with the waves lapping at their ankles, discussing everything and anything that popped in their heads, enjoying their much needed break from the band.
She took her hand out of the box and replaced the lid, fighting back the need to cry. This was all she really had left, all the photo’s had been taken down and put in the loft, all the awards, all the magazine articles, all the memories were stored away out of sight, but never out of mind.
She got back up and carried on filling her suitcase with clothes and things she would need for her hastily arranged holiday. Nadine had seemed genuinely happy when she had phoned her that morning and told her she would be coming, and after booking a last minute flight, there was really no way she could back out of it.
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