Forked Roads Back

63 - TESSA

"SO..." CHARLOTTE BEGINS, TAKING a careful swig of her mojito before fixing her gaze back on me.

"So," I sigh.

"So... what's brought all this on?"

I really wanted to say that I had no idea what had brought this on, but that would have been a lie, and I didn't want to lie to her. I knew exactly what had brought this on. Hearing his voice in my head a few months ago, seeing his pictures today, Jamie starting his new job... so many things were going on, or changing, so my mind just automatically goes to a safe space. It goes to him.

"Dad showed me a picture of him this morning."

It wasn't how it all started but it was at least partially true.

"He just showed you?"

"Well, he was showing me pictures Millie sent, and one had slipped in there." I look down at my drink before taking a strengthening sip. "I can tell he's still hurting, Char. And not just because he had bruises all over his face."

"Bruises?" Her eyes widen as she puts her drink down. "What?"

I sigh. "Dad said he'd been mugged."

"Mugged? Wait, didn't he-"

"Say that last time? Yeah." I sigh again. "But that's just it. He's hurting, I can tell, not even by looking at those photos. I can just tell, and I'm not supposed to know that..."

That connection Archie and I have is stronger than it has ever been after seeing him in my dreams. Now I know that he will talk to me if I come, it only makes my resolve stronger to see him, so that we can both move on once and for all.

"Tess, you look like you have something on your mind," she tells me, and I can't help but smile.

"I do. And it's to do with Jamie and me... and Archie."

"You, Jamie and Archie?" She quirks an eyebrow at me. "That's a scary combination."

"Yes. And before you ask, it's not what it looks like." I close my eyes and lift my left hand above the table to see. "It's because of this."

It takes a second, but the squeal that erupts out of her makes me and the six tables around us jump.

"WHAT?!"

I open my eyes and she's trying and failing to hold herself back, because a few seconds later I'm almost flattened to the floor.

"You're engaged?" She shouts, hugging me so tight I can barely breathe before she pulls my hand up to examine the ring.

"Yeah, he asked me about a month ago, just before we came back home," I say sheepishly, looking at her to see her reaction at my delay, as I know she told me first. In fairness, I have still told her first, after Mum and Dad. She doesn't seem mad, just examining the ring, so I keep going. "But with all that's going on, I didn't want to say anything."

"All that's going on? Tessa, forget everything else! This is huge!" She's got tears in her eyes.

"I know. And I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

She smiles and shakes her head. "Tess, you don't have to be sorry."

"I know, but you told-"

"Tess, you don't have to do exactly what I do. Plus it's your news, you can take as long as you like with it!"

She had told me the day it happened, but she's right.

"I took longer to tell family than friends, but I think each couple needs their own time to tell people in their own way. But I bet you guys didn't know that Danny actually proposed to me the year before that?"