Curled up on a double seat as the train sped through the dark countryside, I checked online for write-ups of our performance, but the news was dominated by the photos of Carter and me on the street outside MudDragon. I looked haunted, my hair wild and my tears flash-washed. Carter looked stressed and apologetic and very, very drunk. There would be hell to pay when Amir saw these, but our public break-up would be the least of his worries.
As I stepped onto the platform in Henley, snow was starting to fall. I texted Sam, hoping against hope that he’d meet me despite our argument.
Cold fingers of sunlight snaked across the sky as I walked along the river. I glanced across at the dark school that had once been my home. When I reached the middle of the bridge, I waited, watching swans waddle down the opposite bank and sink gracefully onto the water. Snow seeped down the back of my long-sleeved T-shirt and I wished I’d brought a coat.
Meet me on the bridge, I’d said in my text. Sam hadn’t responded. Maybe he wasn’t awake yet. Maybe he never wanted to see me again. Maybe I should have been clearer about which bridge. It felt like a lifetime ago that we had last been here.
And then a cab turned onto the bridge and he got out, clutching a shopping bag in his fist.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blurted out before he’d finished walking towards me. ‘I’m so sorry for what I said to you after the concert. You were right about everything, about Carter – I just didn’t want to admit it. We just broke up,’ I added. Already the words felt right in my mouth, as if I’d known all along that I’d end things with him. ‘And I’m sorry for screwing up like that onstage, too. I knew how much last night meant to you. I wish I could take it back – but you have to believe me. I haven’t changed. I’m still me.’
He flinched, and my chest felt tight. If he couldn’t forgive me, maybe the girl he’d known in Henley really was gone. I opened my mouth to speak, to explain everything, but he thrust the shopping bag at me.
‘I only came to give you this.’ Inside was a second-hand tartan jumper. It was the same brand as the one Ellie had given me before I left Australia, which Carter’s one-nightstand had stolen from our flat back in Brixton. ‘I got this for you online weeks ago, but they still had my old shipping address.’ He raised a half-amused eyebrow. ‘You should put it on. You look freezing.’
The fleece-lined jersey was like a warm hug after all the fitted clothing Saskia had insisted I wear. My thumbnail snagged on the inside of the right cuff, just at the place where I used to yank the jumper over my hand when I was nervous.
It was worn through.
Heart thudding, I removed the jumper and searched the back hem for the telltale ink blot, the result of a pen leak on the plane trip over. Sam hadn’t bought me a replacement: he’d located the original.
‘She had it up for auction,’ he said. ‘There was quite a lot of interest, actually. I had to fork out four thousand quid for it.’
‘Thank you,’ I breathed. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but he stood so still that I wasn’t sure he’d return the hug.
‘Weird that your old jumper would be worth more than your guitar,’ he said drily.
I laughed, and his mouth twitched like he wanted to as well, but he held it in.
‘Will you come to the Supernovas?’ I said. I didn’t care if I never saw Carter again, but I couldn’t imagine going without Sam.
‘I don’t want any part of this anymore.’
‘I’m not saying you should come back to the band. I don’t think Carter and I can ever work together again. But if we win a Supernova, you deserve to be up there with us.’
‘They don’t reckon “King Cutie” will get it. Best money is on “Stargirl”,’ he said bitterly. ‘What a badass way to kick off your solo career.’
I took a step back. ‘Don’t you want to be there?’ I said, shocked. ‘After everything we worked for?’
‘I’m going to read Medicine at Bristol. I want to forget that last year ever happened.’
‘Come on,’ I said. The tears finally broke through and I wiped them away on my sleeve. I couldn’t bear the thought that he regretted the entire time we’d had together. All the long nights and hard work, all the shredded fingers; the hissed arguments and quick forgiveness and the future shared in a smile. The four of us whooping on the footpath outside a grey building on Canary Wharf, guitars on our backs; every time he stepped in to answer an awkward question in an interview; every time I stood up for him and Tish. I had to believe it had mattered. ‘It wasn’t all bad,’ I said. ‘We went to Paris and Ibiza. Your single got to number one. The album had rave reviews.’
‘Four stars out of five is not rave reviews,’ he said, with the edge of a smile, and I thought of him comforting me in the lift in Ibiza after the NME review.
‘Even Bowie didn’t write Station to Station right off the bat,’ I said.
Finally, the grin split his face and he pulled me into a hug.
‘So you really want a date for the Supernovas, then?’ he said.
I laughed, relief bubbling out of me. ‘Yes, please.’
He stepped back from me and looked out across the river, at the boathouse where we had first met. ‘Well, you’d better go and ask her.’