Addie wore a beret over her cropped hair and a navy pea coat. She was sitting on a bench looking out over Hampstead Heath, her back to me. Neutral ground, she’d called it – although it was walking distance from her place and a substantial cab ride from the hotel in Chelsea where I’d been living with Jack and Dad for the last two weeks.
I cleared my throat before I sat down, but she didn’t turn around. In the back of my mind was her text on New Year’s Eve: I saw the show and I hope you’re OK. I hoped the girl who’d written that still felt something for me.
‘Hey,’ I said nervously.
She pulled one flat ankle boot under her, curling in on herself. I couldn’t believe I had ever seen her as aloof, that I had ever thought she was Addie Marmoset: Impassive Superstar, not a fragile girl with a beautiful voice and a big heart.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me,’ I started.
‘My mum said I owed it to you to hear you out. I came to hear what you had to say.’
What did I have to say? There was no way to explain what I had done, nothing that might make it all right between us. I had nothing to give her – except an apology.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I understand if you can’t forgive me. I don’t really want to forgive myself. But I want you to know how sorry I am for hurting you.’
‘I heard about you and Carter.’ His name didn’t come easily for her, and I yearned to reach out and touch her.
The whole world had heard about me and Carter, thanks to my outburst being captured on twenty phones. He hadn’t called me since that night and his frantic texts had petered out after a few days. At night, when I went to bed in my hotel room, I would think about the look on his face in the booth at MudDragon and be flooded with fresh anger.
‘I should have told you about Carter from the beginning,’ I said. ‘We said we’d be honest with each other, and you trusted me, and I broke that.’ My voice faltered, but I had to tell her how I felt – I owed myself that much. And I owed her so much more.
‘What do you want from me, Lily?’ she asked. Her voice was uneven but the hand tucking her hair under her beret was steady.
‘I want whatever you’re willing to give me,’ I said. She wouldn’t look at me, but I dug my nails into my palm and told myself to keep talking. ‘If that’s friendship or maybe, one day, if that’s something more. I want your honesty and your kindness, your sense of humour and your vulnerability and all the parts of you I don’t know about yet. I want the girl without the wig, without the heels, without the gates behind your eyes. I want you in my life.’
When she finally raised her eyes to mine, they were wet.
‘Has anyone ever said you should write songs for a living?’
I reached for her hand, tentatively, and when she didn’t baulk I squeezed her fingers.
‘It’s not easy for me, Lily. I don’t trust many people. With you, I thought if we could be honest from the start, maybe we’d stand a chance.’
I nodded. Her thumb moved softly over my hand, and my heart expanded. I tried to hold still, tried not to think about the way she’d kissed me on my bed, scared I’d rupture this delicate truce. Behind her, I could hear ducks calling to each other on the pond. My voice shook as I asked, ‘Can we start over?’
She studied me for a long second, then nodded slowly. ‘My name is Adelaide Mawson. I was born in Manchester and my nineteenth birthday is next week. My parents are getting a divorce and it’s my fault because my mum accepts that I’m gay and my dad can’t forgive me. I like to eat pancakes on Sunday mornings with maple syrup and butter. And I have a huge crush on this gorgeous blonde Australian.’ She knotted our fingers through to the knuckles. ‘And who are you?’
I let out my breath and looked her square in the eyes, smiling. ‘I’m Liliana Donadi.’