The Two Lives of Lydia Bird - Josie Silver Page 0,67

enough words. ‘It’s just so bloody hard, you know?’ I cover my face with my hands and in my head he gathers me in and tells me that he feels the same, that he finds every day hard without me too.

‘Hey, you.’

I startle at the touch of someone’s hand on my shoulder. Someone real. I look up and find Jonah. He hunkers down on his haunches beside me and looks at me with his dark, gentle eyes.

‘Feel like some company?’

I haven’t seen Jonah since he walked away from me on New Year’s Eve. I’ve started to text him once or twice and deleted my words before I could press ‘send’, and he’s not someone I run into in my day-to-day life. Except for here, it seems.

‘Okay,’ I say, wiping my eyes as I move across to make room for him to share my blanket.

He doesn’t speak for a while, his eyes fixed on Freddie’s gilded name.

‘A year,’ he says eventually.

‘Yes.’ I swallow. ‘A whole year without him.’

‘How’ve you been?’ he asks me. I hear it in his low, unsure tone; he means in the long, cold weeks since New Year.

I nod. ‘Okay, mostly,’ I say. ‘Work’s keeping me busy and Elle’s pregnancy is knocking her about, so I’ve been there quite a lot too.’

It’s not a lie. Elle’s had a really rough time and I’ve been going round to see her after work most days to sit with her until David comes in. I know that wasn’t what Jonah was asking really, but the logistics of my life are all I have to offer.

‘And you?’ I ask him. ‘How’ve you been?’

He lifts one shoulder, a half-hearted shrug. ‘Yeah, you know. School … all the usual stuff.’

I drink some coffee. ‘Dee?’

Jonah pulls blades of grass out of the hard ground one by one. I watch the movement, sharp, deliberate little tugs as he considers his answer.

‘Sometimes,’ he says. ‘We’re taking it slow, seeing what happens. I like her laugh.’

There is more in the words we don’t say than the ones we do. He doesn’t want to tell me things are going well with Dee because he knows I am in such a different place in my life.

Jonah mirrors my position on the blanket, his knees drawn into his chest. He’s dressed in black, probably because it’s his default setting rather than a consciously sombre choice for the day. He’s wearing a navy knitted hat too, and he pulls it off now and shoves it in his coat pocket.

‘I’m sorry, Lyds,’ he says, bleak, staring straight ahead. ‘For New Year. I don’t know what I was saying. I didn’t mean it.’

I study his familiar profile. He’s winter pale and although his high cheekbones have always lent him a classic gauntness, he looks even more so today. His hair is as unruly as ever, his lashes a dark sweep on his cheek as he stares at Freddie’s stone and sighs hard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so beat.

‘I’ve tried to text you. A couple of times actually, but the words just came out wrong, so I deleted them,’ I say.

‘Same.’ He nods, takes a moment before he elaborates. ‘I tried, because I truly am sorry. For banging on your door like a thoughtless twat and for not coming inside when you asked and for leaving you crying alone on New Year’s Eve. There. I’m sorry for all of it, Lyds. For everything.’

‘Did you really mean that being with me makes things worse?’

He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘God, no. Being with you reminds me of him.’ Jonah looks at Freddie’s headstone. ‘And that’s hard sometimes, but it’s comforting too, you know? This, us. It’s comforting.’

I hand him my coffee. He warms his hands before taking a drink, and then laughs, hollow.

‘I’ll go away next New Year, make double sure I don’t turn up on your doorstep. Somewhere far-flung. Lie on a beach and forget all about the fact it’s even New Year’s Eve at all.’

‘Okay.’ I shoot him a sad smile when he looks at me. ‘It’s a plan.’ Relief loosens the stiff set of his shoulders. New Year’s Eve has weighed heavier on both of us than I realized.

Jonah walks with me back to the car park, holding my blanket as I unlock the car. His Saab is parked alongside.

‘God, it’s your birthday, of course it is,’ he says, embarrassed as he spots the red foil balloon bobbing around in the car beside the bottle of fizz and