Climbing out of the truck, I follow Josh, who’s carrying a sleeping Hope in his arms, into the house. There are voices coming from the kitchen, and I take a deep breath, steeling myself to come face-to-face with Jack and Zara. They aren’t there though, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Emma, Phil, and Claire. They fall silent when we walk in, and I find three sets of eyes trained on me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, frowning when they all continue to stare at me.
“Aria, sweetheart, come in and sit down,” Emma says, taking my hand and guiding me to a stool at the breakfast bar. My eyes flick to Savannah, who shrugs. It seems she has no idea what’s going on either.
“You’re kind of scaring me,” I admit. “Did something happen?”
“Zara had a phone call this morning. Her dad’s had a stroke,” she says gently, her hand still holding mine.
“Oh, that’s awful! Is he okay?” I ask, looking at Emma and then across to Claire.
“They aren’t sure yet. He’s in the hospital.” She sighs. “Honey, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but they went back to the UK. Their flight left at eleven fifty a.m.”
“What?” I whisper, my eyes wide. A wave of nausea crashes over me, and I swear I’m going to throw up.
“I’m so sorry, Aria,” Emma says.
“This is bullshit!” Savannah exclaims from behind me. “If he’d been told the truth when he woke up, none of this would have happened.”
“Savannah,” Claire warns. “This is no one’s fault. Everyone was just doing what they thought was best for Jack.”
“And what about what’s best for Aria…”
Her voice becomes muffled along with all the other sounds in the kitchen, and all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart, and it’s deafening. He can’t have gone back home, he just can’t. I can’t never see him again. My breathing becomes shallow and my hands begin to tingle. Black dots dance in front of my eyes as I struggle to get air into my lungs, and I begin to panic that I can’t breathe. Suddenly, I feel someone stand in front of me, their hands on my shoulders as they force me to breathe into a paper bag. After a few minutes, the tingling in my hands stops, and my breathing evens out. The voices become less muffled and I look up into worried faces. Needing to get away, I push back the chair I’m sitting on and stand, hearing it crash to the floor behind me.
“I’m sorry. I need to go.” I run out of the kitchen and out of the house. I can hear Savannah behind me, shouting my name, but I keep running and I don’t stop until my legs give way. Breathing hard, I drop to my knees in the middle of one of the fields.
“Fuck, Aria!” Savannah gasps. “I haven’t run that far since high school.” I can’t answer her as I sob, ugly tears streaming down my face. “Shit,” she mutters, dropping to the ground next to me. Her arms go around my shoulders and I stiffen at first, eventually giving in to her embrace. My head drops onto her lap and I can’t seem to stop the flow of tears. She doesn’t say anything, her hand softly stroking my hair.
I have no idea how long I cry for, but when I finally manage to stop, my eyes are sore and my head is pounding. Sitting up, I wipe my eyes and draw my knees up to my chest, my arms wrapping around them. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to Sav. “I just couldn’t stay in the house and let everyone watch me fall apart.” My head is down, and I pull at the grass with my fingers.
“I understand, Aria. So what are you going to do?” My head flies up and I look across at her.
“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning. “He’s gone. There’s nothing todo.”
“Go after him, Aria. Enough of this ‘waiting for him to remember’ crap. He needs to know the truth.”
“Knowing the truth and feeling it are two different things, Sav,” I tell her sadly.
“You think he doesn’t have feelings for you? I’ve seen him with you, Aria. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He might not remember you were together, but I know he was falling in love with you all over again.”
“You don’t know that! We’ve hardly spent any time together since he was discharged from the hospital.”
“And whose fault is that? Zara knew exactly what she was doing! She knew if you two spent any time together, sparks would fly, which is exactly what happened at the Brass Hall the other night.”
I shake my head. “Even if that is true. He still left.” My voice breaks and I take a deep breath, not wanting to fall apart again.
“He’s a good guy, Aria. In his head he’s in a relationship with Zara, no matter how conflicted he feels. He’d be an asshole if he let her travel home on her own after she’d received news like that. Just because he left doesn’t mean he wanted to.”
I pull myself together and look across at her. “You really think that?”
“You belong together. Zara might think she’s won, but you’re the one in his heart. It’s only a matter of time.” I desperately want to believe what she’s saying, but am I just delaying the heartbreak by clinging on to something that might never happen? I don’t have the answers, and neither does anyone else right now.
“He asked me to go back to England with him,” I say quietly.
“What?”
I nod. “Before the accident. He asked me to go home with him when the time came, and I said yes. That’s what I was going to tell you in the stables the day of the accident, but Zara interrupted us.”