Burning Bright

  I said I had to get home and left them to it. The truth was, I was desperate to try Flynn again. But his number was still unavailable and, so far, Mr Goode hadn’t returned my call either. I took a detour to the park. It really was a beautiful day – a brilliant sun burned down from a clear blue sky. I felt deeply, desperately sad.

  Where was Flynn? Why hadn’t he called me? He must know his phone wasn’t working. Surely he could have borrowed a mobile to get hold of me if he’d really wanted to?

  I strolled across the concrete play area at the start of the park and onto the grassy square. It was busier than I’d seen it for ages, thanks to the fabulous weather. I found an empty bench between two groups of mothers with toddlers and pushchairs. It was the place we’d had that row just before Caitlin’s first Holy Communion and almost immediately opposite the café where Flynn and I had met on our very first date.

  I hugged my knees to my chest and squeezed my eyes tight shut, trying to block out the memories.

  I didn’t hear his footsteps. I don’t even know how long he was standing there. But I sensed someone looking at me and glanced up.

  I gasped.

  Flynn was leaning against a tree with his arms folded, smiling at me.

  26

  It was him. It was really him. He held me for a moment with those green-gold eyes of his. I stared, hardly believing he was real. He looked good. So good. His hair was slightly longer than when I’d last seen him and he had new clothes on – jeans and a T-shirt I didn’t recognise.

  These thoughts registered in a fraction of a second. And then we were both moving, rushing towards each other, the sun and the park and the grass at our feet forgotten. I hurled myself into his arms.

  He held me tight.

  ‘Oh, River.’ His voice was soft and strong in my ear. ‘I had to see you. I had to talk to you.’ His voice broke and he pulled away, holding my face in his hands. His eyes bored into me, as intense as I’d ever seen.

  I realised I was holding my breath. I laughed at the thought that Flynn literally took my breath away.

  ‘What?’ Flynn’s face clouded with misunderstanding. ‘Don’t laugh, Riv. I didn’t steal anything. Not ever. And my account was hacked into and that photo was faked up and—’

  ‘I know.’ I put my finger on his lips to stop him talking. ‘I know you didn’t do any of those things.’

  Flynn nodded. But his forehead was still creased with a deep frown.

  ‘You didn’t take my call yesterday . . .’ he said.

  ‘Only because my mum was . . . was there, waiting for me,’ I said. ‘I tried to call you as soon as I was on my own, but your phone was switched off or something.’ I kept my gaze steady as I spoke, but inside I felt a stab of guilt. I wasn’t telling the whole truth . . . at the time I’d mistrusted Flynn. It was only after I found Alex’s iPad that I tried to call him back.

  ‘As soon as you didn’t pick up I knew I had to get here,’ Flynn said. He pulled me into another hug, his lips brushing against my ear as he spoke. ‘I was so sick of being there anyway. I hated it. Hated. Whoever it was – Alex or whoever – hacking my Facebook page was the last straw. I had a bit of money saved up and I went straight to this guy I’d met in Dub and sold him my handset.’

  I gasped. ‘You sold your phone?’

  Flynn nodded. ‘It all added up to just enough money. I left a note for Mum then headed to the airport. I waited for a standby flight. It took forever but I got on one at last. Soon as I got here this afternoon I went to your school,’ Flynn said. ‘Everyone was coming out of doing tests. I kept asking. Eventually someone said they thought you’d come in this direction . . .’

  I pulled back and stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘You came all this way just to make sure I knew you weren’t a thief or a liar?’ I said. ‘All this way? For me?’

  A beat passed. The sun shone fierce in the sky. Flynn moved closer, the same fire burning bright in his eyes.

  ‘I’d do anything for you,’ he said.

  His face was just above mine. I knew the shape and lines of it better than my own.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  His lips brushed mine. And the dead weight that I’d carried in my chest since he’d gone dissolved as we kissed.

  At last we pulled apart and I opened my eyes. The breeze was soft and warm on my skin, the air perfumed with the fresh scent of mown grass. All around us, the happy shrieks of small children rose into the air.

  I felt alive, like the world was in colour again.

  ‘Oh Riv, you don’t know how much it means, knowing you believed in me.’ Flynn’s face was wreathed in a shy smile.

  The world darkened slightly, as if a shadow had appeared over our heads. I hugged him again, trying to ignore it. The truth was I hadn’t believed in him. I had doubted everything – that he was honest, that he was true . . .

  ‘Of course I believed in you,’ I said. We held hands and strolled across the park to a bench. As we walked, I explained how I’d found Alex’s iPad in Emmi’s bedroom and taken it to St Cletus’s. ‘Alex said Emmi didn’t know he’d hidden the iPad there and I promised him I wouldn’t tell her but . . .’

  Flynn swore. His face filled with fury. ‘That means Alex completely set me up.’

  ‘I know.’ My heartbeat quickened. I didn’t want Flynn to get in a bad mood now, not while he was being so sweet and loving. ‘But I’ve made sure Alex tells everyone that it turned up, so they know you didn’t take it.’

  ‘It won’t make any difference,’ Flynn said with an angry grunt, sitting down on the bench.

  I sat down beside him, feeling troubled. He was right. Mum and Emmi’s reactions were proof of that.

  ‘How long will you be here?’ I asked, hoping to change the subject.

  Flynn said nothing. His face grew even more thunderous.

  ‘Flynn?’ I said, feeling uneasy. ‘When will you have to go back to Ireland?’

  ‘I’m not. I couldn’t have stood it there another day anyway.’

  What? ‘You’re not going back?’ My mouth fell open.

  ‘No,’ Flynn said, folding his arms in that stubborn way of his I knew so well. ‘I’ll stay here. Get a job, like we talked about before.’

  ‘But . . .’ A thousand difficulties and complications filled my head. ‘But where will you live? How will you do your A levels?’

  ‘I’ll stay with friends to start with until I can afford a place of my own. And I’ll find a sixth form college where I can do my A2s – the coursework, the exams. I’ll go to work around the lessons and if I have to miss classes I’ll catch up.’

  I stared at him. It sounded impossible, but I knew Flynn well enough by now to realise that if anyone could make such a plan work, it was him.

  ‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘But even if you sort out school, what will we tell Mum and Dad to make them let me see you properly again?’

  Flynn shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Wherever you go and whatever you do, the same bad things will happen so long as you keep getting angry all the time,’ I said.

  Flynn shot a sharp look at me. ‘I don’t get angry all the time,’ he said, his voice rising.

  ‘Yes, you do. You’re getting angry now.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are, and all I’m asking is how we’re going to convince my parents you’ve really changed when—?’

  ‘I don’t freakin’ know how!’ Flynn snapped. He leaped up from the bench and paced across to the nearest tree.

  My chest tightened. Here it was again, that terrible temper still raging in his heart. I glanced around us. A nearby group of mums and toddlers were watching him anxiously.

  Flynn strode back to where I was still sitting on the bench. He glared down at me. ‘I don’t have all the freakin’ answers, River, but we’ll work it out as we go along. I thought you believed in me?’

  I opened my mouth to point out that by getting so furious he was totall
y proving my argument, when Flynn sank onto the bench and bowed his head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, his fury vanishing as quickly as it had flared up. ‘I know you believe in me, I just . . . I have no idea how anything is going to work out. The stupid thing I did a few days ago, the thing I mentioned on the phone – it was a fight . . . at my new school. The guys there are just as big idiots as the ones at St Cletus’s.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. My heart sank. I’d been so afraid that Flynn had changed, that he’d stopped loving me. But the reality was, in its way, just as bad. Flynn hadn’t changed at all. He was still getting into fights and blaming everyone else for making him angry.

  Flynn took my hand from the bench where it rested and held it in his. ‘I will make it work,’ he said. ‘I will find a way. I realised when I was in Ireland that my first priority, before everything else, is to be with you, for us to be together. That’s the most important thing.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s the same for you, isn’t it?’

  I gulped, my stomach cartwheeling. ‘Yes, except . . .’ I paused. It was always like this around Flynn, I realised. Huge emotions consuming me, leaving no room for anything else. I was tired of the tidal wave of feeling that swamped me then pulled away again, leaving me exhausted.

  Flynn pulled me gently to my feet. He pressed his hands around my waist and drew me towards him. ‘Except what?’ he said.

  His eyes were so full of passion and I wanted him so badly. This was what I had dreamed of for months. And yet . . . of all the challenges facing Flynn right now, the biggest by far was one he couldn’t see . . . and one I didn’t want to have to live with anymore.

  ‘River?’ Flynn’s eyes searched my face. ‘I want to be with you, River. That’s why I came back. I tried to make it work in Ireland, but I can’t. I spent all my money getting here. And I’m not going back. I don’t care about anything else. Just you, River.’

  He bent closer, his eyes pulling me towards him. My head was spinning. I could feel my insides melting as he gazed at me. And yet . . . and yet . . .

  ‘No.’ I pulled away, stepping back across the grass. I looked round the park at the straggle of mums and toddlers now heading towards the exit.

  Flynn made everything sound so reasonable. As if the anger and the mistrust and all the distance between us over the past few months could be wiped away with a kiss and an apology. ‘No,’ I repeated, this time more forcefully. ‘You can’t just say you’re sorry and expect that to make everything all right in the future.’

  ‘I can make everything all right. Listen, Riv—’

  ‘No. You listen.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Sometimes your being cross about things is justified, but a lot of the time you get angry over nothing.’

  Flynn stared at me. He didn’t speak.

  ‘Look at how you reacted just because I went to that party with Emmi and Alex,’ I went on. ‘You hung up on me. And before that it was difficult because I was scared of upsetting you and us arguing when we couldn’t see each other to make up. And before that . . . well there was always your temper. It was the reason for you getting into fights and it made . . . it makes . . . me feel you’re always on the verge of freaking out.’

  ‘But . . .’ Flynn’s expression was guarded. ‘What are you saying, Riv?’

  ‘I’m saying that Mum and Dad were right about you being out of control,’ I went on, meeting his gaze head on. ‘And I can’t handle it. I don’t want to handle it. I mean, what if we‘re together and everything’s great and then something happens to annoy you and you flare up again for no reason.’

  ‘There’s always a reason.’ Flynn’s eyes burned into me. ‘I thought you understood.’

  ‘It’s not enough for me to understand,’ I insisted. ‘And I don’t always. Sometimes . . . sometimes I feel scared.’

  Flynn’s mouth fell open. ‘I’d never hurt you,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe not physically,’ I admitted. ‘But when you lose your temper, I hate it. And the truth is that it makes me doubt you, because it makes me question everything. It makes everything unstable all the time.’ I took a deep breath. ‘The truth, the real truth, is that I wasn’t sure whether to trust you over the iPads because you’re so changeable all the time.’

  Flynn pressed his lips together in a thin, miserable line.

  I stared back at him. This was agony.

  ‘You mean you didn’t really trust me?’ he said in a dull, flat voice.

  ‘I wanted to, I just couldn’t be sure. That’s what I’m saying – you’re so . . . calm one minute, furious the next, it’s hard to know what’s real . . .’ I stopped, unable to bear the terrible look of hurt on Flynn’s face.

  ‘I didn’t realise you felt like . . . that.’ He frowned.

  ‘I’m just trying to be honest,’ I said. A vision of me and James in the back of that taxi flashed through my head. I pushed it away – telling Flynn about that meaningless kiss would be too much honesty. He didn’t need to know. ‘Anyway, you and me aren’t the whole story, are we?’ I went on. ‘What about your mum? She was the main reason you agreed to go to Ireland. Doesn’t she matter anymore?’

  ‘Of course she does,’ Flynn said. ‘Mum’s fine. She’s working less hard and loving staying with her sister. Siobhan’s happy too. That guy she’s with, Gary. He’s okay. More than okay. He really cares about her. They’ve got this little flat near Mum. It’s one of the reasons I can leave now. He’s looking after Siob. And I know he’ll look out for Mum too. And Cait’s settled in at school.’ He looked sullenly at the ground. ‘It’s just me. I don’t fit in there.’

  There was a long pause. A soft breeze ruffled my hair. I took a step away.

  ‘You don’t fit in anywhere,’ I sighed. ‘You don’t even try to fit in. And you know it takes more than talent and determination to be successful. You can’t do everything on your own.’

  ‘Yes I can,’ Flynn said tersely.

  We stared at each other across the grass.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Remember, back after the thing with your dad, the police and your mum and everyone said maybe you should go to see a counsellor?’

  ‘No way,’ Flynn snapped. ‘Therapy’s for freaks.’

  Silence.

  ‘What about your dad?’ I said. ‘Suppose you see him? Suppose he does something to annoy you and you lose your temper again.’

  Flynn’s face clouded. ‘I’ll handle it,’ he said.

  ‘I saw him a few weeks ago,’ I blurted out.

  Flynn frowned. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he growled.

  ‘Cos I knew you’d be mad,’ I said. ‘Your dad followed me down the high street. Asked for some money, like you said he would.’

  ‘What did you do? What happened?’ Flynn’s voice was tense.

  ‘I told him I didn’t have any,’ I said. ‘He knew you’d gone to Ireland, said something about you being angry . . .’

  ‘I don’t want him knowing anything about my life.’ Flynn clenched his fists. ‘I told you just to walk away. Not to even speak . . .’

  ‘It wasn’t like that . . . I couldn’t just—’

  ‘Yes you could, it’s not safe. He could have hurt you,’ Flynn shouted. He caught his breath. ‘River, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell like that . . .’

  I gazed at his face. It was always there, I realised. The anger inside him. The hate. Just bubbling away under the surface.

  I couldn’t live with that.

  I didn’t want to live with that.

  ‘River?’

  ‘I don’t want to worry about whether or not you’re going to fly off the handle at the least little thing.’ I looked him in the eyes. ‘I love you. I really do. But I don’t want to be always scared. Wondering who’s going to make you mad next. Worried it’ll be me . . .’

  I turned away, so he wouldn’t see the tears that were pricking at my eyes. I stood very still, concentrating on not crying. And then I sensed Flynn move closer to me, I couldn’t hear him or see him, but I knew he was there – ri
ght behind me.

  We stood in silence for a few seconds. Then I felt his fingertips on the side of my neck. I closed my eyes, shivering. He traced his fingers along my skin, scraping my hair aside.

  ‘River.’ Flynn’s voice was low, pleading, his breath warm against my bare neck. My skin erupted in goosebumps. ‘You have no idea how much I . . . I only want you.’

  I wanted to stay there and let him kiss me. I wanted it so badly my whole body was shaking. I felt his hand on my arm.

  ‘I want to show you that you can trust me,’ he whispered, his lips soft on my neck. ‘I’ll change, I promise. I’ll never lose my temper again.’

  I could feel myself falling, falling. But for the first time I could see where I was falling – into a nightmare of lies to my parents and fear of Flynn getting angry.

  Lies and mistrust and fear.

  I dug my nails into my palms. ‘Your promises are just like your apologies,’ I said. ‘Don’t you see? You can’t say you won’t get angry or out of control and expect it to just happen. It’s too deep down in you, too much a part of who you are . . .’

  Flynn ran his hand down my arm and across my waist, pulling me into him so my back was pressed against his chest. He leaned forwards, his cheek rubbing against mine.

  ‘Please, Riv, I can do this,’ he whispered.

  I nearly gave in. I swear I was so close to just turning round and kissing him like I’d never kissed him before. But something – a single, tiny thread of strength – told me that if we had a future it couldn’t start like this. He had to know I meant what I said.

  I pulled away from him and turned around so we were facing each other. ‘I believe you can do it, too. But I don’t believe you can do it without help.’

  The wind swirled around us. Flynn’s fringe fell over his eyes. He brushed it away with a frown.

  ‘It has to be counselling,’ I said, thinking of the anger management therapy Dad had talked about before. ‘A proper effort to deal with your temper, like the police and your mum suggested.’