Hello Stranger

“I think she’s pretty damn awesome too.”

“I gathered,” he said. “Two of you eternal optimists bouncing up against the eternal pessimist at every opportunity.”

I squeezed his hand, because I felt it from him, stewing deep – that eternal pessimism. It was hardly a surprise that Logan Hall was a pessimist. I don’t think it would ever surprise anyone that the guy was pessimist, given the life he’d been through.

“Maybe between us we can find a middle ground,” I said with a laugh. “My optimism crashing into your pessimism. Maybe we can find a realistic place, right in the eye of the storm.”

He stopped me in my tracks and turned me to face him, and his face was deadly serious when he spoke.

“Never lose your eternal optimism for my sake, Chloe. Run away long before you lose yourself to my negativity.”

I’m sure I bit my lip, staring up at him wide-eyed like he’d just told five-year-old me to stop putting her fingers in plug sockets.

“I mean it,” he said. “The last thing I want to be doing is making your life miserable.”

“You wouldn’t,” I whispered, before my brain had a chance to filter my words enough to play it cool. “Being around you could never be miserable. You make me too happy.”

His mouth didn’t argue, but his eyes did. His stare didn’t believe me, and I really couldn’t work out why that was – what the hell made him so sure he’d kill my sunny outlook.

So, I asked him.

“Why are you so sure you’d make me miserable?”

Once again, he skipped the topic and took my hand back up. “Let’s just enjoy one day at a time, shall we? The shadows will always be waiting in the shadows.”

I didn’t argue with him. Granny Weobley had taught me a lesson just as soon as I could understand her words.

The moment is now, Chloe. It’s always now. Not about reliving the past or dreaming up the future, it’s in the here and now. Enjoy as many of those moments as you can, because they never come twice, my love.

But still, I wondered what could be waiting in his shadows.

We arrived at the station and it was bustling with commuters. The seats were all taken when we boarded the train, so we stood at the end of a carriage, pressed up close.

It was a whole load more tense as we walked through Redwood. I tried to make general conversation and tick boxes on my virtual Dr Hall knowledge chart, but that conversation just wasn’t flowing. I was aching too much for his flesh.

The carer lady was upstairs in Jackie’s room when we arrived at his place. We said hello, and she gave a goodbye, but Jackie was still sleeping, head lolling onto her shoulder like she’d just run a mile and flaked exhausted at the finish.

Logan was finishing up work emails on the dining table downstairs when her eyes finally flickered open and fixed on mine. She grabbed my hand in a vice the moment she saw me.

“Chloe, sweetheart.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m so fucking glad you’re here. Was worried you’d got fed up with us after climbing the damn mountain last weekend.”

“Hardly,” I said, and leaned in close. “How are you feeling?”

Her eyes were sparkling much less brightly than the week before. “Shit,” she told me. “I’ve been either retching, wheezing, or sleeping all week.”

Seeing how weak she looked in bed that night, I fully believed her.

“Hey,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll be a biking queen, racing around the bends. So glad you’ll be here for it.”

“So am I,” I told her, wondering if she was really up to it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but believe me, I’m going to do it. Whatever it takes to get me on that bike. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good,” I said, “whatever it takes.”

“Let’s get on with some other shit in the meantime,” she laughed, and pointed to the newspaper on her bedside table.

I helped her with her crossword while I waited for Logan, and it only took a few minutes of chatter and question solving before I was well and truly caught up in the laughter of Jackie Hall. I wasn’t expecting the conversation to take a deeper turn when it did. My laughing stopped, muted the very second she turned serious.

“Thank you for making him so happy,” she told me. “Believe me, Chloe, I haven’t seen him anything like this happy in years. I thought I’d take my last breath before I ever saw him smile like that again.”

I don’t think you can reply with a you’re welcome to that kind of thanks, so I didn’t say anything, just smiled and twiddled my fingers around the crossword pen.

“You can talk about it, you know,” she told me. “About you and him, I mean. I’ve still got a good pair of ears on me, even if the rest of me is bloody useless.”