So, What Pick-Up Line Actually Works On You?

Chapter Thirty-Four - Final Chapter.

Dear fans, friends and people who have been here since the start,

This is the final chapter of So, What Pick-Up Line Actually Works On You?, and I'm so glad I could share this moment with you. You've put up with my inconsistent uploads, dodgy spelling and grammar and silly chapter titles. All your comments and words of encouragement and threatening to send an army of spoons after me really helped!

Special thanks to Caoimhe, Swinnie, Erin, Crimson_Regret, Seamus and the Rhys that lives in my head. And my mother, for bringing me into this world.

~Megan

Chapter Thirty Four 

~ Ten Months Later ~

If you had told me this time last year that I was going to fight leukaemia and win, I’d have laughed in your face. But I had done it. I was leaving Marsfield, at the age of sixteen. I had walked through the doors of that clinic for the last time this morning. I shot Tyson a grin as I stepped out his old Toyota, and his smile was identical to mine. I was home at last.

It still looked the same, with Miranda’s blue car in front, and Rhys’s bike next to it. I scanned the windows, seeing Maggie frantically waving from inside the house and yelling, no doubt to Miranda. Over the months, Miranda had gotten over her coolness towards me, but her and Tyson’s friendship had changed since that day in the clinic.

Benji had started visiting often, but he didn’t visit just me. He talked to Stacy a lot during his time in London, and when she left the clinic two months before me she had plans to move in with Benji.

Brayden visited often as well, every Friday to be exact. He would walk in at around three in the afternoon, and stay until nine or ten that evening before getting a plane home. He was like a spy of sorts, every time he came, he would have bits of gossip for me.

Maggie visited as much as Miranda would let her, and also sent me drawings in the mail. During my stay, she was still under the illusion that me and Rhys were together and most of her drawing consisted of me, her and Rhys all being a happy family. I had brought the drawings home with me, all in my suitcase. I was planning on showing them to her when she was older.

Tyson had stayed by my side for the ten months, always there and reassuring me. He gave up ten months of his life to be there for me. Never once did he ask me about that day with Rhys, but I think he knew.

I didn’t hear from Rhys. Not once. He ignored my calls, my letters, my emails.

Tyson lugged my suitcase up to the porch, the very porch where I had kissed Rhys many a time. The sounds of scrabbling and hushed whispers reached my ears from the other side of the door. Tyson opened the door gently, and there in the hallway was Maggie, Miranda, Brayden, Benji and Stacy. Maggie was clutching Ninja Ginger tightly, but the cat didn’t seem to mind.

I spotted Rhys in the background, looking at his feet and twiddling his fingers idly as if he’d give anything to be somewhere else. Rhys had changed in the ten months I hadn’t seen him. He had matured in his looks, not looking as boy-ish as he had before. It seemed like he had grown a bit too, not just in height but he had gotten broader. It was unsettling, seeing that he had changed. If the incident hadn’t happened, I would have been able to see the changes happen, or maybe they happened so gradually even I wouldn’t have noticed.

Rhys looked up quickly, and his eyes locked with mine. God, he had changed so much. It was his eyes. I remembered them as warm, the colour of melted chocolate. They were quick to give a cheeky wink. They were friendly, playful and sang of a silent affection for me once upon a time. Now they were a piercing brown, the warmth having disappeared. They were wiser, telling of a deep knowledge.