Undercurrent

Chapter 22

The darkness that came with the end of autumn felt lighter somehow. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't basing my whole life around secret meetings at the beach and actually had some kind of a social life to organise.

After we'd spent the afternoon opening up, Ollie and I had left his room with a tentative friendship that only seemed to get stronger over the weeks that passed. It started off with the odd friendly text between Friday art sessions but soon progressed into my addition to a group chat with him and Ro. I was just about getting used to the daily memes that punctuated the conversation.

Ollie had started to come out of his flare up pretty quickly and started back at college a couple of weeks later, just in time for us to hand in our project. Each week, the dark circles that had spent so long underneath his eyes seemed to fade a little more and his hollowed cheeks filled out to their usual shape.

The damp, dreariness of November made it difficult to find time to go down to the beach. Every so often, I found myself remembering that I hadn't seen Zach in a while but it didn't come with the overwhelming punch of guilt to the stomach that it had before. I figured that since he hadn't got in touch either, he was probably doing fine without seeing me as much as usual. Maybe he'd made new friends too. There had been a definite shift in our relationship; talking to other people about what had happened made it easier to cut the emotional strings that had tethered me to him for so long.

It wasn't just Ro and Ollie I'd talked to. After spending the afternoon at Ollie's and finding out how much therapy had helped him, I asked Mum to come with me to Student Services at college. I don't think I'd ever seen her eyes light up so much as when I said I wanted to see a counsellor – she'd been pushing me towards it for years but I'd always been reluctant. Everything was looking up and I was starting to find myself, work out who I was and, more importantly, who I wanted to be.

As winter rolled around, the air started to get a crisp coldness to it that could only mean that Christmas was on the way. There were only two weeks left of college until the holidays and, despite my new positive personality shift, I was starting to find myself getting stressed over the amount of work that had piled up. Surprisingly, filling my time with things that weren't studying or wallowing in my room, had meant that I'd found it a bit trickier to keep up with the coursework I'd been given. Balancing therapy sessions, spending time with Ro and Ollie, and Saturday shifts at the café had meant that something had to go.

Luckily, the last Saturday of November didn't exactly have the crowds running to The Seashell Café. Mum, bless her, was still pushing to make the café the place to be all year round but the crowds had definitely dwindled and the occasional dog walker popping in for a takeaway coffee didn't make for a busy shift.

I'd brought my laptop down and set up on one of the tables near the counter, so I could nip back there if anyone did decide they fancied coming in. After the longest half an hour without even the faintest sniff of any custom, my brain was starting to get a bit frazzled from rereading the same page of Emma over and over again, without any of it sinking in.

Mum came out of the kitchen just as I put the book down and laid my head on my arms in defeat.

"Come on, Nini," she said, patting my arm. "It can't be that bad."

"I just don't get it," I groaned into the crook of my elbow. "Why do we only ever seem to read books written in another language?"

Mum picked up the book and looked over the blurb, "I'm fairly sure this is English, you know."

"Yes, but it's old-fashioned English, so it might as well be written in hieroglyphics for how much I understand it."

Mum laughed. "Do you think there might be the smallest, tiniest chance that you're being a bit melodramatic, Nini?"