The Unknown Road

19 - Tessa

I CAN'T BELIEVE ARCHIE kissed me. And it's all I can think about.

We're wandering down to Archie's, walking on either side of the pavement, but it doesn't feel awkward. It's the weirdest but happiest I've felt in a long time, but I know this conversation is only going to go one way, and I just hoped it wouldn't change anything.

When he kissed me at the station, my mind went into overdrive when he tried to escalate it, my instincts kicking in as I pulled away.

I couldn't be his rebound relationship.

I was long-gone in love with him, and if he was using me to get over Dee, he would have shattered my heart into a billion tiny pieces. I would have become a shell of my former self and I knew I would never be the same.

So to protect myself, I close myself off.

But then he told me he wanted to explain. To explain everything. So I agreed, and we haven't said a word since.

I think he wanted to explain what the hell happened today for starters, with Dee and Callum, but then it also sounded like was going to explain more than that. I wanted him to tell me the truth, about everything, but I felt like it could have the potential to completely overwhelm me.

When we round the corner to his gated estate, he moves even closer to me and takes my hand, lacing his fingers with mine.

I could feel his hand shaking, with tension was radiating off him like a bad sunburn. His face is serious when I peek at him, and I wonder if he'll actually go through with it and tell me.

I'd walked this path so many times over the years, but now, for the first time I was actually feeling nervous as we approached the driveway.

***

THE WALLS MOVED HERE eight years ago.

They used to live on Dover Street in Mayfair, but when commuting got too much for Wendy, taking Archie and Millie to and from school, they looked for a house in the suburbs. When they bought this house, it was the only one completed, soon to be part of a twelve-house gated estate.

Richard has properties across the world; several in America including in Manhattan, one in Rio and then a house not far from Nice in the south of France along with another in Monaco, which Richard uses to watch the F1 every year. We stayed in that one when we were about nine and we all went on holiday down there together, four parents and us four kids, and it was one of the best holidays. We've stayed in a few others, but now he only uses them for his business trips.

I don't actually know what Richard does, but I do know that Wall Enterprise Holdings is one of the top 25 operating companies in the UK, with a Head Office in Canary Wharf. I also know Archie's family was well off, as the company turned over hundreds of millions a year. It was definitely enough to mean both Millie and Archie wouldn't have to work a day in their lives.

But that's what I love about them.They want to work.

The money hasn't affected them detrimentally in any way, and they're so humble and down to earth. Even though they've grown up with money, they don't boast about it. They don't flash around in expensive clothes or cars; they don't rub anyone's noses in it. But what I love most is that they don't want to lie around doing nothing when school finishes.

I think if it was up to Richard, Archie would take over the business one day, but Archie had other ideas. I think he was disappointed at first, but now Richard doesn't seem bothered, letting him choose his own path, and do what he wants to do.

Archie wants to be a museum curator, or even teaching Art or Art History. And Millie wants to be a vet, although I didn't know if this was going to be a reality because she's squeamish about everything. But from these decisions you wouldn't have thought they'd been up brought up the way they had.