A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Annabel tells her not to bother because 'it always looks like that', but Mum keeps trying anyway. No one says anything about Connor, and I'm glad of it. I don't know what I would say, what the right thing to say would be.

As we sit down, Annabel with crossed-legs, Dad with one leg bent and the other laid flat out in front of him, and Mum with hers tucked underneath her, the fresh air cleanses my insides. Mum's hair has a wave to it, and the ends curl under just like mine does, and Dad's front teeth are slightly crooked as he smiles. I don't know why I'm paying so much attention to such small, silly details, but it's all I can focus on.

My parents ask me about everything. Life in Sheffield, foster homes, school, friends, hobbies, uni, past girlfriends--or lack thereof--though Annabel is quick to intrude and gossip about Carmen for longer than necessary. Being the arsehole she is, she makes sure to include the embarrassing details of me asking her out. As I talk, my parents don't feel like strangers. I've not spoken to them in twelve years, and only recently remembered who they even were, but they're so familiar.

I always dreaded death. It seems ridiculous given I've always known it's not the end, but even the prospect of seeing my parents again wasn't enough to stop my stomach getting in knots over it. I always thought it would be underwhelming, or make everything that happened in life feel pointless. But it doesn't. I don't know what lies beyond this garden, this house, but I don't care.

What happens in life doesn't matter enough to spend it anxiously analysing every step you take, but that's not to say life doesn't have meaning. You just have to find it in the right places. Moving to a new city, starting university, acting like an idiot with everyone in Ava's family pub, dysfunctional road trips around the UK, vegetarian dinner dates with Carmen, singing my lungs out to I'm Shipping Up to Boston in an Irish gay bar, my friends--Jamie and all.

Even though it should've been more, the time I had with my parents when we were all alive. Things like that.

"Right then," Dad announces, snapping me out of my daydream.

He jumps to his feet, and holds his hand out for me to grab. I've got no idea what the plan is, but I take it anyway, and pull myself up. The skin on his palm is rougher than I thought it would be, but his hand is warm. The girls join us by standing up themselves, and my parents are suddenly looking at me as if we're all going to vanish into thin air at any moment.

"What?" I question when the conflicted look in their eyes doesn't falter.

"Of course you've got no idea what's going on," Annabel says with rolled eyes.

Mum scolds her, and it fills me with glee. I really could've done with that over the past twelve or so years.

"You've got to go back," Dad explains.

What? I'm dead. I can't just--I'm dead. How else would I be here, fully here like I am now? That's exactly what I ask Dad.

"It's not your time," he replies, not really answering my question, but I don't dare backchat him.

I don't want to go back. I don't feel like I need to either, like I'm going to. There's nothing pulling me back, physical or otherwise. They must be wrong.

"I can stay," I argue, but Dad shakes his head, and Mum's eyes shift away from mine. "Why can't I just stay?"

Dad repeats his not your time line, but it still doesn't explain anything. Who decides when it's someone's time? Who makes a decision like that? I try to argue again, but Mum doesn't let me get a sentence out.

"You don't want to," she says. "It feels like it now, I know, but you want to go back."

"Whether you do or not is entirely up to you. You make that decision, and you've already made it," Dad interjects in his sing-song voice, and a smile--the most genuine smile I've seen in my whole twenty years of living--appears on his face. "You've got so much to go back to."