The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

I pressed my fingers into my eyes, tried to stop the hot tears from escaping.

No? Well, then it must be what came before that brought you to this point. The night of the fairground. How long did you think you could get away with that? Cause and effect. Karma. You knew it was coming. You have blood on your hands and now this is justice—

“Jay!”

I spun round to see Laura, her face pale and unfamiliar without make-up, her blonde hair scrunched up in an elastic band, dark roots showing through. I looked her up and down, wondered briefly why she was wearing a Puffa jacket with pyjama bottoms, then realised it must be the early hours of the morning.

“God, I said your name, like, ten times,” she said, sounding irritated. Only my sister would vent her annoyance at me at a time like this, and for a second I found comfort in it – a moment of normality in a world that was falling down around me. If my sister could still be angry with me, then surely nothing much had changed. But the comfort was short-lived.

“So,” she said, abruptly, “what’s happening?”

It might have gone unnoticed by anyone else, but I heard it – the slight quiver in her voice, the tiny crack. Laura didn’t do fear. She shouted and swore and raged at the world, but in that moment, I knew she was scared, and it terrified me all the more.

I shrugged and shook my head, opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My vision blurred through the tears I was holding onto. Laura stepped forward and for a moment I thought she was going to hug me. But if Laura had ever hugged me, then I couldn’t remember it, and she wasn’t about to start tonight.

“What the hell does that mean?” she said, imitating my shrug but not waiting for an answer. “Well, where the fuck is the doctor?” she said, scanning the corridor. She spied a nurse crossing between rooms. “’Scuse me! Hello?”

I was about to stop her, tell her she wasn’t even yelling in the right direction, that all the activity had been down the other end of the corridor, when I heard Michael calling my name.

“The doctor’s here,” he said, gesturing to a man approaching us.

He had dark hair, glasses. Had I even met this one? There were so many. It was all such a blur. I had shouted at one, told him to get out of my way, to let me into the room with my son for God’s sake! Was he the one I’d shouted at?

I tried to move towards him, but my feet wouldn’t budge. His face… What was that expression?

It wasn’t good. Oh God, it wasn’t good.

I clutched at my hair, my breath escaping with a rasping sound through constricted airways. I couldn’t hear whatever he was about to say, I couldn’t, I couldn’t…

“Mr Lewis,” said the doctor, his face neither confirming nor alleviating my fears, “come with me please.”

I remember rehearsing what I wanted to say.

I like you. A lot. I mean, when I say I like you…

I’ve been thinking about you non-stop this week. And the week before that. And the week before…

Can I kiss you? Would that be okay? What I mean is, do you want to…

I’ve been thinking about touching you. Not like that! Well, okay, a bit like that…

Do you like me? I mean, not like a friend, but…

My heart was racing, heat pooling inside my school shirt. I discreetly pressed my palms against my thighs, blotting the sweat against my trousers. The close confines of the narrowboat went from feeling cosy to claustrophobic, and the warmth emanating from the little coal stove suddenly seemed madly disproportionate to its size.

Just say it!

But I didn’t know what to say. Words that had sounded right when spoken to my bedroom mirror every evening that week now sounded ridiculous inside my head.

I could just reach out and pull her towards me, cup her chin in my hand and turn her face to mine. That’s how it happened in the films. But the idea of just making a pass at her filled me with panic. What if she pushed me off? What if I missed? What if she didn’t even like me like that?

I watched her face as she flicked through the textbook on the little table in front of us. I wasn’t even sure what she was trying to teach me, had barely taken in a word she’d said that afternoon.

Just say it, you idiot!

I opened my mouth, resolved that I was just going to go for it. But what came out was a tiny squeak at the back of my throat as nerves overwhelmed me. I quickly disguised the squeak with a single cough, which sounded so fake that I then thought I’d better cough again.

“Are you okay?” asked Libby, glancing up at me.

The last shards of afternoon sunshine sliced through the little window behind us, and the long strands of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail shone golden-brown in the light. My fingers itched to reach out and tuck the strands behind her ear, just like she always did. I ran my eyes over her perfectly smooth skin, the little freckles on her nose, the curve of her lips…

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” I muttered, tearing my eyes away and pulling at my school tie, which was hanging in a loose knot against my thumping heart, “just a dry throat.”

“I’ll get you some more water,” she said, spying my empty glass.

She shuffled along the seat and squeezed herself out from behind the table, taking the three steps into her kitchen area.

I loved being on this boat, always had done. As a young child, I’d eagerly explored every nook and cranny, like an excitable puppy. Just look where this girl got to live! A floating hobbit house! Even now I was fascinated by the compactness of everything. It was like living inside a tunnel, one