“The thing you need to realise,” Ava said as she sipped her tea, “is that you don’t need saving.”
Emily stared at her uncertainly. “What…what do you mean, exactly?”
“I’ve been where you are,” Ava said matter-of-factly. “As I’ve told you before. Different situations, of course, and we reacted differently, as well. But I’ve felt…damaged. Different from everyone else.”
“Yes…”
“And then Jace came along and saw me for who I really was, who I could be. And that felt like the most wonderful thing in the world. But he didn’t save me.” Ava paused. “He simply thought I was worth saving.”
A tear threatened to drip down Emily’s cheek and she blinked rapidly to keep it back. “Evidently Owen doesn’t think I’m worth saving.”
“He does,” Ava replied with sudden ferocity. “I know he does. It’s just that he’s too stupid and proud to see it.” She shook her head, giving a long, frustrated sigh. “Give him some time and space. I’m sure he’ll come round. You know Jace was the same? Too proud, especially when everything was taken from him.”
“Everything was taken from him? When was that?”
Ava hesitated, and then shrugged. “I don’t think he’d mind me telling you. A long time ago, Jace got in a fight in a pub and punched a bloke. Unfortunately the bloke died, and Jace was sent to prison for seven years.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “I had no idea…”
“Well, he doesn’t go around shouting about it,” Ava said dryly. “For obvious reasons. And part of the story is that the bloke in question was Henry’s younger brother.”
“What…”
“Which is why he got such a stiff sentence. But that’s Henry’s story to tell, not mine.”
“Actually, Owen said something about all this,” Emily said slowly. “About Henry and Jace. He didn’t say what, but he referenced it.”
“Jace got the job here at Willoughby Manor because Lady Stokeley thought Henry had been unfair. And Jace and Owen became friends because they’d had somewhat similar experiences, although Owen never went to prison.” Ava smiled wryly. “But don’t you see, Emily? Everyone’s got stories. Sorrows. Regrets and things that make them feel less than, like nobody would want them. You’re not the only one.”
“Yes, I do realise that,” Emily said. She’d been learning it since she’d moved to Willoughby Close.
“But do you really realise it?” Ava persisted, her tone both gentle and challenging. “Do you really believe it, deep down inside, that you are worth not just saving, but fighting for?”
“It’s whether Owen believes it…”
“I know he believes it about you. Whether he believes it about himself is another matter.”
“About himself! But…” Emily shook her head. “He has everything together.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Have you not been listening to a single thing I’ve said?”
Emily let out a little laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I have a lot to think about.” She just hoped Owen did, too.
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re looking well, Mum.” For once Emily managed not to inject her voice with that manic note of cheerfulness. She sounded normal, and more amazingly, she felt normal.
It had been a week since Owen’s devastating decision to end their fledgling relationship, and Emily had worked hard on coming to terms with a lot of things. Fortunately she had amazing friends to help her along, something that felt like a miracle. She had Ava’s brisk but loving talking-tos, and Alice’s sympathy and amazing muffins, and Olivia’s kindly chats. Emily had apologised for getting cross with her a few weeks ago, and Olivia had apologised again for interfering.
“Actually, I need people to interfere,” Emily had said frankly. “I’m hopeless on my own.”
“Aren’t we all,” Olivia had returned with a laugh and a smile.
She had Cass, who was growing bigger by the day, and a job she was really starting to love, and even Henry’s brisk cheerfulness to keep her on track.
Yesterday she’d mustered her courage to ask Henry about his relationship with Jace.
“You’ve heard about that, have you?” he’d said with a sigh. “I’m not surprised. Wychwood-on-Lea really is a small place.”
“I think I already know what happened,” Emily had told him. “And I know it was a long time ago. But how do you feel about it now?”
Henry was silent for a long moment, staring at the ceiling as he reflection on her question and how to answer it. “The truth?” he finally said, and his voice held a timbre of sadness she’d never heard from him before. “I feel regret. At the time, I was so angry, and so sure I was right. And most people who knew me would have thought I could never, ever change from that position.” He dropped his gaze to look at her directly, the expression on his face both bleak and wry. “But I did, with Alice’s help. With a lot of people’s help. And I realised that everyone can change—myself included. Which was quite a big thing to grasp, for someone like me.”
Everyone can change. It meant that she could, and was, and she didn’t even need Owen to do it. And it meant Owen could change, as well, which she hoped he would, at least in relation to his feelings or lack of them for her. But just as Ava had said you couldn’t save anyone, Emily realised you couldn’t change them, either. And so she’d spent the last week working and waiting, hoping and healing, and here she was, visiting her mum, six days before she was due to come back with her to Willoughby Close.
“I am feeling a bit better,” Naomi allowed with the smallest of smiles. She still looked worn and somehow faded, as if something essential had been leached out of her, but there was a faint spark to her eyes that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago.
Emily put the bunch of pink tulips she’d brought in a vase by the window. It was the end of April and spring had finally sprung, complete with blue skies, lemony sunshine,
