The Things I Know by Amanda Prowse

Author:Amanda Prowse [Prowse, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

NINE

Paddington Station was busy, scarily busy, but undercutting her fear was a thrilling sensation of adventure. Here she was in London. The Big Smoke. Alone. There was no Mum reminding her to keep a hand on her bag and no Mrs Pepper hollering over her shoulder in any crowd, ‘Stay close! Stay close!’

Thomasina noticed that everyone apart from herself seemed to know where they were going. With her mum’s instruction now echoing in her mind, she held her bag close to her chest and studied the Tube map on the wall. People rushed by and there was constant movement and a ricochet of sound that assaulted her senses. She looked around left and right, as if newly stepped from a merry-go-round at the fair, a little dazed and trying to figure out how to stay upright.

The plan had seemed so straightforward in her head. She would confront Grayson and ask him outright if he had felt the same way or whether she had badly misread the situation and he was indeed capable of telling a lie. The outcome would then be one of two things. If he had been telling the truth and did feel the same way, they would make a plan, find a way to navigate life, geography and circumstance . . . because life without him was not half as wonderful as life with him in it. It really was that simple.

If, on the other hand, he was a liar, she would stop pining for him and walk away with her head held high, leaving him in his shitty flat and wishing he too might fall down a well, preferably one with Emery already in it, and she would do as Shelley had suggested: not think too far ahead, but grab life and run with it.

Despite such brave and empowering thoughts, her heart raced at the prospect of their reunion with a mixture of excitement and naked fear, and it would be happening sooner rather than later.

‘Bakerloo line to Baker Street, then the Jubilee line from Baker Street to Canary Wharf, then I can walk the rest.’ She locked this in her mind and descended the stairs that would take her down to the Underground. It felt like the most unnatural thing in the world to be leaving the sunlight and heading beneath the city like a mole or a rat.

‘It’s okay, don’t be scared. You can do this.’ She whispered the self-soothing mantra under her breath. The Tube was crowded, dirty, and she knew that, no matter how exciting, this was a life she would find hard to get used to, instantly missing the fresh air and being able to look up at the big sky. The tiled walls of the station were grimy and the carriage itself felt claustrophobic. She more than understood why her fellow commuters all looked so miserable, if this was how they were forced to spend large chunks of their day. The only positive was that, because no one looked up

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