Rewrite the Stars. Emma Heatherington

follows me outside and we stand in the slushy snow watching waves crash on a grey foamy sea in the near distance. I shiver, clutching my bag that holds my dress and other bits and pieces from last night, while Tom paces around me, smoking a cigarette and waiting for a reaction. But I can’t give him one right now.

      ‘None of this has to ruin us, does it?’ pleads Tom. ‘We can’t let it happen again, no way. I have feelings for you, Charlie. We can’t keep letting other people get in our way. Do you have feelings for me, too? Tell me.’

      He puts his cold hand on my face and rests it there, looking deep into my soul. A hot tear trickles down onto his fingers from my eye but he doesn’t move his hand away.

      ‘I do,’ I say to him. ‘More than you’ll ever know.’

      He slips his arms around my waist now and pulls me close to him, the warmth of his body soothing me instantly. I close my eyes, lean on his chest and feel the rush that fills me up from head to toe. I have to be with him. I just have to.

      ‘Last night at the bar,’ he says to me, like he’s breathing his last words to me. ‘Charlie, I didn’t just turn up there unexpectedly, you know that.’

      I’m confused now. I look up at his face.

      ‘I was hoping you’d be there,’ he says. ‘I had absolutely no idea if I was on some wild goose chase, but I went to Pip’s Bar because I was looking for you. I had this mad hope you might be there, just because it’s the area of town you used to live in, and then I gave up and went out the back for a cigarette but … well then, there you were. It was like it was meant to be. Mad, really, when you think of it.’

      I gulp, stunned a little that it worked out as it did. My friends and I hadn’t planned to go there last night. It was only because of the weather that we did. He couldn’t have known. He took a gamble. He’s telling the truth.

      I look up to the black, snow-filled night sky and the moon that reflects down over Dublin Bay. We didn’t just meet last night by accident. Sometimes things are meant to happen. Some things are meant to be.

      ‘You should be a detective,’ I laugh, and he kisses me on the forehead, not lightly like he has done before, but a long, lingering kiss that makes me hold him even tighter. I give myself to him, leaning in and absorbing every ounce of the man I’ve wanted to hold me and touch me for so long.

      ‘I wish we could stay here forever,’ he whispers to me, and I feel exactly the same. I love this place more than anywhere I’ve ever been. This moment, this kiss, this knowing that for once in my life the planets aligned and brought us here together again.

      I think I love Tom Farley, but then I always knew I did.

      ‘Look, just let me talk to Matthew once and for all,’ I whisper and when he looks at me, I can see the pain and worry in his eyes. ‘I’ll explain to him that he can’t get between us, no matter what happened before, and we’ll see where this all goes. I can’t take a chance on losing you again, Tom, and I know you feel the same.’

      ‘You sure?’

      I nod at him. ‘I’ve never been so sure,’ I tell him. ‘We’ve waited five years for this. I don’t want to lose you again. Never. It’s happened once and it will never happen again.’