The One We Fell in Love With (3 page)

In some ways, though, she did me a favour. I had to wear my hair up the next day and I got so many compliments that it became my signature look. Sometimes she’d wind me up by wearing hers
in a bun, too, but she never could do neat and tidy so the teachers always knew something was off.

I hunt out the pole from the airing cupboard and hook it onto the ring to open the hatch door and bring down the ladder. A few minutes later, I’m up in the dingy, dusty space surrounded by
boxes. I have no idea where to start, so I grab one and haul it towards me.

It’s almost an hour before I come across the first diary. I recognise it immediately, despite the stickers plastering the front cover. My sisters and I were given identical purple
notebooks by our Uncle Simon for our seventeenth birthdays, padlocked with tiny locks. I wrote in mine religiously, although I’d probably cringe at reading it now.

I prise back one corner of the cover and start in surprise at the scratchy handwriting I can just make out inside.

I knew Phoebe kept a diary – everyone knew Phoebe kept a diary – she was always entering writing competitions and telling people she wanted to be an author one day. But Eliza? I
never would have pegged her as the diary-writing type. Songs, sure. But pouring her heart out to inanimate objects? Not her style. Even her songs are weird and quirky – there’s no
soul-baring in her lyrics, not the ones that I’ve heard, anyway.

Yet this is definitely her scrawl. When did she start writing this?

I scrutinise the lock. I lost my own key once, so I have a fair idea how to crack it. I reach up and remove one of the bobby pins that were unsuccessfully securing my bun and poke it in the
keyhole, wiggling it around. A moment later, there’s a click and I’m in.

I jolt at the sight of the first entry date: Friday 13th May, a whole decade ago. Friday 13th May – that was the day Angus moved in!

I slam the diary shut again. I
knew
it! I
knew
he had got to her, too! She always went around with this couldn’t-care-less attitude, but she didn’t fool me.

Guilt slithers like a snake in my gut as I open up the diary again. A chance to get inside Eliza’s head? How could I resist? She’d kill me if she found out, of course, but it serves
her right for not helping to pack up the house.

I press back the pages and begin to read...

Eliza

I’m sitting on the wall, swinging my legs as far back as they’ll go before they hit brick and bounce off again. This has always been one of my favourite places to
sit at home: out the front, squeezed between a gap in the hedge, watching the world go by. We live on a tree-lined street in one of the nicer parts of Sale, a small town about twenty minutes’
drive southwest of Manchester. My friends wonder why I haven’t moved closer to the city, seeking a buzz instead of what they perceive as suburban boredom – ‘suboreban’
– but I like it here. I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun, trying to catch a few rays before it goes behind the hovering clouds. It’s been a shitty summer so far. I hope
Phoebe’s having more luck with the weather in France. I still can’t believe she didn’t invite me. I picture her now, laughing and carefree with the sun on her face and the
snow-capped mountains behind her, just like in the photos she used to send me. It makes me smile, too.

My ears prick up as a car turns into the road and, sure enough, it’s Angus.

A few strays from the kaleidoscope of butterflies that resides in my heart burst out through the bars of my ribcage and make their way into my stomach. The buggers are under much better control
these days, but I’m annoyed at the few that won’t behave themselves.

I watch as Angus parks his old Land Rover Defender on his mum’s drive, remembering with affection the day he brought it home from his uncle’s farm. It was painted bright orange
within weeks.

‘Are you still driving that shitmobile?’ I call as he gets out of the car.

‘It’s a classic!’ he exclaims, flashing me a cheeky grin as he slams the door shut behind him. His dark-blond hair is as dishevelled and windswept as ever. Phoebe said he plans
to tidy it up for the wedding, I recall with a pang.

‘Hello trouble,’ he says, coming over.

‘Speak for yourself.’ I don’t get down from the wall and he doesn’t try to kiss me hello.

‘I haven’t seen you for ages. How are you doing?’

I glance over my shoulder in the direction of my childhood home, although I can’t see it for the foliage in the way. ‘Bit gutted,’ I reply with a shrug.

‘Yeah.’ He regards me with concern. ‘I heard your mum’s selling up.’

‘She’s already accepted an offer.’

‘That was quick,’ he comments.

‘Mmm. I’m sure she could have got more if Rose hadn’t been rushing her.’

He gives a small, pitying smile that makes me regret bitching. Angus has never liked it.

‘Have you heard from Phoebe?’ I change the subject before he does.

‘Nah.’ He shakes his head. ‘She’s only been gone a couple of days.’

‘Feels like longer.’

There’s that smile again.

Phoebe is my older sister by twelve minutes, my beloved middle sister. In a funny way, she has always come between Rose and me. She’d like to say she bridges the gap, but actually, she
widens it. Rose and I have always fought for her attention.

‘Are you back for the weekend?’ I ask Angus.

‘No, for the whole week. I want to get the apartment sorted out before Phoebe returns.’

‘Trying to soften the blow?’

‘Something like that.’ He smiles half-heartedly.

Phoebe wasn’t keen on moving back to Manchester. She’s only doing it because she promised Angus years ago that they would. He wants to live closer to his mum and property is cheaper
up here, so they can afford to buy something of their own at last. Plus they’re both able to work freelance – she’s a translator and he’s a journalist – but
she’s planning to take a break from her translation work to pen the novel that she’s always wanted to write. When we were younger, she was always bounding into my bedroom, desperate to
tell me about her latest story idea before it slipped from her mind. I could’ve listened to her chat away for hours. She was very engaging. She still is.

‘What about you? Have you found anywhere to live yet?’ Angus asks.

‘Nope.’ I steel myself for his reaction. ‘I’m thinking about moving to London.’

‘You’re shitting me.’ He gapes at me. ‘You’re moving to London the second Phoebe and I leave? Are you avoiding us?’

I force a roll of my eyes.

No, just you.

‘Come in for a coffee?’ he asks hopefully, jerking his head towards his house.

‘Nah, your mum will want you to herself. Maybe catch you later, though,’ I say out of politeness.

‘Are you up to anything tonight?’ He ignores his cue to leave.

‘I’ve got a gig at a working men’s club. Should be fun.’

He smirks at my caustic tone. ‘Give me the address and I’ll pop in.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I know I don’t.’

His mum appears then, and proceeds to sweep him up in a hug. I take the opportunity to escape while I can.

Phoebe

‘What’s your greatest fear?’

Josie and I are well into our second bottle of wine and the evening has taken a turn for the philosophical.

I think for a long time before replying to her question, distracted by the movement of the waiting staff and the irritating non-appearance of our food.

‘Come on.’ She presses me for an answer, and I’m too fuzzy-headed to come up with an alternative to the truth.

‘That I’m not the one.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asks with confusion.

‘I don’t know if I’m the one for Angus.’

‘Of course you are!’ she scoffs. ‘You guys are perfect for each other! What on earth would make you think you’re not?’ Josie is comically flabbergasted, but my
corresponding smile is half-hearted.

The truth is, sometimes I think that Angus and I are together for one reason and it’s very simple: I saw him first.

I was riding my bicycle home from netball practice after school one afternoon when I spied the hottie getting a box out of the back of the Roger’s Removals truck parked on the
Templetons’ driveway.

You know how sometimes you drive into danger when you should be driving away from it? It is a fact that
loads
of people crash into cars parked on the hard shoulder of a motorway because
drivers inadvertently follow the line of their sight.

Well, I’m not saying Angus was dangerous, but he was extremely attractive and I was understandably drawn to him.

‘Whoa!’ I remember him gasping, jumping out of the way as I swerved towards him.

‘Shit, sorry!’ I screeched to a halt.

He took in my netball uniform with a bemused, lovely smile, and I, in turn, took in his lack of a Roger’s Removals T-shirt.

‘Are you Mr Templeton’s grandson?’ I asked with delight, also taking in his long legs, toned arms and honey-coloured skin while I was at it. Our elderly neighbour lost his wife
a few months ago, and Mum mentioned something about his daughter and grandson coming to live with him.

‘Er, yeah,’ he responded, shifting the obviously heavy box in his arms. His longish hair was partly obscuring his vision and, as he rested the box on a wall, I noticed the faded band
T-shirt he was wearing, coated with a faint layer of dust. Radiohead – one of Eliza’s favourites. He was
exactly
her type. I couldn’t wait to show him to her.

But then he flicked his hair out of his eyes and they were so beautiful, they sort of stumped me.

‘I’m Angus,’ he introduced himself, his lips tilting up at the corners.

‘Phoebe,’ I replied, feeling inexplicably nervous. Suddenly the
last
thing I wanted was for him and Eliza to meet. His eyes were multi-coloured and unusual – one was
mostly green and the other predominantly hazel. ‘Have you come to visit your granddad before?’ I was perplexed as to how I could have missed him.

He nodded. ‘A few times.’

Mr Templeton had always kept to himself. I sometimes saw him from my bedroom window sitting out in the garden, but the most we spoke was when one of our netball balls escaped over the back fence
onto his property, and then it would only be returned with a lecture about flowerbed damage. I certainly hadn’t got into a conversation about his drop-dead-gorgeous grandson, but I wished I
had.

At that point an attractive woman in her forties interrupted us. She called out hello and waved, while ducking in and out of the removal men still ferrying belongings into the house like
ants.

‘Hi!’ I called back, assuming this was his mum and preparing to go into full charm offensive mode.

‘Making friends already!’ she exclaimed with delight.

‘Mmm,’ Angus murmured. ‘Mum, this is Phoebe,’ he introduced us. ‘And this is my mum, Judy.’

‘Phoebe!’ She clapped her hands together with glee. ‘You’re one of the triplets!’

So she knew more about me than I knew about her.

‘You live next door?’ Angus asked, his unusual eyes widening slightly. Okay, so they had
both
clearly been informed of our existence, but it had taken Angus longer to cotton
on.

‘Yeah,’ I replied.

‘And your sisters are Rose and Elizabeth, is that right?’ Judy checked.

‘Yes,’ I said with a smile. ‘But don’t call Eliza “Elizabeth” if you want her to answer. She changed her name when she was twelve because she thought it
sounded cooler.’ I said this with a light-hearted eyes-cast-to-the-heavens look and felt an immediate stab of remorse for poking fun at her.

‘I’ve never met identical triplets,’ Judy mused. ‘I know twins – beautiful little girls called Fifi and Bo – but they’re not identical.’

People were
always
telling us their twin stories, so I’d had enough practice at smiling and looking interested. I’d even heard of a couple of sets of triplets over the
years, but never any
identical
triplets. We won.

‘You’ll be able to play Spot the Difference with us later,’ I joked.

Strangers had been known to stop us on the street to do this, and one time we even featured in a Guess the Triplet quiz at school – Mum and Dad supplied the photographs. Rose was
mortified, bless her. She never liked being under the spotlight.

Angus seemed in no hurry to re-join the removal men, and I soon discovered that he and his mum had moved from Brighton because Mr Templeton had recently had a bad fall. Apparently he
hadn’t been managing at all well on his own since Judy’s mum passed away, but I sensed that there was more to the move than that. I also got the impression that Angus was less than
thrilled to be there.

‘It’s all a bit tough on you, isn’t it, love?’ Judy said, rubbing his back conciliatorily.

Angus shrugged and looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t bat her hand away like other boys I knew would’ve.

‘He’s got his A Levels coming up, and starting a new school at this time of year is not ideal,’ she explained.

That seemed to be understating it.

‘That sounds hard,’ I sympathised. ‘I’ve got mine coming up, too.’

We discovered that we were going to the same school so I offered to show him around. He accepted, pleased, but then my thoughts darted to Eliza and it occurred to me that there was a whole
weekend between then and Monday. If I wanted to get in with Angus before my sisters, I had to be quick about it.

‘In fact,’ I said, thinking on the spot. ‘If you’re not too busy unpacking tomorrow, we could go and have lunch in town?’

Angus looked slightly taken aback, but quickly agreed. ‘Sure,’ he said with a nod. ‘That would be great.’

‘Cool.’ We smiled at each other for a moment and I only broke eye contact when I noticed Judy beaming at us from out of the corner of my eye. ‘Guess I’d better let you
get on,’ I said before my face had a chance to betray me. It was a bit embarrassing to be organising a date in front of his mum. ‘But see you tomorrow. Around eleven?’

‘Sounds good,’ he confirmed.

I lost it as soon as I went inside, tearing up the stairs.