The Other Side of Leaving, page 1
© 2022 Jacqueline Ramsden
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: jramsdenwriter@gmail.com
Cover design, formatting and typesetting are products of the author. For more information, contact the above email address.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to real events or people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
Also by Jacqueline Ramsden:
All the Right Wrong Reasons
The Art of Growing
Mistletoe and Ivy
The Other Side of Leaving
Jacqueline Ramsden
For everyone who has ever felt unsure.
Take all the time you need.
It’s never too late.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
Content warnings
Discussion and depictions of anxiety and depression, on-page sex, and some angst.
One
“Somebody hug me,” a voice squealed.
Tilly saw a blur of short, dark red hair as someone gripped her, arms vise tight, and bounced up and down until Tilly thought she might throw up. She eyed Snap over the shoulder of the person holding her, their face was amused and bewildered as they watched this random stranger half-throw Tilly around like a rag doll.
Tilly would have words for them later.
She stumbled slightly as the person finally stopped moving and stepped back. It took an additional moment for her brain to stop spinning in her skull like the disturbed flakes in a snowglobe. Then, she was actually glad of the hands still holding her arms. Had the stranger fully let go, she feared she’d have fallen down.
“Hello,” said the same voice that had screeched about being hugged the minute Tilly and Snap had stepped foot in Tapenade, the local cafe that served an adventurous mix of Greek fusion cuisine that didn’t always go right and to-die-for smoothies that always did.
Tilly stared at hazel eyes and freckled skin and that gorgeous, dark red hair and momentarily forgot how to speak.
“Sorry,” the random hugger said, her exuberant smile faltering. “I guess I really should have asked and not just demanded. I was too excited. I’m really sorry.”
Snap cleared their throat, sending Tilly a look that told her to get out of her reverie and say something.
She shook her head, feeling more foolish than when the woman had been throwing her around. “No, sorry. It’s completely fine. I was just… caught off guard. I’m so glad you were so excited.”
Freckles relaxed, that full, wide smile taking over her face again, mesmerizing Tilly. “Thanks. I just applied for a job at my favorite animation studio. It’s in LA and I’ve been waiting for this for years. I can’t believe it’s finally happening. I mean, they’ve probably got loads of applications, so maybe I won’t get it, but still, at least I’ll have tried and I’m also pretty proud of myself that I finally have enough experience to apply. I’m an illustrator and that’s still really amazing and totally fine to keep doing if I don’t get the job, but it would be the coolest thing ever to finally get to move to LA and be an animator. Plus, all that sun. Can you imagine?”
By the time she stopped speaking to take a breath, Tilly felt like she was spinning. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d learned this much about someone in less than five minutes. Beside her, Snap looked similarly lost but a lot more amused, a small smirk on their face as they looked from Freckles to Tilly and back again.
“I’m Frankie Holt,” Freckles said, holding out a hand in a fairly redundant greeting.
Still, Tilly’s arm reached out slowly and automatically to accept the handshake. “Tilly Fenchurch.”
“Snap,” they said when Frankie turned to them, still holding Tilly’s hand and offering her other one to them.
“Snap?” Frankie repeated, tilting her head. “Cool name.”
They beamed. “Thanks. It’s short for Snapdragon. Snapdragon Sycamore. Chose it myself.”
“Ooh, like a fantasy character. You have great taste.”
“I like to think so,” they said, pulling their hand back and flourishing a bow.
Frankie laughed, watching them, and Tilly wondered whether the two were flirting. She’d never been great at telling, but she knew there tended to be giggling involved. She thought. She was pretty sure.
As the two jumped into conversation about LA and the weather and why that was preferable to their tiny Vermont town of Coalfield, Tilly glanced down at Frankie’s outfit—a short-sleeved summer shirt and light blue jeans. Everything about Frankie seemed more suited to LA than New England. Tilly felt like she belonged on a Greek island—more a match for the blue and white decor of Tapenade than the overcast day out the window.
“And how about you?” Frankie asked, turning back to Tilly. “What’s your favorite type of climate?”
“Oh.” Tilly felt herself blushing, inwardly cursing her pale skin. “I haven’t really been anywhere to know.”
It was true. Her moms were homebodies and they’d seldom left the state even for vacations. A couple of times, when she was a kid, they’d gone camping in New Hampshire or Maine, but, basically, Tilly was Vermont born and bred. She’d gone to Burlington for college but happily returned home to help run her moms’ business once she’d graduated.
“Well, that’s okay,” Frankie said, grinning sincerely. “You’re still young. Loads of time to see the world. I’ve just been excited about LA since I visited when I was fifteen. I need almost constant sunlight to be happy.”
Tilly laughed along when Frankie and Snap did, but she felt like an outsider to their joke. The idea that something was wrong with her bounced around her head, not for the first time.
For as long as she’d known them, Snap’s family had been on a mission to see every state in the US. Even now Snap and their siblings were grown, the family still got together to visit a new state each year. They’d spent hours telling Tilly about the places they’d seen, the things they’d done. And Tilly stayed here. She balanced the books for the family woodworking business, managed the website and orders, and watched her moms carve incredible furniture for people she’d never meet all over the country.
“She might not have gone very far,” Snap said, looking up at the menu as if they didn’t know what they were ordering, “but she’s done some super cool stuff. Her moms are real outdoorsy, so they get pretty adventurous.”
Frankie’s head whipped back to Tilly. “Your moms? Like lesbians? That’s so cool. I’m a lesbian too.”
Tilly smiled awkwardly. “Well, one of them is pan, but yeah, two moms. They’re really great.”
“Are you queer too?”
Before Tilly could even think of a response, Snap snorted. “Nah. She was the token straight girl in our friend group at school.”
“Ah.” Something seemed to die slightly in Frankie’s eyes and, while she recovered it quickly, Tilly hated that it happened at all. Especially since she wasn’t even sure that was correct. But that wasn’t something she could get into with a stranger and Snap. Their friendship might have survived the last ten years, but they were so sure Tilly was straight, and they were so very queer, and she was scared of what it might mean to say she wasn’t sure. They’d always been so sure and so clear. She was a little bit unsure, but it didn’t feel like enough to matter.
She shook her head and forced a neutrally happy expression onto her face.
“Strawberry peach?” Snap asked, signaling the menu with their head.
Tilly nodded, somewhat mechanically. “And honey ricotta toast, please.”
“I’ll get it,” Frankie said quickly, stepping through the two of them and towards the counter. “My apology for throwing myself at you without checking first,” she added, turning to flash Tilly a grin.
“You really don’t need to—” Tilly started, reaching after Frankie, but it was too late. Frankie was already ordering.
Snap laughed at the look on Tilly’s face. “Look at you getting lunch from a pretty woman.”
Tilly choked on nothing. “What? No. It’s not like that.”
“Like what, dear?” Their innocent expression was entirely put on and Tilly had no idea how to reply. “I’m going to go order. You should sit down.”
Tilly turned, blinking. Was she supposed to sit at Frankie’s table? It would be weird to sit at a different table when Frankie was off getting her food right now, but it would also be rude to sit down without being invited. Or was Frankie ordering her food also an invitation? Tilly had no idea.
“Sitting down?” Frankie said, reappearing beside Tilly and stifling a giggle at the way Tilly startled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Your food will be right over, so might as well get comfy.”
Tilly nodded, following Frankie into her side of the booth, leaving the other side for Snap. And it was only then that she noticed the glass on Frankie’s table, right beside her rose gold laptop. “Strawberry peach?”
Frankie grinned. “You know it. It’s the very best flavor here and that’s saying something.”
“Yeah. It’s my favorite too.”
“You come here often?”
Tilly nodded. “All the time.”
“Huh. Weird we’ve never run into each other before. Though, to be fair, I usually avoid rush hours since I make my own schedule and like having a seat.”
“That’s cool. I guess I could do that, but I usually just join Snap for their lunch break.”
“Oh, yeah? What do you do?”
“Well, they work at the queer bookshop in town.”
“That’s right. I knew I recognized them from somewhere.” Frankie looked delighted to have finally placed them. “And you? What do you do?”
“Uh. I work for the family business.” Tilly realized as it was happening that she was terrible at talking about what she did. Most people she spoke to, she’d known for years, they already knew what she did.
Frankie twisted more in her seat to look at Tilly, leaning an elbow on the table and watching her eagerly. “Cool. What’s the business?”
Tilly’s fingers played with the zip on her raincoat. “My moms are woodworkers. They make custom furniture. I manage the books and the website and stuff.”
A grin lit up Frankie’s face. The way the sun seemed to radiate from within her was incredibly distracting. Tilly wondered whether that was the reason she could dress so lightly—the sun was literally inside her body.
“That’s really cool. Can you carve and stuff too, then?”
“Uhh…”
“Yes, she can,” Snap said, sliding into the other side of the booth and shooting Tilly a pointed look. “She’s great at it.”
Frankie looked thrilled, but Tilly felt her eyes go wide as she shook her head. “No, no, no. I know a couple of things from my moms, but I never work on commissions or orders. I’m nowhere near that good.”
“She totally is, she just doesn’t know how good she is.”
“You know,” Frankie told her, her expression softening, “it’s okay to acknowledge your own strengths. And that’s a really cool one.”
“I know,” Tilly said, despite the fact that she absolutely did not know that. “I’m just really not that great. I promise. Nothing compared to my moms.”
Frankie hummed, eyes narrowing in a way that said she did not believe Tilly. “Well, I might have a new place I need to furnish soon. What’s the website?”
“Oh, no. You don’t need to do that—”
“It’s Fenchurch Furniture,” Snap said, grinning at Tilly.
Frankie gasped and pulled her laptop towards her. “Ah, here it is. Nice website.”
Tilly felt like she was going to melt through the seat with the way Frankie looked at her. Clearly, it had been too long since she’d spent time around new people. She wasn’t used to it and felt ridiculous.
“Oh my god,” Frankie laughed. “‘Woodn’t you love to see our tables?’ That’s hilarious.”
Snap laughed too hard for a joke they’d heard and seen a million times, while Tilly just looked at the table and hoped her lunch would arrive soon. She desperately needed something to do other than being the center of attention.
“Isn’t she the funniest?” Snap said to Frankie. “I love that joke.”
Tilly’s brow furrowed. They’d laughed when she’d told them about putting that on the website, but she hadn’t realized they had such strong feelings about it.
Frankie reached her hand to where Snap’s rested near her on the table. “The most hilarious.”
And Tilly realized she did have something else to do. She could be the spark to ignite something between Snap and Frankie and, while she was happy for her friend, that didn’t feel less awkward than being the center of attention. She hated being the third wheel. Now, she wanted her food to show up quickly so she could get out of there. If Frankie hadn’t ordered for her, she might have run out the door then and there. She doubted either of them would miss her.
Two
Frankie slipped her phone out of her pocket, hit the button on the side to turn the screen on, and, seeing no new notifications, put it back in her coat.
“It’s only been two days,” June said, fondly exasperated. “You have to give them time to read your application. Besides, I doubt they’re replying on the weekend.”
“I know,” Frankie replied with a massive grin. “But you never know. Maybe they’re desperate for someone just like me. Plus, you know more than most that too many people work outside their official working hours.”
June sent a dark look at Frankie’s smug expression but didn’t say anything. The pair of them simply continued down Main Street on their way to Marina’s Pizza. Frankie had spent most of the day sketching in the living room and talking loudly about how she was desperate for pizza, partly because she was desperate for pizza, and partly because she was trying to distract June from spending her whole Saturday working.
“We should call into Tapenade,” Frankie announced apropos of nothing.
June stopped walking, her eyes tracing the string lights that zigzagged over Main Street. “Let me get this straight, you spent all day distracting me from staff schedules and store planning to talk about pizza, and, now we’re on our way to get pizza, you suddenly want Tapenade?”
“No.” Frankie smiled and gestured for June to keep moving.
She shook her head. “No? Frankie, so help me God, explain before I turn around and go home.”
Frankie laughed. “I don’t want Tapenade. I want pizza. I just want to stop by Tapenade.”
June’s brow furrowed as she examined Frankie before she deflated entirely, her shoulders slouching and her head rolling down to look at the floor. “Carpentry girl.”
“Blacksmith boy,” Frankie replied sweetly.
“For fuck’s sake, Frankie.”
“Yes, June?” She looped an arm through June’s and began towing her forwards toward both Tapenade and Marina’s.
“She’s not going to be there, you know?”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“The same way I know Neptune hasn’t gone through all of their applications yet and how they won’t be sending you an invitation to interview today.”
“Oh, you think it’ll just be an automatic acceptance? Love that energy for me.”
June huffed. “You’re insufferable.”
“I know, but you love me.”
She hummed but didn’t argue. It would have been pointless either way. Despite their very different energies, the two had been friends basically since they’d moved in together years ago and they both knew they were never getting rid of each other at this point. Nor would they want to, not really, no matter what June said when she thought Frankie was being insufferably upbeat.
The pair made it to Tapenade and Frankie pressed her face up against the front window.
Despite the cool weather outside, the inside looked bright and welcoming and sunny, exactly the way it always did. Alexis was chatting away jovially at the counter to a couple of customers, just as he always did, while Paris was attending to a couple in the corner of the restaurant. Her bright blue apron was the only thing signaling that she was staff and not just another customer.
The only thing missing was Tilly.
“She’s not here, huh?” June said after a moment.
“She’s not. Just as you said.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll catch her next time.”
June took Frankie’s arm this time and began pulling her down the street towards Marina’s again. “You know,” she said after a moment, “it would be easier to just show up at their workshop. You’d definitely be able to run into her there.”
Frankie rolled her eyes. “June, we’ve been through this. If I show up there it looks too stalkery. It’s one thing to know the company and order stuff online, but if I keep showing up and loitering, it’s going to get weird. Plus, I’d go broke before I even got to LA. Their furniture costs exactly as much as it should for such gorgeous pieces, but I’d keep buying things because I’m weak and so it looked like I had a reason to be there. Plus, she works the books and the website and stuff, she’s probably not out front in the workshop, and what am I going to do, ask her moms for her? Explain that I’m some woman she met in Tapenade and I’ve shown up at her place of business just so she’ll speak to me again? Absolutely not.”
