remove one of my own from my chest. I loved how cheeky he was, and then he kissed me.
The kiss knocked me for six, so much so that I didn’t know what to say afterwards. I think I blurted something along the lines of: ‘I’ve never kissed a fireman before.’
‘Neither have I,’ he replied.
I assumed he was like me, just after a good time, but he later confessed than he wasn’t the ladies’ man I thought he was, and that he just wanted me. It took me a little longer to realise this, but I got there in the end.
It’s weird, to think that, before, when we met, I thought of his job as the ultimate sexy-man job. I just thought of his big, strong arms and his stripper uniform. These days, all I think about is how dangerous his job is, and how I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.
The beach house is just as beautiful as I remember it: brilliant-white walls, contemporary architecture, with big windows, multiple balconies and an entire beach for a back garden. Thanks to our detour to Boots, judging by all the cars parked on the driveway, I’d say we were the last ones to arrive.
‘Of course we’re late,’ I laugh to myself.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Leo assures me, trapping me in a bear hug before lifting me up off the floor and spinning around a few times. He always knows how to make me feel better. ‘Come on, let’s go inside.’
I take a moment to glance around the garden. It really is such a beautiful summer’s day. The house sits right on the beachfront and, right now, all I want to do is take a walk along the coast. Unfortunately, I’ve got a family inside waiting for me – probably an angry family, because even though I am consistently late, they’re always surprised and offended by it.
‘Hello,’ I call out as we walk through the large front door. ‘Anyone home?’
My voice echoes through the large living room.
‘Mia!’ my sister squeaks as she charges towards me, seemingly from out of nowhere.
‘Hello,’ I reply, unable to muster up my sister’s level of enthusiasm. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Amazing,’ she replies. ‘We were just about to eat without you. Come on.’
Belle grabs me by the wrist, ready to drag me along, sort of like the way an excited child would drag you downstairs on Christmas morning.
‘Who’s here?’ I ask, wiggling free of her grasp.
My sister greets Leo with a kiss on each cheek and a lingering hug before turning her attention back to me.
‘Me, Dan, Mum, Dad, Mike and Rosie, Gran – Granddad wasn’t feeling up to it. That’s everyone. We thought we’d keep it at close family only, so parents, siblings and their significant others,’ Belle explains.
‘Cool,’ I reply, a little too unenthusiastically for my sister’s liking. Belle pulls a face.
‘I’ve put you two in your old room, the one you shared back when you met,’ she beams. ‘My gosh, doesn’t it feel like a long time ago?’
‘It does and it doesn’t,’ Leo replies with a smile. ‘I mean, sometimes it feels like we met just yesterday, but I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.’
As I watch my sister visibly melt, I wonder how I’ll clean her off the floor. To be fair, even though I’m not really a mushy person, even I thought that was pretty sweet. Leo is always saying cute little things, reminding me how much he loves me – it’s nice.
‘Right, dinner,’ Belle says with a clap of her hands. ‘This way.’
The dining room is just as we left it, right down to the large, carbohydrate-heavy meal on the table. The only difference this time is that there are fewer of us, so I don’t have to sit at the kids’ table.
‘Hello, Mia,’ my mum says. Her words aren’t delivered with the kind of warmth you’d expect from a mother speaking to her firstborn. It feels more like they’re uttered out of a combination of obligation and manners. ‘Hello, Leo.’
A nice, frosty Harrison family reception, just as I expected. When I made the decision to give up life in LA and move back to Kent, it felt like an opportunity to reconnect with the family I’d spent four years avoiding. Instead, I still avoid them, only now it’s much harder because I only live down the road. Leo and I stop by for Sunday dinner every now and then, and then there are obligatory family gatherings like this one. Leo lives for family life so he loves visiting our families, but for me it’s something I endure as best I can. Today, being back here at this beach house where so much went on is really going to test my endurance.
We all exchange pleasantries before Leo and I take our seats at the table.
‘So, what are we having?’ Leo asks excitedly, rubbing his hands.
‘Pasta with meatballs,’ Belle announces – probably an attempt to appeal to Leo’s Italian side and it works. He sits down and grabs a plate, serving himself a generous portion.
I take a seat and serve myself a smaller helping. Mia from four years ago wouldn’t have touched a dish so high in carbs, but Mia from four years ago had abs you could crack a tooth on – things change.
‘We were just talking about how quickly these four years have gone by,’ my mum says, filling us in.
‘Yeah, I suppose they have,’ I reply. Sometimes it feels like much longer, though.
‘It was a great wedding,’ Mike, Dan’s brother, pipes up. ‘It’s a shame you missed it,’ he tells his fiancée, Rosie, who smiles sweetly.
‘It’s a miracle it even happened at all,’ Belle says.
‘How so?’ Rosie asks curiously.
‘Oh, just, you know, wedding stuff,’ Belle backtracks. Well, we did say we’d never talk about it again.
It’s fair to say that, even though Belle’s wedding turned out great in the end, things were a little bit disastrous. I feel like she still holds me responsible for a lot of what happened, which is probably why my relationship with my sister isn’t great.
In fact, it would be fair to say that my relationship with my entire family isn’t great. Moving back here was the best decision I’ve ever made, because I have Leo now, but I still feel like an outcast sometimes. Perhaps it’s because I lived away from them for so many years, but as hard as I try to fit in, they still make me feel like a bit of an imposter sometimes. They don’t treat me like a black sheep, they treat me like a wolf.
My mum and dad, a middle-class couple in their early sixties, are exactly the kind of people you’d expect them to be. They’re so serious and stuffy – just like my grandparents before them, so I have no doubt my sister will end up a similar way. I’ve always tried so hard to be like anything but the kind of people who raised me, because, for such a tight-knit family, I feel like there’s a real emotional disconnect among us.
I’ve always struggled to remember life before my sister, Annabelle, came along. Beautiful, bouncing baby Belle, who burst onto the scene and immediately became the centre of attention. My only real memory of life before Belle was the
