Phoebe’s heart was heavy, as it always was after visiting the cemetery. The bus carried a handful of other passengers, each lost in their own thoughts.
The vehicle turned off the ring road into the city. Rows of worn-out bungalows and two-storey houses stretched past the window, remnants of the suburbs soon to vanish. In their place, new estates would rise—wide streets, towering blocks of flats, progress sweeping away the past.
On impulse, Phoebe stepped off at the next stop. What if, next time she visited, the neighbourhood she’d grown up in was gone? She wandered down the street, past peeling, squat houses, anxiety gnawing at her. Would she even recognise her old home, where the happiest years of her life had unfolded?
Most windows were shattered, front doors gaping like open mouths in soundless screams. The tenants had long been relocated to modern flats. Empty now, with only the occasional car or bus rumbling past. And then—there it was. Her house. Phoebe lit up at the sight of it, as if greeting an old friend.
Without its people, the house felt hollow, lifeless. The bench by the entrance still stood, though blackened by time. Two doors down, the arm of a crane loomed, ready to tear everything apart. Soon, this place, too, would be rubble.
Phoebe closed her eyes and saw her mother in the second-floor window, watching her among the girls playing hopscotch in the yard. The clatter of dishes drifted through open windows; the scent of fried onions hung in the air. A television murmured from one flat, and from Auntie Nora’s came a shrill voice scolding her drunk husband.
*”Phoebe, lunch!”* Her mother’s voice rang out from a distant past.
Phoebe flinched, eyes snapping open. No mother. No one. Only hollow windows staring back at her.
But the memories wouldn’t stop. They rushed in, unstoppable.
***
*”Phoebe, lunch!”* Her mother called from the window.
She sprinted up the chipped steps to the second floor, bursting into the flat, her mother’s voice scolding before she’d even reached the hallway: *”Wash your hands, then sit down!”* And there was her father, wedged between the table and the fridge, reading the paper, waiting for everyone to gather.
The memory was so vivid she could even smell the sharp tang of cabbage soup. Tears pricked at her eyes, tickling her skin. She wiped them away with her fingertips.
Then she saw herself—schoolbag slung over one shoulder, barely a few steps from home when she heard the thud of Jamie’s footsteps behind her.
*”Oi, Phoebs, wait up!”* he yelled, catching up to walk beside her.
*”Can I copy your algebra homework?”*
*”Why didn’t you come round last night?”* she asked.
*”Your mum looks at me like I’m about to nick something.”*
*”Don’t be daft.”* She tilted her head, studying Jamie’s profile. He’d shot up over the summer. His dark hair was bleached by the sun, his skin tanned. A thin vein pulsed in his neck where his shirt gaped open. She didn’t *actually* see it—just remembered it from once before.
When had he changed so much? Phoebe half-recognised him—Jamie, the boy from the ground-floor flat, her childhood neighbour. He must’ve spotted her through the window and bolted after her.
Jamie felt her staring and glanced back. Too late to look away. His tea-coloured eyes burned like hot water; shame flooded her cheeks, her ears, her heartbeat turning erratic.
Both their fathers had worked at the factory, the reason they’d ended up in these crumbling flats. Jamie’s mum was a bookkeeper there, Phoebe’s a nurse at the local hospital. The factory loomed nearby, thick smoke unfurling from its chimneys.
*”What’re you gonna do after school?”* Phoebe suddenly asked.
*”Uni. Mechanical engineering. Then back here, work my way up—maybe even run the place one day.”*
*”Seriously?”* She laughed. *”Who dreams of being a factory director?”*
*”Just watch me,”* Jamie said, grinning.
*”Engineering, fine—but why stay? That place’ll be shut soon. Ancient machinery, falling apart. Cheaper to build a new one.”*
*”You don’t get it,”* he said, suddenly serious. *”They’ll never close it. Too much history. The town *needs* it. Where else would people work?”*
*”And you?”*
*”Uni in London. Maybe translator—see the world. Or a therapist. Dunno yet. Got a year to decide.”*
On the last Sunday of September, their class went to a mate’s riverside cottage to celebrate his birthday. Golden leaves crackled underfoot; low sunlight speared through thinning branches.
The girls helped set up lunch in the garden while the lads played volleyball. After, everyone scattered into the woods. That’s where Jamie first kissed her.
What a year that was. They’d both grown up overnight, dizzy with love, kissing until they were breathless. One time, Phoebe’s mum was on night shift, and Jamie came over to copy maths homework—and then it happened. Fast, clumsy. Afterward, they stared at each other, lost. Phoebe made him promise never to do it again. He nodded, miserable, and left.
The next day, they walked to school together in silence.
Only weeks later did they finally talk.
*”We’ll get married after school,”* Jamie declared.
*”I’m leaving,”* Phoebe whispered.
*”Don’t go.”*
*”Come with me, then.”*
Their first real fight.
At the school New Year’s disco, Phoebe accidentally saw Jamie kissing Lucy in the dim glow of an empty classroom. She ran home in tears. Winter break made it easy to avoid him—until he turned up at her door.
*”You’re avoiding me. Why?”*
*”You’ve got Lucy now,”* she hissed, keeping her voice low so her parents wouldn’t hear.
*”She jumped me! Was I supposed to shove her off?”*
Phoebe knew Lucy—knew she chased every good-looking boy. And Jamie *had* turned handsome. Jealousy ate at her.
But as time passed, Lucy disappeared from his side, and Phoebe relaxed. All through their final year, they were mad for each other—drawn together yet holding back, pretending they could just be friends again.
After graduation, the class took a boat along the Thames. They stopped at a pebbly beach by a pinewood, laid out a picnic. Someone had brought two bottles of cheap wine. Fifteen of them—hardly a drop each. Even their teacher took a sip.
Later, Phoebe and Jamie sneaked into the woods. Kissed again.
*”Don’t leave. You can study here,”* Jamie murmured.
*”Come with me,”* she countered.
*”Mum’d never let me. Dad’s heart’s dodgy. And the factory’s good for experience. Five years’ll fly. You’ll come back, and—”*
*”Miller! Carter! Where are you? We’re leaving!”* their teacher shouted from the shore.
They emerged flushed, lips swollen.
They revised for exams together—until Jamie’s dad came home early one day and caught them kissing. He didn’t say a word, just closed the door. After that, Jamie’s dad took sick leave, and Jamie stopped coming over.
After the prom, he was packed off to his gran’s in the countryside—”Help with the garden,” they said—and he never even got to see Phoebe off to London.
At first, they rang each other constantly. But their parents scolded them for wasting money. Back then, mobiles weren’t what they are now.
Calls became rarer. Then Jamie married Lucy.
Phoebe barely remembered how she got through it—nearly failed her first year. A year later, she started seeing someone, even married him by graduation. Realised her mistake fast. Divorced faster.
She became a translator, travelled often, made London her home. When her father died, she brought her mum to live with her. Sold the old flat, scraped together savings, took out a loan. Bought a cramped flat in a commuter town.
Two years ago, her mum died. Phoebe brought her back here, buried her beside her father. Came once a year to tend the graves. She never saw Jamie. He’d moved out long ago.
***
*”Looking for someone?”*
A creaky voice snapped her back. A hunched old woman with a walking stick peered up at her, eyes translucent as autumn sky.
*”Watched you awhile. Standing there, staring.”*
*”Auntie Nora?”* Phoebe recognised the old neighbour.
*”Aye. And who’re you? Can’t place you.”*
*”Phoebe. Phoebe Miller. Lived upstairs—rememberShe took Jamie’s hand, and for the first time in years, the weight in her chest lifted—not a ghost of the past, but something new, alive, worth staying for.
