The night before the new school year, I sat in my living room, watching as specks of dust danced in the last of the light. The house was quiet. The debris of the summer was cleared away, stuffed into bin bags with cigarette butts and empty beer bottles and all the things I'd decided not to take with me to Greece. That's where our year-long excursion into family life was starting. Greece. Hot air, golden sands, clear waters. It was almost a dream.

Almost.

The Chapel looked different with everything cleared away. A skeleton of what it was. Clean. Proper. Unlived in. Only the art on the walls gave any indication that we had once been here. The majority of our things had been shipped ahead to my dad's place in Santorini. The rest was packed in suitcases, waiting by the door.

From the corner of the room, I felt the piano's gaze. It'd been weeks since I played it. Guilt combined with boredom dragged me to the stall. No one else was home. I could play what I wanted. Not a performance. A release.

I closed my eyes, absorbing the silence.

My fingers found the notes without direction. 'Everlong'. I laughed, my eyes stinging. Of course... There was no escape.

The music opened me up, forcing me to see.

I saw the same piano at a different time, my fingers gliding across the keys. I saw my parents, a glass of wine in my mother's hand, my dad with his arm around her, watching me with a glint in his eye. I saw Gracie laughing, ruffling my hair as she passed barefoot on the way to her bedroom, her hair sticking up on end. I saw the football boys tousling in the kitchen, their brutish, raucous voices drowning out my playing. I saw Logan, sitting next to me at ten years old, his eyes wide with awe as I played him Chopsticks.

And then there was Billie. I saw her leaning on the piano and looking at me. Making me real with her eyes. Everything before her was a prelude. She was the chorus. She set me in motion. She made me feel something. A quiet resignation. A kind of peace I'd never known.

My hands froze. The music had stopped. The house was empty. The world was cold.

I balled my fist and slammed it on top of the piano, trying to fight the tears I knew were coming. Years of it pent it up. A parasite, feeding on every good moment. I wanted it out.

I wanted to leave. I wanted to be with my family. I wanted to sit with my dad at night and listen to him tell stories. I wanted to go with him on the water and let him teach me how to sail. I wanted to paint rooms with my mum and listen to her singing, or curl up next to her when she read her books. I wanted to go running on the beach with Gracie and sneak out to bars and laugh as she charmed yet another defenceless sucker. I wanted us to be the Eliots. Together. Knowing each other. Eating breakfast in the morning and washing the plates at night.

But I wanted to stay. I wanted to be ruled by homework, and football games, and hallway politics. I wanted to look at the sky, grey and overcast, rain drizzling onto the brown school building as I sat in double maths, trying not to fall asleep. I wanted to play football with Logan and eat popcorn while we played video games cross-legged on the floor. I wanted to drive him to get fast food at 3 a.m. and listen as he told me about his latest failed romance.

And I wanted to be with her.

I wanted to hold hands with her by a bonfire and watch as fireworks lit up the sky. I wanted to see her in a bobble hat and jumpers. Keep her warm on cold winter nights. I wanted to buy her a gift at Christmas and watch her open it, her eyes lighting up when she realised that I'd got it right. I wanted to go to her house and cook dinner with her mum again. I wanted to help Dorothy with her homework. I wanted to sit on the end of my bed and play her guitar and watch her laugh and show her all the things she didn't know about me yet.

One of these dreams had to die. Only one could exist. I'd made my choice. But that didn't mean I wasn't grieving.

The door creaked open, signalling another presence in the room. For a moment, I dared to hope. Could it be? Would she...? But I recognised the heavy tread on the floorboards and knew who it was without needing to look.

"Hey..."

I lifted my head and saw Logan, his hands slung in the pockets of a tatty pair of joggers. His face was pale, sunken with the knowledge of what was coming. I smiled. It was the first time we'd looked at each other properly since his party. He'd been around, as he always was, helping us pack and avoiding the home he never felt safe in. But it hadn't been the same. Not with his unaddressed words hanging in the air between us.

'Do you even care about me?'

I stood up and faced him head-on, wondering how this was going to go down. We hadn't done much serious talking in our lives. I wasn't sure Logan knew how. But something had to be done. It had to be said. Before it was too late.

"Look..." he said, taking a step towards me. I could see in his face how sorry he was. How much he wanted to express.

"It's okay," I said. "I know."

He rushed towards me, pulling me into a bear hug and refusing to let go.

I held him for a long time, feeling his eyes wet my shoulder.

"I'm sorry," I said, and I knew he understood what for. He was the seven-year-old boy with a puncture in his bike he was too scared to take to his dad. I was the friend who told him to come over, knowing Laurel would be able to fix it.

We pulled apart, the sound of the front door making us jump. I looked behind Logan to see my parents and Gracie back from the shops. They had gone to get food for the airport, the plastic bags in their hands informing me that time had run out.

It was over.

"Joe..." my mum said. She took in the scene of Logan and me her words stolen from her. Gracie bowed her head. Logan looked away. The moment weighed heavy, crushing us all.

"We don't have long..." Dad said. I nodded.

"Yeah, I know."

"Well..." he said, his eyes flitting from Logan to me. "We'll just go and get the last bits ready."

I gave Logan a look that told him I wanted to be alone. He nodded, following my parents and Gracie into the kitchen.

As soon as he was out of sight, I walked into the hallway, standing at the bottom of the stairs like I'd forgotten how to walk. They felt like Everest to me. I knew what was waiting at the top. I knew what the sight of my empty bedroom would do to me. But there was more...

A girl in a green outfit, her lips painted red, her dark eyes unfamiliar.

Who are you, Billie?

The summer was stretching ahead, the possibilities were endless. I had no idea what was coming. No idea what I was brushing past without a second thought.

Gracie's voice carried through from the kitchen and I bolted, afraid she would discover me in my frozen state.

I ran to my room and shut the door behind me, closing my eyes to avoid the sting of the bare walls, the empty wardrobe, the clean, white mattress on the bed.

To the right of me was a large house, the only sign of life in the oasis of green. A stream wound its way around the outside like a moat Billie and I followed it, passing by the owner in his front garden, his watering can poised in his hand. We were near Billie's house, going to find her 'special place'. Somewhere secret. Somewhere she'd never shown anyone before. The owner of the house seemed to recognise her. He smiled, his eyes lingering on me for longer than was comfortable. His sunflowers drowned in the water he forgot he was pouring. I looked at him again, taking in his middle-aged stoop, his protruding belly, a sunhat protecting his red face.

I'd never felt more grateful to be.

"I think he wants to join us," I told Billie under my breath. She laughed. We walked the rest of the way with a spring in our step, thrilled with the idea that people could want to be us. That we were living in the best moments of our lives.

We came to another set of fields, green grass replaced with a carpet of golden wheat. We jumped a ditch and took a crude dirt pathway to the right, an unruly hedge shielding us from view.

Up ahead was a dark lake, manmade and still, a thicket of birch trees surrounding it. Their green leaves were surreal against the sea of gold. I stopped to admire them, and Billie stopped with me. I could feel her breathing. Feel the warmth of her body next to mine.

"It looks like a painting."

I watched her for a minute. Her eyes stayed focussed on the trees, but I knew she could feel my gaze. I admired her as she admired them. Then she smiled, catching me staring. I didn't bother to look away.

"Come on," she said.

She took my hand and led me towards the lake, finding a space to sit with our backs facing the trees. We weren't far from the road, but it felt like we were the only people for miles. Just the way we liked it.

We sat for a while and took it all in, listening to the grasshoppers as they sang, their insistent tune buzzing in the air around us. The sun beat down, illuminating the wheat in a golden haze. I had to blink several times to make sure it was real.

"How did you find this?" I asked her.

"I was walking with Dotty," she shrugged. "And we just found it. I love it. I could stay here for hours."

We looked around in silence, eyes squinted.

"Have you ever brought anyone else here?" I asked her.

"No. No one but you."

I dusted dirt and grass from my hands, looking at the little red imprints on my palm from where I'd pressed it on the ground too hard.

"Does it bother you?" she asked me, her voice quiet.

"What?"

"Scott. And the others..."

I pulled a strand of grass from the floor and chewed it as I thought about my answer.

"No," I said. "It's bullshit, stuff like that. Who cares? It doesn't make you who you are."

"Do you really believe that?"

I looked at her, trying to convey with my face what my words couldn't.

"Billie Moreno, you could have slept with a hundred boys and I'd still want to be sat here beside you."

Her eyes caught fire in my favourite way.

"A hundred? Are you serious?"

I smiled.

"Maybe not a hundred. Maybe that's too far. Maybe ninety-nine."

She pushed me on the shoulder.

"Stop it, you," she said, but I knew she didn't want me to.

I leaned into her, sitting with our arms touching. There was nothing I needed to say. She knew it all. She understood.

I don't know how long we stayed there. The concept of time disappeared, our oasis immune to the changing hours.

When the air started to cool, Billie looked at me. It was time to go. Before we stood up, she opened her mouth to speak, pulling at the grass when courage failed her.

"What?" I said. "What is it?"

"You," she said. "You make me happy."

I was caught off guard. What she'd said was simple. Honest. I was flooded with warmth.

"You make me happy."

I said it as a statement and not a reply. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And it was true. She did make me happy.

What hurt was knowing that she'd think I was lying. She would go on thinking I'd said it because I felt like I had to. The truth was lost. I'd always be someone who hurt her. Someone who made her feel safe and then ripped it all away.

I could reach out and tell her. I could take out my phone and write her a message and leave with the knowledge that we'd left things on good terms.

But I didn't.

She needed to recover. She needed to move on. The least I could do was let her.

And so I ignored the pangs that ripped in my chest at the thought of her.

You've learnt your lesson. This pain won't last forever. You'll be better next time. Take the lesson and move on.

Take the lesson and move on. Move on. Move on...

There was no way to tell her. No way to let her know the boy that sat at her dining table was still here. The boy who waited on the beach watching ships. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to be who she made him.

I closed my eyes and remembered how we lay in the dark, faces close together. She'd told me she wanted to show me everything. Her openness was stunning. I would take that with me. Wherever I went, I would take it. Against all reason, I would hold on.

"Son?"

I turned around and saw my father in my doorway, his face solemn as he surveyed my empty room. I didn't know what he was thinking, but I suspected it was something to do with how fast time had gone. How much he had missed.

"Are you ready?"

I looked at him, his familiar face faded with age. He seemed smaller, somehow. There was a stoop to him I hadn't noticed before, a greyness that crept through his hair.

"Yeah, Dad. I'm ready."

I cast my eyes around my room one more time and then followed him out of the doorway.

How could I have known the events of that summer would stay imprinted on my heart like a tattoo, visiting me at unexpected moments? How could I know it would linger behind my eyes forever, out of reach but always present? How could I know that time and space and distance would do nothing to erase the pain of not knowing? Of not being able to change the ending. How could I know that the person I was with her was the only one I ever wanted to be? That I'd seek her in others for years to come.

How could I have known that I would never be the same again? Not until the day I found the courage to retrace my steps and go back to the place where it all began. Not until I walked through fields and coastal towns until I reached her, passing through doors I'd waited at once with nerves, believing, without reason or sense, that she would be on the other side, ready to welcome me in.

How was I to know any of that until it happened? How was I know until the day I decided to try?

I had to try. I needed to know.

I'd been waiting all my life for the ships to come home. She was the only one who could steer them in.