That song was on, the one that had been on the radio all summer when Cam and Charlotte were in primary school. A background sound that slipped under the radar. She sipped her coffee and listened this time. The tone of it was low key but the lyrics were intense in their own way.
Come away with me
And I will write you a song
Not where her talents lay.
And I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
They'd done that. In France. It was heaven.
Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you
She'd promised the world to Serena but the world wasn't her to give. Right now, they couldn't have it. She vowed that one day, they would have it. It just wasn't today.
And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
Done that too. If only they could have stayed in that soothing bubble forever.
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me
She had. Serena couldn't do it in the end. Bernie's anger flared back and forth over it but she couldn't hate her for it. If anything, the thing she hated was that Serena hadn't told her about Dr Faulkner. What she'd done was bad enough and she felt betrayed by it but there was a part of her that would always forgive her. It wasn't a good trait but she knew that there was always going to be a part of her heart hopelessly entwined with Serena's. She'd never look at Shiraz again without it provoking the sharpest of bittersweet memories. She might drink a glass on occasion to wallow in her sorrow.
The song was right though. She'd never stop loving her.