Chapter 53

The sudden unexpected meeting in the corridor over the scattered pool of papers had set Tilly's mind and heart into overdrive too...

She had been so sure that any future development with her beautiful brunette was hopeless and non-existant because she had, over their long passage of time apart, begun to believe Jen's frosty, business-like aloofness as being exactly that: frosty, cold and dead; as if the fire which had always burned between them - which Tilly could still feel flickering away deep in her soul, no matter how hard she ignored it - had, for Jen, actually blown out...

But now she knew differently. And she found that she was smiling for the first time in months.

Now she had seen it, all too clearly in the older woman, licking its burning lips and flickering there, in her deep hazel eyes, and in the way that she had gazed upon her, all over her, without meaning to and without knowing it.

She could still see that Jen had a battle inside herself; an internal struggle between what felt instinctively natural - her natural attraction and affection for her - and the social constraints of her position and her job, but she had also suddenly seen, for a split second, that that battle was weaker somehow, as if it was drawing to a close, soon to be resolved in some way... and Tilly had also known for far longer than Jen that the legal dangers which they had both tried so hard to resist each other for, in the past, were no longer an issue now that Tilly was eighteen and in all legal respects at least, a recognised adult.

She'd seen that too. That their sudden unexpected meeting, when Jen asked about the bangle from Maddie, was the first time Jen had realised she had come of legal age...

The look on Jen's face as she'd walked away and left her behind there, holding her precious papers, had been priceless. And while Tilly didn't want to make Jen suffer or revel in it at all, she had found that she was smiling to herself when she'd continued her walk down the corridor and away from her and out through the doors into the warm sunlight and balmy breeze. The look on Jen's face had been a mixture of sudden surprise and delighted hope mixed with an agonised, pained expression of loss or longing: a yearning of some kind. Perhaps that was why Tilly had been so pleased to see it, because it was all the proof she'd ever need to know that she still loved her; she still cared; she still wanted her.

And so it was that she was still smiling to herself for the first time in months as she made her way down that well-worn pathway, past the line of whispering sycamores and silver birch, towards the Art faculty block, a week later, on her way into college.

For the first time in months she felt as though she was coming to life again at long last, like the unfurling bluebells which covered the ground between the trees, awakening from the deadening chill of winter...

She could feel Summer returning in the warm air, and the morning sunlight which touched her shoulders felt like the warm embrace of loving arms...

Anything felt possible.

And even better, she told herself, her studies were almost complete. She'd already finished the exams in her three main science subjects because of taking them early in the January exam period rather than waiting until June. And for the main part, with her Art AS, it was just a question of completing coursework and hitting deadlines and assessment criteria for top marks. For her, she knew that all the months of feeling dead in Jen's absence, while feeling really horrible and almost paralysed in a way, had actually ended up helping to focus her mind on her work and she knew already that she was on track to ace out on all her exam subjects and her current coursework at an A or an A star level grade.

She had also used the time to seriously consider her university future and had decided that actually, yes, Cambridge was the ultimate place for her to aim for. Better still, after going for an interview there - in which she had been very relaxed throughout because at the time she hadn't cared either way since her mind was still on Jen - they had given her a provisional offer of acceptance, dependent on her results, which were due any day soon...

Yes, life felt good. Very, very good indeed. Even better, when Tilly looked at the Art faculty block in the distance, shielding her emerald eyes from the sun which seemed to ignite her softly moving auburn hair, and saw her stunning brunette teacher standing at the window watching her, a strange expression on her face, before moving back into the darkness of the upstairs room... Typically, like old times, her heart skipped a beat and the blood coursed through her body at a sudden rapidly increased rate, making her body awaken and unfurl itself even more than the beautiful blue flowers she was walking beside... Oh, how she couldn't wait to see her again! And oh, how she couldn't wait for them to be together again at long, long last, now that there were no legal impediments to stop them!

That whole sensation, almost like being reborn and returning back to life, grew stronger and stronger as her suddenly shaky legs carried her closer and closer to the building and to the woman she loved more than anything in the universe.

And that whole frame of mind lasted the entire time it took from waking up to entering the Art room - Jen's room - for her first lesson of the day...

And then it stopped.

Abruptly.

When it soon became clear that it was going to be Mr Andrews, the Art teacher who had been called in to oversee Jen's classes through the duration she had been in hospital, months ago, and not Miss Gilmore, who was going to be taking the lesson.

Worse still, when the head of the Art faculty, Mr Atkins, came to tell the class that as of yesterday Miss Gilmore was no longer a teacher at Hollyoaks Sixth Form College.

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