“Well, it isn’t. So don’t.”
We stepped through the beach gate and took our shoes off to pad down to the rocks. It was half ten, and still quiet; a few residents walked their wet, barking dogs, and one family had set up a few wind breakers. The tide roved slowly in.
Taylor pulled himself up on the rocks overlooking the sea, and I sat a few inches away. He offered me the Coke, but I declined.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other night,” he said eventually.
“What the hell were you doing there, Taylor?”
“Um. Well. I kind of saw you go down to the beach that first night, and I wondered why. And the second night, I was out in the woods about to light up…and I saw you again. So I followed you. Thought you went to the beach, but then I couldn’t see you there. I heard some noises but they were, you know…”
I winced. “Sex noises.”
“Er…yeah. But I was a bit stoned, and I was all like, no way is that Gabe and Danni.”
“Because that would be ridiculous.”
He snorted. “Yeah.”
“Carry on.”
“At the barbecue, when you were talking to Gabe—it seemed a good way to start a conversation with Esmé, asking why you were going to the beach at night, and why you and Gabe looked so cosy.”
Heat drained from my cheeks. “Oh God.”
“Dick move. I know, okay?”
This was what I got for leaving Taylor out, ignoring my instincts and letting Esmé try to isolate him. Karma bus. “So what did she say?”
“Not a lot, at first. Just asked me for beer. But then she was like, we have to pretend to go to sleep and see if you guys skedaddle again. And you did tonight…so we followed.”
A seagull swept over us with a grating squark. It settled a few rocks away like it wanted to eavesdrop. I should have brought my bacon sandwich to throw bits for them…didn’t think. Would have been a nice distraction from Taylor and his front row tickets to the Awkward Show.
“We never expected to find what we did,” Taylor mumbled. “Didn’t even cross my mind. I figured you guys might have been smoking or drinking. Or I dunno, planning something. Just being all chummy.”
Leaving him out.
“We were kinda chummy.”
“Yeah.” He snorted again, trying to contain full-blown laughter. “So I saw.”
I put my face in my hands. “I can’t believe you saw me like that.”
“I did need some brain bleach.” He scratched his chin. “Was even worse seeing Gabe. Hearing—”
“I get it.” I groaned. “There’s no need, really.”
We fell into uneasy silence again. Dogs barked, owners yelled at them in lilting Welsh accents. Kids squealed as the tide ate away at their forts and sandcastles. I didn’t bother scraping the wind-teased hair from my face; the urge to hide from the world was stifling.
“How does something like that even happen?” he said.
“It’s weird. It felt weird…at first.”
Taylor finished his Coke with a few wet gulps. “Do you, like, want to be with him? As a couple?”
I nodded.
“Woah.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Not going to happen though, huh?”
“We’re talking about it.”
“But he’s going away,” he said, “to Canada and stuff.”
I squinted at him in the yellow spill of sun. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Another secret, you mean?”
“Another, yeah.”
“Is it worse than this one?”
Even I giggled a bit at that. “Not really.”
“Shoot.”
“I might be going to Canada too.”
He tossed the empty bottle from one hand to another. “Fucking hell.”
“We’re trying to work it out.”
“I want to wish you good luck, but…it’s so weird, Danni. And Esmé, I mean, she didn’t deserve that.”
“No. I know.” I sighed. “It all got stupidly complicated. I really never meant for it to happen, and Gabe tried to end it too. But it wouldn’t go away.” I dropped my legs, swirling my toes in foamy turquoise water. Water is meant to be relaxing, isn’t it? This was the foot spa from hell. “I’m not sure it’s meant to go away, you know?”
“I suppose.”
“Thank you. For not telling, I mean.” And for not hating me, Taylor. For still being there.
“It’s not my place.” He glanced over, watched my feet. “Probably shouldn’t even have told Esmé. Sorry about that.”
“You weren’t to know.”
“Anyway. In return, please don’t tell my Mum about the weed.”
I threw a light elbow into his ribs. “I won’t. You big stoner. Just promise to stay away from my ringtone, okay?”
He began to sing that South Park song, his shoulders bobbing in a jaunty dance.
“Taylor!”
“—Quite like you!”
With a deep breath, I shoved him right off the rocks and into the sea. He flapped around while the seagulls bellowed at him, coughing up lumps of salt water like a half-dead fish.
“This is revenge for that poor girl.” I clutched myself, laughing. “The one you chose the book over.”
He climbed back up, clothes drenched, glasses askew. Sea water flew from his nose. “Hardy ha ha.”
Chapter Thirteen
The email came on Friday.
When the familiar little ping sounded on my phone, I was curled up near the tree stump in the woods—a place I’d spent a lot of time those past few days. Half of me simmered with excitement, but the other half chastised that it was probably spam (as usual).
It wasn’t.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: come fly with me
Flight booked. No visa required for now, will sort when there.
Looks like I have a new assistant ;)
Meet me at the Crown Plaza hotel at the airport, Sunday, any time after 2. Sooner you get there, longer we have all alone in a beautiful room…we fly 8am Monday.
Call your mother, call your uni. Maybe not the cavalry.
Can’t actually believe we’re doing this.
Danni, I love you from the bottom of my perverted heart.
xxxxx
I pressed my face into my novel, trembled quietly, and then wept hot, stinging tears of relief into the yellow pages.
***
In hindsight, the drive home was probably not the time to tell Mum about Canada.
She switched the radio off and glared at me in the mirror (the back seat felt like a refuge, since we still weren’t talking, really).
“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”
“I did a lot of thinking this week,” I said, “and I’m going to take a gap year.”
She sniffed. “To do what? Work?”
“Gabe says I can go to Canada with him.”
That did it. She practically frothed at the mouth. “You’re not serious, Danni.”
“Canada sounds pretty cool,” I mumbled.
“Don’t be like him. Don’t run away just because you’ve had a hard time recently—”
“What d’you mean? Gabe—”
“I’m not talking about him.” She sighed. “I’m talking about your father.”
I knew nothing about my dad, but was ninety nine percent sure he never switched continents because he fell in love with a hot relative.
“Mum. That’s really low.”
“Your behaviour this week has been nothing but low,” she hissed.
“I’m eighteen, not five. God. Haven’t you ever made a mistake in your life?”
She ignored me, yanking the gear stick and staring through the windscreen.
“I leave for the airport tomorrow lunch time,” I said.
“Do you really trust him to take care of you? Really?”
I wanted to shout he’s never lied to me, not like you! But it sounded
so petty and childish, and there I was, about to go off in the world like somebody so much older. And Mum might have been a bitch half the time, but I didn’t want to leave on bad terms. I knew she was right when she talked about protecting me, even if I didn’t always understand it.
“Gabe’s not like that,” I said. “Not when you get to know him.”
“You talk like you have some twisted little crush.” She bit her lip. “Danni. At least take a while to think it through. I know it sounds exciting but a year is a long time, and Canada is a long way to go. If anything goes wrong, I can’t just drive out to get you.”
“I leave for the airport tomorrow at lunch time,” I repeated.
“I’ll tell you.” She swallowed. “Stay, and I’ll tell you who your father is.”
I said nothing.
***
It was late afternoon on Saturday by the time we got home. I had less than twenty-four hours to pack, sleep…and resolve a little unfinished business.
My room was littered with Esmé’s things: CDs from favourite bands we shared, clothes that still smelled like her sweet shop perfume, unfinished novels with their pages turned down. Silly pens with theatrical feathers. This was the part I dreaded most of all, but Esmé deserved to get her stuff back. Deserved to know where I was going, too.
She only had older siblings and they didn’t live at home. I knew her parents played Bingo every Saturday teatime. I leaned against a tree opposite her house and waited for their silver Toyota to pull away before I hauled the box of Esmé’s things over. Her doorbell squealed when I pressed it and a great heap of memories struck me right on the bruised forehead with all the force of a grand piano. The first time I’d visited, it took me so long to work up the guts to ring that doorbell; still, I felt the prickle of nerves as I waited to see if she was home.
All of that felt so stale now. Vacant. Lost.
The version of Esmé in the doorway looked like she felt the same way. Dressed in her old hockey uniform, hair unstyled, eyes still red; oh fuck. What had I done to her?
“I—I brought your stuff back,” I stammered. What an idiot.
“I don’t want it,” she said blankly. Like I was a hologram and she barely remembered my name.
“I wondered if we could talk for a second.” I stepped from foot to foot. “Just a second.”
“You’re not coming in.” She took thick, hissing breaths through her teeth, as if she opened too wide, something horrible might escape. “So talk.”
I put the box at her feet and stepped back. “I know it doesn’t mean much…but God, I really am sorry.”
“So am I.” She gazed at my battered old trainers.
“And I know I don’t deserve this, but Es…please don’t tell anybody what you saw.”
Her little blond eyebrows shot up, but she still wouldn’t look at me. “You think I want to do you a favour?”
“No, but—”
“I haven’t told anyone because it’s bad enough that you cheated. But Danni, you were with your—your un...” She couldn’t say it. Even when she shook her head to loosen the word, it wouldn’t come. “I just don’t want to think about it, okay?”
“Okay.” I pressed my lips together. “Thank you.”
“It’s not for you,” she snapped.
“I know. It’s not what I meant.”
We stood there in the doorway, avoiding each other’s eyes. Our uneven breaths merged in an odd rasp of a symphony. I’d gone on holiday as Danni: Lesbian Architect and come home the queen of pseudo-incest and awkward silences. Score, eh?
“I’ve deferred my course,” I blurted out.
“What? Why?”
“I’m taking a gap year. Going…travelling. Need to get my head sorted.”
“You’re going away?” she whimpered.
I nodded. As much as I hated to tell her another lie, I had to keep Gabe a secret. There was too much on the line now, and what good would it have done for her to know?
“You really don’t want to be with me,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Oh, Es. It wasn’t like that. I loved all my time with you—”
“But not me.” She sniffed. “You didn’t love me.”
“I did.”
“Then stay.” A single tear caught the light on her cheek, pouring a tiny shadow as it fell. “Pixie…please.”
“I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
She kicked her box of belongings out of the way and threw her arms around me. Her hug was so soft, so familiar. The tears pricked my eyes too.
“I don’t want you to go,” she wept. “All sorts of horrid things happen to people who go travelling like that, it’s not worth it…” She pulled back and brushed the hair from my forehead. “Gosh. Look what I did to you.”
“Purple’s not really my colour, is it?”
She laughed. “No. Fashion fail.”
I gave her a squeeze before teasing her slim little fingers away, though they felt like lead weights. “I screwed things up with us. You deserve someone a lot better than me.”
She glanced down at the heap of artifacts from our funeral pyre of a love affair. “I know you did. But loving you doesn’t go away.”
God, I knew that. I knew just how that felt—but not with her. “Not even after what you saw?”
“No. That’s how I know I love you, Danni.”
I stared into her wet, glassy eyes, and wanted to tell her I knew how that felt, too. Even the words left unsaid between us were painful, let alone the ones we were brave enough to voice.
“I suck,” I mumbled.
“You don’t.” She scooped up the card box and hugged it to her chest. “God, pixie, take care of yourself. If you get murdered by some weird tribe or drug dealer, I’m gonna hunt you down and kill you all over again.”
“I’ll haunt your ass. Beat you to it.”
“Maybe,” she said softly. “Truth is, you kinda haunt me already.”
***
I said goodbye to my room.
It seemed silly, in a way. I’d probably be back in a few months while all the visa stuff was sorted out, and besides, I’d planned on moving away soon, even if just to uni. But Mum was right—Canada, what with it being squillions of miles from here, was that bit farther to go. Or to travel home.
Except I was about to make a new home with Gabe. He’d already texted me a picture of our new apartment; bijou, he called it. Which I’m pretty sure meant poky, but so long as it had a bed to call ours, who the hell cared? Couldn’t get much worse than his shed-slash-cabin in Devon, though since we made those gorgeous memories there, even that place didn’t seem so bad. And it had no Internet. Or phone signal.
Weeks ago, when Gabe said he was coming to see me, I’d bought new underwear for the occasion. Esmé loved lacy things and I owned loads of that, but this needed to be different, like thinking about him while I chose made everything sexier. Three hours of shopping later, I’d come home with a jade green push-up bra and matching boy shorts that said give peas a chance across my ass. He’d love them.
Tomorrow, I’d finally get to show them to him. We had an anonymous hotel room in an anonymous corridor and nobody would care what we did there. We could be noisy, naked, shower together afterwards. Kiss in the hall. Every new thought spiralled through me in a hot wave of excitement, and only my nerves kept my fingers out of my knickers.
Then there was the other thing: my father.
It’s a weird word, isn’t it? Father. Like farther or further, mine had always felt far away—to the point where he just hadn’t existed. So despite Mum’s offers of dinner or a walk, I spent my final night in our “poxy little house” alone in my room, watching the sun fall behind the tower blocks until shadows peeled off my empty walls. I drank my way through a bottle of Mum’s red wine and pondered the dilemma she’d given me: stay, and I’ll tell you who he is.
Maybe if the choice had been easier, I’d have broken. I’d spent adolescent hours wasted in curiosity, Googling random terms and n
ames with the few details I had; that Danni would have chosen to know who her dad was.
But then I wasn’t that Danni any more.
This Danni had learned you couldn’t cheat and lie your way to a happy ending; this Danni had learned what happy endings cost. You sure as hell paid in advance. But for Gabe, I so easily paid it, and we’d come so far now. My temples roiled with anticipation and my fingers itched with promise.
We were so close to getting our wings back and learning to fly.
Chapter Fourteen
Mum cried at the train station. We stood in a corner by the platform, her eyes pleading and mine narrow in shame. God, like there hadn’t been enough tears in my life recently.
“You’re sure about this?” she said quietly.
I took a great gulp of petrol-flavoured station air. “I’m sure.”
“And you thought about what I said? My offer?”
“I thought about it.”
“You don’t want to know?” She was rigid and defensive in her fluffy black coat.
“If you’re asking whether I want the name of someone who was never there for me instead of a future full of people who are, then…no. I don’t.”
She hugged me so suddenly and so hard that it took me a moment to return her embrace. My chest heaved against in peaky little shudders; oh God. I was going to cry, too.
“I’m sorry it’s that way for you, Danni. I’m sorry I tried to give you the choice.”
“I know you didn’t mean it that way.”
“I don’t know how I meant it. Christ. You’ve shocked me a couple of times lately.” She smiled through her tears. I was so glad she didn’t know the truth.
A robotic voice announced the arrival of my train from the speaker above, and a moment later, it whirred toward the platform. Other travellers said their goodbyes and gathered their suitcases; Mum and I just stood there, holding each other.
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