Gone (8 page)

The plan I don’t have is instantly scuppered when I see Dan sitting on my towel making a little sandcastle on it. Andrew is with him both of them watching me with keen eyes.

I feel like I’ve been caught cheating. Am I cheating? Can you cheat on a girl no longer here?

“Thought you didn’t
do
holiday makers,” Dan calls as we get close.

Arsehole.

True though.

Bex stiffens next to me and then steps away from my side letting go of my fingers. “I’m not a holiday maker,” she bristles as she gets close enough to talk without shouting so the whole beach can hear. Unlike Dan.

He gives her a look that can only be described as a challenge, slowly allowing his eyes to drag up and down her bikini clad body. Something inside my chest tightens in response and I step in front of her to protect her from his devouring look.
Territorial Joshua is new.

I shift a little uncomfortably.

“Are you the new girl who’s moved into Bridge Cottage?” Dan asks her.

She puzzles over Dan’s question before replying, “Yeah and?”

Dan turns his attention towards me holding one hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. I am not sure if he is shielding his eyes from the sun or from the hostile stare that Bex is sending him. Her body is rigid, ready for something. It feels like she is ready for battle, building up her defences. I take another step in front of her, completely blocking the view Dan has. He watches my movement, registering and evaluating me.

“Don’t make that mistake, Joshua, she isn’t the same. She is definitely not the same.”

“Shut up, Dan.” I bite out.

“Just saying, mate, I mean we all want you to get it on, you know do whatever you have to do to forget, use whoever you want, but don’t be wasting your time at the beach trying to get around to doing it.”

“Shut up,” I say again, my voice lower and not with the desire ridden tone I had in the sea moments ago. Now I feel like the clouds are gathering over my head again.

“Joshua, I’m going to go and find the shower,” she says, she keeps her eyes averted from mine and I watch her walk away with that strange tightening in my chest again.

“I’ll come with you,” I call.

“Stay with your friends.” She turns and shrugs her hands at me. There is something in her demeanor, in the way she is holding her body, like a fact has been confirmed by her and she is disappointed by it. The sharpness in her gaze makes me feel it too.

I glance at Dan and Andrew who are scrutinising every move I make. I could do without talking about this with them.
Whatever this is.

“It’s cool. I promised you a shower, and then I believe we have a BBQ to get to.”

Laughing Andrew gets up off the sand and claps a hand against my shoulder, “Looks like your busy, Josh. Catch up with you later mate.”

Dan does not move for a moment, “Don’t we all get an invite to the BBQ?” he shouts out to Bex instead of me.

She turns to him, hands on hips which I am sure is driving him crazy. He will be only too aware of her upgrade from a 7.5 to a 10. And says. “No you don’t,” before continuing her walk up the sand.

I don
’t stop to speak to Dan, to try and explain what I am doing, what would I say? I just chase after her across the sand and then fall into step by her side.

Once Dan and Andrew are further away from us, the tightening sensation in my chest starts to lessen. I don’t know what that’s about.

Standing under the cold shower we don’t speak a word, and a heavy silence hangs between us until there is only one thing I want to say. I have this whole new feeling coursing through me, something primeval, territorial and completely basic.

I can’t fight to keep the words in. I simply have to say them. Something about her makes me want to say them. “Bex?” I reach my hand to her arm under her shower.

“Mm?” She has her eyes closed to the sky allowing the water to trickle over her face.

“Don’t let Dan close to you. He doesn’t treat girls that aren’t staying very well.”

Her eyes snap open and the ambers glow at me. “Do you?”

I offer a snort as a response but when she continues to glare at me I realise this may not be answer enough. “I don’t even talk to girls that aren’t staying.”

“Why you talking to me then?”

Why am I talking to her?
“I don’t know.”

“Lovely.”

We stand in silence again for another few minutes and out of the corner of my eye I can see her raising her arms above her head as she attempts to wash the sand out of her hair. The motion sets me thinking about Dan looking at her that way again.

“Bex.”

“Rebecca.”

“Okay, Rebecca, don’t let Dan get to close to you. Okay.”

“What if I want him to?” She pops one eye open to gauge my reaction.

“That would be your choice I guess.”

Bex, Rebecca, whoever, starts to smile slowly.  “What’s it worth?”

Anything.

“What do you want?”

“I want to know what he meant about my cottage and that I am not the same?”

I don’t know what to say. I can’t open my mind up to the complicated matters that lie under that simple question. 
I used to be in love with the girl that lived there, but she’s gone. Maybe I could hang around with you instead for a while?

I don’t think so.

“I used to know the family that lived there.” I shrug eventually. “It’s kind of complicated.” How do you tell a strange girl under a beach shower that once you thought your life was going to be intricately linked with that cottage and the residents of that cottage? That you expected that one day you would live in that cottage and have a family of your own in it and now you’re not. Nothing even close to that.

“You’
re keeping secrets.”

I give a sarcastic laugh and think of the unspoken words in the silence that hung between us last night on the beach.

“Aren’t you, Bex?”

“
Rebecca.”

“Aren’t you though?”

The ambers flicker with something. “How about you keep your secrets and I keep mine? It’s only twelve days.”

It is only twelve days. Twelve days until she is gone. Can I do that? Can I spend twelve days with her and keep my secrets and let her keep hers? Can I spend twelve days with anyone again, or should I go back to my life of nothing. No laughing, no touching, no lip grazing, no falling to the bottom of the ocean and no cuddling.

I don’t know if I can, but then I also don’t know if I can’t. “Deal.”

ELEVEN DAYS TO GO

Bridge Cottage

St Agnes

Cornwall

16th August 2013

Dear E,

I can confirm that surfer dudes smell of the sea, salt and mint. I can also confirm that they randomly hold hands, smooth their lips over your skin and endure an endlessly painful BBQ with your parents.

Well Josh. Josh-u-a, does anyway.

His name sounds funny doesn’t it? Josh-u-a.

Why am I sharing this with you? I can’t help but think you should be doing this. This should be your life and I should be where you are. You should be lying on a beach with a boy who looks like he is made out of the moon and sea. No I’m not losing it. He does. In the dark his skin shines like he is lit by something deep inside him.

I like him.

I know I shouldn’t.

I don’t deserve it.

I almost wanted to tell him about you. We were careering down this tiny winding road in his decrepit old VW and the warm wind was blowing through the window the sun was shining, and for a moment I started to relax. I nearly told him how I lost you. I didn’t. I can’t. It’s my secret to carry.

I think he is keeping secrets too. I wonder if they are as sad and as dark as mine.

I wish you were here, smelling the salt, feeling the sand and giggling on beaches with me. If you were then I would truly be able to enjoy it.

Miss you as always.

B

xx

Rebecca

Breakfast

I am not even going to bother going downstairs, what’s the point? I have nothing to get up for today. Last night was an unmitigated disaster. Joshua looked most bemused and was grinning as I walked him out to Daisy.

Once we were in the lane outside the cottage I leant against the garden wall, completely loitering. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him. For some completely irrational reason I wanted him to lean in and kiss me. I was waiting for it, holding my body tight with expectation. He didn’t. He lifted his hand smoothing a piece of my crazy orange straw hair behind my ear, and then grazed his thumb ever so lightly across my mouth.

I’ve never wanted to be kissed more in my life. Actually I don’t ever remember wanting to be kissed before. Not consciously. Kissing is just a natural progression an evening can take when you have run out of conversation with a complete stranger.

Last night I felt myself leaning in towards him, proper movie style. He just stared at me in the darkness then offered me a wide smile.

“See you soon, Bex.”

“Rebecca.”

“Bex,” he whispered into the night before walking around Daisy and roaring the old engine to life.

I went straight up to bed and let sleep claim me until the nightmares came again. Last night the words were muddled all wrong.

“Rebecca, will you just learn to behave, and get in the damn car?”

The word
“Bex,”
echoed around my dreams turning the nightmare into a deep dream where I didn’t know where I was, or what I had done.

Josh didn’t ask to see me today as he left, which is really annoying because I want to see him. I want to know what that prick at the beach meant yesterday about me being different to the person who lived here before. I want to know who lived here before. I want to know why Joshua has secrets about it. But more than that I want to know what his secrets are. I want to know what that wanker at the beach meant by Josh needing to forget. I just assumed at the time he was insinuating that Josh should just sleep with me and get it over and done with. And yes while that’s rude, I’m not unused to those sentiments. But as the evening went on, I watched Joshua’s body language in this house, and around me and my parents and I realised that’s not what that knob was hinting at. He was telling Joshua it was time to move on from something.

This sensation is new to me and I am not sure how to handle it. I’ve never had this really irritating desire to see someone again before. All I am doing is pacing my room trying to work out how to initiate a meeting, and then hating myself for even thinking it.

I don
’t want to like anything about this town. I don’t want to like anyone in it. I especially don’t want to like tall well-built men with huge smiles, dreadlocks, inappropriate facial piercings and all sorts of factors that could jeopardise my nine grand. And I especially don’t want to feel like anything, other than my sister will make me want to come back to this town after I leave.

11 days to go.

***

I’ve wasted time showering, using up all the hot water in the taps, and am now twitching about in front of Emily who is drawing in the garden.

It’s kind of weird this hanging around thing, but I don’t have anywhere to go. It feels like every second is ticking by in slow motion. Every second of the next eleven says stretched out in front of me. Before, back in London, before my self-imposed imprisonment in my bedroom, I would have called up a dodgy connection, slipped out the house and been up to no good for the afternoon. I have only hazy recollections of what the no good afternoons involved but I know they centred around smoke filled rooms and the clinking of glasses.

That’s one of the promises I have made my parents for the next two weeks. No Alcohol. The last time I touched the stuff I lost an entire night of my life. The images I do have of the night are the ones I am trying to fight from behind my closed eyelids.

Part of me could do with a drink now though. It’s easier to drink myself into oblivion then it is to face every second of time painfully ticking past.

I didn’t feel like this yesterday. Yesterday was not a bad day, why is that?
Joshua.

I shake any thought of him and his distracting abilities away. Mum and Dad scared him off last night. That’s the last I am going to see of him.

Or is it?

“Want to come to town?” I ask Emily instead of scouring the cupboards looking for any drop of alcohol.

“No I’m busy.” She does not bother raising her eyes from her pad. Emily is oblivious to the constrained, suffocating feelings I’m battling. She just continues sketching away as I nearly combust in front of her.

Ah sketching!

“Need anything from the art shop?”

This makes her put down her pencil, her blue eyes glance over my twitching form and a frown dimples between her eyes. “Do
you
need anything from the art shop, Bex?”