Sympath

Chapter 2-2

‘Hey, I never said you could use it!’ he cried, getting up to chase after her. Both Dave and Cam stepped in front of him, arms crossed, blocking his path to the water. Behind them, Lily laughed and launched herself straight into the icy waves, lying on the board and squealing as the first chilling breaker engulfed her.

‘If you get so much as a big toe wet, I’m dobbing!’ she called back at him.

He swore at her with his mouth mostly shut.

‘Dave, you should come in. Check out this next set,’ she taunted, paddling out to sea.

Two heads turned to look wistfully over shoulders as both Cam and David appraised the surf. It was clean, and swelling nicely.

‘Go. Just go,’ Lucas grumbled, shoving at them. ‘I can’t stand having you both sulking. Just don’t complain if I eat all the snacks. And promise me we can come back at dawn tomorrow.’

The doctor had given Lucas a strict twenty-four-hour ban on swimming when he’d released him that morning. Lily had explained that if he broke it, their mum would pack him off home in an instant—with some additional undesirable repercussions thrown in. Lucas sighed as Sarah grabbed her own board and headed for the water. Kelly also stood and began to tie her hair back, shucking off her shorts as she prepared to follow. That was too much for his poor friends. No way were they going to stand around on the beach while the three girls got all the good waves.

The backlash of envy Annie expected to feel from the abandoned invalid never came. Instead, all she felt from him was … wariness?

Oh. Right. He was stuck with just her to talk to and it was awkward. After all, what was he supposed to say to the girl who had intruded so brazenly at a time when he could hardly breathe, let alone move away? She had held his hand and stared him in the face for a good ten minutes. It had felt like the right thing to do at the time—in fact the only thing to do—but she had no clue as to how he felt about her interference.

To make herself look casual and content, she rummaged through her bag for her book and opened it to a random page, covering her legs with the long skirt she’d remembered to wear to keep the flies off.

At least thirty seconds passed before he even moved a muscle.

‘Are you really afraid of the ocean?’ he eventually asked in his husky voice, coming to sit beside her on Kelly’s towel. ‘You don’t seem the type to be easily frightened.’

Annie licked her lips and peered at him out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t looking at her, but was staring out to sea. His wavy hair stuck out in the breeze, glowing golden brown with summer reflection. Melbourne boy. Never even heard of Nalong. Not for her. Surely not for her.

‘I’m not frightened. I love swimming. My dad taught me to surf a few years ago, before he died.’ Pain and grief welled, as usual, and as usual she wrapped it up in a blanket of numbness and shielded it, the same way she did with other people’s emotions. Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear that he was sorry. What a silly thing to say. ‘The beach just reminds me of him, I guess. It’s not as much fun as I remember,’ she explained, cutting him off.

‘That’s terrible.’

She rolled her eyes and looked back down at her book. She wasn’t fishing for pity; she just didn’t want him to think she was afraid.

‘I mean, it’s terrible that you don’t enjoy the beach anymore just because it reminds you of fun times you had with your dad.’

She swung around and glared at him.

He glared right back. Pale blue eyes—brighter now that he wasn’t dying—locked onto hers in blatant challenge, and although she tried to find the feeling of righteous outrage she was entitled to, it had fled into hiding somewhere. Having him look at her like that just reminded her of the day before, when his panic had almost pulled them both under. It was difficult to remember she could breathe, as she relived what Lucas had felt. No air. No feeling. Everything numb. Fear like needles spiking through her.

‘You’re doing it again,’ he whispered, searching her face.

He knew. Somehow, he knew what she’d done. How? No one had ever seemed to notice anything before. Then again, yesterday’s trick was something new. She hadn’t just shared his emotions, she’d lifted them away from him. A March fly bit her on the elbow, breaking the spell as she smacked at it.

‘Sorry. I couldn’t help … I mean, I never meant to—’

‘Thank you.’ He waved another fly away. ‘I don’t know exactly what you did, but whatever it was … it helped.’

Not for her. He was not for her.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ she lied. ‘You really were very lucky, you know. You were bitten by one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet.’

‘Maybe it was the manky water from your bottle that saved me.’ The smile he gave made her pulse go all wiggly. It spoke of shared secrets and whispered promises.

‘Perhaps it was,’ she said with a laugh, wondering what her neighbour Harry would say to that. Who knew? Maybe Lucas was right. A second later, she realised what she’d said, and was startled that she had even jokingly hinted at the idea that the water could be anything interesting at all. This boy was not for her. ‘Do you go back to school on Wednesday?’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘Yeah, unless I can convince Mum that I should stay home just in case. It might be worth a shot.’ Idly, he brushed another fly from her arm. His fingers felt warm, his touch vibrant.

Annie shook her head and grinned at him. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Lucas. You can’t spend the weekend convincing her that you’re well enough to surf and then pull a sickie in time for school. Besides, you’re in Year 12, right? Exams must be getting pretty close. After that, you can surf all you want.’

With his elbows resting on his knees, he fiddled with a shell he had picked up, following its blue and brown spiral pattern with his fingertip. ‘Will you come back here? Over summer?’ he asked, staring at the shell as if it was the most intriguing thing in the world and he really couldn’t care less if she even answered the question or not. His emotions couldn’t lie though. There was a nervous anticipation that she was struggling to block out. So unfair. He was almost flirting. Almost. But that was okay, wasn’t it?

‘No,’ she said firmly, to herself as much as to him. ‘I’m staying in Nalong over summer.’ And forever more, she added silently. She had a duty there, and had been away for too long already. Time for a reality check. She could dream all she wanted about flirting with boys, but she didn’t have to be stupid about it. Summer romances were not for her.

‘Damn stupid flies!’ he snarled, tossing the shell away and waving his hands about aggressively. That was how she knew she had shut him down effectively. She had done well. Used the right tone of voice. Closed. Final. No veiled hints that there was any hope whatsoever of seeing each other again. No one likes to be rejected, even in such a subtle way. That was why he was irritable. Or was it?

The others returned eventually, shaking water and sand all over them and babbling about how spectacularly Dave got wiped out. As they recounted each and every wave they’d caught in guilty detail, Annie sat back and studied the envious set of Lucas’s shoulders. He hung on every word, glancing between his friends and the ocean, but every now and then his hand would flick out and swipe a March fly out of the air. Before it could land on her.

Crisp ocean gusts sent summer promises through the gloom as Annie crept out at dawn on Tuesday morning. She had to find out, and there was no time to be subtle about it because she was due to return home that afternoon. Even if she hadn’t needed to be back for school the next day, she still couldn’t have stayed longer. Her ties to home were not negotiable. She was already starting to feel like her bones were being pulled down into the ancient earth. Another couple of days away and she knew the nausea would start to kick in. There was no choice. She had to go home as planned.

Stealthy as a kelpie with a bone to hide, Annie reached her hand back through the bedroom window and wound it shut as much as she could, her shoulders relaxing when Kelly continued to snore on the other side of the room. After sharing a room with her, she’d been confident that her friend slept deeply enough for her to make a clean escape, yet it was still nerve-racking. She’d left a scribbled note to let Kelly know where she’d gone, telling her that she’d unsuccessfully tried to wake her to come along. Some things were important enough to lie about, even to your best friend.

A straggly rose bush tried to prevent her from leaving. She unhooked it from her shorts with finicky precision and yet still not enough patience. The world was just beginning to lighten to a sleepy glow, not giving quite enough visibility to avoid tripping over the edge of the garden bed, but somehow she managed to save herself from sprawling face-first into the rhododendrons. Finally, she found her way out of the narrow strip of jungle that ran along the side of the house and stepped confidently out onto the footpath.

‘I thought you might—’

‘Aaaagh!’

‘Sssh. Do you want to wake up the whole street?’

The voice came again out of nowhere. Peering into the shadows, Annie just made out the shape of someone carrying a surfboard under one arm and a towel over her shoulder. It was Sarah, and she was laughing.

‘Where’s Kelly? Isn’t she coming?’ she asked.

‘Coming where?’ Annie asked. As if it wasn’t obvious.

‘She won’t be happy if she finds out we left her behind. You’d better go and get her. You can go back in through the house though. It’ll be easier than the way you came out.’

‘Are you kidding? What if—’

‘They won’t care. I often surf at dawn. You really know nothing about life on the beach, do you? I left a note to say I’m taking you both, but if you don’t hurry I’m going without you. I work two jobs, Annie. I don’t get many days off and I’m not wasting this one.’

‘You left a note? How did you know—’

She arched an eyebrow and hitched her board. ‘Oh, come on, I wasn’t born yesterday. They leave this morning. This is our last chance to see them. I don’t know about you, but I have a phone number I need to get. See? I even brought a Texta. A good one that won’t wash off in the surf.’

Annie’s bleary eyes blinked at her in confusion. Sarah had just finished her first year of uni with great results, and then announced that she was dropping out because economics was too boring. To Annie she seemed so … worldly. Far too mature and confident to be interested in flirting with high school guys. Of course, they would only be a year or two younger than Sarah, and she’d been chatting a lot to Paddle Pop Dave the previous day. Annie should have paid more attention.