Page 95 of Into These Eyes

Georgia

W earing earmuffs, Georgia watches her father aim his rifle at the target they’d set up against a stack of hay bales in the distance. This is one thing she actually loves about living here.

Bryce squeezes the trigger, the shot ringing out across the rolling hills.

The smell of gun smoke wafts into Georgia’s nostrils, bringing up memories of her father teaching her to shoot when she was just five. She loves that smell. Probably because it’d been the first time she’d found a genuine connection with her father, the man who’d raised her on his own since then.

Not wanting to think about her mother’s death right now, Georgia grabs the binoculars hanging around her neck and raises them to her eyes.

Damn him. A bullseye. When she looks his way, he’s already grinning at her.

Annoyed, she shoves the binoculars at him, raises her own rifle and cradles it against her shoulder.

The trigger’s cold metal seeps into her index finger as she lines up the sights, then slowly, slowly squeezes.

The muffled shot cracks in her ear at the same instant the kickback punches her shoulder.

Without even looking, she knows she’s missed the bullseye.

Bryce doesn’t raise the binoculars and gloat. He simply passes them to her and lets her take the first look. When she does, she sees that she hit the target’s outer ring. Not as bad as she thought, but not great, either.

She takes off her earmuffs and waits for Bryce to do the same.

‘I suck,’ she says, handing him the binoculars.

He doesn’t bother looking. Instead, he puts a comforting arm around her shoulders and squeezes. ‘That’s what you get for tripping off overseas. Outta practice. But you’ll be kicking my arse again before you know it.’

Pretending to be annoyed by his affection, she shrugs off his arm, though she really doesn’t want to. ‘When’re you gonna cut that out? I’ve been home for two weeks.’

‘Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how much I missed you.’

She can’t keep the smile from curling her lips. ‘I know. I missed you, too, but I’m home now.’ The words on her tongue feel thick with the lie. She had missed him, but she no longer feels like she’s home. Not anymore.

‘Here,’ he says, handing her his rifle. ‘I’m going in for my nap. You remember how to clean those, right?’

‘Unfortunately, yeah.’

He smiles, clamps a hand on her shoulder with affection and walks towards the house.

As she watches him, she notices the faintest hint of a limp.

A hollow pit opens up in her stomach. He’s trying to hide it, but the pain must be especially bad today for him to show any sign at all that he’s hurting.

Then again, she’s hurting too. Just not physically, though it feels that way sometimes.

When she’d started her Higher School Certificate last year, it’d been the first time the tiny high school offered textiles as an elective. Just as she’d known she would, she’d instantly fallen in love with every aspect of it.

She’d raved about it to her father, but he’d only given her obligatory grunts, his eyes miles away. So, she’d stopped talking about it.

Then came the opportunity to go to Japan and experience their fashion.

She’d known Bryce would never let her go, would never spend money on something so frivolous.

So, she’d deceived him by making her own permission slip on the school computer, changing every textiles and design reference to agricultural studies.

He’d claimed she already knew everything there was to know.

But she’d explained that part of the syllabus was to gather information on another country’s agricultural techniques, and that the best way to experience such a thing was to be there in person.

Convincing him that her attendance on the trip would help with her overall marks in her final year at high school, he’d finally coughed up a cheque.

She’d forged his signature on the real permission slip, knowing she wouldn’t get caught. What did the school care as long as they had the money? And it wasn’t like her father would bother talking to her teachers.

Yes, she’d lied to him. But she had visited a farm in Japan.

Once. She’d sent Bryce a bunch of photos to make it look like that’s where she’d been the whole time.

After that single day on the farm, she’d wrapped her muddy boots in a plastic bag, stuffed them in the bottom of her suitcase and forgotten all about farms and cows and mud and manure.

Until she’d unpacked those boots two weeks ago.

For the rest of her trip, the teacher had taken the textiles class to fashion shows and design schools.

And she’d had a revelation. A passion had welled up inside her, one she’d never been able to summon for farming.

And now it simmered within her. Every time she stepped into the textiles class, every time her fingers touched the different textures of the fabric she worked with.

Every time she heard the rhythmic rise and fall of the sewing-machine needle punching thread through fabric, joining it together in a unique way that seemed to flow from her hands as she guided the material.

Her throat constricts. This life, the one her father wants for her, isn’t the one she wants for herself anymore. She has to tell him. She knows that. But she loves him and doesn’t want to hurt him.

Taking a deep breath, she turns away from the house and looks at the rolling hills that are all theirs. Her father’s, anyway. As beautiful as it is, it’s not where she wants to be. She has no idea how she’s going to break that news.

Bending down, she grabs her Akubra, shoves it on her head and glances at her gumboots. They’re not warm and comfortable like her favourite boots, but she hasn’t been able to find them since she’d unpacked them and worn them on a walk around the property her first day home.

Not eager to get on with her task of cleaning the guns, she lets her gaze travel over the familiar contours of the land until they come to rest on one large, brown paddock.

A paddock that also happens to contain every single head of cattle they own.

Frowning, she places the rifles on the ground and takes the long walk over to the fence.

Once there, she finds that all the grass has been eaten.

Worse still, the cattle seem so hungry, they’re salivating.

For the life of her, she can’t figure out why her father would subject the cows to this hunger when the adjoining paddock is twice the size and lush with pasture.

He’s only sixty-five, old by other teenagers’ parents, she knows, but is he that old he’s forgotten to move the herd?

Well, the least she can do is save him the trouble.