Page 132 of Reckless Hearts

Seb kneels beside me, his arms wrapping around me. I should push him away, protect him from the mess that is me, but I can’t. I’m too weak, too selfish.

And I see exactly how much he loves me. I see it in the fierce protectiveness of his embrace, in the way he’s trying to absorb my pain into himself.

“You don’t need to talk about this, Marcus,” he says.

“I want you to know.” The words come out in a ragged gasp. “I want you to understand.”

I struggle to control my breathing. It feels like I’m drowning on dry land. The room starts to spin, and I grip the edge of the table to steady myself.

“You had a sister?” Seb’s voice is hesitant. And I know he’ll do this for me, give me the structure to get through this conversation, guide me through my minefield of memories. He’ll create a path for me, one careful question at a time.

Knowing this, knowing I can trust him, settles my breathing to the point I can get words out.

“Yes, I had a sister.” The words come out in a half-gulp, half-whisper. “Her name was Emmy.”

And the memories flood in.

Emmy was so particular about her name. If anyone dared call her Emeline, she’d cross her arms and declare, “Emmy! E-M-M-Y!” like she was spelling it out for a particularly slow student.

“Was she younger or older than you?” Seb asks.

“Younger. By three years.”

My earliest memory was being taken to the maternity ward the day Emmy was born. I stood on tiptoe, peering into a plastic crib, to see this tiny wrinkled thing with a shock of dark hair. She looked like an angry little old man, but when I touched her hand, her fingers instantly wrapped around mine.

“She was my little sister. She followed me everywhere. She hero-worshipped me.”

Memories of Emmy that I’ve tried so hard to suppress now overwhelm me. Every morning before school, she’d wait outside my bedroom door with a new “discovery” to show me—a leaf that looked like a dragon’s wing, a rock she’d drawn on, and once even a slug she named Herbert.

She had this way of humming off-key when she was happy, usually some mangled version of whatever song was stuck in her head.

When she learned to ride a bike, she refused to wear the princess helmet Mum bought her, insisting on wearing my old blue one instead, even though it was too big and kept slipping down over her eyes.

I squeeze my eyes shut against the onslaught of memories and force myself to continue. “And she died because of me.”

When I open my eyes, I find Seb watching me with his impossibly blue ones. His expression shows so much compassion that I have to look away, my fingers digging into my thighs hard enough to bruise.

“What happened?” he asks gently.

“She drowned. When she was six. It was my fault.”

Seb draws in a sharp breath.

I continue, the words lancing out of me. “My grandparents had a holiday home at Lake Taupo that we used to go to over the summer. There was this rocky outcrop at the lake, a few meters above the water. We called it Pirate’s Point.” I trail off and take a deep, shuddering breath before I continue.

“That day, Emmy spent hours drawing this treasure map, and she wanted me to play pirates with her. She was obsessed with the showJake and the Neverland Pirates, but I had decided it was too babyish, and I didn’t want to play.

“We were up on the rock, and she was trying to show me her map, and I just wanted her to leave me alone, so I pushed her.

“I didn’t realize she was so close to the edge, and then suddenly, she slipped backward…”

Seb’s eyes are filled with tears. “If she was six, then you were only nine, Marcus. You can’t blame yourself for something you did when you were nine. You were just a kid.”

I smear my own tears across my face and force myself to continue.

“No, but the worst part was, after she fell, I panicked. I just…froze. By the time I jumped in, she’d gone under, and it took me ages to find her.”

There are no words to describe the panic I felt while searching the water. I kept diving, my eyes stinging, my lungs burning, but all I could see were shadows and shapes that weren’t my sister. It felt like the lake itself was working against me, hiding her from me as punishment for what I’d done.