Page 69 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

Nic

The sun shines on my face, nice at first, now starting to burn with my sun-delicate skin. I fling an arm over my eyes, my sigh melding with the waves mere metres away.

It’s still pleasant out here—secluded, warm for once, home for a few days.

Another sound reaches me. Intermittent, my ears twitching each time. It’s subtle, just the sound of feet crunching over shells and sand, but a reminder I’m not alone nevertheless.

I crack an eye open. She’s still on the shore, hunched over as she beachcombs, one hand full of treasures.

My eyelashes create a filter, hazy and golden. Like I’m looking at the past. That beach day that never happened. She’d still be doing this, roping me in too. I can see our footprints in the sand, mine right beside hers as she makes me hold her finds.

It’s sad. It’s healing. It’s undoubtedly necessary to get us wherever we’re going.

My eyes open fully when she turns in my direction, her face a satisfied mask.

‘Literally love this beach,’ she says as she plonks down next to me.

‘Me too.’

‘Never knew it existed.’

‘Mm. That’s the point.’

She looks around. ‘We could move the tent down here.’

‘Sure, if you want the tide to wash us away in the night.’

Tilda snorts. ‘God, I’m so dumb.’ She shuffles the stuff in her hand, eyes facing the ocean.

It’s in these silences where my heart beats quicker, the elephant in the room peeking its head around the door. We came here to talk. I know it, she knows it. Shit, Elly and Haz practically forced us out here. We’re both procrastinating, a certain shyness rendering us reticent.

‘You done with your crow- ing?’

She nods, finally showing me her finds. ‘I got this for Haz.’ She taps a black stone, with an unbroken red line around it. ‘And this for Elly.’ A blue shell, reminiscent of Elly’s eyes. ‘And this’—she holds out a sizeable stone—‘is for you.’

I accept it from her, taking in the perfect hole right in the centre.

‘A hag stone. They’re magic.’

‘Mm-hm.’ I turn it over in my hand, stupidly touched with the gift. ‘How so?’

‘They’re wishing stones. They also let you see things. Like a baby portal.’

I hold it up to my eye indulgently. ‘See what?’

‘Dunno. The other side. Fairies and things. Or—just whatever you want to see. The future, maybe.’

I turn my head, letting the sight of Tilda fill the hole.

The future.

Lowering the stone, I juggle it idly in my hand.

‘Are you going to make a wish?’ Tilda asks softly.

Looking at her, I put the stone back up to my eye. Then I close them.

Jesus, what to wish for. Suppose there’s only one thing. Reconciliation. Her forgiveness. The chance to make things right, to pull the tattered pieces of our past back around us.

I slowly open my eyes to her gentle smile. ‘Done.’

Her smile deepens. ‘So. What did you wish for?’

‘As if I’d tell you.’

Rolling her eyes, she flops onto her back. ‘Killjoy.’

It’s soft on this blanket, warmer now that Tilda’s beside me. Maybe the sun will bleach away our sins if we sit here long enough, its healing rays penetrating all those dark, hidden crevices.

I draw in a breath at the touch of Tilda’s fingers on my thigh. Just a gentle brush of knuckles, a reminder that she’s here.

Like I could forget. A few weeks after Damien now, and I can just about hold at bay the tight grip of panic that the thought of him taking her conjures.

I’m not sure fear’s the right word for it. It was a dread, the strength of which I’d never felt before. Like being thrown in tar, so viscous and black. No hope for swimming, just a slow drowning—the time it took to get to Tilda in the labyrinth.

As happy an ending as I could have hoped for, all in all. Even if our ears had been ringing for days afterwards.

When a chuckle escapes unbidden, Tilda nudges me. ‘What’s so funny?’

I glance at her, seeing that she’s on her side watching me. ‘Your terrible shot that almost deafened us all.’

She groans, turning her face away. ‘Wasn’t a bad shot. I meant to miss like that. I’m not a murderer.’

‘Just a maimer.’

‘A proud one.’ She frowns furiously. ‘Asshole. I’d do it again.’

A smile twitches my lips. ‘Can do without a redo myself.’

‘Well, won’t be one, will there?’ She picks up a stone and lobs it at the ocean. ‘Bastard’s locked up tight, smashed up foot n’ all.’

I watch the stone thunk into the sand. Out there, miles away from shore, is a prison—Splinter Island, the locals call it, owing to both the island’s columnar shape and the type of ‘punishments’ that are supposedly conducted there.

Should have known it was one lorded over by the Zaccaros, what with it being so close to Hazelhurst. A lucky thing for me. Fina’s final favour, a nice cosy cell with enough locks to keep even Houdini from escaping.

It’s as close to justice as I’m ever going to see. The first few clear days since, I hiked to a point where you can just about see the rock the prison hulks on. He’s still so close, I feel it keenly, but Tilda’s right—the bastard’s locked up tight. End of his reign.

I take a breath against Tilda’s stroking fingers. End of a lot of things, I imagine. All of them bad. Maybe there’s only good left now.

I peel open my eyes, watching Tilda’s easy affection. How can she stand it? How is she not drowning me in the ocean, hoping my body will float all the way to Damien where it belongs?

Of their own volition, my fingers drift down, the touch of them on Tilda’s like an electric shock. I only graze them. I don’t feel worthy yet.

When I look up, Tilda’s already watching me.

‘I don’t even know where to begin,’ I lament.

‘What?’ she whispers.

‘Apologising.’

She touches firmer with her fingers. ‘Want to start with the sex stuff first?’

‘The sex stuff?’

She smirks. ‘Well, yeah. Figured that was why we were out here too. It might make the talking easier afterwards.’

I shake my head, appreciating her attempt at levity. ‘You’ve turned into a tease, Matilda Kingston.’

‘It’s your friends. They bring it out in me.’

‘Mm, now that I can believe.’

We look at each other, chests rising and falling lazily, the sun so hot it’s making it hard to feel vulnerable. A breeze plays with the soft hairs at her temple, her eyes shadowed beneath the bill of her hat, more like forest moss than a sparkling teal lake.

And damn, she’s pretty. Cheeks pink with sun and shiny with sun cream. Her lips look dry, soft, temptingly kissable.

‘Maybe actions speak louder than words,’ I murmur.

A smile spreads across her lips. ‘Maybe.’

Accepting the tacit invitation, I lean up on my elbow, one hand raising to her cheek. Her lips are warm, almost burning. She sighs, melting beneath me. A sure surrender, shooting a lance of hope right through my chest.

I push her hat back, deepening the kiss. It’s never been quite like this before. This slow, hesitant exploration. A refamiliarising. It’s time to learn who adult Tilda is, separate from the child I’d once do anything for.

Not like that has changed. If it came to it, I’d have happily jumped in front of Damien’s bullet for her.

Something tells me that’s not what Tilda would have wanted though. For some reason, she wants me here and whole and with her.

She breaks the kiss on an exhale. ‘It’s so wild getting to do that. I mean’—she shakes her head—‘this whole thing. You and me, being here and everything. Do you still think it’s a coincidence?’

‘No,’ I whisper, surer of that than anything in my life. ‘And I never did.’

‘Didn’t think so,’ she murmurs back, stroking hair off my forehead. ‘Guess our old spells worked.’

‘Guess so. Would sooner cast a new one though.’

Tilda grins, shifting excitedly on the blanket. ‘Deal. We’ll do that.’

Biting her lip, she smiles up at the sky. I eye the curve of her jaw, fighting the urge to put my mouth there. Is that all it takes to rewrite history? A sloughing off of a curse and the making of a new one? Her desire to be eternally bound to me confounds me.

‘I’m almost angry at you.’

Tilda stills. ‘…Me? Why?’

‘Because you’re—’ I roll onto my back with a sigh, dragging a hand through my hair. ‘Nice.’

She chuckles uncertainly. ‘Would you rather I’m not?’

‘Kind of. I don’t deserve nice.’

Tilda’s silent for a long time, her voice when she next speaks quiet and reflective.

‘It’s not that I’m nice. I just…understand you, I guess.

I knew you before you were fucked up and you were good, and I loved you.

Suppose, despite everything, that kid was never too far away for me.

’ She nods, almost to herself. ‘I always had hope she’d return. And she did.’

I eye her dubiously. ‘So what—no anger at all?’

‘Of course there’s anger, Nic.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Shit. I’ve got some self-respect.’ She pinches together two fingers. ‘Some. You hurt me. A lot. And I didn’t deserve that, even if my brain kept telling me I did.’ She eyes me reprovingly. ‘It was an ugly, ugly thing you accused me of.’

I nod slowly, powerless to refute her.

‘Tilda.’ Rolling over, I rest on top of her.

Then I sink down, letting her feel me, the gravity of what I’m about to say.

‘My dad sexually assaulted you. You were a kid, you did nothing wrong. Nothing was your fault.’ Her face cupped in my hands, I shake her a little.

‘Nothing. Okay? He betrayed you, your mum betrayed you, and I…betrayed you too. You were an innocent in all of it and I am so fucking sorry.’

Tears flood Tilda’s eyes, her lips trembling.

‘Fuck.’ She draws in a shuddering breath, laughing a little. ‘I think I really, really needed to hear that.’

‘I’ll keep telling you. As long as you keep needing to hear it.’

Nodding, she wipes her cheeks, eyes closed to gather herself.

I clear my throat. ‘Hey, um, look, you can totally say no, but I’ve been thinking—how would you feel about getting some therapy together?’

‘Like…couple’s therapy?’