Page 168 of Vying Girls

‘Yup.’ I settle back on the sofa with a sigh. ‘But don’t you worry about her. She’ll be fine. She can stay in that tent for weeks on end. Just concentrate on the shit you’ve got going on there, okay? Concentrate on Elly.’

‘Yeah. I will.’

‘Good girl. And Tilda?’ I close my eyes, blocking everything out for a second. ‘Fucking love you.’

I smile at her watery chuckle.

‘Fucking love you too, Haz.’

Nic

I’ve lost count of the days. There’s something weirdly freeing in it. My tent’s got a box of MREs. Expensive as shit, but they’ve kept me going. I’ve got some books—required reading for my course—and a notepad.

Not that I’m getting much coursework done. The waves keep calling me, atop this little outcrop that was a faff and a half to get to. It juts out above the northernmost tip of Hazelhurst, the cliff face a tangled mess of spindly pine roots. It’s sandier here than the rest of the island. If I came back in a year, doubt it would still be here, crumbled into the sea below.

There’s a beach down there, with no way to reach it save from scaling the cliff. Apart from mustering up the courage to give it a go, there’s nothing to do but think. Which is exactly why I’m here.

It’s fine, the Varsity thing. Not life or death. Some stupid hockey tourney doesn’t define me. It took me about two days to come to that conclusion, to let the anger ebb away like the sandy cliff into the sea.

I could have returned then. Told Tilda it’s all good. Carry on as we have been. Fine, if I wasn’t sick to death of it all.Itmostly being me. I get this urge sometimes, to lift my skull, to scoop out everything inside and chuck it away. To form a new brain that’s not so torturous. Less angry, less destructive. The tent thing helps. The silence of it helping to wick away the angst. I could live out here forever if it weren’t for England’s shitty winters. That, and the people who’d miss me.

I ignore the twinge of guilt that tells me they’re probably worried. As much as I like to think I’m some lone wolf, Haz ispractically family at this point, whether she likes it or not, and as for Elly, I know I need her kindliness for the rest of my life.

And then there’s Tilda, who still cares for me for some reason, and is probably still reeling from the emergency the other night.

My heart’s still palpitating to fuck. It’s probably best I’m not pushing it, forcing myself to remain still and come to a decision.

It all ends here. Whether that means keeping Tilda around or leaving her forever, I’m done. There’s no more keeping on. It’s only going to ruin us, dragging both Haz and Elly down too.

And frankly, I’m tired. So tired I’m thinking about bad, permanent things just to make it stop. My eyes blur with tears just looking over the cliff, sheltered in the arms of tree roots, because the thought of falling into that water is just so fucking tempting. Probably my subconscious that chose this spot. I don’t think a fall from here would kill me, just hurt kind of a lot.

Haz was right. Our conversation’s on repeat. I force myself to remember everything she said, to sit with how god-awful I am. Hearing it laid out like that was galvanizing. It was fucked what I did—making Tilda think I thought she was a liar about what Dad did. Maybe little me believed that, had to to survive. But little Nic’s dead, has been for years. Smothered with drugs and loneliness and Damien’s demon touch.

I make myself remember how it felt when I went to the police about him and no one had believed me. That deep, deep hopelessness that there was no one coming to help me. Maybe it had been a blessing because it was only after then that I started to devise some kind of escape plan. Sometimes the only one who’s coming for us is ourselves.

But unlike Tilda, I never blamed myself for what Damien did. That was one thing I never carried. He was just a sick fuck, and I was an easy target. Vulnerable and alone and too young to grasp the seriousness.

To have carried that blame though, it would have eaten me. Yet Tilda’s still here, still loving, still forgiving. Despite believing she ruined her mum’s life, and Dad’s, and mine. And I only hammered home that belief. That she was somehow to blame for getting caught in the claws of a paedophile and causing it all to blow up. Ten-year-old, innocent, beautiful Tilda.

I close my eyes in my den of roots, feeling those tears again. How can she forgive that? How can I ask that of her? I’ve no right to any of it. Yet she still wants me, she still tries. Because she hasn’t lost herself to the same darkness I have. She still remembers the light, those magical two years that only ended because of Dad and no one else. They’re still branded onto my soul somewhere, hidden beneath years of dust and trauma. If she can find it, surely I can too. I want to. I want us back.

Sick though it is, the only thing that’s been making it bearable is the thought that what Damien did was my penance, some kind of twisted, fucked-up karma. My just deserts. For the first time, I feel calm when I think about him. Like I’m now somehow absolved.

There’s just today, where Tilda’s still here, caring for me, wanting me, and then the future which can either be written in blood or ink.

Damien’s a threat we can face together. It was wrong of me to make her promise not to tell the others about my heart emergency. I’ve scratched it onto my list of things to apologise for. I’m still trying to find it in me to forgive myself for making her walk through the forest alone that night. I wasn’t thinking, I just knew I needed to see her. To fall to my knees and apologise, that’s all I’d been thinking to do. A deathbed confession.

Except I’m still fucking here. Living and breathing. A whole lifetime to make it up to her.

Above me, I hear a scuff and then Haz’s undoubtedly pissed voice calling out, ‘Nic?’

I lift my head above the cliff. Haz spots me and lets out a huff. She tiptoes over the roots and sits down beside me, out of the wind.

She throws something at me. My phone. ‘Fucking stupid, Nic. What if your heart packed in again?’

I pick it up, brushing off sand. ‘I was coming home tomorrow.’

‘Of course you were. Been fucking looking for you everywhere.’