Page 201 of Vying Girls

‘I’m spooning Tilda. You just happen to be in the way.’

‘Uh-huh. It’s cool.’ Haz wiggles backwards. ‘Spoon away, baby.’

I smile against Elly’s shirt. It’s a pretty tight fit with the four of us and I want to kiss Nic for not putting up more of a fuss. This is her private place, after all, and she’s not keen on being crowded at the best of times. But she makes exceptions when it comes to me, they all do.

I feel for her warm fingers, lifting them to my mouth. Her thumb extends to stroke my cheek. We just vowed forever but I vow it again, right here and now. It’s not just a want, but there’s a need to all of this too. Life’s bruised us all, one way or another. But it also threw us together. Like it knew we’re meant to heal each other, all four of us creating some sort of balance, a synergy we’re just not evolved enough to understand. We can only trust the process, to feel, to love each other the best way our broken hearts can.

I know Elly’s crying out for stability. She’s not the wandering type like Nic, she’s not got that wild, frenetic energy that Haz does. She just needs her family to be happy, and to be free enough to live her own life. I can gift her that stability. I can’t save her loved ones, but I can saveher.I can be her shelter in the storm, I can cradle her hopes and dreams, keeping that candle lit for when the time comes to fulfil them.

Haz hasn’t got much in the way of hopes and dreams. She doesn’t dwell in the future, has no need for it. She’s a live-up-every-day sort of soul. But the past isn’t so easy to outrun. I know it tethers her, that hard reluctance to give up the place she grew up, to put to bed the memories of her childhood.

It’s hard when the questions are never answered. How did she survive that crash? Why did her parents keep her when they sowanted not to? Whether or not she spends the rest of her life pretending she isn’t searching, yearning for the love she was cruelly denied as a child, I know I can love her in the present.

Because, really, that’s all we have. That love can patch up the past, if not entirely erase it, enabling a future that’s a hell of a lot brighter.

The fire’s smoke tightens my throat. The forest floor digs into my hip. I’m tired, battle-worn. We’re like soldiers, the four of us. The only survivors of a war, now resting our weary, bloodied bodies.

But we survived. Still here, still loving. And one day we’ll be whole again, giving little pieces of ourselves to each other until all the holes are filled.

‘Love you guys,’ I whisper.

Haz grunts, nuzzling my neck. Elly echoes the words back to me. Nic tightens her hand, that familiar, anchoring ache holding me together more than she knows.

A girl who’s always had my love, even if I haven’t had hers.

But then, how much of that’s true? I bring to mind the mask tattooed on her leg, the one hammered to her door. She’s always kept some vestige of me close, even if it hurt her to do so. Because she’s not one to give up on love either. Not even one that cuts and wounds and scars.

If it’s real, it will win.

And, in this lifetime, ours did.