“I know,” she replied as she popped a piece in her mouth. “More for me.”
“Cruel,” I taunted as she took off laughing.
“I’ll buy you some chips!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“I can’t be bought with chips!”
“I can,” she replied, arching her eyebrow and laughing as she sat down on a bench. “Have you heard anything about your interview yet?”
Ah, the senior journalist interview. The holy grail of jobs. “I spoke with my manager who basically told me it was mine, but they need to go through with advertising and interviewing other candidates. It’s just a formality though.” I glanced at her, taken by surprise by her beauty. It happened a lot. “I’m on the up, Skye. Just call me Senior from now on.”
She beamed. “That’s amazing. You deserve it.”
“It’s been a long time coming,” I replied. “All those shitty jobs were worth it in the end.”
“Don’t talk to me about shitty jobs.” She shivered and laughed before nodding over to the pier. “Remember when I worked on the bingo?”
“Ah, a highlight of your career.”
“Elliott would come down after school and pretend to play so he wouldn’t get kicked out.” I smiled, remembering meeting him for the first time as he was slumped over the bright, flashing boards finishing his homework. “Do you remember coming here on Elliott’s birthday? He wanted to win a Super Mario on one of the grabbers.”
“I remember it cost me about forty quid just to get him one. I could have bought him one for less.”
“It made his birthday,” she replied, looping her arm through mine. I couldn’t remember the last time Skye had talked about Elliott like this, not the good times anyway. I knew she couldn’t let herself go there. Opening that wound would be catastrophic. Sometimes her grief would allow her to think about the highs, but she’d always close the lid again with a slam.
“He liked it when you were around.” Her hair fluttered around her and the lights captured her face, illuminating her like she was picked out especially because she was perfection. “I miss him most when I’m here.” She looked across the pebbled beach. “I can still see him in the distance, hear his voice and that’s good because otherwise, all I see is when we found him. Still and quiet. Cold.” I moved closer, put my arm around her shoulders and we rested against each other. “Do you ever think about that night?”
“Sometimes. I try not to,” I replied honestly.
“I shouldn’t talk about him,” she said, wiping tears away. “It never ends well.”
“You should,” I replied. “You need to let it out. To grieve properly.”
“Can’t,” she said, smiling through a sigh. “Ain’t gonna happen.”
“There’s nothing wrong with talking.”
She fiddled with the ribbon around her neck. “I never thought that would be how his life would end,” she said sadly. “I really believed Brighton was the perfect place for him. Near the water and in a city so accepting of people.” She shook her head. “How wrong was I?”
I stayed silent for a second, hating that she had that opinion of the place she loved. Grief coloured everything differently, but it shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t.
Say what matters.
“He was accepted, Skye. He just didn’t accept himself.”
She nodded, although I knew she didn’t believe me, and took out her earrings. Giant gold hoops. So her. I knew she’d love them the minute I saw them in a handmade jewellery store in the Laines. I left them at the side of her bed one evening and her hug the next morning told me I’d made the right choice.
“What do you miss the most about him?” she asked.
I wanted to say I missed the Skye I knew before her life was smashed into pieces. The carefree girl who took life as a gift not the woman who lived it tentatively day by day, afraid to let it run in front of her. Now, she always had tight hold and would never it let go. I didn’t though. I pulled her in and said, “I miss how he made you feel worthy of love.”
She glanced at me quickly before looking towards the tide. It was heavier and less forgiving now and I hoped it wasn’t reflecting Skye’s mood after my comment. She stood and I feared the worst, she had a history of running, but she calmly walked forward and climbed onto the wooden groyne, arms stretched out on either side of her to collect her balance.
“There’s where you’re wrong,” she finally replied. I followed her, ready to catch her or offer her applause if she made it to the end. You never knew which way it was going to go with Skye. “I know I’m worthy of love. I just can’t find anyone who feels I’m worthy enough to love me back.”
“Then…you haven’t been hanging out with the right men,” I said, arms ready to catch.
“Man, Will,” she replied, confidently moving along the narrow edge with ease. “I only need one.”
“I didn’t know you were looking,” I said, fake laughter doing nothing to cover my jealousy. “Not seriously anyway.”
“Isn’t everyone on the lookout for love?”
“I don’t know. I always thought I’d find it if I wasn’t looking.” I shrugged. “That the person to complete me would be right under my nose.”
You, Skye.
“I don’t need a man to complete me. I need a man to complement me.”
“You’re beautiful.” It left my mouth before I’d even thought about the consequences.
“No!” She laughed, throwing her face up to the sky. Her head was shaking but her smile remained. It always did. Even when accompanied with an eyeroll. “Complement me as a person. Complement my ideas, my brain, my heart. My life!”
“Skye, I think you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met,” I said. “How could I think anything else after all we’ve been through together? And how great our…” Fuck, don’t say relationship, “friendship is.” She stopped and turned her body, wobbling a little as she did. I stood below her, in fucking awe of the woman before me. She bit her lip and I would have given anything in that moment to know what she was thinking.
“Friendship?” she repeated, like she hadn’t quite heard and needed to hear it again. I didn’t nod or shake my head; in fact, I didn’t move. Friendship would never adequately describe would we were. “Help me down, William,” she said softly, holding her arms out, free and open as I held her against me and put her safely back down onto the beach.
I didn’t know what she was thinking. I’d lived the last five years in a permanent state of confusion, arousal a close second. Particularly in the last few weeks. Definitely after the night of the porn shoot. Our dry humping had been locked in a box and thrown out to Brighton sea, never to be spoken about again.
Remembering Elliott tonight had brought a range of emotions out of her. Sadness, a comparable vulnerability. The mutual understanding of how painful it was to remember his lifeless body. How just a second of time could change your life completely. The fine dance of not letting that second destroy you, but letting it flourish instead.