“If you asked me back then I’d have said we’d be friends for life,” Sophie said, a finger tucking under the silver bracelet that Win had been careful not to mention, or so much as look at, all day. “When people called her my BFF, I’d always thought ‘yeah, you’re right’. But then she left and I just carried on pretending that we’d been perfect pals – not just to everyone else. I think I was pretending to myself.”
“You guys were close.”
“We were, but close isn’t perfect, is it?”
Win shook her head.
“I wish I’d told her I was ill. God. There were so many doctor’s appointments – I spent half of August convinced I had skin cancer because of that stupid rash.” The hand that had been fiddling with the bracelet slid up past her elbow and clamped tightly around the top of her arm. There were freckles there, too. “I thought she’d notice, but she never did. And I never just said, ‘ask me’.”
Ask me. It wasn’t in the telling, it was in feeling important enough to be seen.
“But then…” Sophie’s voice dropped. “It’s not like I ever asked her, is it? She probably thought there wasn’t anything to ask about, same as me, while both of us were there, struggling along with problems we wanted the other to notice.” Her eyes misted over as she sniffed, before the weight of her sadness dragged her gaze down from the horizon and she sank into her hands. Reaching out, Win rested a hand on her shoulder. When Sophie leaned in, she pulled her into a gentle hug, wary of putting any pressure on her.
“I’m so sorry,” Win whispered, but Sophie was shaking her head. When she sat back up, her eyes were bright with tears and she dabbed at her nose with the heel of her hand.
“I never used to cry this much.”
“Maybe you never had this much to cry about?” Win laid her hands over Sophie’s. “Sophie. I’m not going to pretend I have the first clue what lupus really is” – as she’d told Ryan, she’d Google it – “but from what you said before it sounds like you’ve been sick on and off without knowing why, then Freya disappeared without telling you she was going the same week you found out you had a chronic illness, which, FYI has happened right in the middle of your GCSE year—”
“Oh God, don’t…” But she was smiling through the tears. “Plausible deniability, Win – they’re not happening.”
“Well then I won’t offer you my somewhat stellar revision notes.”
“How stellar?”
Win felt a little awkward, but she channelled a little of Sunny’s boastfulness. “I mean, good enough that my results got a mention in the local paper. Which you probably wouldn’t have seen because Mama bought up every copy in the region to send to her family.”
“I am very pleased I had no idea how cool and clever you were before I had to deliver your parcel.”
“Shut up.” Win nudged her gently and ducked her head to hide just how much she was smiling, but when she stole another glance at Sophie she was crying again. Shuffling closer, she pulled Sophie in for another hug. A little tighter this time, the kind of hug that can hold a person together as they threaten to fall apart.
Sophie’s shoulder notched neatly under Win’s chin and she felt the faint shake of sobs caught deep in the other girl’s chest. Red hair tickled her face and, just for a moment, Win closed her eyes and sank into the feeling of having her so close.
“I miss her,” Sophie whispered.
Slowly, Win eased away. “I know.”
“I’ve spent five months being angry and calling it sad and now, I just … I just feel sad.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I think the parcel broke me.” Sophie huffed a rueful laugh. “Snatched back more hope than it gave me.” She lifted her hands to her face, wiping away the tears, shaking her head all the while like it had been foolish to have any hope.
Win thought of the letter in her pocket, the lines threaded between all the ones that had annoyed her so much, lines that provided an explanation Win hadn’t been looking for, that Sophie craved so much. Stretching her leg out, Win dug around in her pocket, pulling out the paper she’d folded so many times it could barely keep its shape. She looked at it for a moment, weighing up what she was going to do with it.
Then, carefully, she held the paper out for Sophie to take.
“I think you should read this.”
RYAN
The water was too cold to stand in for any length of time. Further along the tideline, Sunny had ventured up onto the sand, searching for stones suitable for skimming, but Lucas showed no signs of moving, which meant Ryan couldn’t move either. Not without looking soft.
The two of them were hurling pebbles as far as they could into the sea.
“Mine,” Lucas said, claiming his third win in a row.
“Whatever.” Ryan flung a handful of shrapnel into the water and dusted his palm on his joggers. The waves at his ankles had licked away any sensation below the waterline and his feet had turned a cadaverous white. Picking up a bit of driftwood from the shallows, he waded out a little further to poke at some seaweed, trying to lift it up so he could flick it at Lucas, who’d been foolish enough to follow him.
“Have you thought about the order?”
“You what?” Ryan wasn’t really paying attention, busy with the seaweed plan.
“The order the parcel went in. All of it led to you.”
“And look where that got me.”
“Freya trusted you…” Lucas didn’t seem to hear the warning note in Ryan’s voice, and had walked that bit further out, eyes on the horizon so that he couldn’t see the scowl being levelled at his back. “With the letters I mean.”
“Don’t start. She baited Sophie with the promise of treasure at the end of the trail, knowing she’d bite. I was just the hook.” Ryan scowled at the sky and the sea and himself. “Not that being baited for such a headfuck of a let-down sounds any better.”
Ryan turned away, walking fast enough that the waves splashed up his calves to splatter his joggers, rolled up beyond his knees. Stick in hand, he poked at another frond of splayed seaweed swaying beneath the surface, hoping Lucas might take the hint and leave him be.
“Ryan.”
Ryan ground his teeth and jabbed at the water. “What?” He spun round, tracing an arc in the water with the end of his stick. “What are you trying to do? Spy for my cousin? Get something you can use to buy your way back into Kellan’s good books?”
“Like what?”
“Like what happened.”
“Doesn’t he already know that? From the letter?”
“Fuck off.” Ryan threw his stick out to sea with such force that he could hear the whip of it as it spun through the air, wondering how far he’d have to fling himself into the water to be swept away with the rest of the crap the waves had washed from the beach.
“What was she to you?” Lucas said, voice only a little louder than the water they were standing in.
Freya had been a secret.
A friend.
A need Ryan hadn’t known existed.
“Nothing. Same as I was to her. A one-time mistake and a crapload of regret.”