‘Please don’t be like that.’
‘Like what? Like a normal person living in the real world? Like an adult taking responsibility for their life instead of letting a pair of dice decide their every move?’ She shifted away from him, the swell of emotion carving a divide between them. ‘Should I buy a house? Should I get married? Oh, how many kids should I have? I know, let me roll the dice and see. Woops, it’s an even number so, sorry, not going to happen this time.’
The sarcasm was cutting, the contorted look of disgust on her face heartbreaking, but he held firm. She was angry, and she had every right to be. After all, he had brought this upon himself.
‘Can’t you see it’spathetic, Jacob? It’s pathetic and childish. When are you going to wake up and become an adult?’ Her fists were clenched so tightly that the veins on her hands were popping out. ‘God, I don’t know how I let you convince me that you were anything other than idiotic, inconsiderate and completely and utterlyselfish.’
Selfish.
He knew he shouldn’t react, that he didn’tdeserveto react, but something inside him snapped, and before he knew what was happening, he started to laugh. Quietly at first, then gradually louder and louder, until his whole body was shaking with the force.
‘What?’ She slammed her hands down on to the sand. ‘What is so fuckingfunny?’
‘You!’ he cried, unable to hold it in any longer. ‘You andyour notion of what everyone else should be doing with their lives, when you’re barely living your own.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You sit there and preach to me about growing up and being responsible, but who says having a house and kids, and a marriage where two people never speak and probably end up divorcing and hating the sight of each other, makes you responsible? You live your life based on what society thinks you should do. What other people say is the right way to be. What’s wrong with doing it differently? What’s wrong with doing whatIwant to do with the timeIhave left on this planet?’
‘Time left?’ She looked incandescent, his words pouring oil on an already raging fire. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me about time left. My sister had no time. She had notime.’
‘Yeah, and I bet she tried to live more than you ever will with how much time you have left.’
He was in dangerous territory now, but even if he wanted to, he knew he couldn’t stop.
‘It’s only because of her that you’re even here. If she hadn’t died, I reckon you would have happily just spent your days clocking up more hours sitting in your office, working yourself to the bone. Earning money that you have no time to spend, unless it’s to buy heaps of shit that you never get to enjoy, giving half of it away to a government that quite frankly doesn’t care about you in the slightest – as long as you’re paying for them to live their wonderful lives – until you finally retire and realize you don’t have anything else to talk about except how much you miss work, or how your body is breaking down because you’ve put it through so much stress it’s forgotten how to function. Am I right?’
Olivia’s face was mutinous.
‘Fuck you, Jacob. Fuck you and your simplistic view of the world.’
She practically jumped from the ground.
‘You sit there passing comment on my life.Judgingmy life so harshly. And yeah, maybe I do spend too much time at work, and maybe I do earn more money than I need but those taxes that I give away so foolishly? The money Inaivelyhand over to the government? That money goes towards paying nurses and doctors, and running the hospitals that tried to save my sister’s life. In fact’ – she pointed her finger in his face – ‘theydidsave her life, over and over again. So yes, I may be boring and a sheep, but at least I have family and friends and people who are there for me when I need them. People who stay around long enough to care about me and my life.’
Tears were streaming down her face, her tiny frame physically shaking with anger.
At him.
All because of him.
‘I’m sorry.’ He went to reach for her, to take his cruel words and stuff them back inside his mouth. ‘I didn’t mean anything about your sister, you know I would never—’
‘Save it,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t need your apologies and take-backs now. In fact, I don’t need anything from you, ever again. Have a nice life, Jacob, wherever the hell you end up.’
And without even a backwards glance, she left him, running off down the beach, swallowed by the darkness.
‘Fuck!’ He screamed, tensing his entire body and allowing the pain that had been building inside him to surge to the surface. ‘Fuck!’
He shouted until his throat was hoarse and the sound nolonger came, emptied of everything except the sickening vortex of guilt and rage that swirled inside him.
Jacob reached into his pocket and felt for the dice. He wanted to throw them, hurl them into the ocean and never see them again. His two trusted companions were supposed to keep him safe. To keepeveryonesafe – from him. What good had they done?
He raised his hand in the air.
One simple move and they would be gone.
But he wouldn’t. He knew he couldn’t.
