The flare off the river ignites in my head. ‘Harris, my dad might be able to find your family.’
For a split second, Harris’s expression is completely armour-free: hopeful and wanting. But the hope is extinguished just as quickly. ‘I’ve tried, hey. It’s not that easy.’
‘At least let me ask Dad when I see him tomorrow?’
‘I dunno.’ He looks away as his tongue untangles. ‘I dunno if my family’ll still want to see me. If they still…’ He breaks off – the wordscare about memust be somehow too hard – and shrugs. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t contact them. Maybe I’m too fucked up to be with them again.’
I shake my head. ‘How can you say that?’
Harris gazes out over the river, his voice soft. ‘I just wonder, y’know? Did my dad get so mean cos of whathisdad was like? I’m a rough-head and I’m a drinker, and I can get mean. What if I get back together with Mum and Kelly and I can’t put that part of me to bed?’
‘You’re nothing like your dad, Harris. You know that, right?’
That doesn’t seem to console him. ‘But what if it’s like Wash, Rinse, Repeat? I mean, what if I make a family one day, and have a kid, and then I just…’
His words dry up and I can’t look away from his expression. I shuffle closer on my knees and put my hennaed hand on his. I’m trying to think of what to say, something more significant than just platitudes, when the phone in my back pocket chimes.
‘Oh shit.’ I check the time. ‘It’s four o’clock.’
Harris clears his throat, releases my hand and starts to rise. ‘Gotta get back to your nanna’s, huh?’
‘Um, yes. Dammit.’ I hook the camera around my neck with the strap, push myself up with the log. The tough bark scrapes my palm, and I remember. ‘Harris, I’m going home on Thursday afternoon.’
He looks crestfallen for the briefest moment before shifting into neutral again. ‘Oh, right. Sure. You just came up for the wedding, yeah?’
‘Yeah. So, I won’t get to see you –’ I stop, rephrase. ‘We won’t get to touch base again before I go.’
He shoves his hands in his jeans pockets. ‘Right. Well, good luck with your residency stuff. And have fun at the wedding.’
‘Thanks.’ I give him a little smile.
‘Don’t get married yourself, by accident.’ He colours, walks to the Pitbull.
After he drops me at my car, I drive back home to Nani’s house, the sun beating down from above. I think about Harris and the conversation we had. Lately it’s as if everyone I know wants to talk about what I’m doing with my life. And I don’t have any answers. I only know I can’t leave. I won’t turn into another missing person in my family’s photo albums. It would be like a mini-death.
Harris has a plan – a getaway plan. The idea of him shooting through makes my chest feel tight. But he’s determined to escape his father’s clutches, and who could blame him?
I haven’t really been around anyone like Harris before, who’s so full of despair. There’s got to be something in me he’s seeing, some spark of hope. I survived despair. My dad survived it. We didn’t become closed-off and broken. Maybe Harris sees the possibility of an ending to sadness.
But I worry that he’s seeing a false positive in me: I don’t know if he can judge his own recovery by me or Dad. Our sad time was sudden and finite, while Harris’s started from childhood and went on and on as he grew into a person.
I don’t know if I’ve ever gone through what he’s feeling. And I don’t know if anything I said to him will resonate. I’ll talk to Dad about finding Harris’s family: maybe some good will come out of that. But will it be enough? Barb’s words roll over in my head:You can’t save people – you can only give them the encouragement they need to save themselves.God knows I want Harris to save himself. It surprises me to realise how deeply invested I am in that wanting.
I’m hot and sweaty by the time I get back. I need a nap. What scares me a little though is that I want to lie on my bedpretendingto nap while I think about Harris Derwent’s bottom lip. The fullness of it, curving into this tender luscious shape. How it matches his top lip perfectly, with the little indentation there, right in the middle. How it catches on his teeth when he bites it.
I shake my head to clear it as I pull into the driveway of the house. Jaago preparations will be a distraction, Robbie wants to meet tonight in town, and there’s plenty to do.
The drowsiness is all through me, though. I shouldn’t be thinking about Harris’s lips, or wondering if he’d let me photograph them. I don’t want to check my camera for the shots of his neck – I know it’ll only make the feeling worse – but I don’t think I’ll be able to help myself. Because I want that vision through my lens. I want to hear its liquid foreign tongue. I want to see that sight again…
Harris’s sleek warm skin.
The rugged tree bark.
Flame on the water.
