Niall rubbed the leather braid of his bracelet and pretended to focus on the page in front of him. By his calculations, there were ten minutes left of this detention, but if Mr McInally caught him glancing at the clock one more time, he was getting another.
The bracelet helped calm him. Carli had made it for him. It doubled up as a surfer’s accessory and something he could fiddle with when he was tempted to bite back at a teacher for assuming the worst of him. Mostly, it was Mr McInally who seemed to have it in for him, but that was enough to drive him to kick the walls with frustration.
At least Carli was waiting for him downstairs. That helped too. The past few months since her arrival, there’d been a substantial decrease in detentions. This one should never have happened and wouldn’t have if Niall hadn’t taken the bait.
‘No detentions in the last three months, Niall. Good to see.’
‘Cheers, sir.’
‘The Butler black sheep changing his colours at last.’
And he had to go and spoil it all. Niall was seething and when Mr McInally’s back was turned, he carved the beginnings of ‘Fuck you’ into the desk with his protractor, a considerably more measured response than he wanted to execute. Except, he hadn’t got further than that ‘F’ when the teacher had turned back and caught him. And the rest was history. Or rather maths detention.
Niall handed his completed detention work to Mr McInally on the way out of the classroom and turned away before he could witness it being launched into the bin, as was the custom. That would wind him up even more. He needed to see Carli’s face and everything would be so much better.
And there she was. Long dark hair, soft brown eyes, cute as shortbread in her little miniskirt and tights, sitting on a bench in the school foyer waiting for him. His friend for whom he felt far more than friendship. The person who somehow stabilised him and stopped him from capsizing.
‘Hey.’
Carli looked up from the bracelet she was braiding. She and his sisters were bracelet mad. ‘Hey. How was it?’
‘Usual shite. Let’s get out of here and go to the beach.’
‘It’s kind of cold for the beach, no?’
‘If you’re a soft Aussie, it is.’
‘Are you calling me soft?’
‘Might be.’
‘Right, well, then I’ll raise your walk on the beach to a swim.’
Niall laughed. ‘A swim?! You’re on. You might live to regret that.’
It was a blustery late October afternoon. Kinshore’s three-mile-long beach was practically deserted save a few dog walkers in hats and anoraks that were nothing more than blobs in the distance. No one was surfing. The swell was too choppy today.
Niall turned to Carli, the wild coastal wind dancing with her hair. She was shivering a little. How he wanted to pull her to him and warm her body. She was heavenly. Inside and out.
‘I never said thanks,’ he said.
‘For what?’
‘For waiting for me today. You’ve no idea what a difference it made, knowing you would be there when I got out. Thanks, Cass.’
‘No need to thank me. That’s what friends do.’
‘Aye, friends.’ Niall nodded. ‘They do.’ Niall had male friends and some of them had waited for him while he finished detention. But it never meant as much or made as much difference as when Carli did it. Maybe it was because he’d confided in her about his darkest fears. She knew more about him than they did. Secrets shared between the sand dunes during late summer nights.
I’m scared I might be like him, Cass.
Who?
My dad. My biological dad. The one who died. The arsehole. Everything I do turns to shit. No matter how I try, I can’t be like Jamie or Cal. I’m Naughty Niall, the fuck-up. The black sheep.
Black sheep? Carli laughed. If you’re any colour of sheep it’s orange. And yellow. And maybe a splash of red. And green.
Alright, you’re being nice about my ‘bubbly personality’,but I mean I feel like I don’t belong in my own fucking family. I can be outgoing and still not belong.
