‘Ach, it’s fine. I’m not needing pity. Just saying. I’d never have dreamt it would still be with me all these years later.’
Carli watched him quietly for a moment then tilted her head thoughtfully. ‘Aren’t there things… people… who’ve had a positive influence on you? It can’t have all been doom and gloom. What about Rafe?’
‘Aye, of course, Rafe was like my left arm.’ They’d been like twins at the start of their friendship. Out every night, dazzling girls with their outlandish antics and carefree surfer attitudes, the hottest property in town. But Rafe met Suzy and settled down. Relationships seemed to come easier to him. Everything came easier to him, from being the kind of man that didn’t drive women up the wall with inconsistency, to effortlessly knowing how to build a business. Niall believed he should do more for the surf school,but Rafe told him to focus on wrangling the kids; that was his area of expertise.
‘Is there a but?’ Carli asked.
‘Kind of. His death obviously isn’t a great mood booster. I’ve lost the bloke who made me believe I was worth something, but I’ve got this niggling feeling that if I’d been more useful, then he’d have had less stress and his heart would’ve held out longer.’
At this giant revelation, Carli’s expression remained soft and her voice gentle. ‘Oh, Niall, that is a massive weight to carry, but I bet you do heaps in the business.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’ Niall wasn’t sure he deserved it. ‘It’s always been non-stop, and I’ve been doing loads more since he died. We don’t make money from the free lessons for the at-risk kids, so there’s a bunch of other stuff – lessons for tourists, team building for folk in boring office jobs, first aid courses, water safety for the wee ones. But I’ve a team around me, so I’m not some kind of hero, and it makes me realise how much Rafe did. Sure, he’d say, but you’re good with the “bad” kids and that takes a big chunk of energy, but is that cause I’m a big kid myself and I find it easy?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with maintaining a bit of childlike enthusiasm as long as you can keep up with the adult world, too.’ Carli offered, still sitting like a wise guru on the bed. She had pinpointed something important, the balance of the inner teenager who felt worthless with the man trying his hardest to be a worthwhile person. It was like doing a tug o’ war whilst treading water.
‘I guess so.’ Niall took a pause before he tried to shift the conversation; they’d talked about him for too long. ‘Anyway, tell me all about yoga teaching. I always assumed you’d become a psychologist or something.’ Carli had been such acalming and stabilising presence for Niall at school that it seemed she could help the entire world, rather than only him.
She laughed with a small shake of her head. ‘You did not!’
‘I did. You were always so good at boosting me up. You had a natural gift for it.’
‘I liked helping you, but I’ve never had the mental energy to be a psychologist. I was planning on being a PE teacher, but I realised once I’d done my grad dip that corralling teenagers wasn’t my thing.’
‘No? How come?’ Niall was genuinely curious how he and Carli had ended up on such similar paths, but different in the end.
‘My natural emotional energy state is quite calm and to be a PE teacher takes a lot of high emotional energy. I was exhausted by the end of my training days and not from the physical exertion. I felt like such a quitter giving it up, but I’d have got burned out super quickly.’
Niall understood this – there were people in his life that had this calm energy: his mum, Nate – but it wasn’t his experience. ‘You didn’t love the banter with the kids? The give and take, the a-ha moments when they finally get it?’
Carli’s smile was laced with uncertainty. ‘I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.’
‘Part of me is, part of me isn’t. Maybe I got the a-ha moments bit from a TV ad. I love teaching the “bad” kids to surf. Seeing them fall in love with the sport and the best side of them coming out and them loosening up when they clock that I accept that side of them. Not sure I’d want to do it if surfing wasn’t attached, though, and I definitely couldn’t set foot in a school again.’
‘I betthose kids love you.’
‘What, because they see me as one of their own?’ Niall was being playful, but there was a truth to his words that he found hard to disguise.
She met his gaze, hers full of compassion and kindness. ‘I never saw you as a bad kid, Niall. You weren’t. Not to me.’
He searched her face. She blew him away. The way she’d accepted who he was and had loved him for it. It had flicked his switches from the moment he met her, and that he’d never been able to forget. Somehow Carli saw all the good in him.
‘You were there for me, Niall,’ she continued, soft but certain, helping him cope with the storm that was his own thoughts. ‘Helped me cope with my mum’s death. Made me laugh but listened too.’
‘It wasn’t hard,’ he said, meaning every word.
‘A lot of people find listening next to impossible.’
‘Aye, true.’
Carli looked down at her fingers, rubbing them nervously before linking her hands together and meeting his gaze. ‘Listen, Niall, would you come with me tomorrow? Camping. To the loch.’
Niall’s heart thundered. His primary aim had been for Carli to be safe.
‘Och, Cass, I dunno. I was never angling for an invitation; I want you to be safe, but not in your hair.’
‘Yeah, so come bring your tent and camp next to mine, like Cara suggested. Being on my own out there all evening and all night might be a bit much, and it could be fun to hang out again – as friends. Also, I hate driving a manual car and that’s what your mum is lending me.’ She bit her lip in a way he found distractingly cute, for a friend.
‘Ah, okay.’ Niall leaned back against the bottom board of the bed. ‘Well, I guess I could be your stick shift hero.’
