He unlocks the car and climbs behind the steering wheel, as I attempt to clamber up into the passenger’s seat.
“You should get a new car, you know,” he says, nodding towards my poor lump of metal sitting in front of him. “It’s not safe to drive around in something that old.”
I glance at him. “What should I do, then? Buy myself one of these, so I can prove to everyone how rich I am? How attractive? How I can buy myself anything I want?”
He bursts into laughter as he pulls out of his parents’ driveway and into the road.
Oh, God.Not his laugh.
“Rich? Of course. Attractive? Well, that’s obvious…”
“Not to mention cocky,” I add, crossing my arms and looking away.
Luckily, his thoughtless spouts of absolute crap manage to ice over any flame he’d ever ignited in me.
His laugh trails off. With a low, intimate voice, he says suddenly: “Everything I want… No, Casey. I don’t have everything I want.”
His words shiver across my skin. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hide my rebelling senses.
“Something’s missing.”
Another shiver, which infiltrates my skin this time and reaches my bones. I can’t let him have this power over me.
“I’m sure you could easily sort that out.”
“It isn’t something you can buy, or something that just appears when you click your fingers.”
My whole body turns against my mind.
“I’m talking about something I left behind a long time ago.”
“I’m sure you left loads of things behind,” I say, losing patience with his way of speaking, of being, of breathing. The way he’s managed to cling on to the only remaining tendril of our past.
“Well, actually, it’s someone. Someone I really care about, who I want to have back.”
I sit there, frozen, my gaze fixed out the window. I can’t turn around now: I’m scared that his eyes will reveal that he isn’t talking about me – about us. But I’m also terrified that that’s exactly what he’s talking about.
I’m not normal, I know that – especially not when it comes to him.
Jesus, Nick, it’s been eight years. You left me behind, you turned away and never looked back. You never called me, never looked me up. You didn’t care about me or my life. You travelled; you found women, success, fame… The whole world knows the shape of your bum. You had it all: and now you’re telling me that something’s missing?
You’re right, Nick O’Connor. Not even you can have everything you want. And you definitely can’t take back something that was never yours.
16
Nick
Ipull over about fifty metres away from her house. “Wait – you still live here?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, it’s just that—”
“We can’t all afford a three-storey villa with a pool, sauna and jacuzzi.”
“I don’t have a villa. I have an apartment.”
“Penthouse with a view?”
