PRIYAis typing
My heart was in my mouth. I held my breath, waiting to see what she’d say.Ifshe’d even reply. She stopped typing. Then started.
Then stopped. And my heart hurt all over again.
I was half asleep when Dad knocked on my door.
‘We’re going for dinner in ten minutes. The girls want pizza,’ Dad said with a roll of his eyes.
‘Again?’ I asked.
‘Again,’ he smiled. And it was nice to share a moment with him.
Rue didn’t complain about her splints at all that night. Not even when we walked to the pizzeria, when the air was hot and they must have been rubbing against her skin. She brought a football with her, dribbling it with Wren along the path as we walked. She even said no when I offered her a piggyback.
‘Are you excited to learn surfing?’ I asked my sisters on the way back.
‘Yep!’ Rue said immediately. Wren was quiet.
‘Wren?’ I asked.
‘What if I fall in? What if Rue falls in?’ she asked, her big eyes even bigger than usual.
‘So what? You can both swim,’ I said, shrugging, trying to make her feel better.
‘But what if the waves are too big?’ she asked, and the fear in her voice was so real that I stopped her in the middle of the path.
‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And anyway, you won’t be in big waves, not right away and probably not at all this holiday. OK?’ I asked, and I watched the fear start to retreat from her eyes.
‘Aw!’ said Rue. ‘I wanted the big waves.’
‘What if the man isn’t nice to us?’ Wren looked at me, andI had to adjust my face because I’d been thinking the same thing. There was no way his arrogance wouldn’t spill over into the girls’ lesson.
‘He will be. I’m sure of it,’ I said with as much conviction as I could muster. ‘But I’ll be there anyway. So don’t worry. OK?’
Wren nodded, her blonde curls bouncing around her shoulders. ‘OK.’
We played cards the rest of the evening and into the warm night. Rue wouldn’t stop talking about the new football team she was going to join, so I just hoped that Lexie’s boyfriend actually did get it off the ground. My cousin hadn’t replied yet.
And Wren was happy, just because everyone was there. I flicked between not thinking about home at all, just daydreaming about Felix and the way he’d touched my hand, to my gut lurching with the shame of sending a message to Priya and getting no reply; it haunted me.
I took my hair out of its bobble and pulled at the strands that were turning curly again.
‘I miss your curls, Margot,’ Mum said, and I caught her eye.
‘Me too,’ said Wren.
‘Me three,’ said Rue. ‘Looks better when you match with us.’
‘WellIlike it straight,’ I said. But was that even true? Did I just straighten my hair to look more like Ari? Because I thought Theo would like me better like that? Isthatwhat I was doing? It wasn’t conscious, not really. But I thought back to how different I’d been before, how much I’d changed in one year – Ari and Theo the common denominators.
‘Well, you’ve always had your own mind anyway,’ Dadadded to the conversation, coating my doubts with a layer of my own disappointment.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked with a laugh, knowing exactly what he’d meant, because I used to love it when he said that. But this last year? I’d had anything but my own mind.
‘Nothing.’ Dad held up his hands. ‘I just meant that ever since you were born, you’ve always known what you wanted and there’s no point trying to argue with you. Just like Rue.’
Rue grinned like she’d just won a prize.
