‘Me and Felix what?’ I replied, turning back.
‘You are still together?’
I shook my head gently. ‘Me and Felix are better as friends.’
‘Sometimes that becomes clear.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, as a fizz of nerve endings ignited themselves in my body.
‘And what about me? We are just friends?’ he asked, breaking his gaze on the road for a second to look over at me. And when I looked back at him, I had to force myself to stay on track. Even in the dark, his eyes were disarming, messing with my head, scrambling my thoughts.
‘It’s complicated. Don’t you think?’ I asked.
‘Complicated can be good.’ I caught the edge of his smile before he turned back to watch the road.
‘I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me that Felix was your brother when I told you I was seeing him. I understand not talking about Gabriel, of course I do. But Felix?’ A new wave of frustration rolled through me.
‘I was jealous,’ Antoine said simply.
‘Jealous?’
He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. ‘I knew that Felix could give you things that I could not. Normal conversations. Normal human interaction. I am better in water than I am on land,’ he admitted.
I took in what he’d just said. I used to say the same about myself. Yeah, Priya got me, but I’m not sure anyone else did. Not really.
‘Maybe we’re more similar than you think,’ I said, and put my hand back down on the gear stick, only for him to put his on top again.
We’d just pulled into the campsite when I decided to tell him.
‘I’ve been training since our fight …’
He pulled his hand off mine, on to the steering wheel and looked at me. ‘Training? With who?’
‘Delphine.’
He didn’t say anything for a second.
‘She’s coaching me for the qualifier,’ I continued.
‘La Vague d’Orqualifier?’ Antoine asked, then shook his head.
‘What? You don’t think I can do it? You don’t think I can qualify? Delphine said I had potential.’
Antoine turned to me with the twitch of a smile on his lips. ‘I did not say that at all. Delphine does not say that lightly. She is right.’ He nodded.
‘We had two sessions today –’
‘Two? Your arms. They should feel like spaghetti now.’ He reached over and squeezed my bicep. I tensed it.
‘They do. But I like it. It reminds me that I’m getting stronger again. That’s the plan. Two sessions a day until the qualifier.’
Antoine smiled at me, as though he understood where I was coming from, but also like he didn’t know what to say. Then he turned right, into the campsite car park and turned off the engine.
‘You are really going to do this? The qualifier?’ he asked with a sigh, knowing that I wasn’t about to change my mind based on his opinion.
‘I am.’
He took his hands off the steering wheel in mock surrender.
