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13.

Tristan

The cab was halfway down the road before I came to my senses.

Erin.

Rinnie was Erin. My skin felt electrified, like I’d been zapped with a live wire, opening a new doorway in my mind. It was no wonder it’d taken me this long to remember her. She looked nothing like she had when I’d known her.

Admittedly, she was still incredibly beautiful, just in a different way. Gone was the waifish girl with short, dyed hair and sad, captivating eyes. Now, she was fuller figured, her long hair returned to its natural golden-brown shade. The sadness in her eyes was gone, replaced with a striking confidence and maturity that held me hostage. She was no longer fragile or vulnerable, instead almost regal and womanly in her beauty. Her eyes though, how had I forgotten them? Given how unique they were, it was ridiculous I hadn’t made the connection sooner.

All the memories came flooding back as I walked aimlessly towards the hotel. It was almost twenty years ago, but suddenly, it was replaying in my head in vivid colour.

I’d noticed her the very first day she’d started at my school. It was about midway through our final year, and she was a lonely, mysterious girl with haunting eyes and delicate features. A girl with no friends who kept to herself. She was captivating yet vulnerable. My protective instincts urged me to look out for her.

Those same instincts were why I’d intervened one day when her sister’s bully of a boyfriend was hassling her outside the school gates. The friendship that had followed had consumed my every waking thought. Erin had been interesting and sweet and kind, and somehow, without me realising it, she’d reached a part of me no one else ever had. I’d loved being around her. Loved talking to her, listening to her laugh, hearing her tell me things about herself.

She’d changed me simply by being there. And then, just as our friendship had begun to turn into something more, she was gone. The kiss we’d shared might have been an innocent teenage moment, but even now, all these years later, I could still remember every detail of it. The way her breathing grew choppy, how soft her lips were, how much I didn’t want to stop but knew I had to.

The next day, she’d vanished without a trace, leaving me heartbroken, confused and terrified that something had happened to her.

I’d searched for her online in the weeks that had followed, coming up empty every time. I’d only been able to guess at the reason she’d made herself so impossible to find.

I’d been convinced it was all because of her sister’s boyfriend. I’d surmised they’d left town to escape him, and it had been confirmed when he’d turned up at my dad’s hotel one day, shouting and threatening the staff to give him Erin and her sister’s forwarding address. The sister had been working on reception for a couple of months, and I’d learned from my dad that she’d left without giving any notice. Every piece of information I’d discovered had left me with the distinct impression that the sisters didn’t want to be found.

And that was why I’d eventually stopped searching. I’d convinced myself Erin was doing better somewhere else and that she didn’t need or want me to come looking for her. Of course, I’d always hoped that one day she’d get in touch, but that day never came. Eventually, I’d stopped thinking about her so much. She’d pop into my head every once in a while, and my chest would feel strangely hollow. A strange mixture of grief and hopefulness would always accompany any thoughts of her. I’d imagine where she might be, telling myself everything had turned out the way it was supposed to, but I’d still feel a twinge of longing, a feeling of a missed connection. A bond that could’ve grown into more had it not been cut so abruptly short.

If she’d been working at the Astor Cove since she was a teenager, then that meant this was where she’d come all those years ago. The missing pieces were presenting themselves, and there was a sense of relief that she and her sister had had a safe place to flee to.

As I walked through the entrance and headed up to the room I’d been staying in, something warmed my heart, because this was clearly a better place for them. They’d made a good home in this town and had decided to stay, put down roots.

I couldn’t believe how fast she’d dove into that cab tonight. It had obviously spooked her that I’d finally remembered where I knew her from, while she’d been denying it this whole time. I understood that maybe she was embarrassed about lying or perhaps about how she’d been living when we first met. She’d been squatting in the attic of my dad’s hotel when she was a teenager, but I was hardly going to judge her for that.

Maybe she thought I’d be angry over how she’d left without saying goodbye or letting me know where to find her. The truth was far from it. I understood entirely why she’d left, and besides, she’d been a scared eighteen-year-old with no one else in the world to depend on other than her older sister. If her sister had finally come to her senses about leaving her boyfriend, then it made total sense that Erin would leave with her.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing when I pulled out my phone and opened a new text.

We should talk.

I sent the message but got no reply. It was late, so she might be sleeping, or she could simply be ignoring me. My stomach dropped. What if she hadn’t told me how we once knew each other because she didn’t want me to remember? Maybe she wasn’t embarrassed or worried but simply indifferent.

I shot down that theory almost as soon as it arrived.

Erin might’ve kept our past a secret, but she wasn’t indifferent. She’d spilled her guts to me tonight, confided things she’d probably spent years keeping buried, and you didn’t do that with someone you felt indifferent towards. Sure, she’d had a few drinks, but I’d sensed the relief in her as she’d talked, like saying it all out loud had offloaded something she’d been carrying for too long.

And yet, as much as her confession about her ex had unsettled me, it wasn’t the sex or the relationship that kept circling through my mind.

It was Erin.

My Erin.

Except she wasn’t mine, never really had been mine despite how intensely I’d felt for her as a boy. I was still trying to reconcile the woman who had sat across from me tonight with the girl I remembered, and every time I thought I had her figured out, another piece didn’t fit. She’d grown into someone I didn’t know, and the realisation should have made it easier to keep my distance.

Instead, it made me want to know everything.

What had she done all these years? What had she loved? What had she lost? Did she still watch reality TV shows with the same enthusiasm? Did she still eat M&Ms by the handful? What made her laugh now? What kept her awake at night? What did she dream about?

The questions came one after another, an avalanche of curiosity I couldn’t hold back.