Page 73 of The Wedding Pact

I’m going to miss seeing it every day.

Oh man.

That’s not good.

* * *

An hour later, we’re paddling around the island on the very calm ocean, a hundred metres or so away from land.

The island looks magnificent from here. The lush greenery set against the amazing azure sky and turquoise water is giving me all the feels.

‘Question,’ Ida calls over to me as we paddle gently around the far side of the island to where our villa is.

I’m distracted for a moment as through the palm trees, I can see Darian and a group of his friends playing tennis on the clay courts. They all look like they’re having a great time. There’s certainly a lot of backslapping and joking going on, from the looks of it.

I experience a sudden strange pang of jealousy.

‘Who is it you’re trying to impress with your success?’ she asks, drawing my attention back to her. ‘I’m asking because I think, for me, it’s my parents. As I said, they’re both total workaholics and were always too busy to give me the kind of attention I craved when I was little so I had to be creative. I’m weirdly grateful to them in a way. It made me who I am today. Tenacious. Ambitious. Intriguing…’ She gives me a big, beguiling smile. ‘But I think deep down I’m still trying to finally get their attention.’

Her confession makes me feel simultaneously grateful for her trusting me with something so personal and extremely uncomfortable at the thought of having to offer my own explanation.

I want to be able to laugh this off and be breezy about it, but an echo of my envy at seeing Darian living his best life makes this impossible. ‘Well, I can’t get my mum’s attention because she’s dead,’ I say, my voice rough.

The last word rings in the air around us, killing the relaxed vibe.

Obviously feeling this too, Ida sits down on her paddleboard, resting her oar across it, and motions for me to do the same.

I nod and copy her, taking the moment of reprieve to try to get my sudden wave of frustration at myself under control.

When I look at her again, she’s turned her board to face me and is floating a couple of feet away. The expression on her face is serious now, but her eyes are warm with compassion.

‘How old were you when you lost her?’ she asks quietly.

I pause, wondering whether I should change the subject, then shrug off the idea. There’s no way Ida’s going to leave this alone now that I’ve given her that little snippet of insight into my painful past. So I say, ‘She died when I was twelve after being really ill for a year.’

‘Oh man, that’s a really tough age for so much upheaval. And having to deal with such intense grief.’

Folding my arms, I stare off into the distance, feeling the pain that’s never fully gone away rise back to the surface again. ‘Tell me about it. I went off the rails a bit, as you’ve already heard. It drove my dad up the wall.’

‘Yeah. That must have been really tough for both of you.’

‘I guess. Honestly, I didn’t pay that much attention to him. I was always off with my mates, staying out late and getting into low-level trouble. I couldn’t stand being in the house without my mum there. It smelt too much like her. Everything in it was infused with memories from when she was alive.’

Ida nods, her brows drawn together and sympathy in her eyes.

‘When I got suspended for cutting school my dad lost it and told me my mum would have been ashamed of me for the way I was behaving. I was so hurt and so fucking furious with him – this was soon after he married Carrie – I took off for a week and didn’t contact him the whole time. He freaked out and got the cops involved and when I finally came home he grounded me for a month. I refused to speak to him or Carrie the whole time I was locked down and spent my evenings watching random shit on the internet. And that’s when I saw a documentary about a guy who had started his business from having nothing and had worked his way up to making his fortune. The thing that interested me most was him joking that the best thing about striving to be successful was that he’d had the perfect excuse not to have to interact with his deadbeat family.’

‘Aha. Well, that’s illuminating.’

‘Once I refocussed my goals, I realised that how hard I worked and the results I got from it was the one thing I did have control over. I also discovered, like that guy, that I could bury myself in work and no one would bother me because I was studying hard for my exams.’

‘So, is it your dad’s attention you’re trying to get now then, with this drive to keep on succeeding? Are you jealous of the time he’s spent with Carrie since your mum died?’

I let out an ugly snort. ‘It’s more that I’m still pissed off with him for moving on so quickly and marrying her pretty much the minute my mum’s body was in the ground. At least that’s what it felt like. It seemed to me he was glad she was finally dead so he could get on with his life and forget all about her.’

Her frown deepens. ‘Ooh. That’s harsh.’

‘You think? I don’t. I think it’s just honest.’