Page 84 of All That We Never Were

That wasn’t true. Not exactly. I felt my hair stand on end. With Douglas, all it took was a look to understand each other, that’s how well we got along.

“I’ll never replace Dad.”

My brother frowned and told me he had to go to the kitchen to prepare some things. I stayed another minute, taking in his words, then went to the car. I rubbed my fingers over the seams of the steering wheel, thinking about Justin’s expression, one that I hadn’t seen before. I pushed it out of my head when I turned the key and the motor started up.

I drove slowly through the streets of Byron Bay and returned to the ice cream shop where I’d left Leah a while before. She was still there, sitting on one of the patio tables. She seemed to be concentrating on the words of the boy next to her. I watched her for a minute before honking the horn. She turned when I did it for a second time, and smiled. A huge smile, the kind that used to cross her face all the time. Now it filled me with some strange, incomprehensible emotion.

“Did you have fun?” I asked when she got into the car.

“Yeah, I love pistachio ice cream.”

“Think about what you want to do this weekend.”

“Hm, plans… The waves in the morning, then a nap. Yeah, that would be good. I want to paint in the evening with the music on, on the porch, and then relax before my exam Monday. What do you think?”

It struck me as the best damn plan in the world. “Great. We’ll do that.”

70

_________

Leah

The reflections from the sun blinded me, and I had to bring a hand to my forehead to see Axel moving among the waves, sliding through them before leaving them behind and falling into the water. He surfaced a few minutes later and remained floating on his back with his eyes closed. I watched him. It warmed my heart. Him out in the middle of the sea under the warm light of dawn. He looked so right there. It was as if everything were created for him: that place, the house, the wild vegetation that surrounded the beach…

I swam over, still on my surfboard. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just…not thinking.”

“How do you do that?”

“Leave your board and come here.”

I went closer to Axel. Very close. Closer than we had been that week in which he had simply avoided me and I had allowed him to do so by giving him space. Water droplets glimmered in his eyelashes and on his lips, which were half open.

“Now lie back like you’re dead.”

I obeyed and floated there in front of him. The sky was an intense, cloudless blue.

“Just think about everything around you, the sea, my voice, the movement of the water… Close your eyes, Leah.”

I did. I felt light, ethereal.

I felt calm, the absence of fear…

At least until Axel touched me. Then I shivered, lost my concentration, and moved in the water. It had just been a brush on the cheek, but it was impulsive, unexpected.

Axel took a deep breath. “You want to go home?”

I nodded.

We didn’t do much the rest of the day. Just as I had planned, I took a nap after lunch, lying in the hammock. I woke up when I heard the insistent mewing of the cat, who was sitting on the porch staring at me. I got up, yawning, and went to get her some food. I kept her company during her afternoon meal, after which she licked herself and marched off through the shrubs around Axel’s house.

I took my painting things out onto the porch. The black, gray, and white tubes. And the red.

Axel woke up not long afterward, when I was already concentrating. He watched me awhile, sitting nearby, smoking a cigarette and yawning, with bed head and pillow marks on his cheek. I wanted to kiss him just then. Erase those lines with my lips, and then…then I looked away because he said it couldn’t be, and I understood, but I was getting more and more afraid that I would wind up doing something I shouldn’t, because I wanted to… I wanted him.

“What are you painting?” He took a drag.

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