Page 108 of Tame Me

She presses her lips firmly together.

After a moment she sighs. ‘I went with a girl from school,’ she mutters. ‘I thought I’d made an actual friend. She was wildly different from me—happily married parents, money, popular, pretty...perfect...’

‘No such thing as perfect,’ I mutter when she pauses too long.

‘No.’ She draws a big breath in. ‘It was a day trip with her family. I thought it went okay. But it turned out my mother was having an affair with her father and when it came out the very next day she marched up to me at the cafeteria at school in front of everyone and said she’d only invited me because she “felt sorry for me”. That I was her act of charity for the week because my clothes were ugly and I didn’t belong there and everyone had been laughing at me for weeks. They all sure laughed at me then.’

I know how words can hurt and when they’re thrown out in public they can hurt even more. And even if Talia rationalised this as merely retaliation from another hurt girl, it still stung. Shame still clung. I know it—I know that very particular burn.

‘I was happy to leave town that time,’ she adds. ‘But that was the last time Ava and I did.’

‘You stayed put in the next place until Ava went away to university.’ I watch her. ‘Why didn’t you move with her then?’

She pauses. ‘I wanted her to be free to focus on her study and not feel guilty about me.’

‘Guilty?’ I frown.

‘She struggled with me working long hours for not much pay. It was better for her not to have to see that. Plus I could earn more in Queenstown—and there was a lot of work available there.’

‘Enabling you to work three jobs at once.’

‘Right.’ She picks up the other glass of orange and takes a deep sip before shooting me a look over the crystal rim. ‘Why are we talking about me again?’

I shrug innocently. ‘I’m curious.’

‘Well, I’m curious about you too,’ she says softly.

I don’t want to push her away. Her interest in me is a pleasure—I know it’s not that she wants topry. It’s different. Given I want to know everything about her, it’s actually a kind of relief that she obviously feels the same about me. Not just curious. Not just interested.Fascinated.

That night when she was upset thinking I’d thrown out Lukas’s rabbit she eventually explained about having no things as a kid herself. I felt pleased that she told me. That she trusted me enough to tell me something painful and personal. She’s just done it again now.

And again I’m honoured. It’s a precious thing.

I needed to clear my own head after last night. Feeling the wind in my hair and the freedom on the water is my favourite way of doing that. I wanted to share it with her. But now I want to share more.

‘I first sailed with my grandfather,’ I mutter awkwardly. ‘He taught me.’

Her expression softens. ‘He taught you lots of things?’

‘Yeah.’ I put down my glass. ‘Took me up in a small plane when I was only ten.’

‘Is that even legal?’ She shakes her head but laughs softly. ‘Sounds like you were lucky to have him. And he was lucky to have you.’

I go tense inside.

‘I’m sorry he didn’t give you the chance to say goodbye to him,’ she adds.

I glance at her sharply. But, of course, she’d been through something similar many times—with places, other people.

‘It hurts,’ she says. ‘Even though he was trying to protect you, it hurts.’

I can’t answer.

‘And he didn’t give you time to prepare.’

‘Yeah.’ I breathe out slowly. Not for the loss. I was so isolated and then his death was such a shock. ‘Itsucked.’

I take her glass and set it on the table beside mine. She’s right. Having time to prepare for tough things is important.

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