Page 70 of Boundaries

As for the house he spoke about, I thought it a great idea as then Jen would still be close to home.

What nobody did mention, however, the old elephant in the room shit was what everyone thought would happen when our parents came home.

Hopefully they’d come around. Nixon had over the years. After the fire at their house, Nix had believed my family had been involved and after struggling with severe anger management issues had signed up for the Army. When he’d returned, he’d decided to focus his revenge on Jenna. Use her weakness to make us all pay. Eventually he’d fallen in love with her, or his version of love which I still saw as semi twisted. His beef about the fire had eventually fizzled out.

Now this semi-truce the McKenna kids and the Taylor-Joys had managed to forge, may not be strong enough to withstand hot adult tempers. Although saying that, Mitchell was poorly now. Maybe things would be different.

Would there be fireworks again or could everyone finally move on? I knew I wanted to.

Only time would tell. And what the hell would happen to me and Mason?

The biggest question was, who knew?

When I got back to my room there was a velvet box on my pillow. It was tied with a bow and had obviously been left by Mason. A gift of sorts?

I pulled the knot and lifted the lid, there tucked inside was an SD card. It was the one Mason had taken the night of the fight. A grin of pleasure spread over my face. He’d given it back.

Moving over to one of my DSLR cameras, I slipped it inside and checked the pictures. Every single one of them was on there. The images of the fight, Mason looking amazing, his hard sweaty body highlighted in the ring by the glow from the barrel fires. He hadn’t erased a thing and excitement thrummed through me.

I spent part of the day down in the darkroom but with the lights on, I had a laptop in there where I could view electronic shots.

I entered the SD card and started to view my past work. I’d forgotten what else was on that card, it was one that I didn’t use that often.

As I flicked through a variety of images, a selection of buildings came on screen and I remembered the pictures I’d taken of a fire in the building next to Crawley’s Butchers last year. Luckily it had been vacant at the time.

I was in the area and so it was pure luck really. I’d been taking pictures of a local street picket which had come up on the back of the Indian farmers' protest.

My eyes narrowed as I clicked through the pictures. Some of the firemen were in the shots, I particularly remember Betty favouring a picture due to one huge hunky firefighter who looked like he belonged more on the pages of a magazine than fighting a fire.

As I scanned the pictures, I noticed Jonathan Proctor standing in the crowd of one of the shots. Probably rubbernecking with that other sea of other faces.

Carrying on through the other pictures there was one of me on there. It had been taken by Betty. I hated my picture being taken, ironic really, considering how much I loved photography. I enlarged the image.

It had been taken when I was unaware. The shot wasn’t posed. I was sat on my porch with my hair blowing in all directions, no make up on, laughing away from the camera. My shoulders were bare.

I remember Betty had been winding me up and trying to get me to pose.

The shot was quite appealing, my eyes glancing past the camera, almost like I had seen something or someone that made me happy. I looked content almost. I couldn’t recall the rest of that day.

My head was suddenly a tired jumble, having not had much sleep the night before and I moved away, leaving the shots out on the table.

I saved a superb image of Mason in the ring, shirtless and sweaty as my laptop screen saver. I’d check the rest of the photos out later.

I left the darkroom with a huge grin on my face.

Thirteen

Over the next week, I divided my time between work and sneaking out to see Mason. I’d had a brief conversation with Jenna after I’d confessed that we’d slept together, but I wasn’t about to share everything. How could I when I didn’t understand what was going on myself? My sister’s words still rang in my ears, ‘I’m happy for you Amy, but be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

It appeared Mason and I were indulging in a friends-with-benefits type of relationship. Although sometimes we didn’t even speak. He was like a sudden addiction and I couldn’t get enough.

It was probably a bad idea, but I met him by the pool one day. We were having sex in the water together before we’d even said hello. It was thrilling and I couldn’t have explained it if I had tried, but it felt natural and unforced. No airs and graces were necessary, we just came together and fit so well, physically anyway.

I did find myself wondering how many other girls Mason had been with before I realised that going down that road would be uncomfortable. Another example of how the boy had weakened me over the last few weeks.

If I hadn’t already fallen, I was falling.

I was now taking the contraceptive pill. So, nothing got in the way, no fumbling for protection or asking passion-killing questions, it was so much easier to be spontaneous and in the moment.

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