Page 17 of The Version You Hide

She waves my apology away with a hand. “It’s fine. It seems we both have issues. Just on different ends of the spectrum. Not having parents at all comes with a whole set of different ones.” Despite her obvious sadness, she smiles and if anything, it shows her strength.

“What happened to them?” I dare to ask.

I feel her stiffen beside me and for a second, I think she isn’t going to answer. That maybe she’ll throw some sarcastic comment into the air and be on her way, but she stays silent, her eyes locked on the vines that wrap their way around the trellis attached to the far wall. I’m usually great at reading people, but she has me completely baffled. Mackenzie isn’t like everyone else, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that.

“You don’t have to answer that. I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll mind my own business.”

She looks down at her hands where they fall into her crossed-legged lap. “It’s okay. I’m sure you heard my dad is an alcoholic. Mine and Kristen’s dad, I mean. He’s on his third stint of rehab.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

I had overheard pieces of conversation between Kristen and Liv about their father’s situation. From what I’d heard, he’d come to Cliff Haven on his way to rehab the first time.

“Who knows? Maybe third times a charm.” Her nostrils flare as she chews on her bottom lip. She’s trying to act cool about it but it’s obvious it bothers her. “My mother left when I was young. I don’t really have any memories of her.”

“Do you have any idea where she went?”

She shakes her head slowly. “No. I have no idea where she is or why she chose to leave.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, feeling stupid that at this point, these are the only words I can think of to say.

Her shoulders lift in a shrug. “It’s fine. I guess you can’t really miss what you don’t remember.”

Her words make my heart ache, my problems seem that much smaller. Mackenzie and I have come from extremely different worlds but right now, the one thing I can empathise with is her loneliness.

It seems you can have nothing and be lonely. Or you can have everything, and still be lonely.

“Have you ever tried to find her?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t have any interest in looking for someone who clearly doesn’t want to be found.”

She’s giving off those tough girl vibes again but something about the way she speaks has me thinking she might not actually mean what she says.

“Fair enough.”

“I know how people see me,” she continues. “After what happened with Ethan. It’s hard having everyone in town thinking that they know me because they saw my face plastered all over the evening news, or they read what some stupid newspaper printed about me. Like that’s my whole story right there on that tiny piece of paper. The damsel in distress from the wrong side of the tracks.” She uses her fingers to air quote that last part as she lets out a weak laugh. “I didn’t make that up, by the way. That was an actual headline.”

“Really? I hope whoever wrote it got fired because that’s cheesy as fuck.”

She chuckles at my lame attempt at a joke, but I can’t help thinking that this is the most I’ve ever heard her say. At least about something so personal. I’m suddenly hyperaware of what a privilege it is to have been given an insight into the mind of Mackenzie Riley.

I can’t imagine what she has been through in her life. It’s one thing to have absent parents. It’s a whole other thing to be wrapped up in an abusive relationship with a criminal. I only know what the news has reported and random things I’ve heard from Henley and Kristen, but I have the good sense to recognise that that’s not even close to her whole story.

I know from my own experience, albeit a very different one, how easily the media can twist the narrative to their favour.

Mackenzie is right. Those that judge her based on a bunch of news reports are shallow. It’s becoming more apparent to me with each conversation I have with this girl that she has so much more depth, so much more personality and strength than she’s probably ever been given credit for.

And there’s something else I know about Mackenzie. Something I’ve known since I met her. She doesn’t want my pity. Or anyone’s for that matter. She doesn’t need it. And though she might possibly be one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, she carries with her the sense that she doesn’t really belong.

Another feeling I’m more than familiar with.

I watch as she tucks a blonde ringlet behind her ear, the silver stud in her helix glinting in the sunlight that pours in from the open alfresco.

“For what it’s worth, that’s not how I see you.” I lay a palm on her knee, my fingertips unintentionally grazing the patch of skin that peaks through the shredded threads of her distressed, baggy, light blue denim jeans.

She looks up and her grey eyes meet mine, uncertainty swirling in their midst. “But you don’t really know me.”

“Maybe not. But I know you’re not that. You know,” I lift my hands to air quote the phrase she had used earlier. “A damsel in distress.”

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