Page 96 of The Fate Of Us

I snatch it before Goldie sees I’ve got it.

The gasp that leaves her mouth makes me think I’ve been caught, but when her handsdive for the book, I relax a little.

“Her book! Is that her present?”She beams, but I don’t miss the way she angled her headaround me, making sure no one else was here to discover her sister’s secret.

“Uhh, yeah. Yeah… I’m… I’m doing something with it.”I lie, but the smile on Goldie’sface tells me she’d believe every word that would ever slip from my mouth.

“Oh, she’ll love it. I know she will!”She keeps smiling up at me.“Do you want to stayfor a while? Not for long though, Mom’s taking me to a callback later.”

I watch her smile falter.“I’d love to, Goldie, but I’ve got to head out. But good luck withyour callback! I’m sure you’ll be awesome, little one.”

“Yeah,”she sighs, and it’s a sigh I’ve heard enough times to know that she’d rather mestay with her as I used to with Addy, when we’d pretend to get lost on our way home from the pier so she’d miss her audition slot.“I’m sure I will.”

I’m still thinking about the way Goldie said those words as I’m pulling into the makeshiftcar park that houses the 'Welcome to Sunfall Pier' sign. Rust was always manifesting in the corners of the faded green sign, but looking at it now, its as though I've been away for a hundred years, not just one.

As I switch off the engine, the distant crash of waves replacing what was spewing through the radio, I hear the questions sound off in my mind.

Do I want to be here?

Was I always going to do this?

Was I always going to show up?

There was a moment in time when I would have told you I’d do anything else rather thanbe here right now, waiting for Addy. There was a moment where I felt nothing but pure, white-hot hatred towards her, and if I drown out the sun and the waves, I can still feel it, marching through my body.

But then there’s the part of me, tucked away somewhere I didn’t want to find, that knowsI’m making up the part about hating her just so I feel better about still loving her, even after what she did.

Maybe no matter how I felt towards her, I was always going to be here. In thesecoordinates. At this time.

I peer over at the time on my watch; 8:26 PM.

We agreed to meet at 8:30 PM, because it was just after the sun had fallen behind wherethe ocean ended, cascading pinks and blues and violets and oranges above us. It was our favourite way to exist and forget that there was a world of saying yes because we thought we had to, and anxiety waiting ten feet behind us.

Had she been here since we were last here? I didn’t know. Who knows what was goingthrough her mind this past year? Who knows what was running through her mind the second she heard my voicemail for the first time, then the second time, then the eighty-fifth time?

I hoped she was full of regret. Hoped she felt guilty about lyingto me, to my face. I hoped she spent the year hurting just as much as I did.

But I’m thinking all this and still, I’m getting out of my car and locking it up to go andmeet her like I’d promised.

So, did I really hope all that?

There wasn’t an empty part of my brain that could house that question for now.

Maybe later.

I look back at my car one last time before daring to walk down towards the steps,constructed of driftwood and rope and barely standing. Pebbles and sand and dirt smothered the steps' pathway, with rocks that had been eroded for centuries now lining either side. We never used to come here after sunset, for obvious reasons, but part of me wonders whether the stars would have looked nicer out here, reflecting in the water, dancing in Addy’s eyes.

A question without an answer—useless even thinking about.

My muscle memory takes me to the clearing, the widening of the steps just before themidway point. I slow down my steps somehow, my eyes banking to the right and taking in the shoreline where I spent so much time growing up. Birds chatter above me, filling the silence, blocking out how I could practically feel my heart nearly burst its way out of my chest.

She didn’t deserve to have this much control over me, neither should just the thought ofher. She shouldn’t be the one to calm my heart either, but it’s hard—forgetting the ways the person you loved made all the hurt and panic float away like it was just driftwood in the ocean.

Flashes of deep violet and buttery pinks hover above me, swirling with what was left ofthe clouds. I held onto the sight of them before my thoughts overcrowded my head, my hands raking through my hair.

Who was I kidding, of course she wasn’t going to show up. Somewhere over the lasttwelve months, she must have given up, and realised that we would never be in each other’s lives again. That our strings had been untangled for good.

Fate, stupid decisions, and lies were what kept us apart, and that was how it would be forthe rest of our lives.

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