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The boy from the sea this morning. And from her school. Here.
Skye met his charcoal grey eyes. What was their expression? Hungry? Haunted.
The drumming tattoo in her chest made her tremble. Dropping her gaze, she pressed knuckles to her ribs, behind which a hollow void should have ached, and saw his hand mimic hers. He was mocking her. But when she met his eyes again, they were liquid. Was he mimicking her bewildered pain?
“Skye!”
She jumped, turning as Morgan reached her, Rowena following close behind. The bad news she’d expected flooded back. It was too much. She tried to avoid Morgan’s reaching arms, tried to twist away, to just get out of there.
“Skye,” Morgan sounded alarmed, “Hold still for five seconds, will you?”
“I’m so sorry,” Rowena said, “We wanted to warn you, and be here when you –”.
“When I what?” Skye wrenched free of Morgan’s hand and folded her arms across herself, gripping tightly to hide their shaking. “It’s Dad, isn’t it?” she choked. “Has he...” An inexplicable image of a red-T-shirted body in foaming water shuddered into her mind. In her peripheral vision she saw hands hover either side of her, the boy behind her reaching for her. She went still. He withdrew his hands, although his silent, potent presence battered at her like a storm.
Morgan shook her head, pragmatic again. “Don’t be so dramatic, Skye. Why would you even think that?” Although she still sounded a little strained, the hint of exasperation in her voice eased Skye’s alarm.
“Well, you guys looked so... You looked at me weird.” Could anyone else hear her heart pounding? “And hey, it’s been such an awesome day, it seemed about to get a million times better.” Her sarcasm drew smiles from the Lauders.
“Nothing like that,” Rowena assured her. “We just wanted to warn you we loaned your studio to...a friend...of ours. Skye, this is Hunter.”
Skye turned to him. It felt like surrendering to an irresistible force, although she couldn’t meet his eyes. He didn’t move, as still as a statue. His chest and shoulders were broad, those of a swimmer, and the image of him standing in the low waves of Bascath Beach, water trailing down his face and torso from his wet hair, returned. He wore faded denim jeans, not dripping with sea water this time. His checked red and navy shirt hung open over a close-fitting white singlet.
His long hair ended just above his shoulders, a damp, tidier tangle, as if he’d showered and then dragged his long fingers through it as it dried. Umber and brown streaked his dark locks, the ends lightening to bleached gold.
Her gaze rose, taking in the wild, bewitching face of a musician, or a tortured poet, or someone equally unlikely to find at Bliss. His finely shaped lips, his dark winged brows and high cheekbones, the fascinating planes and shadows of his face, made her imagine drawing him. She blushed, remembering that she had that afternoon.
Their eyes met. Like light behind storm clouds, the silver-grey originals she’d tried to capture with graphite regarded her. Consumed her. As if he was drowning, and she, his life preserver. Her breath caught in her throat.
He dropped his head for a moment, and then without raising it completely, looked up at her again. A few twisted strands fell across his eyes, shielding secrets. Her eyelids fluttered as an impression of his hair shifting like dark mist about his face shimmered into her mind then dissolved again.
He straightened. “We met on the beach today,” he said softly. “I may have startled you. I’m so sorry.” His husky voice was gentle. “Please, we can share the room,” he offered, half turning towards the studio, inviting her to enter. “I’d like you to continue to paint here. If you’d like to?”
Her heart twisted in her chest. As if trying to get closer to him. “Um...well...I really – it’s your room now.”
“Excellent idea,” Rowena chimed in, “You can both use it. Hunter will work in the café, Skye, so you won’t be under each other’s feet. You can paint here whenever you like, just as you have been.”
She didn’t speak, conscious that everyone seemed to hang on her response. This was beyond weird.
“I’d love to see more of your artwork than the backs of the canvases,” he smiled a little, and Skye noted how persuasive the corner of lips turning up could be. “If you show them to me, you can tell me what they mean,” he encouraged. His eyebrows rose in further invitation as he stepped back as if to prove there was room for them both in the airy studio.
She stepped after him into the room. She didn’t understand the emotion on Hunter’s face, but her choice felt right. Intense, but right. She looked back at Morgan and Rowena, watching from the doorway.
Morgan smiled, despite her sombre eyes. “Coffee inside when you’re ready, Skye-bear. Come on Mum, back to work.” Rowena gave Skye an encouraging nod, then followed Morgan back across the courtyard. Skye turned to her companion and immediately doubted his assumption that the room could hold them both.
He filled the space. His unusual face was disturbingly beautiful, his hungry eyes compelling. Vulnerable. And his presence was...more. More than the room. More than made sense. More than she could cope with. Except...
Except that for the third time that day, the void behind her ribs had gone. She teetered on the edge of fleeing again. And although she didn’t know how she read this stranger’s face so well, she saw he expected her to run. Was the sadness in his eyes because of that?
Her confused emotions ricocheted around, colliding with her complete inability to understand them, and she turned away. But – it was such a relief to feel whole. She didn’t want to leave. Not yet. “Um,” she turned uncertainly to face him again, and nodded towards her canvases leaning against the studio wall, “They’re unfinished, but...”
His smile was brilliant. She smiled back, hyper-aware of her own delight, her insides somersaulting at his obvious happiness. This was so strange. And kind of wonderful. She was glad that he couldn’t see her face as she led the way to her artwork.
She put her schoolbag down and turned canvases around, and he helped her to space them along the wall. The sight of her paintings displayed, their washes of colour resonating together, usually made her joyful. This time was no exception, but she suspected her paintings weren’t completely responsible.
He studied them in silence, and her gaze followed his along the display, trying to see them through someone else’s eyes. Some old, some new, most unfinished; all were underwater scenes, scenes that wouldn’t exist anywhere in reality. The paintings she’d collected from her home were from a school project: fantasies of colour and light, responses to the last story her mother had written for her. Familiar sorrow tugged at her for an instant.
The newer paintings were similar, but different. Sharper, like she’d pulled them from somewhere more present than an old made-up fairy story. But the figures in them were faint, undefined. Like the ones she used to imagine she saw in the waves in stormy weather. She looked closer at the paintings, feeling she was missing something important.
In most, there were only two figures, so close they were almost one. They floated, suspended in glowing colour, reminding her of her nightly flight in the arms of someone about to dissolve in anguish.
In others, just one figure featured, his arms outstretched in welcome. Or surrender? Dark mist obscured his face as if he was a dissolving shadow. She stared at the paintings. They were so similar to her nightmares. Was she making herself have nightmares each night by painting these? Or was she painting her nightmares?
As if on cue, the boy beside her spoke, “You’re very talented. They’re beautiful. Evocative. What was your inspiration?”
“Those are about a story my mother wrote for me,” she pointed at the first paintings. “It was about sea spirits. It’s just a fairy tale.”
He nodded thoughtfully as he studied her old school project. Then his attention shifted to the shadowy couple floating in light. Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, the already taut atmosphere intensified. “And these?” His husky voice was soft, and she sensed an invitation she didn’t understand. Her pulse skipped and ran.
“I don’t know exactly. Just...developing the theme?”
Hunter watched her as she spoke, and her pulse became a pounding beat at his expression. He searched her eyes as if looking for something vital.
She saw him swallow, and his question came softly, “You painted the mural in the café, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“Could the inspiration be the same?”
Skye turned to look at her paintings with fresh eyes. She had already stared countless times at the mural she had no memory of painting, hoping for answers. And he was right. The figures here were like the embracing figures in the mural. Were they embracing here too? The pounding in her veins intensified, hammering through her temples, lingering there, expanding, radiating pain through her skull.
“Ow,” she lifted shaking hands to her head as the pain became blinding.
Hunter’s unintelligible voice came from a long way off, and she was only vaguely aware of being helped across the room, and lying down, while the walls throbbed and bent with each agonising beat. She closed her eyes, desperate for it to stop.
“Don’t remember,” she heard a whisper close to her ear. “Just rest. Skye, I’m sorry.”
A light pressure, cold as water, touched her forehead, stroking her head, soothing her. She lay still, savouring the gentle, icy touch. Her pulse settled, and the pain receded with each ragged breath. The room stopped moving. The touch on her forehead had warmed. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she sat up.
Hunter knelt before her, his face inches from hers. He looked furious. At her? The space between them buckled and shifted, like déjà vu. This had happened before. As she held his gaze, his eyes softened, became liquid. “I’m sorry,” his whisper was almost inaudible.
“It’s not your fault,” she managed, struggling to shape the words.
He looked miserable, “What can I do to help you?”
She swallowed, her throat dry. “I could use some water?”
His single note of bitter laughter startled her, but he shook his head in mute apology. He was so close. His long eyelashes made his eyes dark. There was so much in his gaze, an entire language she felt she should understand. As their eyes locked, her heart raced. She sensed she was balanced on a tightrope, with a choice before her. Lean towards him and fall? Fall where? Into what?
Suddenly frustration swelled again. Each beat of her pounding heart was a reminder of how lost she was in her own life. Trapped in a painful joke, not knowing who else was in on it. This was intolerable.
“Gotta go,” she staggered to her feet, pushing past him to grab her schoolbag. She lurched out through the side doors and down the narrow lane.
*
SKYE SPEED-WALKED ALONG Marine Parade. Her feelings were in a tangle she couldn’t separate. Each step told her she was moving away from something that mattered, while the emptiness inside bloomed like black ink dripped into liquid. None of this made any sense.
Who was he? A friend of the Lauders? Such a good one they’d given him her studio without even talking to her first? He’d made her feel... How could there be such a connection between them? It was almost like... No. No; she didn’t believe in love at first sight. Or even really love. It only hurt in the end. But there was...something about him.
Being around him had made her feel...whole. And...safe. She’d felt safe. And more. His voice... But whatever disturbing thing going on with her brain, there was no way she could forget a whole person. Not one like...like him.
Anger at her incomprehensible emotions burned, along with the horrible certainty that she was missing something significant. Something connected with her missing summer and her missing days at sea. Her pace slowed, her thoughts turning in a new direction as Ethan’s words came back to her. He looked a bit like...someone I’ve maybe seen.
It would be totally unfair of her; maybe even mean. But perhaps her apparent relationship with Ethan might be her best path to getting the answers she couldn’t dredge out of her stubborn brain? It couldn’t make things any worse with Ethan than they already were. She just needed to ask the right questions, in the right way.
As if the universe had read her thoughts and agreed, Ethan’s Kombi van drew up to the curb beside her. He returned her smile, leaning over to push the door open for her.
“Want a lift?”
“Actually, no. Not really in a hurry to go home.”
His expression perked up. “Well, wanna hang out?”
“Sure. Beach?”
“You got it,” his grin was infectious, and Skye found herself relaxing. Perhaps she wouldn’t ask any questions at all.
