‘Looking good, slut.’
Hunter wore a gold dress, gold shoes, gold tiara. Her confidence bordered on ferocious.
‘You seen my date?’
‘He’s not here yet,’ Mae said.
‘Fashionably late and he still upstages me.’ Hunter began to walk past as Mae steeled herself. ‘I know,’ she said.
Hunter stopped and watched the sky, her back to Mae. That night the stars shone almost as bright as Selena, like a reminder of everything beautiful as they faced the coldest truth.
Hunter grasped the necklace as she turned, the blue stone caught the light. ‘You put it back.’
‘And found the tape.’
Hunter nodded, her face straight, no tears, she was too strong for that.
‘It’s your job to take the mail. Counsellor Jane … the Abi tape was supposed to go … Did you listen to this one?’
Hunter reached into her bag and took out a silver flask, drank deeply from it. ‘I didn’t need to. I already knew what was on it.’
‘Because your father has done this before.’
‘Gemma Dune was a druggie slut,’ Hunter said. ‘No one believed her. I mean, my father and her …’ She shook her head.
‘But she was telling the truth.’
‘There’s more than one truth, Mae.’
Mae shook her head. ‘There isn’t.’
Hunter drank again.
‘So you moved to West to start again.’
‘At first I thought Abi was sweet. A little sad, what with her mother and all. It was like she’d been wandering around in the dark her whole life, and I showed her the light. She dressed like me. Talked like me. I caught her once copying the way I flick my hair back. She did it over and over – Tom Ripley, you know? Minus the talent.’
Mae said nothing, just listened.
‘I tired of her quick. Stopped taking her calls, left her to Lexi and Candice. She could hang out with us, but I didn’t want her on my back.’ Another long drink. ‘She was so … young. The kind of girl who dotted the i in her name with a heart, who talked true love like it’s actually real. I thought she was lying when she told me she was late.’ She laughed then. ‘Prissy Abi Manton wasn’t dumb enough to get knocked up, not by accident.’
‘But she was.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Took the test at my house. Cried her eyes out. I sat there and watched. You ever feel detached, Mae?’ Hunter glanced at her then laughed. ‘Look who I’m asking. Of course you do. So I sat there, detached.’
Behind they heard distant laughter.
‘I told her to tell Theodore to sort it. Or not, whatever. It’s not like she’d ever meet the thing, right?’
‘And that was that?’ Mae said, knowing it wasn’t.
Another drink. ‘She wanted me to go with her. Actually, she wanted you to go with her, but you weren’t there, Mae.’ Hunter laughed. ‘Coming to me with her shit. Like I cared.’
‘You were in the woods when she came to you?’
Hunter shrugged. ‘Everyone’s got their part of West. I like the cliff. I like to know I could just … it’s my choice, right? I like knowing that. So goddam perfect. I’d die that way too. A little perfect mystery.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Hunter waved the bottle. ‘I told her again, “Get Theodore to go with you.”’
‘But it wasn’t his.’
Hunter smiled. ‘She didn’t want to tell me, and I didn’t really give a damn. But we were drunk. I mean, Abi couldn’t drink for shit, but that night I had a bottle and she did half. I was impressed.’
Mae held her breath.
‘I thought I was so blessed. I didn’t even see the fatal flaw, or maybe I did but I looked past it. Is that what we do, is that how we absolve ourselves? We look but we don’t see. I see girls around my father, even Lexi, they get all … tits up, arse out. I fucking coined that move.’
‘The necklace, I didn’t steal it. Your father gave it to Abi. She sold it to get the money for the abortion.’
The slightest flinch. ‘She calmed the second his name left her lips, like she’d been holding it too tight. She wanted to tell someone, her parents. Me. Theodore, someone. But you see, Mae, that day she’d already told Counsellor Jane.’
‘What did you do, Hunter?’
‘I did nothing. I stood beside her. And we held out our arms like we could fly. I don’t even know if she jumped, or if she slipped.’
Mae closed her eyes, and when she opened them she saw a flash of sadness, a single crack in Hunter Silver’s immaculate face. Hunter caught it quick, smoothed it away like it’d never been.
‘You need to make it right,’ Mae said.
‘There is no right. No wrong.’
‘There has to be.’
‘I used to think you were bad, Mae, now I just think you’re just naive.’
Mae stepped closer to her. ‘You can still take your Forever back.’
‘I never had it to begin with.’
She danced with Sail for a long time.
‘Are you brilliant?’ he said.
Mae thought of Abi Manton, of everything they had been through. ‘I am.’
She thought they were done with the drama, and then she heard the noise.
A space cleared as the crowd parted.
He wore a fitted tux. His lips were painted dusky pink, his eyes smoky, his lashes long.
There were murmurs. Liam looked at Hugo like it was some kind of prank he wasn’t in on. Hugo stood tall as he stepped beneath the spotlight.
And then people laughed.
They laughed and pointed and Hugo flashed a practised smile at all of them.
‘You look ridiculous,’ Liam said.
‘He looks hot.’
They turned towards the voice. Hunter stood there, sparkling in gold, and she extended a hand.
Hugo walked through them. ‘Dance?’ he said.
‘First I have to do something.’
They watched her climb onto the stage. The music died as she took hold of the microphone.
She thanked them for coming. ‘You look fierce, Hugo. And I love you.’
He mouthed it back.
And then she pointed to her father. ‘I just want to say a thank you to my dad, who’s always been there for me.’
Mr Silver smiled.
‘I mean, always.’ Hunter stopped smiling. Mae could see the microphone shaking in her hands. ‘Except for those nights when he said he was working late.’
Heavy silence fell.
‘I thought I was lucky, you know? I have a father that works hard so we can have all this …’ She took off her diamond earrings and tossed them to the floor. ‘But I know. Gemma. And now Abi.’
Mae glanced at Mr Silver, who stood there frozen, his eyes locked on his daughter as she bared her soul.
‘I know everyone looks at me … girls dress like me, cut their hair like mine. They copy the things I say and do because they think it’ll make them better. It won’t. Abi did all that. And my father got her pregnant.’
There were gasps.
‘And Abi jumped from that cliff because she felt like she had no one. I know that feeling. I know what it’s like to have everyone look at you and nobody see you. Tonight someone told me I could take back my Forever. I don’t think that’s true. But fuck it, I’m going to try.’