Gone (15 page)

“It matters to me, because I want to kill him.” Joshua is staring at me earnestly, no bravado behind his words. Just a flat resolution.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say again. Joshua continues to evaluate me, his gaze level with mine. His face is so close to mine our noses are touching, which in any circumstance other than me baring my soul would be quite amusing.

I see it click inside his mind before he speaks. His eyes give him away. “This isn’t the secret that you think defines you is it? There is something else?”

“Rebecca will you just learn to behave, and get in the damn car?”

I laugh, a crazed sound I am unable to control. “Joshua, with me there is always something else. That’s why I have to go.”

He thinks over my words for a moment, weighing his response, our faces still millimetres away from each other. “Will you stay with me until you go?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me, give me the next nine days to show you, you’re not a girl to be labelled.”

“Bu─” He cuts off the rest of my words with his lips. His kiss is something else, not the playful game from the other night, nor any other shared moment we have had. It’s hungry, and demanding and all consuming. His tongue teases inside my mouth and entwin
es with my own and he presses his body against me tight. With one hand he gently reaches up and touches my face. I pull away and stare into the pool of green. “Yes.”

Joshua catches my face in both his hands and flashes me his wide smile. “Rebecca Walters, I am so very pleased you said yes.”

I smile back at him, my own cheeks feeling like they are going to split.

“I’m going to be back in half an hour, you and Emily be ready.”

“Emily?”

“Yes. You need to spend time with your sister before you go, and as I am unwilling to relinquish any of my time, it will be a day trip for three.”

He doesn’t explain further, he heads over towards the window and slides it up.

“You’re crazy.”

He winks at me as he dips over the side of the window ledge and I stand there for a good five minutes smiling to myself in the middle of my room.

Nine days to go.

Joshua

Castles in the Sand

I was smiling as I went over the window ledge, my smile frozen on my face, but as soon as I was out of sight the bitterness that was eating into me took over. I can’t believe what she told me. It’s making me feel something I have never felt before. Rage. The thought of anyone labelling Bex and making her believe something like that about herself makes me want to kill, or maim. 

I held it together in front of her, but the moment she said the words and revealed her secret I wanted to kill the fucker who thought they could mess with her. She didn’t tell me exactly what it was that her dad caught her doing, but she didn’t really need to. It was painted in disgust all over her face and in the label she divulged. This is what she meant the other night when she gave me the death stare and told me she wasn’t that sort of girl. I don’t think for one moment she is. She just can’t control herself, this much was evident last night in her unconscious form on the beach. Some fucker took advantage of that.

I’m going to kill someone. It’s burning through my veins. Jesus a few days ago it felt like I’d been part of the living dead for months. Today I am burning with such a fury and with so much adrenaline pumping through me I feel like I could run all the way from here to London just to punch some twat in the face.

I want to know who it was. I wonder if I can find out on Facebook? Shit she doesn’t have a Facebook profile, and now I know why. I doubt she has any internet presence at all if that’s what people have been saying about her.

I could ask her Dad, find out where he used to work. I could track the bastard down that way.

Who am I kidding? What can I do anyway?

I never planned on ask
ing her to spend her remaining time here in St Agnes with me. I felt like an idiot asking, but I couldn’t not. I need to show her how I see her. I want her to value herself for what she is, not what people say about her, and I want to show her that sometimes you can be loved the right way. I am no expert, but I feel it deep inside me that together we could be something else. I have nine days to show her what possibilities she has open to her.

The sick bit is that after she told me I wanted her even more. I wanted to take every inch of her and show her what she is worth to me. Everything. I wanted to possess her and in that moment for her to find and possess me too.

I’ve got nine days left to make the girl of sun value herself. Nine days to show her what it means to have someone worship you. Nine days left for her to fill my life with sunlight.

I don
’t have a plan, so I head back to Aunt May’s. I haven’t been back home in days and I know I need to check in and get some clean clothes.

Aunt May is standin
g in the kitchen when I saunter in. I watch her shoulders lower as I walk through the door.

“Hey,” I call.

She turns to face me and I can see the worry etched on her face. “Hey, Josh, did you run out of clean pants?”

“Very funny.” I walk up to her and wrap my arms tight around her. “Am I in the dog house?”

“Bah, get away with you, bloody big softie.” She waves me away. “Eggs?”

Oh god. Aunt May is obsessed with eggs for breakfast. According to her you can’t face the day without eggs. This morning it looks like she is creating Eggs Benedict. To be fair to my only living relative she is creative with eggs, and she is an amazing cook, so it is not often I have to worry about what may be served up. Normally I would love this and be scraping seconds out of the bowl. Today my stomach feels off, like I am standing on a boat and the roll of the waves is setting my digestive system on edge. I can’t stop thinking about what Bex told me, nor my murderous need to kill the people who made her believe that about herself.

"Are you going to the beach?" Aunt May asks. She pushes a cup of tea in front of me. She does not believe in coffee and is of the staunch faith that a cup of tea can fix most things and that is a stance she will never change.

This means I normally have to get my cup of Joe from the overpriced coffee shop on the way back from the beach. It's not such a problem though. I don’t normally have a huge amount of pressing engagements to worry about.

I used to. I always used to be under a deadline – must get this project completed, or, must make sure that I am in this place or that for a specific time. Not so much of late.

Aunt May is still letting me coast but I know my time is running out. She has been my guardian since I was five and I know her well enough to know that my stay of grace from her sharp tongue will not last a huge amount longer.

"Yeah I may go." I shrug a little, keeping my answer vague. For some reason I am unwilling to admit that I am going to see Bex.

"You going to see that new girl again today?" she asks reading my thoughts.

"Doubt it," I lie.

"She looks like trouble."

I swallow down the surge of anger that rises. "Why? Because she wears black and has a love of bangles?"

"No, because girls who say what I hear she said always are."

"What? How do you even know that?"

"The whole town knows, Josh." I ignore her pointed look and butter some toast. I don’t want to fight with my only relative who has seen me through so much. "What are those bangles about?" she adds almost to herself.

The bangles. The bangles are important, I just don’t know why. I give another half-hearted shrug. "I am not sure, but they mean something to her, she counts them as she puts them on."

Aunt May instantly raises an eyebrow. Damn it. I don't want to start that rumour mill off. "Not what you think, I saw her put them on the other day, she counts each one on whilst screwing her eyes shut like she is trying to block something out, or maybe keep something in."

"She is odd, be careful."

"Yeah, yeah." I am not sure Aunt May really gets to have the final say on who is odd or not.

I dash up the stairs to the shower and stand under the hot water. I can’t get the vision of Bex in the shower at
the studio out of my head. It is doing nothing to settle the waves of alien emotions that are washing about inside me.  That moment when she pulled me into the shower and wrapped her arms around me, that was something else. It wasn’t even sexual, although it could have been. Instead it felt like she was clinging onto me, and holding on for dear life. There is a very small part of me that hopes that she was. 

By the time I am out of shower and dressed I have a clear plan for the day. Emily will love it. All young girls like castles don’t they? She can draw the scenery and I can draw Bex so that when she has gone I still ultimately have her.

***

“What are you doing?” Bex is lying on her tummy her gaze transfixed over the edge of the cliff at the sea rolling below.

We have wandered along the castle walls, our fingers entwined as we watched Emily skip along like a lost flower fairy, her hair glistening in the sunlight. The weather is warm and dry, perfect conditions for lounging about enjoying the Cornish coast and the remarkable castle I have brought them to, which is built into the rock. Bex was squealing with delight when she saw it, until she realised the noise she could hear was coming from herself, then she clamped one hand over her mouth, her freckles scrunched around her eyes as she attempted to stop smiling.

“Wow!” Is as all she said as she twirled on the spot looking around her. It’s funny because I thought Emily would be the most excited out of the two, but Bex won that competition hands down. She gave so much of herself away in those few minutes, more than she did with her big secret reveal this morning.

“Do you not have beautiful places like this in London?” I asked.

Bex thought about this before giving a small shake of her head. “Not that I ever saw.”

I smiled. “Well that’s a pity. We should take a photo for you to take back.”

Now she is chewing some long stems of grass, her amber eyes trained on the sea as I attempt to draw her. Emily has already insisted that I draw the both of them together, which I did happily. It can be a gift for Bex when she leaves. Something to remember our day trip by. Now I am cursing that I only brought my charcoals with me, I am gutted because the sun is lifting off her skin like an iridescent glow and I know if I try and capture it when I get home I won’t be able to. Not properly anyway.

“You’re not drawing me are you?”

“
No, ma’am.”

“Joshua?” God the way she says my name kills me. It makes me want to take her apart. I cast my eyes about and look for Emily who is off in the distance distracted by a formation of rock. Bex is looking up at me shielding her eyes from the sun. Placing my sketch pad on the ground I move myself towards her. “Josh.” Her voice holds a warning and I know she is glancing towards Emily. I don’t care. I wrap my fingers around her wrist, my thumb placed against the faint pulse that beats there. Although she opens her lips, with a slight curve lifting one corner and closes her eyes, I don’t kiss her. That is what she is expecting. Instead I trail my index finger around the outline of her mouth, memorising their shape. She bites down a smile, her nose wiggling as she does. Perfect. Gently I lean in and kiss the tip of her nose. Bex tilts her mouth up towards mine and although I wasn’t going to kiss her I end up doing it anyway. She is warm and fiery and I need to feel her against me. Edging myself as close as possible, I release her wrist and slide my hand up her spine. My body responds to hers and as she shifts herself against me I know she feels it too. It’s like every fibre in my body which is touching hers is super aware of how close she is to me. Smoothing my hand along the curve of her waist, my thumb runs along the edge of her ribs and I am gutted that I am on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. If I wasn’t then I would probably lower my hand further to the waist band of her shorts which I would slide my fingers inside, not too far, just enough to make her push her body into mine even closer. Just like she did the other night when we did this for hours. 

“Do you guys mind?”
Uh. Emily.
I’d completely forgotten about her standing a few feet away.

“
I don’t mind,” I call out, my lips still against Bex’s mouth. “Do you?  I say lower, so just Bex can hear.

“
Not minding at all.” She smiles the words back against me. I start to pull away but she grabs me round the neck and plants a smacker full on my mouth. “I don’t mind in the slightest,” she murmurs.

Emily peals a ring of laughter. “Bex and Joshua, sitting in a tree,” she chimes.

“Shut it, Midge.” Bex scowls at her sister, it’s not the scariest scowl I have ever seen. It’s ever so slightly undermined by the enormous smile beaming from her face.

I don
’t want the day of revelations, castles and kissing to end. “Any chance you will be allowed out with me tonight?”

Bex leans back and looks at me. The ambers absorb the sun and throw it straight back out at me. I am blinded by her. I can’t see further than her and I wait holding my breath for her answer. I so want her to go out with me. As in properly, not just random kissing and hand holding.