Siren Bay

X

December 21st | Ten days until NYE

My dinner was sitting uncomfortably in my stomach. Nausea, guilt, they plagued my senses as I recalled the look on Carrie's face. Seeing her yesterday had thrown me off kilter, and what was meant to me a relaxing few days leading up to the end of my parent's grounding, as well as the fierce determination I had for meeting Henry again, wasn't true at all. Instead I felt sick.

I didn't want to think back on why I left my eighteenth birthday running. I didn't want to remember Carrie's face that night, or Max, or their expression when they realised what had happened, and what had been said.

I'd been so focused on what had come after, with Henry and the secrets of the sea, that it was easy to bury the reason I found him in the first place.

Seeing Carrie yesterday had brought everything back. Seeing her strawberry hair bound, when on my birthday it had been loose, straightened. The vibrant turquoise eyes had been lined with perfectly blended eye-shadow; the purple hues had matched her dress. Max had worn a buttoned blue shirt with sleek black jeans, crisp new Converse.

I'd worn a shimmering silver dress that brushed my thighs – I lost the heels running down to the water.

I sighed and while pushing my food aside. Leah and Benji looked up, Maureen frowning at how much was left, but I couldn't say anything as I stood and left the table. I went to the bathroom, clutching the sink, and used the cool water to pat down the back of my neck, my wrists, to get rid of the hot sweat of nausea sticking to my skin.

It wouldn't work, I knew it. The problem wasn't the heat, or the food. It was the memories that had risen to the surface, no longer wishing to remain buried anymore. Washing them away would be easy, but easy wasn't what life was about.

I left the bathroom and grabbed my bag, shoving my phone inside, and peaked out to the kitchen where my best friends and Old Smithy still sat, quietly eating.

"I'm, uh," I swallowed. "I'm just going for a walk."

"Okay," Benji started to stand. "Did you want company?"

"No," I said too quickly. "I just, I just need some air."

Leah and Benji looked at each other, and Maureen's expression fell. Her eyes swam with nostalgia – and I knew she was recalling Whale Beach six months ago.

I'd been soaked, in a silver dress, and I felt haunted, and she was the first person I saw in days. The memory was so close to the surface for me I knew, without a doubt, that Maureen was remembering as I was.

"I have my phone with me," I forced myself to say. I could see the prickling of fear in Old Smithy's eyes, and the worry in my best friends', but I needed to clear my head, and I said as such. "Just for an hour or so, though. I'll be at Siren Bay."

Maureen leaned back in her chair. "I don't know where that is..?"

"We do." Leah nodded to me and I felt a little of the worry lift. "Take your time."

I nodded back, shoving my phone in my bag and walked out of the house. As soon as the front door was closed against my back, I forced a few breaths in before I began walking away. The bag was heavy on my shoulder, but I did my best to ignore it.

I focused on the sounds of summer echoing all around me. The cicadas rattling at such a volume it made my ears ring, my thongs slapping on the blistering road, the calls of kookaburras – the familiar old farmer's tale of kookaburras cooing hours before storms made me look to the skies. There were clouds forming on the horizon, too far away to be anything but a blur.