Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 33474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
A guy calls out to him, and the voice is familiar. I cringe and follow it to Lyle trying to open a plastic bag for his green apples. “Robin, can you bloody well open these things?” He studies his fingertips, and lets loose one of those classic Lyle smirks. “I’ve worn out my fingerprint typing.” He jiggles the bag once more and then chucks it and the apples in the crate. “Too healthy for a movie night anyway.”
Someone nearly rams into me again. I move out of the way, and the movement catches Robin’s eye. He looks up. His turquoise gaze is warm for a moment, and I think . . . maybe—
He glances away, biting his lip as he places fruit into his basket.
I push my shopping cart a step forward, but Robin keeps his back to me.
Lyle casts me a smaller smile as my gaze washes over him on the way back to focusing really, ridiculously hard on some bananas.
With a tight throat, I drop a bunch into my shopping cart. After one last look in Robin’s direction—getting a visible wince from Lyle—I turn away, merging with the flow of people towards the checkouts.
It’s one of those sad life facts: things change, and people who might have once been close, now are no more than neighbours.
Chapter Eleven
“Lyle,” I say as he swings open the door I’ve been pounding on insistently for the last minute. With sleep-tousled hair and a scrunched-sheet pattern indenting his cheek, Lyle’s glare is a major fail. “Teach me to swim.”
He rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “You couldn’t have called? At a more humane time? Jeez, it’s still dark.”
I lift my prepared bag.
“Are you high? What brings this on so suddenly?”
“Not high.” But I haven’t slept—thinking about things—and as I was switching the fir again I realised: I want something to change. I want a reason to speak to Robin again. I want us to get back to talking. Get back that friendship we used to have.
This is my brilliant opening. If I can overcome my fear, if I can swim, it might touch him. He could give me surfing lessons and laugh as I eat the ankle busters. “I need to learn. Will you help?”
Lyle packs his gear and jangles his keys on his way out the door, but he’s frowning. I follow him to his car, and he drives us across the quiet hills, away from the pools, to the ocean.
“Where are we going?”
Lyle glances at me, continues to drive on the empty coastal road, and parks in a quiet spot before a rocky shore. The world is shades of grey outside, waves gently washing with white tips against craggy rocks. The ebb and flow of the ocean is rhythmic and lulling.
I open my seatbelt and swivel in his direction. He stares out at the soft silvery glow kissing the surface of the water.
“What?”
He looks at me. “You avoided me for weeks. Your brother stayed with you for the holidays. I thought he’d come around. Test out my game.”
“I was planning on introducing you, but . . .” I let out a weary breath. “I indulged in self-pity instead.”
He glances at me, eyes softening, a small frown cutting his brow. He rips his gaze back to the vast whitening canvas of the sky.
“I couldn’t bring myself to hear your I told you so’s.”
He laughs hollowly and looks at me. “You’re willing to hear them now?”
“I just have.”
Lyle’s lips quirk, but the smile quickly fades. “You want to learn to swim for him.”
“I want to salvage our friendship.”
“Swimming is the way to do that?”
“It’d give us a point of connection. Will you teach me?”
“Yes. No.”
“Which is it?”
“Yes, if you want to learn for yourself. No, if it’s for him.”
“You really are straightforward.”
“Let me be more straightforward.” He stares solemnly into my eyes. “You don’t ever have to learn to swim.”
Usually, when it comes to this topic, everyone is encouraging, coaxing, wishing, pushing me to learn.
Lyle is shrugging his shoulders like it doesn’t matter.
“You don’t think this is a basic skill I should have?”
“Only if you want to.”
A breath that had been weighing heavily on my chest whooshes out of me. But I’m left off-balance, dizzy. “Shouldn’t I push myself to overcome my fear?”
He settles a hand on my shoulder, speaks quietly, “It’s not a fear.”
I stare out at a bigger wave crashing against the rocks, spraying high into the air. I’m afraid of the water. If it’s not fear, what is it?
“It’s trauma.”
The sob comes from nowhere. A sudden and vicious wave rises up stomach, throat, pounding into my head, uncontrollable.
Lyle’s fingers tighten around my shoulder, and the warmth triggers another wave. This one I choke back, but my torso buckles with the effort.
“Hey. Hey, Jase.” He’s half climbing over the console to reach my back and rub circles, and I’m turning away from him, swiping at my face. “Oh God,” I try to laugh. “Sorry. No idea where that came from.”