His words hung in the air between us, and he looked at me as if he was expecting me to add to them. I turned and swam deeper into the water. I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to talk abouttheusthat may or may not have existed for those years. Or theusthat absolutelyhadexisted for one fleeting moment, six hours to be exact, until it had all shattered and burned.
‘That’s in the past,’ I said.
‘But at least you now know I didn’t cheat. Kind of tragic, don’t you think? Ending because of a misunderstanding.’
‘I didn’t say I believed you,’ I said, thinking back to his eyes and the tone of his voice on the dance floor, when for the first time, I might almost have believed him. Maybe.
‘But you don’t totally disbelieve me either.’
I nodded ever so slightly, but didn’t turn my face. Instead I looked out over the water, which was sitting by my collarbones now.
‘Why did you do it? Why did you even bother getting the map?’
I heard the water move behind me, felt the ripples lapping against my back and neck. Cam moved closer and I didn’t move away. He stopped next to me, our shoulders almost touching as we both faced the sea in front of us.
‘Because I knew I wasn’t going to beat you if I didn’t cheat. That’s how good you were, Lizzy. That’s how good youare.’
‘But you did beat me, and you said you didn’t cheat?’
‘I know. So fucking ironic, isn’t it? I didn’t need the map. But I thought I did. And that one stupid decision changed everything.’ He looked up at the sky as if trying to find something specific up there. ‘If I hadn’t done that, maybe . . . well, who knows what would’ve happened that morning.’ His voice dipped low now, as if he was talking to himself. ‘We would have definitely gone for breakfast. I would’ve watched you eat five stacks of pancakes, ten sausages and half a pig’s worth of bacon, and then we would have gone back to my place, and that’s where you would have stayed. With me.’
I ignored that totally. ‘You know what the worst part of it was? The most unforgivable?’
I heard a massive sigh. ‘Who gave it to me. I’ve thought about it so many times over the years.’
‘Theoneperson who wanted to see me fail. Theoneperson whoresented the fact I’d made it that far, theoneperson . . . All that time he’d been waiting for me to slip up and fail, and you gave it to him.’
‘I know. I know.’ In my periphery I could see he’d hung his head. ‘He came to me the day before and thrust it into my hand, saying nothing. I opened it – only for a second, I swear – and when I realised what it was, I put it away. I won’t lie, though, I did stay awake all night thinking about whether I should use it. The worst part was that when he came up to me afterwards to congratulate me on my win, he winked at me.’
I felt my blood boil and my skin itched with the injustice of it all.
‘If it makes you feel any better, he only thought I’d beaten you because I’d cheated. That’s how good heknewyou were, better than he could ever be, and he resented you for that. If you think about it, it’s the ultimate compliment.’
‘Funny, it doesn’t feel like one.’
‘I should have thrown it straight back in his face the second I knew what it was. I probably should have gone to someone higher up and reported him. And I definitely shouldn’t have lain awake all night wondering if I should cheat you out of everything I knew you wanted. And I’m so, so sorry for that. You have no idea how sorry I am.’
So many emotions were running through me in that moment, I hardly knew which one to grab hold of.
‘You’re my idol, Lizzy.’
‘What?’ I turned and stared at him.
He laughed. ‘No, that came out wrong. I don’t have a shrine of you that I bow down to each morning. I just mean . . .’ He turned to face me now, and those feelings inside me that I really, really didn’t like feeling started spinning around at tornado speed. ‘I admire you and respect you more than anyone I’ve ever known, even now, six years later.’
I shook my head. ‘You’re wrong, though, Cam.’
‘Wrong about what?’
‘You know what would have really happened. We would have gone for breakfast and I would’ve eaten like a pig, then we would’ve gone back to your place, or my place. Maybe we would have donethat for a while, but at some stage one of us would’ve left. The relationship would have inevitably ended. It would never have worked between us; we’re too . . . too . . .’
‘Like petrol to a fire?’ he offered.
‘Explosive. Competitive. Argumentative. Volatile. Take your pick,’ I added.
‘Volatile, I’d say. You tried to kill me the other day.’
‘Oh please, I think you’re being a tad dramatic. I was just trying to choke you a little.’
