‘Do you want to sit?’ Delphine motioned to a semi-flat rock beside us.
I nodded and sat down, pulling my knees to my chest and staring at the ocean.
‘I am sorry that you found out like this. Felix, he did not want you to know. He thought it would make everything more complicated,’ Delphine said gently. ‘He sometimes does not make the best decisions.’
‘More complicated? It would have been better than this.’ I didn’t even know where to start to try to make sense of it all.
‘I have known the Laurent brothers my whole life. We all grew up surfing together. Me, Antoine, Felix, and eventually Gabriel. They were like family to me.’
I leaned my head on my knees and turned to her. She was staring out at the ocean, twisting a piece of hair in her fingers. ‘When Gabriel died, it broke something in all of us. Especially Felix and Antoine, of course. And it was like they shattered, and the fragments scattered in opposite directions. Antoine started to teach, and Felix, he kept his distance from the water.’
‘They should have told me.Someoneshould have told me.’ Although I wasn’t sure what good that would have done. If I’d known, would I have stayed away from Antoine altogether? Maybe that would have been better.
‘Bien sûr.Everything makes more sense when you look back.’ She shrugged. ‘But for what it is worth, neither of them has looked at anyone the way they look at you. Not since before Gabriel.’
‘What do you mean?’ I turned to her, and she glanced at me this time and smiled.
‘I mean that Antoine had just been going through the motions, teaching, surviving, but not really living. With you he becomes alive.’
I shook my head. It just added to the confusion about how I should be feeling. And it was exactly what Felix had said aboutmewhen he saw me with Antoine. That I lit up around him.
‘And Felix? He has not let anybody be close to him since Gabriel. And, Margot, he went into the water. For you. Do you realize how huge that is?’
The weight of what Delphine said felt like a thousand bricks on my shoulders. ‘But what now?’ I asked, hoping she’d just give me the answer, knowing full well it wasn’t as easy as that.
Delphine got off the rock and stood on the sand, looking out to the sea again. ‘Now it is up to you. Walk away, from Antoine, from Felix, from surfing, or you can stay and see it through.’
And I thought about what Priya had said. About me running away from hard decisions all the time. How I had to figure out what I wanted and just go for it. And she was right. But everything had just got so much more complicated.
‘I will leave you to your thoughts. And I hope I will see you tomorrow morning for training.’
I gave her a half smile, and sat there for another twenty minutes, letting everything settle in my head, until the chill in the air forced me to walk back towards the bonfire.
The drums were playing again, and the chatter of all the little groups had returned. I wished we’d been at the campsite beach where I could have just slipped away with nobody noticing, but Felix had driven me, so I was stuck. I pulled my jumper around me and walked towards the closest bonfire to get some heat.
‘Margot?’ A voice from behind me, a hand on my waist.
I spun round. Antoine.
‘You came back.’
I shrugged. ‘I didn’t know where else to go.’
‘I should have told you. About Felix … About everything.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked.
His hand was in his hair. ‘Saying his name. It hurts. It feels like opening a wound that has not healed properly.’
I nodded. I got it. I really did. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt me too. And while I was thinking about what tosay, someone else touched my shoulder. I turned to see Felix looking at me with concern on his face. ‘You are OK?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I said with a sad smile.
‘You went away. I was worried. But Delphine, she said she found you.’
‘She did.’ I nodded.
‘I am sorry, Margot. For not telling the truth.’
