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“Fine.” Trying not to second-guess myself, I stripped off my t-shirt and slapped it against a rock. Leaving my shorts on, I waded back into the pool, doing my best to ignore the swirl of sorrow.
It was just a pool.
I’d been in it before.
Yet being in it with Nerida felt like a baptism.
A forced new beginning.
A beginning I wasn’t ready for.
A beginning that would end with far more than just broken hearts...
...it would end with broken everything.
TWO YEARS LATER
Chapter Fifteen
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Greek: Fengári)
“SO....” I LOCKED THE CUPBOARD WHERE THE expensive sonar equipment lived and turned to face Nerida. The boat rocked beneath my bare feet, tugging on repressed memories of another life, another family, another world.
I hadn’t dealt with my grief.
I’d shoved it in a box and tossed it overboard.
But every now and again, it would float like a badly bloated corpse, rotting and offensive, doing its best to haunt me.
Nights were when it hurt the most, but during the day...I’d become a master at segmentation. I had walls within walls and rooms within rooms in my mind. Everything had its place, and the places I no longer wanted to go had locks and chains barring them from affecting me. For a while now, I’d been able to convince the Taylors that I’d gotten over my tragic beginning.
They no longer asked how I was.
They no longer worriedly searched my eyes for signs I wasn’t coping.
They only saw what I wanted them to see and what they saw was a boy quickly turning into a man. An eighteen-year-old who was no longer a bumbling idiot on their boat but an indispensable member of their business.
“So...?” Neri glanced up, her sunglasses perched on the end of her cute nose, her favourite hat glowing purple in the sun with an embroidered seahorse on the front. “Is there more to that conversation or did you just feel like saying two little letters?” Her lips twitched. “Because you know, I could help with that. Teach me a few more words in Turkish and then you can forget all about English...seeing as you’re not very good at it.”
I smirked, padding toward her. “I see someone is feeling extra feisty this morning.”
“Frustrated more like. What was the phrase for fuck again? Kafami sikeyim?”
“Don’t swear.”
“That’s right, though, isn’t it?”
“It means ‘fuck my head’ which translates to ‘fuck me’ but close enough.”
She grinned. “What’s another curse word?”
She played this game often. She never wanted to know the words for simple things but everything she shouldn’t. “I’ve suddenly forgotten every letter in my language.”
“How do you say fuck off?”
“Why? You gonna say it to me?”
“Maybe.” She laughed. “Never know when it will come in handy.”
“Siktir git,” I muttered under my breath. “And if I catch you using it, you’re in trouble. It’s offensive. Fuck off in English is preferable.”
“I won’t be in nearly as much trouble as my parents are in for leaving me up here. This sucks.” She leaned back in her chair, keeping one hand on her workbook on the table so the much-appreciated breeze didn’t snatch the pages, and the other on the e-tablet where she scribbled whatever notes required. “How do I say balls?”
“Bouncing balls or—”
“The other kind. The swear-word kind. You know, balls. Testicles—”
I laughed under my breath. “Your selective vocab is going to seriously scare someone one day. And it’s tasaklar.”
“Tasaklar.” She rolled the letters on her tongue, making that annoying kick in my chest return. “I’m going to knee my dad in the tasaklar if he forces me to do homework again when the water is singing to me.”
I shook my head with another laugh. “Your frustration is definitely showing.”
“I told you.” She tipped her head to the sun and groaned.
My gaze landed on the graceful curve of her throat, and my stomach clenched. Tearing my eyes away, I focused on the blinding sea. The sun was relentless today, and I was both jealous of her parents working on the seafloor and grateful it wasn’t me.
Two years of living illegally in Australia and I’d stayed true to my vow never to step foot in the ocean. However, my promise hadn’t come true from the lack of Neri’s attempts to get me wet. We swam together almost every night in her pool, and I’d well and truly gotten used to living in the Taylors’ garden, but no matter how refreshing I found our nightly swims, I still couldn’t stop the ice-cold frost at the thought of even dipping my big toe into the sea.
I was sure a therapist would have a fucking field day with that.
They’d strip back the many layers I’d wrapped myself up in and demand I do a deep dive into everything I’d repressed.
How convenient that I couldn’t get help, even if I wanted to.
“Why are you frustrated? You’re out here. Sapphire came to say hi before. It’s the perfect office to do your schoolwork.” I used the hem of my white t-shirt to wipe some of the sweat off my face. The scent of coconut suncream caught my nose, reminding me that just because my skin was naturally slightly darker than Neri’s, I still burned in this intense Australian sun.
