Page 139 of The Luna Duet

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(Moon in Afrikaans: Maan)

“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, LITTLE FISH?” Jack growled.

I looked up from the laptop where I’d been inputting the final figures on the latest bathymetric map that Anna and Jack had been conducting. The topography of the seafloor was regularly rescanned as the rehab of the reef steadily expanded with more and more planted coral.

Jack paced in the kitchen, his hand buried in his silver-shot dark hair. “It’s ten thirty on a Thursday, Nerida. You know your curfew is ten on a weeknight.”

My hands stilled on the keyboard.

Where is she?

I’d just assumed she was at Joel and Zara’s.

I assumed a lot these days because I didn’t have the strength to ask.

I assumed she was fucking him.

I assumed she was in love with him.

I assumed she was over whatever infatuation she had with me.

I assumed she no longer cared.

I couldn’t blame her for moving on after what I’d texted her that night.

I couldn’t hate her for fucking someone else, all while I physically couldn’t.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried.

The day she brought Joel around, laughing at his jokes and holding his hand on the couch, something had snapped inside me that’d remained fractured ever since.

That night, as I skulked in the shadows and watched her kiss him goodbye, my heart wrenched from my chest, sickness splashed on my tongue, and I stumbled to my bedroom so drunkenly, so brokenly, that I’d slammed the door so hard, the latch didn’t catch, and it shot wide open, hammering against the siding, announcing to anyone who heard that I couldn’t fucking deal with the pain inside me.

I’d been so naïve.

So idiotic not to have seen how much Neri’s affection meant to me.

I’d lost everyone who ever loved me.

I’d grown so used to Neri’s assurances that she was mine even if I couldn’t have her.

But now, I’d pushed away the one girl who cared. The one girl who actually wanted me and she left me spiralling into blackness, coming face-to-face with the nightmare that I’d done this.

I’d pushed her away, and now...she’d given me up.

I’d felt more alone that night than I had the day Neri found me and told me I was the only survivor.

I’d leaned on her too much.

I’d fallen for her too hard.

I’d fucked everything up and now the one place I was safe had become the one place I couldn’t survive.

Once Joel left that night, I’d waited for Neri to come to me.

I trembled on my bed, doing my best to restrain myself, all while knowing that the moment she stepped foot in my room, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

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