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The car moves—and they’re on their way to Billie’s nightmare.
It’s Preston’s birthday next week. But being a Saturday, the wasp event will happen tonight at his place with all those fuckers from the city.
Good luck.
Billie loathes these things. But that’s not where she needs luck.
It’s in surviving it. Surviving the stings of the wasps.
Billie is heading into a hive.
4
Before the road to ‘Rich Hill’, a dirt-path pulls off the main road. It leads to what has become the Lover’s Lookout for the rich kids.
Back in the day, Billie and Preston came down this way all the time. Guess for old times’ sake, he drives her down the lane to the small lift in the earth where—if you park right next to the triangle of shrubs, then—there’s a perfect view of the harbor: Sparkling blue waters through the trees, a rocky shore embracing the sea, sharp cliff edges.
There was a time Billie appreciated the view. Down in Southside, all they get are murky streams and dark, muddy swamps.
But she’s seen it so many times now it’s become a distant nostalgia. Still, she cradles the bottle in her hands and gazes out at the distant Bay, the blue of the water as pale as her eyes, but they sparkle with a life that her own dullness can never do.
Preston is angled towards her, his near-black eyes hooked onto the side of her passive face. He runs the pad of his thumb over the back of her seat, as though caressing the cheek he watches closely.
A slight scar twists the corner of her mouth, a scar so faint it should be easily wiped away by the pad of his thumb, so effortlessly taken away, but it stays stuck there every time he’s tried to wipe it off, as though to remove it will cure all the troubles she's been cursed with.
There’s no secret in how blatantly he watches her, just as he’s never hidden or found shame in watching her walk through her rattled little life wearing that faint twisted scar that permanently frowns the left corner of her mouth.
She got that scar before they met—and that’s a point of contention. He says they met when he was seven and she was six. She sayshewas six and she was five.
But the circumstances don’t change in either of their stories: They met at the daisy fields where all the kids gather on the hottest days, the divide splitting the town’s youth, and like everyone else Billie and Preston threw rocks at each other. His rock clipped her a little too hard on the knee, she dropped… and he felt guilt strong enough to rush over to her.
No going back after that.
If he knew now that running to her aid would becomethis, this moment in his car, his addiction to her and her codependency on him, he wouldn’t change a thing.
“How long do we have?” Her words slur slightly, but enough that he feels the urge to reach for the bottle, to slide it out of her grip and tuck it away. But that would only ignite a fight—one with fists thrown his way.
Preston knows better than to take away her second crutch.Himbeing the first. “It doesn’t start for another two hours.”
Her scar warps, twisting inwards and contorting the small patch of skin around her mouth’s edge. From this angle, it looks like a frown. At least, that’s how it would look to anyone who doesn’t know Billie.
Preston sees the smirk that it is. And he mirrors it with one of his own, one not deformed or scarred, but just as wicked, depraved and fueled with a sudden surge of desire.
He makes the first move.
His hand slips away from her seat, his fingertips lightly brushing along her sharp cheekbone. Chucking a finger under the shades that hide her seafoam eyes from him, he slides them off until they fall onto the centre console with a clatter.
Blue like diamonds, those eyes blink at him wearily. As always with Billie, there’s a glaze of sorts, as though she’s just woken from a deep sleep, but really she’s been on the drink.
That’s not what he sees.
He sees hurt.
Pain.
Memories.
Like her scar, he aches to wipe it all away.
