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Lucie’s breath caught in her throat. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she pulled at the end of her ponytail and counted slowly to ten. She wasn’t having an attack but managing the anxiety that came with too many thoughts at once. What if she’d never be able to stop the attacks alone? She wouldn’t survive a week at university without Emma. The one time her dad had witnessed the hint of an attack, he’d called it a child’s tantrum,and now she let herself use those words too. Was she an out-of-control brat like he suggested?
The sounds around her slowly crept into her consciousness as the rushing in her ears quietened. Children giggled as they made sandcastles. The group of boys who’d been on bikes now sat with the girls near the water sports building. They pushed and shoved each other while laughing and shouting. Groups of teenagers and any activities that put you at risk, including water sports, terrified her.
Somewhere a stereo played “Firework” by Katy Perry. She liked the singer but couldn’t tell anyone at school, as they’d laugh at her for not being into dance tunes like them. She liked all sorts of music. Wasn’t it possible to like more than one genre?
Lucie let out a breath and focused on the water lapping against the artificial but realistic beach. A balmy breeze brushed across her bare arms, and she eased her feet out of her trainers and stepped onto the sand. The grains warmed her feet and filled the spaces between her toes. A sense of peace flowed through her limbs, and a sigh slipped from between her lips. She liked living in Bristol most of the time, but the proper sea was too far away.
Art college in Brighton was her secret dream. But her dad would get his way like he always did. If she performed as expected in exams, then this time next year, she would be preparing to live at home while commuting to Birmingham University every day to study law.
Her heartbeat rose again. After a deep breath, Lucie plopped down on the sand, popped in her earphones, and selected a playlist of old school tunes like the ones her mum made her listen to. Lucie had created it for that moment of reaching a place that gave her peace. “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis instantly warmed her chest.
Taking deep breaths filled her with the scent of ice cream, pancakes, and suntan lotion, and she let a sigh slip from betweenher lips. Then, with a smile, she opened her pad and began to draw.
Her breathing calmed as her pencil brushed the white paper. The vibrations in her fingertips eased the trembles that were so visceral when her dad challenged her. The sounds of gentle touches of lead on fresh paper grounded her, and after ten minutes of letting her pencil flow, a startling image took shape. It was a pair of eyes, but not just any eyes. They belonged to Chris, the troublemaker. Was he as bad as Jess made out? He’d been more rebellious at that party than she’d been in her whole life. The possibility of bumping into him terrified her nearly as much as the group of teenagers whose happy yells were louder than her music. But the idea that she wanted to bump into him scared her more.Just because he’s attractive? You’re so silly, Lucie.
She’d had crushes before—on film stars, Emma’s friends, and that guy, Jem, from the drama club she went to before her dad made her leave because she needed to focus on her studies. That night, she’d asked for Jem’s email address, and he’d revealed he was gay and that he wanted a friend to email. That had been years ago. She’d never emailed him. It was accidental at first because she’d lost the address during an argument with her dad about how she wanted to return to drama club. Then, when she’d found it, she’d been too scared to message him. What if he believed she hadn’t messaged for a month because she had an issue with him being gay? What if she had been the one person he’d told and then he felt rejected? She wasn’t sure what to say, and he’d probably forgotten about her, anyway. She was too dull to be friends with a guy as cool as him and she felt guilty at least once a week that she’d never emailed him back.
In hindsight, all she’d felt for him was a silly schoolgirl crush. Silly was the word her dad used for her. Why did her negative inner voice sound like him?
All Chris did was wave at her. Another silly Lucie moment. He probably thought she was rude because she hadn’t waved back. But the eyes on the page continued to captivate her. Lucie had lifted her pencil to add the dimples when, suddenly, sand burst into her face.
Instantly she began to choke. What the hell? There was sand in her eyes too. She yanked out her ear buds.
“Sorry.” Someone bounded closer.
With her eyes tightly closed, she reached for her bag to grab some water, but it wasn’t by her side. Panic welled up in her chest, and she attempted to rub her face. Where could her bag be? She couldn’t let the sand into her eyes. How was she going to get it out?
Someone dropped down on the sand next to her as she reached to rub her eyes.
“Hey,” a male voice said softly. “Don’t touch your eyes at all, and definitely don’t rub them. I’m really sorry. This is all my fault. I kicked the guy’s ball way too far.” He elongated the word “way” as if to prove a point. “I keep forgetting I’m not David Beckham. Have you got any water?”
“My bag,” she replied, rasping from her heaving coughs.
“Okay. The first thing you need to do is blink a lot, and you need to cry so that tears can get the sand out.”
“You want me to cry?” she asked. The stranger’s hand brushed hers as he handed her the open bottle of water from her bag. His skin was hot and sweaty.
“I could sing. That usually makes people cry,” he joked as she took in big gulps of water. His voice was gentle. “Maybe I could tell you some jokes and make you cry tears of laughter.”
“Not if your jokes are like your football skills. If my eyes were open, I’d be rolling them at you right now,” Lucie croaked with more confidence than she felt. At least her coughing had stopped.
Tears slowly ran down her face, and she tentatively opened her eyes, but they were still too blurry and sore.
“When you can open them a little wider, you need to do that weird thing where you lift your upper eyelid over the lashes of your lower lid. Then the lashes act like a windscreen wiper,” he said, leaning closer. His scent of spice and sweetness reminded Lucie of the smell of the school hall when they had discos with the local boys’ college. She should hate the smell of Lynx Africa—all the girls at school moaned about it—but she secretly loved it.
“How do you know this?” she asked anxiously, reaching for her upper eyelid. What if she accidentally pulled all her eyelashes out? Her stomach clenched and she baulked at the idea.
“Bad things happen to me. I’ve had several broken bones, cuts, bruises, and eye situations like this. I once threw up bile in class, and it splashed across the desk and got all of my mates in the face. It was so gross,” he added with a chuckle.
Finally, her vision cleared. Lucie gasped. Chris was looming over her, staring at her, and all the teenagers she was scared of were standing close, watching too. He’d gotten sand in her eyes and now was making it a billion times worse. She was trapped.
Chapter Seven
With sandy tears still running down her face and, no doubt, blotches over her skin from coughing, shame filled her body. How long had the teenagers and Chris been looking at her? She must have been a freak to them with the way she reacted. Rage quickly took over and diluted the shame into something worse. This was how her dad responded to situations.
“You? You did this to me.” She stood up and shoved Chris. Her face was burning with too many emotions she couldn’t control.
“Hey, crazy,” one of the teenagers shouted as they surrounded her. “He helped you.”
