Chapter Six
I kept bumping into Ethan. It wasn’t a big sixth form, so it wasn’t exactly unprecedented, but after that first time in the bathroom, the way he’d looked after me even though he didn’t know me, I kept thinking about him, and then there he’d be.
We’d pass each other in the corridor, and he’d give me a knowing, secret smile; I saw him on the opposite side of the lunch hall, where he usually sat by himself, or occasionally with a couple of boys who Freddy said were in their Art and Design class.
One day, I summoned up the courage to ask him to join us, but then a girl with long caramel hair put her hand on his arm and my confidence deserted me.
‘His surname is Sparks,’ Kira announced, one unusually warm afternoon in March when we were walking from school to Alperwick Bay, dawdling and decompressing from lessons.
‘What are you talking about?’ I pretended I didn’t already know.
‘Ethan,’ she confirmed. ‘He’s called Ethan Sparks.’
‘It’s better than Spunk,’ I said, but I felt disloyal bringing up that joke again now that I’d met him.
‘I can’t believe he took you into the girls’ toilets.’ Freddy liked to pretend he was an anarchist in training, but he was as sweet as they came, and even his dyed black hair and multiple piercings couldn’t disguise it. ‘Weren’t you worried he was going to push you into a cubicle and ravish you?’
‘Hopeful more like,’ Kira said with a grin.
‘He’s going to be an architect.’ Orwell kicked a pebble, his sandy hair ruffling in the breeze. ‘That’s what Dagger Dave said.’
‘You can’t trust anything Dagger Dave says,’ Freddy told him. ‘Although admittedly that’s not scandalous, so maybe it’s true.’
‘He’s so focused.’ Kira sounded accusing. ‘He knows what he wants to do already.’
‘I’m going to be a journalist and a writer,’ I reminded her. ‘I know, too.’
‘Of course,’ Freddy said far too brightly, and my spirits sank.
The concrete turned to sand under our feet, the blue water stretching ahead of us.
Aquamarine shifted to indigo on the horizon, the waves large and unruly even though the tide was out, so we had a good ten-minute walk to reach the water.
Alperwick Bay was big enough that we didn’t feel crowded even when it was busy, the cliffs bookends on either side, the deserted mansion peering down from the clifftop to our left.
It was beautiful, and it was home, but I wanted so badly to leave – at least for a little while – and my friends, as much as they loved me, didn’t think I would.
‘The MS trial is going to work,’ I said. ‘Mum will get better, and we can sort out a programme of carers before I leave for any help she needs while I’m away.’
Kira busied herself pulling off her boots and tights.
Freddy was staring at the rocks as if he’d spotted a piskie, so I appealed to Orwell. ‘She knows how important it is to me. She’ll do everything she can to make sure I go.’
Orwell laughed, but let it die when I didn’t join in. ‘Yeah,’ he said sheepishly. ‘Course.’
Kira slung her arm around my shoulders. ‘We know she wants what’s best for you, but she is constantly on your case. And it’s awful for her, obviously , having MS, but you didn’t give it to her, Georgie. You’re not responsible for her.’
‘Shouldn’t I be, though?’ I was the only one who saw her when she was in so much pain she could barely stand, or when her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t pick up her mug.
‘We’ll sort it out. There are always options, aren’t there?
’ I smiled, able to easily dismiss the horrifying possibility of being stuck here for ever, my journalism dreams, my writing dreams, gone. ‘Are we going into the water, or not?’
Kira and Orwell were off before I’d finished the sentence, and I followed with Freddy, the wind bellowing around us as we skipped over eddies, our feet sinking into pockets of softer sand.
By the time we reached the crashing waves, we were breathless and laughing, and this was the power of Cornwall. Right now, it was where I wanted to be.
‘Oh,’ Kira said. She’d been bent over, resting her hands on her knees and getting her breath back, but now she stood up straight.
‘ Oh what?’ Freddy pulled her against him and kissed her neck. ‘Exercise made you frisky, has it?’
‘No.’ Kira pointed. ‘ That oh.’
We followed the direction of her outstretched finger, and I got her oh .
Ethan was walking in the shallows, his jeans rolled up, carrying his trainers.
His head was tilted, gaze focused on the floor as he listened to the slender, dark-haired girl at his side, who was talking and gesticulating wildly.
‘He just looks like an architect, don’t you think?’ Orwell said, as my insides fizzed with envy.
‘He looks like a guy.’ Freddy was nonplussed. ‘Honestly, what’s the fuss? Apart from the whole bathroom thing. That was bold.’ He held his fist out to me and I bumped it, as if I had orchestrated that stunt.
‘She walks the same way as him.’ Kira was standing with her arms folded, studying them. ‘Honestly, Georgie, I wouldn’t worry.’
‘Why would I be worried? I’ve spoken to him once.’
‘You’ve done a lot more than that, by all accounts.’
I knew Orwell was teasing, but it came out as a sneer, and I took a step away from him just as Ethan raised his head and locked eyes with me.
He looked surprised, then he smiled and said something to his companion before striding towards us, and I focused on being nonchalant and unaffected.
From the look Kira shot me, I might have failed.
‘Hi, Georgie,’ Ethan said.
‘Hey. How are you?’
‘Just giving my little sister a pep talk.’ Relief settled inside me, and I hoped it wasn’t showing on my face.
‘Sod off, Ethan.’ The girl scowled at him.
‘This is Sarah,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Sarah, this is Georgie, who’s in my year.’
‘Hi, Sarah, it’s nice to meet you.’ I waited for her ‘you too’, but she just nodded sullenly, so I went on. ‘This is Kira, Freddy and Orwell. Guys, this is Ethan – and Sarah.’
There was a round of heys and handshakes between the boys, I’ve seen you in Design, and we’re in Maths together politely exchanged, like we were proper grown-ups.
‘I’m going home,’ Sarah said, and Ethan frowned.
‘I should come.’
She put a hand up in front of his face. ‘No offence, big brother , but it’s a ten-minute walk. I can manage it by myself. I’m really starting to get bored of you being my shadow, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.’
‘You know why.’ He turned away from us, as if that would stop us from hearing their conversation. ‘I can’t protect you if I’m not there.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
‘You know —’
‘I’m going home now.’
He dropped his shoulders, defeated. ‘Text me when you get there.’
Sarah rolled her eyes and stomped off across the sand. Ethan stared after her, his arms limp at his sides.
‘I’m the youngest of four,’ Freddy said, ‘so I have experience of being a shithead to my older sisters and brother. Looks like she’s taking the job seriously.’
Ethan shook his head. ‘She’s unhappy. We moved here a couple of months ago and she had to leave her friends behind. But even before that, things weren’t great. I’m just trying to look out for her.’
‘Seems like it’s a losing battle,’ Kira said gently.
Ethan rubbed his eyes, then his gaze found mine. ‘How are the injuries?’
‘Gone,’ I said, because it had been two weeks. ‘All down to you, of course. Otherwise, the gravel would have burrowed inside me and given me blood poisoning.’
‘You shouldn’t joke about it,’ he said, but he was fighting a smile. ‘It could have been serious.’
‘It wasn’t, because of you. You settling in OK?’
‘Not too bad. It’s great having the beach so close.’
‘It’s the best,’ Kira said. ‘Race you to the rocks?’
It was a standard thing we did to blow off steam, but Ethan looked surprised because the rocks were quite a way out, past some pretty big waves, and it was also March, and freezing.
‘You wear costumes under your clothes?’ he asked. ‘Do you bring towels with you, then?’
‘I know it looks a long way, but there are sandbanks – it doesn’t get that deep.’ Freddy pulled off his beanie.
Kira was already lifting her T-shirt, revealing her sleek black swimsuit underneath. ‘You can’t live in Alperwick and not give the rocks a go.’
Ethan glanced towards the seafront, as if he regretted not following his sister home, then looked at me. ‘Are you doing it?’
I hadn’t been planning to stay long. Mum had been in a weird mood that morning, physically OK but staring out of the window a lot, distracted and vacant, and I needed to check on her. But the idea of leaving Ethan to race to the rocks with my friends, without me there, was unbearable.
‘I will if you will.’ I started unbuttoning my dress.
He watched my fingers move and, despite the temperature, I wished I was wearing a slinky, sexy bikini, low cut and brightly coloured, instead of the modest navy costume I had on.
After a moment’s hesitation he mirrored my movements, unbuttoning his shirt, exposing his strong shoulders, a lean chest, pale but with clusters of freckles.
My gaze snagged on his belly button, the trail of brown hair that ran down his stomach, and I turned away, letting my dress pool at my feet.
When I risked a glance, Ethan had taken off his shirt and jeans and was standing in a pair of blue boxers.
He didn’t seem self-conscious, but my cheeks heated at how much of him was on show.
‘You do know that it’s March, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Aren’t we heading into hypothermia territory?’
‘It’s exhilarating,’ I said, though I knew it would be almost unbearably cold.
‘After you, then.’ He gestured to the water, where Kira, Freddy and Orwell were already splashing in the smaller waves.
‘OK.’ I sprinted into the water, squealing at just how right I’d been, the cold numbing my feet and legs in seconds. Ethan was behind me, a hint of warmth at my back.
‘Jesus fuck it’s freezing,’ he panted out.
‘The trick is to not hang about,’ Freddy said, wading further out. We followed him, dodging breakers and ducking under swells, bobbing up to wipe water from our eyes.
The sun was already sliding towards the horizon, making diamonds out of the surface that were blinding to look at. I turned to check on Ethan and found him beside me, treading water.
‘OK?’ I asked, as icy currents drifted around my legs.
‘I’m good,’ he said, with more conviction than he’d had on the beach. ‘This is good.’ He laughed. ‘I’m swimming in the sea, in my pants. This is not the sort of thing I do.’
‘It’s inevitable when you live here.’ With his wet hair slicked back, his face was all sharp angles, his eyelashes dark and glossy.
I risked a step towards him, the water swirling around us, making us weightless.
Orwell and Kira called out from beyond the biggest waves – they were near the rock, we had lost the race – but I ignored them.
Ethan moved closer too, cupping my shoulder like he’d done in the courtyard.
But this time my skin was bare, and he was mostly naked, and I felt the pull of him, the way his touch made me ache in other places.
Our childish seaside game, our way of letting off steam, changed for me in that moment, and I thought of the way Ethan had said ‘Good’ so firmly when I’d told him I was eighteen.
‘I might have to get used to it then,’ he said.
‘Which bit?’
‘All of it. The sea. Swimming. You.’
Me. ‘Glad I could introduce you to this important Alperwick tradition,’ I said loftily, daring to flick my eyes down to where he was hazy and indistinct under the water, ‘in your pants.’
He grinned, the surface of the sea bouncing sunlight onto his cheeks and making them glow. ‘Not to sound like a dickhead, but I’m glad you got hit by that football.’
‘Me too. Though you could have just spoken to me whenever, not waited until I needed rescuing.’
‘I wasn’t …’ he started, then looked away. ‘I was going to. I was working up the courage.’
I was about to ask him why he needed courage to talk to me, and why my words had frustrated him, because he had rescued me, hadn’t he?
In a very small way. But then Kira shouted over, in a voice I was always surprised could come out of someone so delicate, ‘Hello!? The rocks are this way! Have you got lost in the open sea ?’
Freddy joined in, cupping his hands around his mouth. ‘This isn’t make-out time! Ethan and Georgie, you are not limpets! Get your asses over here!’
I laughed, hoping it would cover up my mortification. ‘We’d better go before they get even more creative. Limpets is bad enough.’ I waded forward, Ethan alongside me.
‘Why are we limpets?’ he asked. ‘We weren’t kissing.’
I was going to tell him that the truth didn’t matter when it came to my friends and their insults, but I got distracted by the word kissing .
And then, although maybe I imagined it, with the waves crashing around us and the shouts of people enjoying the spring afternoon, I was sure he added quietly, ‘Not yet, anyway.’
After that, I couldn’t think of anything but kissing him, and even when I made it home to Mum’s strange mood and a heap of English work I couldn’t find the enthusiasm for, my dress sticking to my damp costume, hair in rattails, I felt like I was still floating in the sea, weightless and without limits.