Chapter 36
36
Evie
A few weeks later, we’ve borrowed Drew’s mum’s car and driven three hours to Jervis Bay, during which time I performed a one-woman show for him featuring a lot of One Direction. But now, standing on the white sands of a secluded stretch of beach in the dark, there’s no need for music. I’m so overwhelmed by what I’m seeing, I forget to take photos. Glowing bioluminescence. Sea sparkles. Every wave that breaks in the dark lit up in magical neon-blue light that swirls around our ankles on the shoreline.
“Should we be standing in this?” Drew asks.
I shrug. “I probably wouldn’t drink it.”
He’s so careful about health stuff. He once told me when someone you love has ended up at the wrong end of a statistic, you’re more focused on what could go wrong. But there are more dangerous things we could be doing on a Friday night. We could be taking drugs at a party. Not that I would know. In any case, I’m fully distracted by the way my calves are glittering in the moonlight.
“There are worse ways to die than being killed by luminescence,” I announce without thinking it through. I immediately kick myself for blundering into the sad stuff. “Sorry! I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you’re right. I should lighten up.”
That’s not what I was saying.
“Let’s focus on how lucky we are to be here.” I grab his arm beside me in the shallows. “This is notoriously so hard to find!”
“Not when you’re following the live blogs as obsessively as we are. You’ve just got to be ready to jump in the car when there’s a chance.”
He walks a little way up the beach and strips off his shirt. Without worrying anymore about whether we should or shouldn’t wade in here, I pull my dress over my head, throwing it on top of the camera bags on the sand. I am literally the last person to have planned how best to Instagram this turn of events, but even I have to admit my choice of white bikini top and boy shorts against the fluorescent blue in the water tonight was inspired.
Drew runs into the ocean, flicking up the brightly colored water, sparkling with chemical reactions, and I splash after him through mystical waves. It occurs to me, briefly, that while I’m anxious about undressing in front of Oliver, I have no such problem around Drew—probably because this whole thing couldn’t be more platonic. I completely trust him.
All around us, the water lights up in eddies and swirls, as if we’re in an otherworldly animated movie or living on some distant, undiscovered planet. I spin, trailing my fingers through the water, light swirling all around me.
Drew is standing nearby, looking more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. It’s as if the phenomenon is distracting him from everything that makes his life so hard. “We need to see fireflies next,” he says.
“Yes! And the aurora, of course. Let’s start a list.”
As a wave breaks behind him, his body is silhouetted against the bright light. It’s all just so incredible and beautiful and so once-in-a-lifetime I start to lose the battle against composure, my eyes filling up.
“Missing your boyfriend?” he teases, and I slam some neon water at him.
For a few moments, I’d almost forgotten Oliver existed. Now I struggle to imagine him here in this scene. Drew will stay here in the water all night if I want to. He’s big on wondrous things—it’s the photographer in him. We’re kindred spirits on this stuff, and I can’t help wondering whether Oliver would rush me through it.
“Can I take your photo?” Drew asks. “Not for the exhibition. Just for you?”
He wades onto the sand, dries his hands off, and grabs my camera. Not his. I know he’d never share these photos, but this ensures it.
As he lines up the shot, I realize it’s the little things like this that I like about him, not that I’d voice that aloud—he’d think I was weird. I want to take back my initial accusation in the art studio at his school, when I lumped him in with the other boys. They would never ask for consent to take these photos. They’d take them and share them and do God knows what with them.
Knowing it’s only Drew, I come to life, scooping the shining water, spinning and dancing in it as if nobody is watching me. Not even him. Then I traipse back through the water to see what he took, laughing at the couple of failed shots where I’ve got a weird look on my face or my eyes are shut, but I’m so genuinely happy and confident in the others, I barely recognize myself.
“You are really good,” I say. “ Really good.” I’ve told him this before, but I never think he quite believes it. He basks in the praise, reflections from the water flickering across his face in the moonlight.
“Spin around,” he says, never one to dwell on a compliment. On our mission to create the perfect shot, I twirl so many times I lose my balance and fall over, into him, pulling both of us down onto the sand, laughing, while he holds the camera aloft.
We end up sitting at the shoreline while the luminous water washes in and out on the beach. By a million miles, it’s the most precious experience of my life.
“The day I die, when my life flashes before my eyes,” I tell him, “this scene will be the finale.”