9. Chapter 8
Chapter 8
James
S he’s been here a month.
It feels like so much longer. She’s everywhere.
She’s at the shop, she’s in town, she’s friends with my friends now.
It’s like a thunderstorm ruining a perfect day of surfing. I don’t like it.
She dresses like she’s a goddamn bouquet.
Every outfit is either florals or pastels, and even when I think she’s wearing something a little less like a spring field, there they are. Take her denim shorts for instance. She wore them to work the other day and I was knocked over by how much she looked like the other girls around here. Then I noticed all the little flowers stitched all over them, on the pockets, on the belt loops, or the hems.
She walks around like a botanical garden in the summer, and I want to know why.
Why she feels the need to try and brighten up every space? Why the smile on her face doesn’t match her eyes?
Everyone loves her, of course. Ella’s a no brainer—I guess she is her niece—but Maddie treats her like she’s known her forever. She says, “They just click.”
I like things how they were, I like things to stay the same. She’s always smiling at everything, everyone, except me of course. I’m not sure they’re real smiles, they never look real, and I hate that too. Fake things, fake people. I guess if she were to smile at me, I’d want it to be a real one.
What am I even saying?!
This is what I mean, she’s in my head.
She’s beautiful, of course, but in the same way that the sky is blue and the ocean is wet. Nothing special, just a fact of life. Not that it matters, my body still seems to react to her in a way I rather it didn’t, and hers seems to do the same with me.
The little breaths she takes when I get a little too close to her makes me wonder what they’d sound like in the bedroom.
God, help me.
Today is no different. I’m behind the counter while she helps some customers pick out a new wetsuit. She’s good with people, a skill I can’t say I have unless they have a surfboard in their hand. I have a class but not for another hour and being in store with her is killing me.
Her laugh rips through me again and honestly nothing the guy she’s with is saying can be that funny. Why does she have to try so hard? She’s got such a need to people please. I’m tired from just watching her.
I want to rip my eyes out. But when I honestly think it can’t get any worse, it does.
Neil.
He strides in and I’m reminded there are people I hate more than Katherine at this moment. I question if I even hate her when he comes up to me.
I’ll never forget the things he said about my family, the way he made sixteen year old James’ life harder for no reason.
“James, good to see you, boy. I was wondering if Ella’s niece was here.” He must be losing his touch in his old age if it’s taken him a whole month to come in and terrorise her. But honestly, I can’t think of anything he can really say to her to do any harm, and messing with her a little might brighten my day.
I nod my head in her direction, she’s near the front of the store, and this time, without company.
He walks off in her direction and I make it look like I’m busy while he introduces himself, but I make it a point to discreetly look over at them.
She’s still smiling and I don’t know how that’s possible. But it’s definitely wavering, her hands clench beside her legs. She’s wearing shorts today, it’s different from her usual skirts and dresses. But her legs are still so pale and smooth.
Why am I looking at her legs?!
This girl is trying to kill me, I’m sure of it. We’re not even going to talk about her in that pink dress last week.
As much as I try to ignore them, I can’t. I hate him for all the things he said about my dad and me when we moved to town, for all the rumours he started about my parents. It was a dick move to let him go talk to her. Ella’s like family to me and I’d protect her from him if she needed it, so why should I think it’s okay to put Katherine in the lion's den? All areas of my brain fight with each other.
She represents everything that you hate, she’s just like your mum. She doesn’t care who she hurts while trying to find her soulmate. The little voice inside my head is quick to remind me of where the apprehension even came from.
But then I hear him, and his words, and I can’t let her do this. Not here. “I’m sorry about your father, cancer is a cruel thing,” he says to her, and she just looks at him.
I’ve never seen her like this before, she looks human, like a real person, and not a put together version of herself that she parades around. She looks real, and I’m not sure what to do. Her mouth falls open but nothing comes out .
“Shame Ella’s been all on her own this whole time, so alone.” Okay I’m done, I don’t know if he’s being a dick for the fun of it, or—actually, I do know. He’s being a dick for fun.
Her eyes shift over to me for all of two seconds and she looks like she’s about to cry. No matter how much she and I don’t get along, how much I might be a dick to her, I’ve got to save her.
“Okay, that’s enough,” I say from my spot behind the counter. No one else is in the store now, so I don’t care what I say to him, though I never have.
I walk towards them and stand behind her, I’m too close to her, I can feel the heat from her back radiating onto my chest.
He doesn't say anything but I continue, “Get out.” I’m not a man of many words and I’m hoping he’s smart enough to see the violence in my eyes. Because if he doesn’t and pushes me I’m not afraid of knocking all his teeth out right here. I tell myself not for her but for me.
“James, I’m just chatting.” He smiles at me over Katherine’s head.
“We both know that’s not what you’re doing.” I step around her so she’s half behind me.
He looks me up and down again and I can’t tell if he’s trying to size me up or not. I’ve got a good foot on him and he doesn’t look like he’s done any exercising, apart from running his mouth, for five years. I could snap him in half if I wanted, and I want to. But I won’t.
“Good to meet you, Katherine.” Her name on his lips makes me clench my fists, I’ve only got so much will power in me and he’s putting me right on the edge.
After he’s gone, and at least a mile from the store, I notice how quiet it is now. There's the melody on the radio and a faint noise coming from Katherine behind me. I realise it’s her trying not to cry and my mind goes blank. I don’t deal with people crying well and I can only imagine she’d rather have anyone else here other than me .
When I finally lock eyes with her, my face falls, and my heart is in my throat. Her eyes are glassy and her nose is red but she’s not letting herself actually cry.
“Don’t, guys like that don’t deserve you crying over them. He’s a waste of air.” I want to touch her, to comfort her, hold her hand, something. Whatever this feeling is, it’s overwhelming. But I don’t do any of that. “You okay?”
“You didn’t have to say anything, I was fine.”
My eyes roll on their own and my jaw clenches. “A simple ‘thank you’ would work, Katherine.”
“Thank you.” She seems smaller somehow now with her shoulder rolled in, and she won’t meet my eyes. Before I can say anything else, she’s walking away from me and toward the back room.
“I honestly don’t get what your problem is?” Maddie asks while we drive to Ella’s the next day.
It’s a Sunday, the weather is uncharacteristically hot for the end of September, and Ella’s invited us all over for dinner in her garden. She’s an amazing cook and anything beats sitting at home with my dad, a pizza, and him shouting about something or another.
I’m all he’s got now and I hate to hate him sometimes, so I try my best to remind myself why he’s the way he is. But sometimes it’s hard looking after someone who should be looking after you. Our worlds collapsed when Mum left. He simply lost it, which left me to step up. It wasn’t talked about, never has been, but it’s just how things went. I looked after the both of us, kept us both going .
I’m an adult now but I had to start taking care of things when I was sixteen, I owe a lot to Ella for giving me a weekend job then.
I give her a side eye look before setting my eyes back on the road. “Was that a real question?”
I’ve known Maddie since her first day at the shop when we were seventeen, but I’d seen her around before that. On the beach, around town, but never through our high school years despite our time overlapping. I wasn’t in the best place mentally then to be making friends, so I didn’t really. I originally lived in Sydney before my family fell apart, and then Dad moved us to Gull’s Bay for a new mechanic job at a garage a friend of his owned. I took to spending all my free time at the beach, working out my anger on the waves, and by working at the shop.
Maddie and I are very similar. I’d probably consider her my best friend if that was something you said at the age of twenty-five. I’ve never loved her in any way other than as a sister, and it’s nice to have someone I can share everything with. Our family lives are very different and the way she was brought up was even more different but we both started surfing the minute we could swim and a surfboard fit us, so we get each other. There is one very big difference between us two, she likes Katherine.
“Yes, it was a real question, James.” She takes a breath and I can tell she’s thinking about what she’s going to say. I hate that. I hate people watching what they say because they don’t want to hurt someone's feelings. Sometimes you just have to say what you need to say, although in this case I’d like her to just drop the whole thing. “Look I get it, why she’s here isn’t your favourite thing in the world.” I can hear the but before she’s even thought it. “But, I think you’d like her if you gave her a chance, and besides, all that stuff was nine years ago, some people would say holding a grudge against that much of the planet might be unhealthy. ”
She said that so quickly, I’m not sure she was breathing.
She has a point.
Sadly, yes, she does have a point, and yet here I am feeling sick when I see Katherine. It’s like a mix of sickness and like being hit by a truck. I’m convinced it’s got to be the very male, primitive part of my brain reacting to her body.
Yeah that whole thing about her being obviously beautiful might have been a lie, she is gorgeous.
Her ginger hair shines even when the sun has set, I kinda like how it’s such a contrast from how calm she comes across, I wonder how much fire she has buried in her. Her skin, very pale for this side of the world, still glows in its own way. Which only makes me notice her curves in every place a man wants to hold, and it doesn’t seem to matter what she wears, my eyes still make them out.
But that’s completely besides the point. She’s not my type and even if she was, she annoys me far too much. Her people pleasing tendencies are like nails on a chalkboard.
I pull into the drive at Ella’s and turn to Maddie before we get out. “Maddie, I get what you’re doing.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“I think you’re trying to replace me with Little Miss Sunshine.”
She laughs and I hope that’s the end of whatever conversation she was trying to have. I’m not taking the bait and I don’t have the strength to fight, or at least disagree, with Maddie, she’s relentless. Once the girls got something in her mind, that’s it.
“You know I’d never replace you, Mr. Grumpy,” she says, getting out of my truck. “Hey, Ella!” Maddie shouts as we walk round to the back of her house and see the side gate is already open.
The smell of her food wafts over from the BBQ and I forget about everything Maddie was just saying. If Ella wasn’t my boss and basically a surrogate parent, I’d marry her just for her chicken wing recipe.