Chapter 13
Thirteen
existential crisis: check
Max
Sea foam sneaks forward and back, stealing sand and shells away, over and over again. Whether it’s by sheer force of will,
or luck, the water only ever brushes the very edges of my trainers, leaving them dry on the coarse sand.
I’ve spent a long time training myself not to linger on the worst parts of my past, and, generally, I’m pretty good at it.
I send my little chaos brain to sanity practice every week, and most of the time, I can go days, weeks, sometimes months if
I’m lucky, without the darkness crawling in.
But a few times a year, while I’m waiting for the results that could mark the difference between me being okay and not, I’m tugged back to that lightless place.
‘Are you coming, Max?’ Jude shouts, and I shake off the hypnosis and crunch my way back up towards the others huddling on
the sand under the pale-grey sky. After coasteering earlier, this evening’s been too slow, and my mind is too easily distracted.
I fold on to my towel and bring my beer to my mouth, letting the familiar fizz coat my tongue.
‘We’re playing icebreaker games,’ explains Bertie. ‘To break the ice.’
‘Thanks for that clarification,’ I mutter, wiping a hand across my mouth. A huff of a laugh comes from my right, where Dylan’s
sitting. When I look at her, she’s schooled her expression into practised indifference and is unscrewing the cap of her water.
‘It’s two truths and a lie,’ Arun explains. ‘Jude said she was banned from Never Have I Ever.’
Jude nods solemnly, sitting between Fiona and Greg and being either their talkative third wheel, or substitute daughter. She
jabs a thumb in my direction. ‘Max is also banned, just to clarify.’
I let the game play out around me, too busy making the most of the alcoholic provisions from the cooler box to get involved
properly. There’s much debate over whether Fiona’s claim that she’s related to Belgian royalty is legit, and then the group
drags a shellshocked Toby into the fray when he drops by to take some footage of the beach, and everyone cheers for him when
one of his truths reveals he’s a homeowner. In my drunken haze, I’m still surprised he’s even participating, but then I catch
his eyes on Jude, and I understand.
By the time it’s my turn, I have to rush to think of my facts. ‘My dream pet is a tarantula,’ I begin. ‘I have two birthdays,
and I’ve gone skydiving four times.’
I dig my beer into the sand and lean back on my hands while the others start to discuss.
‘Number facts are always the tricks,’ Greg says.
‘You’re right,’ Fiona agrees. ‘It’s probably three times skydiving, or five. Not four.’
‘The birthday one is so random though,’ another person says. ‘How could he have two?’
‘Maybe it’s the twenty-ninth of February,’ Arun suggests. A gust of wind blows his used tissue away and he dives after it
with a yelp.
‘It’s not,’ Dylan says, straightening the edge of the towel she’s sitting on. ‘His twin sister’s birthday is in May.’
‘He travels a lot, right?’ Fiona asks. ‘Maybe he wants a pet but can’t commit to one.’
Bertie shakes his head. ‘Well, no one wants a tarantula.’
‘If anyone’s disturbed enough to want one, it’d be him, though,’ Jude says flatly.
After another minute or so of yelled discussion, they come to their conclusion. As honorary spokesperson, Jude states their
claim. ‘The lie has to be the birthday one.’
There’s a beat of silence while everyone looks at me, and some voice in my head yells, Why did you even bring this up during a game when you knew you weren’t going to explain it? I push it down, and say, ‘You got it right.’
They cheer, and I catch Dylan’s eye for a moment, her head tilted in confusion. I pull my gaze away. Now’s not the night for
her to decide she wants to pay me attention.
The sun’s barely set and Arun is drunk. So am I, to be fair, but I have a decade of practice on him of hiding it. There’s
still enough daylight that, if I were sure I could keep my hands steady, I might want to film the imperfection of the gathering;
the way Fiona’s sitting on the sand just off the edge of her towel, the hole someone’s been mindlessly digging with a stick,
the various indentations where people have been shifting positions for the past few hours.
‘Is he okay?’ Jude asks, nodding her head over at Arun.
‘No one knows me like him,’ he mumbles, a single tear trailing down his cheek as he looks up at the stars. ‘It’s Pitbull’s
world, we’re just living in it.’
He gestures weakly to the sky. To God? To Pitbull?
‘All right, I think Arun needs a long nap and some water,’ Jude says, nose wrinkled in a way that confirms she will absolutely
not be the one to help with that.
‘I was going to call it a night anyway,’ Toby offers quietly, ‘I’ll take him back up.’
Jude jumps to her feet immediately, adding, ‘I can be moral support.’ When she passes me, she bends to my ear and whispers, ‘I think you’ve probably had enough to drink too.’
I want to flip her off, but she’s turned her back before my brain has caught up to the idea.
‘Hey Max, do you want to join us on a content morning tomorrow?’ Fiona asks.
‘No thanks,’ I reply, pulling my bottle to my mouth and cursing when I realise it’s empty.
‘His energy is so unsavoury,’ Bertie mumbles, and he’s lucky I don’t have the energy to fight him on that right now.
Dylan’s looking at me again, and I can’t help what comes out of my mouth. ‘What’s with that face?’
‘How did you do that?’ she asks, while the others get back to their own conversations. I think I say do what? but I’m not sure it comes out. ‘I don’t get it. You just said no.’
‘I said no thanks.’ At her bewildered expression, I ask, ‘What’s the issue?’
‘You didn’t give them a reason.’
‘Did I need to explain myself?’
‘It’s a thing you do. So people don’t feel offended, or like you don’t want to be around them.’
‘That’s a thing you do.’ I wave an arm around us and her eyes track the movement. ‘Do you really think it’s gonna keep these guys up at night?
You don’t need to justify everything. Sometimes things just are. We’ve got limited time here. Do what you want with it.’
‘Here as in Pembrokeshire, or the planet?’
Her tone was teasing, but I sigh, ‘Both.’ I lift my bottle again, learn for the second time that it’s empty, and let out another
sigh.
She peers at me again. ‘Heavy talk for fun beach drinks.’
‘Yeah, well,’ I slur and look out at the ocean, letting my eyes unfocus until the horizon blends with the murky sky. ‘Some
days the clock ticks louder than others.’
The second that thought registers, I grit my teeth. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. I didn’t want my head to go there at all, let alone in front of people I barely know. Alcohol has not done its job dulling the edges, the way I’d hoped.
I can’t stay down here, not while suffocating thoughts about time running out pile up in my brain like sand in an hourglass.
I get to my feet, only remembering to throw out a goodbye when I’m already a few steps away from the group, halfway through
a breathing exercise I already know won’t be effective.
By the time I reach the top of the path, I find a new nemesis to direct my energy towards, cursing under my breath as I fumble
with the gate. Who made them so complicated?
‘Let me,’ a voice says. In the low light, Dylan crests the clifftop and steps into view, nudging me aside and unlatching the
gate with ease.
‘Tiny. My beautiful knight in shining armour. My avenging angel. My—’
‘You’ve drunk too much,’ she says, her tone accusatory, but concern is etched into the lines on her forehead as she holds
the gate open.
‘And yet,’ I let out a sigh, ‘my thoughts are still far too coherent.’
‘Any particular reason you’ve been drowning your sorrows all evening?’ She keeps pace easily when I stride ahead to the main
path, lined by streetlights that diffuse an amber glow. ‘Still on edge?’
Something twists in my gut. ‘Can’t a man be angsty in peace?’
Her voice is low. ‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’
‘No.’ I stop with a crunch of gravel and wait for her to do the same. ‘I promise, I very much enjoy having you here.’
She’s silent for a bit, the sound of waves and occasional laugh from the group we left behind drifting up towards us. A message
from the wind, reiterating that the world keeps turning, with or without me.
Finally, Dylan says, ‘You only enjoy it because you want something from me.’
‘Not what you think, though,’ I explain. She looks up at me, long eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks, faintly orange in the light. Her expression is so disbelieving that it forces a short laugh out of me, clearing my head just enough. ‘Fine, it is. You know I’m waiting for your go-ahead.’
She looks away, gnawing on her bottom lip. I want my teeth to be doing that. I want to forget the world and lose myself in her, but more than that, I want her to lose herself in me, to let go, to do something without thinking about the consequences, for once.
I step nearer. ‘Right now, though, what I want from you is for you to admit you’re curious.’
‘My curiosity is irrelevant.’
‘So just admit it. If it’s that inconsequential.’
‘I’m not—’ She frowns and tries again. ‘I told you before. Men like you aren’t part of my plans.’
A smirk tugs at my cheeks, because this feeling is welcome. Familiar. Desire is a manageable current. It’s not the torrent of the ocean threatening to drown me. ‘And
who are men like me, according to a woman like you?’
‘Reckless,’ she says immediately, shifting on her feet. The breeze ruffles my shirt and loosens the front strands of her hair
from her ponytail. ‘Unpredictable. Chaotic. Impulsive.’ Her eyes, pupils dilated, meet mine, and she adds quietly, ‘I think
you’re dangerous, to someone like me.’
The gust stops and the air is so still, I almost believe we’ve frozen time.
‘And I think,’ I push that loose hair behind her ear, ‘you’re bored of playing it safe.’ She holds my gaze when my thumb lingers
at her jaw, her pulse humming beneath her skin. ‘I don’t think you’d have come on this trip if you weren’t.’
Something thrums between us, low like the thunder rumbling in the distance, but then she steps away and the moment’s gone.
Her voice is level as she starts walking. ‘You’re drunk. You need to sleep.’ I open my mouth to say something, and she doesn’t
even turn around, instead lifting a hand and saying, ‘And no, that wasn’t an invitation.’