Chapter 31 #2
‘What?’ he asks gruffly. My brain short-circuits when his fingers pull at my nipple through the fabric, and I bunch up his
hoodie in my fist and pull his face to mine, meeting his mouth in a kiss that tells me how wired we both are, peppered with
hungry sounds and sharp breaths and wandering hands.
That thought I lost comes back to me slowly, my energy far more focused on furiously squeezing my thighs around his torso
while he pushes against me. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before,’ I say against his mouth. ‘In public.’
Panting, he pulls back and looks at me, and I know that he knows. He knows it’s not shame that heats my cheeks, and it’s not
discomfort that pools deep in my stomach. He knows that I want to try this, that the boldness of it is making every nerve in my body stand to attention.
‘We don’t have to, if it’s too much,’ he says, voice low, pupils inky. ‘But just so you’re aware,’ he sets his arms on either
side of my head, ‘you tell me to jump, I’ll ask how high. Okay?’
His weight is a welcome pressure while the idea solidifies. Today’s new thing. I can be brazen, just this once.
I lift my chin, voice steady. ‘I want your mouth on me. Out here.’
‘Dylan,’ he says through a long groan.
Then I wind my fingers into his hair and push his head downwards, and the surprised laugh he lets out makes my blood sing even more than his touch does, and by the time he’s hovering over me, hands at my waistband, every part of me is eager and begging and aching for him.
‘Lift your hips, honey,’ he says softly.
He takes his time tugging my leggings and underwear past my knees, ghosting featherlight brushes of his lips and fingers down
the length of my legs, whispering appreciation as he goes, lulling me into thinking he’s about to be gentle.
By the time I’m exposed, there’s nothing delicate about it left. Not in how he grabs desperate handfuls of my thighs as he
buries his head between them, or how he groans the moment his mouth touches me, or the urgent way he works me with everything
he has, hard and capable and voracious, exactly the way I need it, like he might never get to do it again.
And there, with sand at my back and seagulls cawing overhead, Max sends me writhing out of control and floating above my body,
somewhere in the clouds.
Max re-dresses me and kisses me in that unhurried way he always does after things like this, before lying on his back and
setting his head on my stomach, stretching long legs across the blanket. We stay like that for a few quiet minutes, until
I speak again.
‘Why do you care so much about . . .’ I search for the words. ‘Making me feel good?’
He turns, hair obscuring his eyes. ‘You don’t think you deserve that?’
I analyse the waves, the tide bringing them closer to us with every minute. ‘I’m beginning to. But I haven’t been very good
at picking people who make me feel like I do, in the past.’
‘No, you haven’t. But they should’ve been better, not you.’
‘Like you are?’ He grins, and I add, ‘So selfless.’
‘Trust me, it’s not noble. You look good messy. Too good. When you can’t control what comes out of your mouth. When your blush goes all the way up from your chest to your ears.’
He sits up to consider me. ‘You look good not-messy too, but I like seeing you come undone. It feels like a secret.’
‘It is,’ I say, shifting on to my elbows. ‘No one else sees me like that.’
‘Except those guys in the raincoats.’ He nods towards the other end of the beach.
‘Oh my god.’ I drop my head in my hands and groan, the barest flicker of embarrassment crossing my mind for the first time. ‘I really
hope they didn’t.’
‘But that’s not what I mean,’ he says, shaking his head with a laugh. ‘I mean this version of you where you’re a little less
restrained. Where you do things just because you want to. Because it feels good.’
‘I’m not great at that.’
We sit up and face each other, me cross-legged with my hands in my lap, him with his legs bent and arms draped across his
knees.
‘I’ve noticed,’ he says delicately. ‘But you came on this trip. That was a good start.’
‘I suppose.’ The far corner of the blanket lifts in the breeze. ‘It’s easier to be like this when I know I’m not in my real
life. No one expects anything from me here.’
‘And do you like that?’
‘I like it a lot.’ I let the wind sweep over me and inhale the sea air. ‘I feel like I can breathe.’
‘Then you should keep living that way, even after this trip is over.’
My forehead creases. ‘I can’t. I have responsibilities. People count on me.’
‘But it’s your life. No one else’s.’ The look he gives me is so warm that suddenly I’m thinking of favourite films and well-worn
jumpers and everything else I’ve grown comfortable with over twenty-five years.
It takes a colossal effort to remember that I shouldn’t get lost in this. We have an agreement; an expiry date to adhere to. This trip isn’t forever, and neither are we. But my silly little heart hasn’t caught up with my brain.
He doesn’t break eye contact. ‘Isn’t the best life the one where you’re happy?’
‘I could be happy.’ The lie tastes metallic; out of place on my tongue after weeks of savouring the sweetness of freedom.
After discovering what it’s like to say yes to things, to enjoy what’s happening right now instead of constantly planning
ahead to the minute. ‘I have the power to make things better for the people I love, when I get back. If I have the opportunity to do that, why wouldn’t I take it?’
‘Because you don’t owe anyone any of this. Not Tahlia, not your mum. They’re both adults. They’re fully capable of making their own lives better.’ His brow furrows, and his tone hardens. ‘From what you’ve told
me about your sister, she’s strong-willed enough to make her own decisions and bounce back from them if they turn out to be mistakes. Both you and your mum raised her that way, but that’s the thing: you
aren’t Tahlia’s mother, Dylan. You didn’t ask to raise her. You should have never had to parent her and focus your entire life around
her wellbeing, and it’s not your obligation to do it now.’
‘I love her. It’s not an obligation. I don’t mind that I’m who she relies on.’
‘That should never have been your burden in the first place.’ He seethes with quiet frustration. It hovers around us, and
I realise he’s forged it into a shield, like maybe he’s trying to protect me with it. ‘I know you wouldn’t change it even
if you could, but I want you to understand that that’s not what you should’ve experienced growing up. You were a kid too.
You deserved different. You deserved more.’
‘I was just doing what I had to do. My family life isn’t like yours. You don’t know what it’s like. That’s not an accusation,
it’s a fact.’
‘You’re right, I don’t.’ He pulls my fidgeting hands from my lap, holding them between his, the warmth seeping into me. ‘But
I do know what it’s like to be the sibling that the whole family puts their life on hold for.
‘When I was ill,’ he clears his throat, ‘my parents really struggled. Ava spent a lot of time and energy keeping things running, just to make sure there was something to come back to once it was all over. She—I’m not gonna talk about what she experienced.
But she sacrificed a lot for me, during and after, and as grateful as I am, as much as I know she did it out of love, I can’t ever give her back the time she spent living her life differently because of it.
And that’s shit. Years later, it still makes me feel like shit.
The moment Tahlia realises how often you’ve forsaken your own happiness on her behalf,’ he exhales slowly, ‘it’s going to break her heart. ’
For a while, there’s nothing but the sound of waves tumbling on to the shore and distant laughter from the other end of the
beach.
‘I’m scared,’ I whisper, focusing on Max’s fingers playing with the friendship bracelet at my wrist. ‘Of being left behind.
Of people not wanting me around because they don’t need me to be.’
His lifts my chin with his spare hand and forces me to look at him. ‘You know people’s love for you isn’t contingent on you
being useful to them, right?’ His gaze darts frantically between my eyes while I stay quiet, and his voice is wounded when
he adds, ‘Please tell me you know that, Dylan.’
God, I feel like I’ve been flayed. Every day, Max peels back my invisibility cloak and exposes me to the world, little by
little, and he just keeps pushing harder, like he doesn’t think he’s made an impact on me yet, like he doesn’t know that he’s
already everywhere that matters, that he’s forced his way between my ribs and worked himself into my bloodstream, that he’s
nestled into a permanent spot in my brain, hogging the duvet and setting up camp there.
‘You deserve happiness, and you have to do whatever it takes to get it. Even if it’s hard. It doesn’t make you any less important
to the people in your life if you focus on that. It doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you brave.’ He pulls me to him and
looks down at me. ‘You’re allowed to have dreams outside of your family, Tiny. Outside of what you can do for them.’
‘I just . . .’ His gaze holds me in place and I try again. ‘I don’t want to let them down.’
‘Honey,’ he murmurs, and the word is half-sad, half-affectionate.
‘You won’t let them down. Just being in their lives is enough.
Nothing about you could ever fall short.
Your feelings and thoughts and needs aren’t worth less, just because you’ve decided other people’s are worth more.
You’ve spent so many years shrinking yourself for the benefit of others, but I swear, when you take up space, you’re brighter than the fucking sun. ’
He’s blurry for a moment before I blink the tears away. ‘Thank you.’
He presses his lips to my forehead, and it strikes me that it’s strange that in the presence of a man so bound to chaos, I
feel steadier than I ever have. ‘Promise me you’ll keep trying to put yourself first.’
It feels like a goodbye. It shouldn’t. It’s too soon for that. ‘I promise.’
‘Good.’ He smiles my favourite smile, the one that deserves dimples, and I can’t help but smile back, even though I know that
no matter how much I put myself first, there’s one thing I can’t have, and it cracks me in two, a fissure in a cliff face.
Then he holds me tighter and I breathe him in, and I’m sure that when people find this beach in the future, long after our
presence has sunk through the sand and anchored itself deep into the bedrock, they’ll still sense us here, frozen in time,
and they’ll wonder why their chests ache.