Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Lola
You having fun?
Yeah, I went on the Ferris wheel with Sadie. What d’you win?
Toy whale. I thought you’d like him.
He’s for me?
You know any other eleven-year-olds obsessed with whales?
Well, there’s Sadie and also Max—
Take the whale, Lola.
- Conversation between Lola, age 11 and Roman, age 17
I shut the lid to the laptop a little too hard and slump onto my back on the bed. “Ugh. There’s nothing. The next nearest orchard is over fifty miles away and the cost of transporting the apples would mean I may as well be buying them at full price.”
Skyler dips the paint brush into the can and swipes it along the skirting board. “You knew that already.”
I roll onto my stomach and plant my chin in my palms, watching her coat the grimy white walls of my apartment in a soft blue Henry had left over from his baby to be’s nursery.
“You don’t have to do this, Skyler. You’ve been here all day.”
She sits back on her heels and points the paint brush at me. “I’m getting apple fries, correct?”
I pull a face. “If I can find any goddamn apples.”
“If only you had a really close family friend who owns an orchard.” She gives me a look so dry I shrivel. “Oh wait, you do.”
I ball up the scrap paper I was using for my calculations and throw it at her.
It bounces off her forehead, but she remains unmoved.
“You are the least sympathetic person I’ve ever met.”
“It’s hard to be sympathetic when you won’t tell me what happened between you two.”
I open my mouth but she holds up a hand. “I get it, and you don’t have to tell me anything. I’m just saying, this isn’t the disaster you think it is. You have a solution.”
Skyler goes back to painting. I know she doesn’t want to be at her place right now, without Leda there, and secretly I’m glad she’s here because I don’t want to be alone after the message I got earlier.
I haven’t heard back from Max and other than staying far away from roads and hiding out of sight I don’t know what to do.
But I still feel kind of bad Skyler’s spending her evening decorating my crappy apartment, so I climb off the bed and grab a second paintbrush.
I kneel down, starting at the opposite corner by the fridge so that we can meet in the middle.
I’ve only ever told Scott the full story of what happened the night of my eighteenth birthday.
I couldn’t tell my family and although I was close with a couple of girls in my class, my name was already doing the rounds at school and I didn’t want everyone knowing the reason I went off with Carson in the first place.
The bristles of the brush whisper against the wall, the sound calming my senses. I watch the gray disappear behind the blue and I can’t help wishing it was that easy to paint over my past.
That’s one of the reasons I loved traveling. When I was out there, I went to a new place every month and I could start fresh. No one knew the mistakes I’d made. No one expected me to mess up. People got to know the me I was now. Not who I used to be.
I got the same thing with Skyler. She was new to town, so my name didn’t come with the baggage it usually does.
Part of me wants to keep it that way but Skyler has shown me her messy.
She trusted me with what’s going on with her and Leda.
I moved into what is essentially a glorified storage room and she’s here helping me paint the walls in her free time.
Sure, it was good not to be judged for my past by people who didn’t know it. But what I really want is for someone to know everything, to know all my messy and still not judge me for it. I guess I had that with Scott, but I left him on the other side of the world.
I chew the inside of my cheek. I can’t tell Skyler everything that went down six years ago. I shouldn’t have even told Scott, but he’s been sworn to secrecy. I can, however, tell her what happened with Roman.
I dip my paint brush into the can, then scrape the excess paint off on the edge. It runs down the inside of the tin, rippling as it pools with the rest of the paint. “I’ve had a crush on Roman since I was eleven and he gave me a stuffed whale he won at the harvest festival.”
Skyler stops painting mid stroke and looks over at me. “Do you still have it?”
“The crush or the whale?”
She grins. “The whale, duh.”
I snort. “He’s called Spout and no.” I screw up my face. “I threw him away after the night that the thing happened.”
“The thing?”
I quirk an eyebrow and give her a bitter smile. “The big bad thing.”
“Ah, one of those.” Skyler nods and continues painting but her eyes darken in a way that makes me think she has her own big bad thing.
I run my tongue around my mouth. It’s gone as dry as the Sahara and I would know, I camped out there for three nights. Side note, sand inside a tent is a son of a bitch. I shake my head and tell myself to stop putting this off. Deep breath in, Lola. Hard things.
“I had this big party for my eighteenth birthday out on Surfer’s Bay. Practically the whole school was there and then some. We lit a bonfire on the beach even though we weren’t supposed to and for once my brother and Roman didn’t rat us out.”
I draw the paintbrush along the wall, careful not to hit the skirting board.
Ironic, really, given that careful isn’t usually my style.
Or it never used to be. “It was my night,” I say.
“I danced a lot, laughed a lot, and drank a little too much. But who doesn’t on their eighteenth, right? ” I shrug.
Skyler listens quietly, no trace of judgment on her face.
My heart starts beating harder, punching at my ribs. “Plus, I needed the liquid courage. Teenage, lovesick me, had decided that was the night I was going to tell Roman how I felt about him.” I stop speaking, too caught up in reliving what happened next.
Skyler dips her brush into the paint can and swirls it around. “I take it that didn’t go so well?”
My smile is sad. “It went great. I mean, I didn’t actually tell him I was in love with him. I just sat down next to him on the log beside the surf hut. I stole his beer, took a sip, and laid my head on his shoulder.”
We’d watched the waves crashing against the beach. When I shivered Roman draped his jacket over my shoulders. It smelt like him. Like cedar wood and sea salt. My backup business is to sell candles with that very specific scent because if I wasn’t so selfish, I would share it with the world.
I turn the brush over. It needs more paint but I let my wrist rest against my thigh. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. We just kissed.”
God, that was six years ago, and I can still feel the imprint of his lips on mine. Soft but demanding. A steady, dizzying pressure.
Skyler stops painting and very carefully, too carefully, places her brush on the dust sheet. “Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head. “Not in the way you’re thinking.
It was just a kiss.” The best goddamn kiss of my life but only a kiss.
“I don’t actually remember who kissed who, but it must have been me because a second later he was pushing me away.
” I tilt my head back, my chest aching. “God Skyler I’ve never seen someone move so fast.”
He tore apart from me and stood up, putting a good three feet in the sand between us and dragging my young dumb heart along with him.
I’ve tried to patch it back up as best I can, but I think if you took my heart out of my chest right now you’d still see the grazes. Pressure builds under my eyes, but I refuse to shed another tear over Roman Banks.
Skyler draws up her leg and rests her chin on her knee. “He broke your heart.”
The memory is caustic, like that sand is grazing me all over again. “He told me in no uncertain terms that he and I would never happen. Ever.”
Skyler squints. “Why do I feel like there’s more?”
“Because as you’ve probably already realized bad decisions follow me around.”
“I haven’t realized that actually, and I don’t think I will but go on.” She waves a hand for me to continue.
“I was young and drunk and I decided the best way to deal with the pain was to find the hottest guy I could and get more drunk.”
Skyler twists her lips. “That is… relatable. Well, you know, if you replace the guy with a girl.”
“Of course.” I give her a wry smile and try to ignore the sweat pricking above my lip.
Everyone in the whole town knows what happened next. I’ve only ever had to tell this story once and I forgot how fucking hard it was.
“By that point the party was in full swing and we’d attracted some of the rougher crowd.
I knew Rob was bad news. If the leather cut and biker tattoos weren’t enough of a warning, the rumors I’d heard at school should have been.
” I tilt my head back and study the scratches on the ceiling. We’ll have to paint that next.
“Everything from this point gets a bit blurry but I remember clinging to his back on his motorbike. I remember the barn he took me to. And I remember waking up in the hospital.”
Skyler goes deathly quiet.
I hear myself swallow, my breathing unsteady.
Skyler knocks her knee against mine and it’s just enough to stop me spiraling.
I push down the lingering fear and carry on.
“He’d slipped something in my drink. Roman and Mase found me afterwards, but Carson was long gone.
After that, the night I kissed Roman became the night I got—” I break off and squeeze my eyes shut.
It still feels weird saying the word when I don’t even remember what he did to me.
My chest hitches. “So yeah, as shitty eighteenth birthdays go, I think I’m in the running for top billing. ”
Rage flickers in Skyler’s gaze. “What happened to Carson?”
“He went to prison. Not for what he did to me.” The police didn’t believe I hadn’t roofied myself for the high, because what girl doesn’t want to spend her eighteenth catatonic?
And as I had no memory and there was no DNA evidence linking him to me, the case was dead before it even began.
“He got caught for possession with intent to distribute though so I guess it worked out in the end.”
“Good.” Skyler nods then dusts her hands off on her cargo pants. “So… apple fries?”
I snort on a laugh. “Really? I tell you about the big bad thing and you put me to work making you treats?”
She points a manicured finger at me. “Did you or did you not promise me apple fries?”
I push up off the floor and narrow my eyes at Skyler.
“Your empathy knows no bounds.” Honestly though, it’s the best thing she could have said.
I don’t want to think about Carson any more than I have to, not when I can’t even look at my phone without stressing about the text from the unknown number.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out Carson’s the one sending them.
I just don’t know what to do about it. So, I make Skyler apple fries instead.
Half an hour later we’re lying on my bed, our stomachs full of sugary goodness and the sweet scent of deep-fried apple in the air.
Skyler turns her head to look at me. “So,” she says, “Roman owns the orchard.”
The comforter rustles against my cheek as I roll to face her. “Roman owns the orchard,” I repeat.
“You kissed.”
“He thinks I don’t remember.”
“And why, pray tell, does he think that?”
I screw up my face and hold my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “I may have told a tiny little lie and said I didn’t remember anything from the whole night when I woke up in the hospital.”
Skyler’s brows raise in thought. “That could actually work in your favor you know. It might make it easier to keep things professional. He sells apples, you buy them. It can be as simple as that. I mean, how often are you really going to see him? Once a week when he drops off the apples? Plus, I can totally take the deliveries for you.”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
Pity shines in Skyler’s clear blue eyes as she shakes her head.
I sigh. “So. Professional?”
“It’s totally easy. We can get you a suit and everything.”
I laugh a little then roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. That night was a long time ago and despite everything that happened, I survived. I should be able to survive a few hours in Roman’s presence without falling back in love.
Right?