Trigger warning
This book contains content
That some may find upsetting
Readers discretion is advised
Part one
Winter wonder
Chapter one
There she was. Just standing there smiling at me.Why was she always smiling? I approached her with a frown plastered on my face to hide the fact I came here specifically because I knew she'd probably be here too. I stopped in front of her.
"Why are you out here again? This is my spot."
I asked, hands on hips. She gave me that shit eating grin that made my stomach do some weird fluttery twist every time I saw it.
"This is a public beach, Willow. You can't claim it."
She says with a light laugh. For some reason I feel my cheeks heat. At her laughing? She wasn't even laughing at me. Or was she? I don't think so but maybe?
"Willow?" Oh no, does she think I'm an idiot?
"Willow? You still there?" I'm such an idiot.
"WILLOW!"
"Huh!?" I'm jolted out of my thoughts by her yelling my name.
"Where'd you go? It's like you left your body or something." She says, sounding mildly concerned.
"What? I don't know what you're talking about." I scoff with a nervous laugh.
"Sure.." She says sceptically.
I find myself getting defensive for some reason.
"Don't sure me! I seriously don't know what you're on about!"
She doesn't believe me, I can tell.
"Alright, I won't push. But please don't yell at me."
I feel instant guilt wash over me settling thickly at the back of my throat like molasses. The heat in my cheeks intensifies. Why should I snap at her? She's done nothing wrong. "Sorry. I shouldn't have snapped."
I don't dare look her in the eye, afraid her expression will show anger or hurt or maybe even hate and she'll never speak to me again because that would be the end of the world. If Eloise Bright never spoke to me again.
"It's okay." It takes a few moments for her soft words to register, 'It's okay.' Okay? How? How can it be okay? I was a complete bitch and for what? Because I was embarrassed? "No. It's not okay." I finally spoke looking up at her. God she's tall, meeting her eyes. Her gorgeous, shiny gray eyes. She's still smiling that dazzling smile. How can she be?
"Why? It's not as if you did something awful. Everyone snaps sometimes." She says patting my shoulder. The skin she touched is tingling.
"Really? You don't hate me?"
My voice is small and tentative, like a toddler scared of being told off. She chuckles.
"Of course I don't hate you, you ninny. You're cute, you know that?" She says with an amused smile. My cheeks glow pink again and I look away. "Shut up. I'm not cute."
I grumbled. She just laughed and I felt my stomach do several summersaults. Oh Eloise Bright, I'm hopelessly in love with you aren't I?
It started raining around 2:30 pm so we had to go our separate ways. We walked to the car park together then split off to our cars. I unlocked my battered black Nissan, my cousin's boyfriend had let me have it when he bought a new one.
I slipped into my car and put the key in the ignition, the ancient engine sputterd to life. I glance over at her as I fasten my seatbelt. She was climbing into her gleaming white jeep wrangler. She told me she got it for her eighteenth birthday after getting her licence. She's got the best of everything, her family was rich and well known in the area. Not that I'm jealous or anything I just find it frustrating that I can't give her anything she wants because she's already got it, even if she didn't I probably couldn't afford any of it. I watched her pull out of her space and drive out of the car park before I moved myself. I drove away the rain hammering on the windows. I was driving behind her for a while before she made a turn onto a private road and kept driving down the main road
When I got home my father was in the living room watching TV on the couch. "I'm home!" I call as I close the door behind me. My dad turned his head and greeted me with a warm smile. "Hi. How was the beach?" He asked. "Alright. But it started raining pretty badly. As you can see." I replied, gesturing at my sodden clothes. "I can see that." Dad said with a wry smile. My retort died on my lips as my mother stalked into the room, a sense of dread crept over me as she spoke in a deadly calm tone she always used when she was angry.
"Where exactly have you been, Willow? Didn't I tell you to stay home today?" She did? Oh that's right. She told me to stay home and study because I got an A- instead of an A+ in chemistry. I forgot because of her absurd reasoning. "I'm sorry. I forgot." I say my voice trembling in fear. "You forgot a direct instruction from your own mother?" I flinch at the steel in her tone, but before I can reply dad interjects. "Saddie, please don't start shouting. Don't you think you're being a little hard on her? She still got an A. That's really good don't you think?" He phrased it like a question but his tone was firm. Dad could alway talk mum down, even when she was furious.
"I suppose I was being a little harsh." mum said begrudgingly, still glaring daggers at me. "Maybe you could apologise to Willow?" Dad prompted gently. She crossed her arms and looked anywhere but at me, like a child avoiding looking at their parents when they're angry. "Im… sorry, Willow." She forced the words out and grimaced like it was physically painful to apologise to her own child.
Later I'm sitting in my room procrastinating over texting Eloise. Like I had been for the last hour. I kept typing and deleting things to say.
"Hey!!! Sorry about earlier, wanna meet up tomo?" I deleted it again with a sigh and decided to give up for tonight. "Oh my god. What is wrong with me?" I mutter flopping back on my bed and tossing my phone to the side. I stared blankly at the bare walls painted a sickly beige colour my mother had picked out. I would have picked differently but it wasn't really up to me considering it was done when I was three, but anyway the colour of my walls was the least of my worries.
Mum had come in and hugged me earlier properly apologising for her outburst and congratulating me on my grade. That usually happened but she still ended up getting angry again. It was scary when she was mad but I could tell there was something more to it, something behind her usual coldness towards me, that I couldn't figure out. She always felt guilty afterwards. I can tell. Sometimes I heard her crying to my dad at night when they thought I was asleep. Telling him how guilty she felt but she couldn't stop herself. It made me sad and curious. Why couldn't she stop? What was behind her anger at me? Why is she keeping me in the dark?
Suddenly that didn't matter because my phone was ringing and her name was flashing across the screen and nothing else mattered now that Eloise Bright is calling ME!
Not the other way around she is contacting me first. I try to compose myself fail miserably, slap myself in the face, fumble with my phone and almost click the decline button before finally answering.
"Hello?" I say in an unnaturally high voice. "Hey, Willow? Ah her voice "Yeah, what's up?"
"Oh… um I was uh…" What? She was what? Is Eloise Bright… being shy?
"You were?"
"I uh… I was wondering if…"
"If?" I prompted "If you maybe uh…" She trailed off uncertainty.
"Just spit it out, dude."
I say half exasperated, half amused.
"Okay, okay. I was wondering if you're free to hang out tomorrow?"
Her voice went strangely high on the word 'tomorrow'.
I didn't answer for a while, overwhelmed by her offer but my silence seemed to be too long for her because she jumped in.
"Obviously if you have other plans or you just don't want to, that's fine." She let out a nervous chuckle.
I snapped out of it and finally answered, voice surprisingly steady.
"No, no. I'm free, what should we do?"