The Art of Not Breathing(55)

Under the blanket together, we sip from the bottle. I only have two sips before I feel the heat in my stomach. Tay slides the straps of my swimming costume down my arms. When he puts his mouth on my breasts, I groan, but his cold lips soothe the pain.

I reach around him and place my hands on his waist at the top of his shorts. I slip my hands under the elastic for a moment and then bring them back. When I do this, he moans, so I keep doing it until he reaches for my hand and moves it down farther. I’m not sure what to do, but I move my hand up and down and I feel him grow into my palm.

“Am I doing it right?” I ask, terrified. I raise myself slightly to work at a better angle.

He doesn’t say anything at first, and when I look at him, I see his eyes rolled back in his head.

“Yes,” he eventually mumbles. “Very right.”

After a minute, he stops me and motions for me to lie back. I pull my swimming costume right down and have to wriggle to get it over my feet, but Tay is too busy pulling his shorts down to notice my struggle. He lies next to me on his side and draws the blanket back over us. I run my fingers over his smooth chest, and he runs his hands up and down my leg.

Then he stops again.

“We should use something,” he says, breathlessly, his lips glistening.

“What?” I’m trembling and don’t know why he’s moved away.

“For him.” He nods downward. “I don’t think I have one. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to . . .”

“Ah,” I say, suppressing a giggle, and then I remember about my Superdrug stash.

Tay fumbles in the cupboard until he finds what he’s looking for. I want to explain that I wasn’t expecting to either, but I’m too embarrassed to even watch him put it on, let alone speak.

When he’s finally ready, he rolls on top of me and tries to push inside me.

“Wait,” I say. “I don’t think you’re in the right place.”

Tay blushes and moves around a bit, then tries again. This time it’s right, and after a couple more attempts, he slides inside me. It hurts a bit, but it feels good. I pull him closer and closer again.

Afterward, we lie side by side, dozing, touching each other, and occasionally lifting our heads to sip more vodka.

“Is this real?” I ask him, wishing that we could stay like this forever.

“This is real,” he replies, stroking my hair.

“Tell me a secret,” I whisper.

“Okay. Promise you won’t tell?”

His breath feels cool from the vodka.

“Who would I tell?”

“I cried when I got kicked out of school.”

“Liar.” I want this to be true, but I know it’s not.

“Your turn,” he says.

I don’t hesitate.

“There are over ten thousand species of seaweed,” I say.

“That’s not a secret.”

“Did you know about it? No. So it’s a secret.”

“Cheat.”

“Tay, can I ask you a serious question?”

“All your questions are serious.”

I sit up a bit so I can see his face. “Why don’t you like talking about yourself?”

He sits up and spills the vodka in the process. It leaks all over the blanket. “I’ve just told you my biggest secret,” he says, feigning annoyance.

“No, you didn’t. And that’s the point.”

He smiles and tries to mop up the vodka. We both smell like alcoholics.

“I’m just not that interesting,” he says eventually. “I’m socially awkward, like you. And a bit of a twat sometimes.” He throws the vodka blanket at me and then pulls me back down to the floor and kisses me. Everywhere.

I can tell it’s twilight when I wake up, because it’s almost dark inside the boathouse, and I feel a chill coming in through the gap in the top of the doors. We’ve been asleep for hours. I shake Tay awake to tell him that I need to go. He murmurs sleepily.

“Tomorrow is the day,” I remind him.

Tomorrow is the day I finally get to see Eddie again.





18



THE HALLWAY IS QUIET AND DARK WHEN I GET IN. THE KITCHEN, TOO. There’s a draft, and I feel uneasy. The back door swings on its hinges. Slowly, I step out back, into the violet night. Dillon’s obstacle course takes up most of the garden—orange cones for running around, Mum’s aerobics step and gym ball. Then I see Dillon. Illuminated in the security light, he lies on his side under the apple tree, not moving, a dumbbell by his head.

I run to him and roll him over.

“Wake up,” I cry. “Get up, Dil.”

His skin is cool and clammy. His trainers look enormous on the ends of his pale stick legs, and his white T-shirt is covered in grass stains. I put my ear to his face and just make out his breath. A gust of wind whips over the garden, and the back gate that leads to the cemetery flies open, slamming into the fence. I walk over to it and look out into the cemetery, but it’s empty.

My head is fuzzy from the vodka, but I run to the phone, and my hands tremble as I dial the emergency number.

When I come back, Dillon’s eyes are half-open, so I can see the whites of them and the thick red blood vessels at the bottom. At first I think he’s dead, but then he moans.