The Wake-Up Call(32)

Clearly that whole thought played out right across my face, then.

“No. I’m proud of being a bit strange now.”

“Now?”

“Let’s just say, at school I was the weird kid.” I shrug, swallowing. “It wasn’t that great. Kids weren’t always super nice to me. Strange isn’t cool when you’re thirteen.”

“You were bullied?” he asks.

I stare out at the gardens, fogged and hazy through the pool windows. I thought I could tell him about this without feeling pathetic—to justify why I’d reacted that way when he called me strange, so he knows it’s not really him that’s got to me, it’s old stuff. But this is harder than I thought it would be, especially when my body is still tingling. I’m on edge, exposed; I hate this feeling. I hope he didn’t realise how close I came to kissing him.

“A bit, yeah,” I say, kicking my legs slowly through the water. “It probably sounds stupid to you, but these things do stay with you.”

“Did anyone help? Your parents? Teachers?”

I shake my head. “They didn’t know.”

“Not even your parents?”

“Nope. I’m very good at looking cheerful when I feel like crap.” I’ve not got the tone quite right—he side-glances me, and I’m too afraid to look at him in case I see pity on his face.

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” he says quietly. “Do they know now? Your parents?”

Ugh. Not this conversation, too. I’m starting to feel worryingly emotional—this has been a lot.

“My parents both died when I was twenty-one, so no! We didn’t get the chance to have that chat,” I say as I drag myself up on my arms and out of the pool.

“Your parents died?” Lucas says.

“Yep.” I’m swinging my legs around, yanking off my dark, soaked trainers and peeling off my socks. I want to get out of here. The pool room is too warm, and my wet clothes feel suffocating.

“I’m very sorry.”

He sounds so formal. I wish I’d not told him. People always change when they know. If he starts being nice to me just because I’m an orphan, I will not be able to handle it.

“How did they die?”

I blink.

“I’m sorry. That was a bit . . .”

“Yeah. It was,” I say, shooting him a look over my shoulder as I tuck my wet socks into my equally wet shoes.

The pool water slops and slooshes. I’m just getting up to leave when he says, “My dad died when I was still too small to remember him. My mum didn’t tell me what happened to him until I was a teenager. So I always used to make up how he died. Tiger bite. Skydive gone wrong. Or—if I was feeling anxious—then I’d imagine it was some hereditary disease, and my mum knew I had it, too, and that’s why she wouldn’t tell me.”

I turn my head slowly to look at him. There’s not a hint of how he’s feeling in his posture—he sounds as emotionless as he would if he were discussing the hotel restaurant. But what he’s just told me . . . I may not like Lucas, but that makes my heart ache for the little boy he was.

“I’m so sorry, Lucas, that’s awful.”

“It was a workplace accident, actually. He was a labourer. But yes. I’m sorry I asked about yours. It’s just . . . habit.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I settle cross-legged on the tiles, squeezing the pool water out of the bottom of my trousers.

“My parents were always into sailing—these madcap adventures all around the world,” I say. My voice barely carries above the sounds of the water. “It was never my thing, really, but after I left home, they bought a new boat and took it all over the place. America, the Caribbean, Norway. And one day . . . their boat sank.”

I watch Lucas; he’s still expressionless. I wonder if that one was on his list. It’s just the sort of death a kid might imagine for the parent he doesn’t remember. To me, though, it had seemed absolutely impossible. My parents were such experienced sailors—I never considered their adventures dangerous. It was just what they always did.

“It was so sudden,” I say. “People act like that’s better, but I don’t know. It was like the world fundamentally changed into a horrible place in a split second and I was completely unequipped to handle it.” I can hear how odd my voice sounds as I try to keep it breezy. “Anyway, now you know why I’m so ‘childish,’ as you put it. Life is so short! You can be gone just like that.” I click my fingers as I stand, looking down at the gigantic puddle I’ve left on the tiles beneath me. “You’ve got to live every moment and enjoy it.”

Lucas tilts his head, saying nothing. I head for the towels, then pause as he says, “No, you don’t.”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t have to enjoy every moment. Nobody can do that. It would be . . . exhausting.”

I’m thrown. I didn’t think I needed to worry about Lucas being more tactful with me on account of my dead parents.

“Well, I do,” I say a little defensively. “That’s how I live my life.”

“No,” Lucas says.

He turns to look back at me, droplets sliding along the hard line of his jaw.

“You don’t,” he says. “You have bad days, too. Everyone has bad days. As you so often like to remind me—you’re a human.”