I remember exactly what happened after that. I ran.
Conor and Lily were both pulling on their clothes and yelling at me, but my heart was thudding so loud in my ears, I couldn’t hear what they were shouting. All I knew was that I never wanted to see either of them ever again.
People should be more careful what they wish for.
I ran along the beach in the dark until I ran straight into Rose. She was holding a bottle of wine, and I noticed it was almost empty.
‘There you are!’ she said. ‘I was getting worried; I’ve been looking everywhere for you! We all need to leave soon or the tide will be too far in to cross the causeway. Where did you go?’
‘She was with me,’ said Conor, out of breath from trying to catch up.
I stared at him, then at Rose. Then at Lily, who had also been running. She was still only wearing a towel over her underwear, after swimming in the sea, and her lipstick was a little smudged. The look she gave me made me want to run again.
‘I didn’t see anything,’ I blurted out.
Rose frowned. ‘What didn’t you see, Daisy?’
I could feel my cheeks start to burn. The cheap wine I’d been drinking made my head feel fuzzy. I didn’t know what to say. So I opted to tell the truth.
‘I just saw Conor and Lily having sex behind the rocks.’
For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Rose laughed.
‘Daisy, you are a terrible liar,’ she said.
She didn’t believe me.
Conor started to laugh too. ‘Wow, Daisy. That is quite an imagination you’ve got!’
‘Do you even know what sex is?’ Lily slurred. She was drunk. They all were. ‘Look at the lies little Daisy tells when she’s had a couple of drinks!’
‘I’m not lying. Lily is in love with Conor,’ I said.
They all laughed some more. Then Rose stopped. At first, I thought she’d realized that I was telling the truth, but then she smiled. It was her puzzle-solving smile. The expression her face always wore when she had solved a difficult sum.
‘Was it you?’ she said, staring at me. ‘Did you shred my new blue dress on my birthday and pretend it was Lily? Have you been telling lies for years and getting away with it? Trying to start little fights between us?’
‘Oh. My. God!’ laughed Lily. ‘Daisy has a crush on Conor! That’s what all this is really about!’
Rose laughed again too. ‘Do you have a little crush on Conor?’ she asked, and her unkind smile made her beauty turn ugly.
‘No,’ I whispered.
‘As I said, you really are a terrible liar, Daisy,’ Rose replied, still smiling.
I stared at Conor and saw the look of pity on his face. The humiliation was worse than the heartbreak. Then Lily’s face turned dark. ‘Was it you who cut off my plaits when I was asleep? The night before my birthday? When everyone – including me – thought it was Rose?’
I ran before anyone could say or do anything else. Cutting off my sister’s hair was the worst thing I ever did to anyone, and the guilt was never a good fit for me. I still loved my family, even when I hated them. I just wanted them to love me too.
‘Daisy, wait!’ Rose shouted, but I ran and didn’t look back.
I must have been running – and crying – for over ten minutes, mostly uphill, along the coastal road to the cliffs overlooking Blacksand Bay. That was the fastest way home when the tide was that far in, above and around the rocks down below that prevented me from just walking across the sand. I felt so alone. I kept thinking about the boy who had kissed me, then called me a freak, and how he was right. I was a freak and nobody loved me. Nobody even liked me, not even my own family. My heart felt as though it was trembling inside my chest.
I was over halfway home when it happened. Right at the very top of the cliff, but so close to the sand dunes and the hidden path that would have led me to our part of Blacksand Bay, and the causeway that would have carried me home to Seaglass. All I wanted in that moment was to get back to my bedroom without being seen, close the door behind me, and lock myself away from the world forever.
I heard the music before I heard the car. I knew it was Conor’s because of the song: ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ I stopped in the middle of the road, thinking that maybe he had come to rescue me. That maybe he loved me after all. My imagination started working overtime, just like always, and I pictured Conor telling me that Rose and Lily had both been nothing more than mistakes, and saying that he too wished that he had been the first boy to kiss me.