Page 89 of Mine After Midnight

‘What?’ Tess whispers. ‘I mean … I get it.’

I try to hide the small smile tugging at my mouth. Across the room, someone tries to drag Ash into a conversation. He listens for a few seconds, then politely extricates himself without being rude, and starts walking back toward us. He stops at my side, close enough that our arms touch. The song changes to something more upbeat – one of Elodie’s favourite songs. She gasps dramatically. She grabs my wrist and Tess’s, trying to drag us toward the living room. I hesitate for half a second before letting her pull me away.

The living room is chaotic, filled with people dancing and drinking, swaying off balance and shouting lyrics. I laugh when Elodie nearly knocks into me. I spin, my hair flying behind me. The bass vibrates up through my boots. I glance toward the space we were just standing in, and see him there, watching. I let myself smile. For the first time, we’re not hiding, and it feels like stepping into the fire instead of away from it.

37

BRYN

Five Years Ago

The house sits there waiting for us, pristine and unfamiliar, and I feel as if I’m about to step into someone else’s life again. Our suitcases fill the boot. Leftover sand is stuck in the seams of my shoes. A strange, heavy stillness follows my family. We are all pretending that we can stand one another.

Mum and Grant had been discussing the bad traffic and weather for the last hour, and I was ready to bang my head against the window with hopes it’d put me into a coma. But now that we’re here, I unpack my things and step inside behind the others. Grant curses, and I follow his eyes to the shattered window, the glass fractured outward in sharp, glittering lines. It’s the very window next to the door I used to leave unlocked for Ash. My stomach plummets to my feet.

‘What the hell?’ Grant mutters, stomping toward it.

We move closer as a unit, like we’re approaching a crime scene. Everything else looks untouched. Grant lets out a humourless laugh, planting his hands on his hips, red creeping down his neck.

‘Well,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I wonder who that was.’

I already know where this is going.

Mum looks confused. ‘What do you mean?’

He gives me a pointed look.

‘That boy,’ he says flatly.

‘He wouldn’t—’ I start, but my voice sounds weak even to me.

Grant scoffs. ‘Wouldn’t what? Show up unannounced? Break into our house? He has that look about him. He probably breaks into houses and steals things all the time.’

He speaks about Ash like he’s something feral, as though I brought someone dangerous into their neat little suburban life and it’s left a mark on their name.

‘He wouldn’t break the window,’ I say again, stronger this time.

Grant turns to face me. ‘You don’t know that.’

As much as I want to defend him, it most likely was Ash. He was probably looking for me. He’s intense, and has darkness coiled under his skin like it’s part of his bloodstream. If he was feeling emotional, he would certainly do something reckless like this.

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions,’ Mum says quickly, attempting to be the peacemaker.

Grant gestures toward the glass. ‘You think this is random?’

Isla makes a sound of agreement and I glare at her. Wearing my top that she never asked to borrow, she looks at the window with smug satisfaction on her face.

‘Guess he didn’t take the breakup very well,’ she states. There’s something pointed in the way she says it that makes my paranoid mind spiral.

‘Enough,’ Mum says. ‘Both of you. We don’t even know if this has anything to do with Ash.’

Grant mutters something under his breath that absolutely means he thinks it does.

‘I’m going upstairs,’ I mutter, because if I stay here another second, I’m going to explode.

My skin prickles with anger as Isla follows me all the way up the stairs and into my room.

‘It’s probably for the best, you know,’ she says. ‘He’s not exactly long-term material, a boy like that.’