The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary (grave mercy .txt) 📕

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to want someone like this. Has anyone else ever made me feel this way? Will anyone else ever make me feel this way again? God, what an awful thought.

I lean forward so I can see Rodney past Dylan. He’s holding a large Tupperware of homemade flapjack. No idea where he conjured that up from. As I examine the contents of the plastic container in Rodney’s lap, I can feel Dylan’s eyes moving over the bare skin of my shoulders. The hairs rise on the back of my neck. Sweat prickles between my shoulder blades. I want him to touch me. Run his finger down my spine.

I lean back quickly, looking straight ahead.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

‘Just me, then,’ Rodney says cheerfully, tucking in.

Next time we stop I’m going to make sure I’m sat between Marcus and Rodney. That’ll sort me out.

THEN

Dylan

I’m giddy with her. Intoxicated.

We’ve had a week of bare skin and syrupy heat, the sun setting behind the vines like an egg yolk dropping into a bowl. The nights are languid, long, ours. Terry has come to tolerate Addie being around for some of the day, but really I only have her once he’s gone to bed – she’s not herself when Terry’s there, but once she’s closed the door to the flat and kicked off her flip-flops, she’s pure, undiluted Addie.

Tonight we’ve arranged to meet on the terrace once Terry’s gone to sleep; she’s dressed in her pyjamas, the silky peach-coloured ones with the little shorts, and her long dark hair is loose around her shoulders. She holds out a hand to stop me as I approach her, and she’s smiling the sort of smile that promises new, delicious things.

She strips off slowly. Her pale skin looks almost silver in the starlight, and a line comes to me, silver slip of a starlit girl, but I shake it gone as she approaches the water and dives in, her slim white form a shooting star in the dark. She breaches the surface smoothly, barely a ripple.

The pool alarm sounds.

Christ, it’s so loud. Addie yelps and covers her ears, wading over to hit the right buttons; I’d help if I weren’t bent double laughing, but I’m hard, still hard, quite honestly always hard when Addie’s around. We spin in unison as soon as the alarm ceases its roaring, and there it is: the tell-tale light on in Uncle Terry’s window.

‘Fuckity bollocking Uncle Terry,’ I groan under my breath, still laughing.

Addie just lies back on the water, arms spread, star-shaped. ‘He’ll just think the wind set it off. Come on. Come in.’

I watch the light warily.

‘All your talk about living every moment, finding meaning and seeking “pure, undiluted joy” and you won’t join your naked lover in the pool?’

Lover. The word has made its way into the poems I’ve scrawled in my notebook after leaving her bed, and already it’s begun to shift, losing its languid R, fast becoming love.

I have no doubt about whether this feeling is really love – how can it be anything else? It’s excruciating, euphoric, so big I can’t seem to write it down.

After a moment’s indecision I strip off and jump in the pool.

‘A very elegant dive,’ Addie tells me, smiling, swimming over and pulling my body against hers. She’s cold, her skin pimpling, miniature diamond droplets catching on the tips of her eyelashes.

The villa door creaks open. We freeze. Addie puts a finger to my lips.

‘Hello?’ Terry calls.

Addie presses her face against my neck, trying not to laugh. There are no lights out here, just the stars, but if he comes on to the terrace, Terry will see the shape of us, pale against the dark blue water.

The door closes again. He’s gone back inside.

‘See?’ Addie says. ‘Told you.’

We circle in the water, holding each other, unhurried. A few days ago I couldn’t have managed this – I’d have hitched her up on to the edge of the pool and begun kissing my way up the inside of her thighs. But seven long nights of holding her like this, naked against me, and I can just about manage the luxury of savouring her.

‘Addie,’ I whisper.

‘Mm?’

‘You’re amazing. Do you know that?’

She presses wet lips to my collarbone. I shiver. Savour, I remind myself, though it’s becoming a less tempting option by the moment.

‘Here I am . . .’ I tell her, then steal a quick, deep kiss. ‘Spending my summer flopping like a fish, shape-shifting, trying to figure myself out . . .’

I swallow. Even talking about it brings that shuddering panic back to my throat, the weight like a heavy hand pushing at my chest, my father’s voice in my ears; I concentrate on Addie, her slicked-back hair glossy in the dark. Addie, my answer to everything.

‘And here you are,’ I say. ‘Already perfect.’

She huffs, a little laugh against my neck.

‘That’s nonsense. Nobody’s perfect. Definitely not me. Don’t do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Make me your manic pixie dream girl.’

I drift back so I can see her face, indistinct in the darkness.

‘What’s that?’

‘You know, in films? The girl who’s there to help the hero find himself? She never has her own story.’

I frown. She often does this, turning a compliment into something uncomfortable.

‘I didn’t mean anything like that.’

‘Just because I know what I want to be, and where I want to live, and all that, it doesn’t mean I’m . . . done. I’m figuring things out too. I mean, God knows if I’m going to survive Teaching Direct when the summer ends.’

I shake my head, pulling her in again, no longer treading water. ‘You’ll be brilliant. You’ll be a wonderful teacher. A natural.’ I dip my head to kiss her. ‘You’re always teaching me new things.’

She smiles reluctantly, and I move closer, shifting her up so her legs wrap around my waist.

‘I worry nobody will take me seriously.’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

She chews her bottom lip, stroking