Growing up with a cousin who is only nine months older is like having the sister you never had and always wanted. After my parents died in the aforementioned tragic boat collision when I was three, I moved in with Donna and Ellis. Donna raised two girls as a single parent, whilst running a successful, beachy thrifty art store, right near the state line between New South Wales and Queensland. Before she got sick, anyway. It’s crazy to think it’s been a year since cancer took her.
Ellis tilts her head towards me as I approach. “How was your beach walk? Did it solve our problems? Did you snap a photo that’s going to make us millions?”
“Hardly,” I grumble, hopping onto the stool next to her. I can’t bring myself to tell her about the camera yet.
“The rates are going up again.”
I sigh. “Of course they are.”
Ellis stares at her glass. “Maybe we should rethink selling this place?—”
“No way.” I shake my head. “It would break my heart.”
Ellis gives me a gentle smile. “It would break my heart, too, but everything is so expensive right now. The house, Mum’s medical expenses, this place. I know we love it, but it’s not what it used to be.”
Beanswas already on the downward slope for maintenance and competing with other local businesses before Donna died. She couldn’t stay on top of things as her sickness worsened. Ellis took care of her, and I worked overtime in the bar on Hamilton Island to save every penny I could in anticipation of her passing. I was trying to figure out business loan repayments, funeral arrangements, how I was going to emotionally support Ellis and not have a breakdown myself. I wish I’d spent more time asking Donna about what she wanted to do with the place, how she kept the place afloat, managed a small team of staff, paid the bills, and still had time for me and Ellis for nearly thirty years.
Now Ellis and I are in charge, and although it’s been a year, we have no idea what the hell we’re doing. Things appear to get a teensy bit worse every day.
Despite Ellis staring at me, it’s clear she doesn’t notice I’ve recently been submerged in water. Her grey eyes are glazed and bloodshot, and I hazard a guess she’s too emotionally drained to register my soaked appearance.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
She gives me a tired, half smile. “It’s not like we didn’t know this day was coming.” The pain in Ellis’s eyes evident as she stares down into her glass, swirling her drink slowly.
“Planning a Happy Death Day because your mum ordered it in her will and carrying it out are two very different things,” I point out.
Ellis reaches out to pat my arm and stills. “You’redrenched.” Her gaze drags over my body. “I know it’s raining, but why?—”
“Do I look like I went into the ocean?” I grab my hair and twist the ends, wringing out what feels like a litre of water. It’s going to need a shit-tonne of detangler when I wash it. “Because I went into the ocean. Involuntarily, I’ll add.”
Ellis smiles and grabs her phone, snapping a photo of me. “I want to remember this when I’m not drowning in misery.” I stick my tongue out at her as she giggles, and I smile at the sound.
She’s handled the past few years with more grace and strength than I thought possible in a person. People often pity me when they learn I lost my parents at such a young age, but I sometimes wonder if the universe was looking out for me by taking my parents before I got to know them. For sparing me the pain of watching them wither and wilt in front of me.
“Millie?”
“Hmm?”
“Your walk was insightful, huh?”
My gaze snaps to her face. “I don’t like your tone.”
Ellis waves her phone, and I snatch it to peer closely at the screen. Photos from one of the many online gossip sites Ellis frequents stare back at me, but it takes my brain several seconds to compute what I’m looking at.
It’s me. From today’s misadventure. I’m in my saturated raincoat, sitting very close to a tanned, muscular, shirtless man who’s smiling at me. It looks too intimate. Like someone snapped a cute moment between newlyweds who were fooling around in the water.
Bothof us are smiling in the last photo. I might even be laughing. The way his body turns towards me makes it look like we’re familiar with each other. It’s alarming how misleading these are.
“What is going on?” I croak, scanning the words accompanying the photos. “Playboy Noah King spends time with local business owner, Millie Schofield, as he tries to re-connect with his roots.” I glance at Ellis. “How do they know whoIam? Who took this?”
She squints at me, almost as if she can’t believe I’m in front of her. “I’ll be asking the questions, thank you. Did you sneak off to meet him?”
“What? No! I don’t even know him.”
“Well, we both know that’s a lie,” Ellis quips. “You were in the same grade.”
My mouth drops open. “You remember Noah?”
