Her hand moves up to grip my shoulder. “I will actually push you off this wall,Penn.”
“Easy,Peaches.”
She shoves me forwards a bit and bursts out laughing when I can’t help but gasp insurprise.
“Okay, okay, lesson learned,” Iurge.
We lapse into silence again for a bit and then Isigh.
“I wanted to tell you,” I explain. “I kept thinking about it, kept waiting for the time to be right, but now I see I was just making excuses. I should have been braver. You deserved someonebrave.”
She tilts her head towards me. “Aaron, youarebrave. You went through one of the hardest things a person can go through. You survived losing someone you loved, someone you never imagined yourself having tolose.”
I lace my fingers through hers. “And you made me feel something I thought I’d never be able to find. I mean sure, I joked around a lot. I flirted with girls. I looked like I was having a good time, like I’d recovered, but none of it ever felt real. Except for you. You made me want to...to wake up. To try again. To actuallycare, and that terrified me.” I bring her hand to my lips and breathe my next words onto her skin. “But I’m not scared anymore. It still hurts, but I want to get through it. For you. Withyou.”
“Of course,” I hear herwhisper.
She shifts herself closer so our thighs are pressed together. I let go of her hand and wrap my arm around hershoulders.
“Tell me about her,” she says, “if you wantto.”
A flash of pain sears through me, the same one I feel every time I conjure up an image of Tiff, but I don’t turn away from it this time. I let the memories burn their way through me and hold Christina even closer until the flames start to diedown.
Then, with her head resting on my shoulder and her hair brushing the skin of my neck, I tell her about Tiff. I start with the day we met and I don’t stop until I get to the day she died. I let everything pour out, even things I’m not sure Christina wants to hear. I tell her about our first awkward attempt at sex, how I felt whenever I was taking her photo, the way she’d draw her eyebrows together when she was lecturing me. I almost have to stop when I get to the last time I saw her, leaving for her rafting job, but I push through to the very end: the phone call that told me she wasgone.
Somehow, I feel stronger afterwards, like I can breathe in the ocean air just a bit easier than before. Christina, on the other hand, is crying into my t-shirt.
“You must miss her so much,” she chokes out, her voicethick.
“I do,” I answer solemnly, “all the time, but I’m going to learn to handle it better. I finally talked to my mom about it. I’d never done that before. I didn’t even know, but she’s been seeing a grief counsellor about Tiff and I’m going to try it out.” I tilt her chin up so her eyes meet mine. “I want you to know that I would never have done any of that before I met you. I love you,Christina.”
She jerks away from me. “Youdo?”
I’m sure my eyes are as wide as hers right now. I hadn’t planned on sayingthat.
“Uh, yeah,” I venture. “Is that...okay?”
She blinks at me a few times and then her body relaxes. “I guess,” she sighs, like she’s granting me a huge favour. “I’d say I love you too, but I know that will just inflate your already overinflatedego.”
“No need. I already know you love me, Peaches. Whodoesn’t?”
She pretends to push me off the cliffagain.
* * *
“Hurry up!”
“You sure this is a good idea? The tide is comingin!”
I splash my way through the knee-deep water afterChristina.
“Yeah, so hurry!” she calls over hershoulder.
We walked along the beach for a bit after leaving the viewpoint, and are apparently now on our way to some sort of secret alcove in the cliffs that’s out of sight of the wholevillage.
“Won’t we get stuck when the water comes in?” I ask, as Christina scrambles over arock.
“Only for an hour orso!”
