‘I’ll leave Keith Urban outside to guard you,’ he says, before closing the door behind him.
Chapter 9
Scratching on the roof. Footsteps up and down. Clunks and creaks. A ladder? A soft string of curses. Cameron’s voice. Half-asleep, it’s hard to remember why I hated him so thoroughly. He’d never been one of the bullies. He doesn’t lie. What he said was unkind, but he knew how important my glasses were and—
My alarm goes off and I scrabble for my phone. My abdomen is tender. I rub my side. Aching. But …
I push back the sheet and swing my legs onto the floor. ‘I’ll live after all.’
‘Keith Urban!’ Cameron’s hiss is loud. ‘Get out of my way.’
After brushing my hair and tying it back, I venture outside. Cameron, standing midway up a ladder, is holding the same canvas bag he had when he was up the tree. That was only yesterday but feels like a long time ago. His hair is wet and he’s shaved.
Do I stare like he stared when I was perched on the ladder that leads to the loft? This is a different kind of staring.
‘What are you doing?’
He lifts the bag. ‘Christmas lights.’
It’s his cabin so he can do what he likes, but are the lights for him or for me? ‘Are you going to decorate your house too?’
‘No.’ He looks at me critically. ‘How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you.’ Anexcellentresponse for a twelve-year-old. Keith Urban, lying on his back under the ladder, looks up and wags his tail. Without thinking, I kneel to pat him and pain shoots up my back. ‘Oh!’
Cameron jumps from the ladder. ‘You’re still in pain.’
‘It’s much better than it was.’ I take a deep breath before standing. My feet are bare so he seems even taller than usual. ‘It’ll be fine tomorrow.’
‘I’ll finish the lights.’ He lifts a hand then drops it. ‘Go lie down.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t—’
‘Tell you what to do?’ His brow lifts.
The first time I told him not to tell me what to do, I’d skipped another grade so I would have been nine and he would have been eleven. Often paired in maths, we would sit at a table in an annex off our classroom and work our way through problem questions. Our teacher, Miss Winters, a stern woman with a tight grey bun, put Cameron in charge of selecting the questions and how we’d go about answering them. I tolerated this arrangement at first, but as Cameron and I were equals (in a mathematical sense), I didn’t particularly like it. Did I sulk? I probably did, because we’d only worked together a few times when he asked me what my problem was.
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ I said.
Clearly surprised, he’d sat back in his chair. ‘Why not?’
I don’t recall how I responded, but whatever I said mustn’t have satisfied him because he still told me what to do and I still didn’t like it. I still don’t like it, but—
Our eyes lock.
But then he turns his back and I move away.
When I’m safely in the cabin again, I sit on the sofa, one pillow behind my back and another at my side, a mug of tea on the small table next to me. But after I’ve returned calls and updated my diary, the ache in the small of my back has travelled up and down my spine, so I rearrange the pillows and lie down facing the door. A car pulls up. Doors slam.
‘Tell Amelie we hope she feels better soon.’ Anna, Cameron’s sister.
A child’s laughter. Cameron laughs too.
‘Cam!’ Anna again. ‘You can swing Tara around as much as you like tonight. Are you sure you don’t mind babysitting?’
‘That’s why I shaved.’
‘My daughter must be the only female you know who doesn’t appreciate a three-day growth.’
