‘Why “of course not”? You do like him, don’t you?’ His stare is piercing.
I pull a face and avert my gaze, but he knocks his leg against mine to bring my attention back to him.
‘Don’t you?’ He’s not letting it lie.
I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
He pulls on the oars with more force.
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ I ask as we glide through the water.
He shakes his head. ‘Nope.’
‘Have you ever?’
‘Have you? Had a boyfriend?’ he replies.
‘No.’
He seems surprised.
‘So?’ I persist.
He shrugs. ‘Sort of.’
My stomach folds over. ‘One of the girls in your photos?’
He nods. ‘Jenna.’
‘Which one was she?’
‘She’s tall, with long, brown hair.’
I know exactly which girl he means and I’m breathless with a hurt that I don’t understand. Why should I feel betrayed?
‘How long did you go out?’
‘On and off for a few months. We never had sex, or anything.’
I blush violently at his casual admission. ‘I can’t believe you never told me about her,’ I mutter when I’ve recovered.
‘You never told me about Drew,’ he bats back, clenching his jaw.
‘Why would I? Nothing’s happened – at all! I’ve never even kissed a boy!’
‘Haven’t you?’ He cocks his head to one side and grins.
My burning cheeks tell him all he needs to know.
Still grinning, Van nods ahead to the bank that we’re about to collide with. ‘Shall we get out and go for a walk?’
I turn around and make a grab for a branch.
Scampi scrambles out as soon as the boat hits the bank, his legs sinking about ten centimetres into the mud.
I sigh and watch as he climbs up onto the grass and shakes himself, panting happily. Van catches my eye and laughs.
‘You’re cleaning the mud off,’ I warn.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He waves me away dismissively.
After our argument of a couple of weeks ago, Dad promised to give me more space and independence, but I’m still astonished when he agrees to us hitching a lift from Drew and Nick to Porthleven.
‘Take care of her,’ Dad urges Van as we leave. ‘Find a payphone and call me if he drives too fast or in any way dangerously. I’ll come and collect you.’
Van agrees to Dad’s request, taking his responsibility seriously. I bite my tongue.
‘The great thing about Cornwall,’ Nick explains on the way, ‘is you have about forty different beaches that all face in slightly different directions, so there’s nearly always somewhere with a decent, surfable wave. Even in huge storms, you can find a nice, sheltered spot.’
I’m sitting on the back seat of the car, feeling kind of unsettled. It’s not only that I have Drew on one side of me and Van on the other; it’s also that I’ve never been anywhere on my own with four boys before – it’s a little intimidating.
Nick’s friend Max is in the front and he swivels around to talk to Van. ‘Drew says you compete.’ He means surfing competitions.
‘Sometimes,’ Van replies off handedly. His arms are folded across his chest and his bicep is pressing into mine.
‘Looking forward to seeing what you can do.’
I hear the challenge in Max’s voice and my unease grows, but Van just smirks and leans his head back on the headrest.
There is way too much testosterone in this car. I wish Ellie were here.
Eventually we pull up on the side of the road. We’re parked parallel to the coastline, some fifty feet above the sea, and through the foggy windows, we can see the steely blue-grey of the ocean.
Van rubs a hole in the condensation on his glass and peers out.
‘Whoa.’ He sounds reverent.
Nick leans past Max to look out of the passenger side window. ‘Shiiiit.’ He draws the word out.
Max glances at him and they laugh, their eyes wide. ‘Shall we go to Praa Sands instead?’ Nick suggests. ‘It should be a bit more manageable there.’
‘No way.’ Van is already reaching for the door handle.
Nick and Max grin, shrug and get out of the car.
‘Wait—’ I say, as Van slams the door. I slide over to his window and peer out. What I see scares the life out of me.
I clamber out of the car as an absolutely enormous wave explodes onto the rocks. I kid you not, I can feel the ground rumbling from up here.
‘No.’ I shake my head, catching Drew’s look of apprehension over the roof of the car. His usual cheeky grin is very much absent. ‘No.’ I storm around to the back and jolt to a stop when I see that Van is naked from the waist down. Luckily his hoodie is long enough to cover his front bits, but I blush madly as I turn away. ‘Don’t do this,’ I plead.
‘Nell, it’s fine,’ he replies flippantly, zipping up his wetsuit while Nick and Max get his board down. I jump as another wave detonates on the reef.
To my right is the end of a row of fishermen’s cottages and to my left are a couple of modern houses, but ahead is a lawned garden, and beyond it we have a perfect view of the ocean.
There’s a group of guys standing further along the road. I think they’re locals. A couple are wearing wetsuits, but the others are in jeans and hoodies. One of them glances over and turns back to his friends, saying something that prompts them all to look our way. There are a few raised eyebrows.
‘Please,’ I whisper to Van. ‘You’re not under any pressure.’
He scoffs and pulls on his boots.
I don’t want to embarrass him, but this is crazy! Those waves are bone-crushers!
‘You going out, mate?’ one of the surfers from further along comes over to ask.
‘Yep.’
‘You sure?’ Nick checks with a grin, propping Van’s board up against the car.
‘You’re going to get hammered,’ Max adds, teasingly.
I want to wipe the smile from both of their faces, but Van grins, not looking the least bit fazed as he grabs wax from the boot and rubs it onto his board.
I’m guessing that Nick, Max and Drew have zero intention of joining him, but I can’t even get angry, because if anyone’s to blame here, it’s me.
Van keeps staring at the ocean, a look of intense concentration on his face. The sky is overcast and huge, grey waves are marching in, breaking from right to left and crashing like thunder onto the rocky shore a hundred metres away. There are a few other surfers in the water, sitting towards the channel on the left-hand side. I swear they look nervous.
Van’s brow furrows as he shuts the boot and scans the beach. Is he having second thoughts?
‘Where do I get in?’ he asks the surfer that came over.
Oh God, no, he’s not…
The guy points to a cream stone building, right by the water. ‘Down there by the old lifeboat house. Jump off the rock, on the left, into the channel, then paddle round to the right into the take-off zone.’
‘Got it.’
Before I know it, Van is walking away from us, his board under his arm.
Drew materialises by my side, but I can’t look at him and I think he senses that I’m incapable of casual conversation. I chew the inside of my cheek, watching anxiously as Van launches himself into the water and begins to paddle out.
‘He’s paddling right past the other surfers,’ Max comments, as though this is somehow frowned upon. ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing.’
‘They’re not taking off on anything anyway,’ Nick replies.
The minutes tick by. The other guys further along have somehow integrated into our group, but I try not to listen to their banter as I stand and stare at Van, way out in the vast ocean, all alone.
He’s waiting…
And then the horizon turns black.
‘That is a massive set!’ Nick exclaims.
I feel si
ck to my stomach as a huge, dark wave rolls towards Van.
‘Here we go,’ Drew says.
As it starts to feather, Van swings around towards the shore and paddles hard.
‘He’s going!’ Nick shouts.
Even in my overwrought state, I can feel the tension from those around me.
‘He’s going to get sucked over the falls.’ Max sounds uncharacteristically worried, but then Van gives two more powerful strokes and jumps to his feet.
‘He’s got it!’ Nick yells as Van knifes the rail of his board into the face of the wave. My heart soars…
…And then the lip of the wave curls over into a tube. Van stands tall and drags his hand in the water to slow himself down, before disappearing from view…
One…
Two…
‘He’s gonna wipe out!’ I hear someone say.
Three torturous seconds…
Four…
‘Fuuuuuck!’
Five, and suddenly, Van is spat out of the wave into the channel, looking like he’s been ejected from a giant fire hose. And he’s still standing!
The cheers from around me are mental. I clutch my hands to my face, holding back tears, as Nick claps me on the back, laughing.
‘I thought he was a goner!’ he cries. ‘That was the biggest barrel I have ever seen!’
Van flicks his wet hair out of his face and glances our way. I can see his grin from here.
I feel like I need time to myself when we get home. The atmosphere was buzzing in the car, the boys plying each other with horror stories about surfers they knew who’d broken bones or had to have stitches, and one guy who’d literally been scalped.
I still feel shaken now, even as I lie here on my bed. They’re all a bunch of freaking nutters, the lot of them.
There’s a knock on my door.
‘Yes?’
The door cracks open to reveal Van. He regards me with amusement and I narrow my eyes at him in return. He bobs under the door frame and nods at the bed. ‘Budge up.’
‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask warily.
‘Asleep on the sofa,’ he replies.
I edge over and he lies down, resting his head on my pillow.
He still smells of the ocean: cold, wild and free.
‘Sorry for scaring you,’ he whispers, folding his arms across his chest. His little finger snags mine and my heart contracts.
He turns his face towards me and I tense, but when I look at him, his eyes are staring past me to the wall.
‘The colour of wheat,’ I murmur, reaching out to run my fingers over his name, written in cursive in what I only now realise is cerulean: Vian Stanley Stirling. ‘It’s my favourite green. Do you remember?’
I glance back at him and his eyes meet mine. He nods seriously and turns on his side, propping his head up with one hand.
‘Will you ever paint again?’ I ask.
He hesitantly lifts his shoulders in a small shrug.
‘What would you paint,’ I ask, ‘if you had to paint one thing?’
He doesn’t answer me, but his stare is prompting butterflies to crowd my already jittery stomach.
‘Van?’ I prompt.
His lips tilt up at the corners. ‘You’re calling me Van, at last,’ he notes.
‘I guess it does suit you,’ I admit reluctantly. ‘So what would you want to paint?’
‘I know what I’d want to paint, but I wouldn’t attempt it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Your eyes,’ he says.
Goosebumps spring up all over my body.
‘Why wouldn’t you attempt it?’ My voice breaks on the question.
‘I’d never be able to pull it off.’
We both start as we hear movement downstairs. Van slowly gets down from the bed, stretching his bent arms over his head as he walks over to the window and looks out. I sit up, feeling edgy as hell.
It’s the following day and we’re at Kynance Cove. Van is staring into the sun, which is low in the clear blue sky. There’s only a light breeze, but it’s very, very cold. The cove in front of us is only accessible when the tide is out. A towering rock almost as tall as the nearby cliffs sits alone on the beach to our left and aquamarine waves crash at its base – the water is so clear that you can see through it as it curls.
The grass-topped cliffs are sliced through with coloured layers: brown, orange, purple, silver and charcoal. The base of the cliffs looks sandy, but it’s an illusion created by millions of beige barnacles clinging to the rock surface.
‘I think that’s where we built our sandcastle.’ Van’s voice cuts through the silence, currently punctuated only by the cries of gulls. ‘I recognise the shape of the cove.’
We’re alone – Dad stayed up at the café with Scampi. We had to wait until the tide went out a bit before we could get round here, and even then, we had to take off our shoes and socks and wade through the freezing water obstructing our path. My feet still feel numb, but it was worth it.
‘The rock surfaces are so varied,’ Van says as we wander. ‘Those look like they’re part of a game of Tetris, all chunky and solid, and those slick black ones are like melted wax. And check out those! They’re green and red!’ he exclaims.
They look like snakeskin, polished by thousands of years of crashing waves.
‘I think that’s called serpentinite,’ I tell him, smiling at his enthusiasm. ‘Does this place inspire you? Could you imagine painting here?’
Instead of answering, he climbs up onto a rock, turning around to hold his hand down to me. I stretch up and take it, allowing him to hoist me up to his level.
‘I can see how it inspired Mum,’ he says eventually.
‘It’s very different in the summer.’ I try to avoid standing on the beds of mussels clinging to the surface in clusters like shiny blue-black beetles. ‘You can barely move.’
At the moment, ours are the only footprints on the sand.
Van cups his hands and blows on them.
‘They’re blue!’ I observe with dismay. He left his borrowed gloves at home.
I pull off my own and shove them into my pockets before taking his hands in mine and rubbing vigorously. He stares down at me and I return his smile. His face is drenched in sunlight and, at that moment, I realise something. His eyes are not simply dark blue. Shards of green and gold are spliced through the navy, like a firework exploding in a night sky. I haven’t noticed before. But then, I haven’t really been looking.
‘Why have you stopped?’ he murmurs.
I wasn’t aware that my hands had stilled.
‘Better?’ I ask quickly.
‘Not really,’ he replies, opening his mouth to show me that his teeth are chattering.
‘Do you want to go back to the café?’
‘No.’ He grins and places his hands on my waist. I’m thrown for a second, but then his freezing fingers find my bare skin and I scream.
He bursts out laughing as I jerk away from him. But a split-second later his face falls and he grabs me before I stagger off the edge.
‘Whoa!’ He tugs me forward and we collide. ‘Sorry, that was close!’
I laugh, feeling skittish. ‘Funny, though.’
‘Yeah.’ He bends his head and blows hot air down my collar.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask warily, shivering.
‘Warming you up. You’re shivering.’
‘I shivered because you blew on my neck,’ I point out.
He responds by blowing on my neck again. This time the tremor ricochets through my body.
‘That tickles.’ I tense as his hands land back on my hips. ‘Don’t you dare put them up my jumper again…’
‘I won’t,’ he promises, and although I could step away from him, I stay where I am.
He bows his head again, but this time his lips touch my neck and all of my nerve endings stand to attention. What is he doing? I don’t ask. I’m completely frozen in place. His lips trail up my neck and brush against my ear. My heart is p
ounding against my ribcage, threatening to break out. Then he rests his cheek against mine. Despite the cold, his skin is warm. Is he simply seeking closeness? Because what I’m feeling right now is very confusing.
I do not feel sisterly. Not one bit.
He pulls back and stares at me.
‘Van?’ I ask uncertainly, edging away, but he closes up the distance between us again and his pupils dilate, flooding out the fireworks with black.
An electric shock sparks and fizzes against my lips and I dazedly realise it’s because he’s kissing me.
I gasp with shock and his tongue slips through my parted lips to brush against mine.
‘What—’ I say, but his tongue cuts me off and a frisson spirals all the way down my body, starting at the top of my head and bursting out through the tips of my toes.
His lips are soft and his hands hold me steady, which is just as well because I’m dizzy from the short, sharp breaths I’m barely managing to take. And then he abruptly breaks away from me. My eyes come into focus in time to see a look of panic cross his features as he stares over the top of my head.
I hear Scampi bark.
Van forces a grin and waves, jumping down to the sand with a soft thud.
I cast a look over my shoulder to see Dad, in his green trousers and brown cardy, trudging across the sand towards us.
‘Didn’t even have to take off my shoes!’ he shouts with a smile, acknowledging the retreating tide. ‘What a beautiful day it is!’
At least I can be sure of one thing: he didn’t see us kissing.
When we get home, I go straight to bed, telling Dad I don’t feel well. It’s not even a lie.
If Dad had seen us… I can’t bear to imagine how shocked he would’ve been… How disappointed… How disgusted… He thinks of Van as a son, as my brother, and the thought makes me feel sick with shame. It’s as though the explosion in Van’s eyes has detonated in my stomach and all of the sparks have subsided, leaving behind only ash and rubble. Why did Van do that? I can’t even look at him, so how am I going to be able to ask?
The next day, Dad has to return to work, so we’ve got two choices: stay together alone at the house, or go with Dad.
‘I’ve been wanting to see the maze again,’ Van says at breakfast.
He’s acting like nothing happened. Maybe I can too.
But I doubt it.