Three Years Old

Chapter Fourteen

Here's another chapter for you! Hope you enjoy this one, we're getting closer and closer to... well, something! i can't give it away though :P

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     The next day we woke up to find that the bad weather was gone, and had been once again replaced by summer. The first thing I saw was sunshine coming through our bedroom window, and I was overjoyed straight away. Inevitably, that afternoon we decided to go back to the beach, making the most of the weather as always.

     When we left our house we started walking to the coast as always, presuming we were heading to Caerfai Bay, but when we reached the coastal path and turned left Debby stopped us, calling us back.

     ‘I was thinking we could go to Porthlysgi Bay today,’ she suggested, glancing behind her in the other direction.

     ‘Why?’ I asked her, confused. ‘It’s further away and not as nice as Caerfai.’

     ‘Which one’s Porthlysgi again?’ Blake asked me.

     ‘It’s the one just north of here,’ I explained, as Flick pulled on my hand, trying to get us to move. ‘Wait a second honey,’ I told her. ‘It’s about half an hour’s walk away,’ I continued to Blake.

     ‘Yeah, I know all that,’ Debby said with a sigh. ‘I just felt like having a bit of a walk today, and Caerfai just isn’t that far.’

     Blake shrugged at this. ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t,’ she agreed. ‘As long as Flick’s up for the walk.’

     We all looked down at Flick, standing next to my legs looking in the opposite direction from us, clearly not paying any attention to our conversation. ‘What do you think Flick?’ I asked her.

     She turned to us, looking up with her big round eyes. ‘About what?’ she replied. All three of us chuckled at her.

     ‘About going to Porthlysgi Bay instead of Caerfai,’ I explained to her. ‘It’s a bit of a walk.’

     She crinkled her face up, twisting her mouth into a grimace as if she was crying, except there weren’t any tears. ‘I don’t want to walk,’ she moaned.

     ‘You can do it, Felicity,’ Debby encouraged. ‘Come on, we’ll make a game of it!’ She took Flick’s other hand and led her up the path northwards, ending our discussion. I turned to Blake at my side and gave her a look. She just shrugged at me and started walking.

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     ‘Something’s been bothering me,’ I said to Blake, as we lay side by side, stretched out in the sand. Debby was off near the water with Flick, running around with her, and we were both propped up on our elbows watching them.

      ‘Yeah?’ she urged me on. I took my eyes off Debby and Flick and looked at Blake on my left. She was wearing a dark green bikini today, showing off her flat stomach and tiny waist. Her hair was down, and blowing with the wind, tickling my left arm as it brushed against me.

     ‘Well, it’s Debby,’ I told her, sitting up and turning slightly towards her.

     She rolled her eyes at me and sat up too. ‘Of course it is,’ she muttered dryly.

     ‘I’m not being silly!’ I defended myself. ‘It’s genuine worry.’

     She smiled at this, as if she didn’t believe me, then nudged me with her knee where it was resting against my leg. ‘Go on then.’

     I let out a sigh. ‘I just don’t really know what’s going on with her,’ I explained. ‘There’s definitely more of a reason for her being here than just “wanting to visit”. It’s like she’s hiding something.’

      Blake gave me a sceptical look, tucking her hair behind her right ear. ‘Do you have any proof of this, or is it just a feeling?’ she asked.

     ‘I actually have proof,’ I said, looking down at my hands. ‘Kind of. Well, I’m sure there’s something she’s not telling us. She keeps on insisting that we don’t go to Caerfai Bay, which is strange, because it’s always been her favourite beach and she seems quite keen to avoid it.’ I paused, and Blake didn’t say anything. I found my hands digging away at the sand in front of me nervously.  ‘Also, you wouldn’t have noticed,’ I continued. ‘But last night when we walked to the pub she led us a way that purposefully avoided her old house. It didn’t take any longer, but I would have thought she’d want to go past it.’

     Blake shrugged her bronzed shoulders at me. ‘So? It just sounds like she’s trying to avoid some places,’ Blake said. ‘That doesn’t mean that she’s hiding anything, maybe she just doesn’t want to go to those places because they would evoke certain painful memories.’

     ‘But what painful memories?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Her house was her house; she lived there for eighteen years, why would it be painful to go there now? And the beach is somewhere she only ever went with Michael or me, and why would that be painful?’

     ‘Well, Beth, I know I didn’t meet you until after you were close with her, but maybe she doesn’t want to go to the places she went with you before things changed, when you were best friends,’ she suggested. ‘That would be painful.’

     I shook my head at this. ‘Nope, that can’t be it,’ I told her. ‘We’ve been to those places loads of times since we stopped being best friends. Also most of our memories happened at my house, and she’s fine going –‘ I stopped midsentence, having forgotten for a moment, that in fact the house in which most of our childhood had been spent, was not in fact my house anymore, it was my mother’s.

     ‘Is she though?’ Blake asked. ‘We haven’t been to your mum’s house with her, have we?’ I searched my brain, trying to remember going there with Debby in the last week, but she was right, we hadn’t been there. Maybe Blake was right, and there really was nothing going on with her. I was about to give up when I remembered the other issue – Michael.

     ‘But there’s more!’ I cried suddenly.

     Blake sighed and gave me a look. ‘Really?’

     ‘This one’s good,’ I promised her. ‘It’s about Michael. You know she told us that he’s been working at a school for the last month? Well, it’s the summer holidays. So how would that work?’

     She thought about this for a moment, frowning to herself. ‘Well,’ she started, clearly having resolved the whole thing in her head within a matter of seconds, when I had been worrying about it for two days. ‘Maybe it’s a summer school?’

     ‘No,’ I insisted. ‘I don’t think it is. Trust me Blake, there’s something going on with her, I know it.’

     She smiled at me lovingly, but I knew she still didn’t believe me. ‘Fine, you know her much better than me,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’re right. But there’s only one way to find out.’

     ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

     ‘Call Michael,’ she told me with a shrug, as if it was obvious. ‘I mean, they live together right? He must know what’s going on.’

     ‘Well, she claims she lives with him,’ I said. ‘We don’t know what we can trust from her.’

     This made Blake laugh. ‘God, you sound as dramatic as her.’

     ‘Shut up!’ I cried, hitting her gently on the arm. I turned back around to watch Debby again, leaning back against Blake, fitting neatly into her. Debby and Flick were now in the water, Flick in Debby’s arms with a look of confusion on her face. She still didn’t know how she felt about the sea. Debby looked positively happy, a grin plastered on her face.