The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

13 : Blaire

B L A I R E

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The moment Sukie stops the recording, she turns to me with wide, worried eyes and leans across the table we're sitting at in her conservatory. Her fingers clasp around my wrist, the most human contact I've had since the last time I hugged my mother, and there's a watery sheen to her dark eyes.

"Blaire, oh my god, I am so sorry," she says, shaking her head. "We could have stopped recording; you didn't have to talk about your mum on the tape."

"It's okay."

"I'm so sorry," she says again. "God, I can't imagine what you're going through." She squeezes my wrist and I want to put my hand over hers, to feel the warmth of another human, but I just sit here like a rag doll.

"It's okay," I say again. I'm fairly certain we both know it isn't, but that's just something I'm supposed to say, and all it means is that we don't need to talk about it anymore. Sukie seems to understand; she nods and lets go of me, sinking back into her seat.

"You're living with your aunt, did you say?"

"Mmhmm."

"What's her name? I might know her."

"Elizabeth Wickham?"

Sukie presses her lips together and sighs.

"You don't know her?" I ask.

"I do," she says. My heart sinks. "She's, uh ... a bit of a recluse? I didn't know she had any family." She pulls her sleeves over her hands, fidgeting with the bright yellow fabric. "She's very quiet; I guess she just keeps to herself. Nothing wrong with that. This place probably suits her great if she just wants to do her thing. How is it, living with her?"

I purse my lips, keeping my initial words at bay – Sukie doesn't need the reactive, angry ones. Instead, I say, "Hard. It's been hard."

"I guess it's a hard situation. Is she your mum's sister or your dad's?"

"Mum's. Dad was an only child," I say. Her face contorts in horror at my use of the past tense and I want to smooth the wrinkles from her face. "He died a long time ago; I never knew him."

"That's awful," she murmurs, twirling the end of her ponytail around her finger. She looks genuinely distraught, and I don't know how she manages to dig into all the shit that's happened in this town if the short life story of a girl she barely knows is enough to make her teary-eyed.

I sigh. She's right. "It is."

"You know, if you ever need anything, even if you just want to get out of the house for a bit and go for a walk, or have a drink, let me know. You said you've never really had friends before, but you're an Anchor Laker now – you're one of us, and I want you to be my friend."

It's enough to make me cry, tightness rising from my chest to my throat and pressing tears to my eyes that I try to blink away, but they're stubborn and Sukie's kindness has come out of nowhere, so sudden that I don't know how to process it.

Sukie's by my side in a flash, and she doesn't hesitate to wrap her arms around me in a tight hug. She's warm and she smells like the café, and I don't feel like a stranger to her; I'm not ashamed to cry in front of this girl I've known for all of three hours because I feel like I've known her for years.

"Do you have anywhere you need to be today?"

I dry my eyes and shake my head. "I had a fight with Elizabeth earlier, so I'm trying to stay out of the house for a while. Well, long enough for her to have forgotten how much of a bitch I was."