Aaron stood and offered a hand to help her up from the ground. For a terrible second he thought she might not take it, but she slipped her palm into his and hauled herself up. He took a step back, giving her some distance.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“Please don’t say that.”
“OK. Are we OK?”
To his surprise, she took one small step in, closing the distance between them. Before he knew what was happening, her mouth pressed softly, briefly, to his, and the taste of cherries was back.
“We’re OK.” She stepped away as quickly as she’d stepped in. “I told you. It took me by surprise.”
By the time Aaron’s mind had caught up, it was all over. She was leaning down, brushing the dirt off her jeans.
“I’d better get going. But thanks.” She didn’t look up. “For finding my keys, I mean.”
He nodded.
“Hey,” Ellie said as she turned to leave. “Let’s not tell anyone about this. Keep it just for us.”
“Which…? The gap or—”
She gave a laugh. “The gap.” Ellie looked at him over her shoulder. “But maybe the other thing as well. For now, anyway.”
Both corners of her mouth were curved up a tiny bit.
He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought on balance it had been a good day.
Falk had never told anyone else about the gap. Or their kiss. He was fairly sure Ellie hadn’t either. Not that she’d had long to keep the secret. Three weeks later and twenty meters from where he stood, Ellie’s pale pickled body was dragged from the river. Falk had never come down here again after she was found. He hadn’t had much chance even if he’d wanted to. Within a month, he and his father were five hundred kilometers away in Melbourne.
He’d always felt glad he and Ellie had discovered the gap when they had, just the two of them. There would have been plenty of opportunity when they were younger, hanging around the rock tree in a tight trio with Luke. But then, by default, it would have automatically become Luke’s find. He would have claimed full custody when, around the age of twelve, the threesome developed a crack neatly along the gender divide.
None of them noticed until it was too late. Ellie was gradually inducted into the foreign world of girls and skirts and clean hands and conversations that made Aaron and Luke exchange looks of bewilderment. It was a slow migration, but one day Aaron looked up and realized it was just him and Luke, and had been for months. They barely missed a beat. She was only a girl. It was probably for the best that she didn’t tag along.
Ellie melted out of their consciousness with an ease Falk now found staggering, but for three years he barely recalled thinking about her once. He must have seen her out and about—there was no way they could have avoided it. But when she reemerged in his life at fifteen, it was like she’d been reborn, fully formed and trailing fascination and mystery behind her like perfume.
It had been yet another Saturday night for him and Luke, sitting on the back of a bench in Centenary Park. Feet on the seat like true rebels, one eye out for the local cop like true small-town boys.
A crunch of gravel and a shifting shadow, and Ellie Deacon had appeared as if from nowhere. Her hair was now an artificial jet black, and the split ends almost touched her elbows. It shone under the orange park lamps. She was alone.
She sauntered over, jeans tight, boots artfully scuffed, lace bra strap peeking out from the wide neckline of her top. She ran her eye-lined gaze over the two boys as they stared back, mouths ever so slightly agape. Ellie raised an eyebrow at the can of warm beer they were sharing, reached into her fake leather bag, and pulled out a mostly full bottle of vodka.
“Room for one more?” she said. They’d nearly fallen off the bench in their haste to shuffle over. The years disappeared with the vodka, and by the time they’d made a dent in the bottle, the trio was reformed.
But tiny variances in their friendship hinted at new paths to be explored. Conversations had a fresh edge. The boys still occasionally spent time as a pair, but Aaron found himself going to significant lengths to limit opportunities for Luke and Ellie to be together without him. He never discussed it with Luke, but the rate at which his own attempts at time alone with her were thwarted made him suspect his friend was running a similar covert operation. The group dynamics had taken a subtle but definite shift, with none of them quite yet sure where they had landed.
Ellie never really explained why she’d returned to the boys. When Aaron once asked, she rolled her eyes skyward.
“Bunch of bitches,” she said. “If it doesn’t involve their reflection in a mirror, they’re not interested. At least you two don’t care if I cramp your style.” She lit a cigarette and looked at him frankly as though that explained everything, and maybe it did.
The friendship was still being cemented as it faced its first real test. When the pressure was applied, it came unexpectedly from the heel of Gretchen Schoner’s hot-pink shoes.
Even in Kiewarra, social hierarchies had to be observed, and Gretchen was a creature most commonly sighted tossing back her golden hair and laughing amid a crowd of followers. So Aaron and Ellie had sat open-mouthed as Luke rocked up at Centenary Park one night with his arm flung around the girl’s shoulders.
A sharp growth spurt had put Luke half a head above most of their classmates and filled out his shoulders and chest in the right ways. In the shadowy park that night, with Gretchen’s hair falling in a tousled curtain over his jacket sleeve, and a definite swagger in his step, Aaron realized for the first time how much his friend looked like a man.
Gretchen was flushed and giggling as Luke introduced them. He caught Aaron’s eye over the top of her head and gave a not-so-subtle wink. Aaron nodded, duly impressed. There were a thousand places Gretchen Schoner could be on a Saturday night, and yet she was there, by Luke’s side.
Having rarely been invited to exchange words with Gretchen in the past, Aaron had been pleasantly surprised. She was charming and unexpectedly quick-witted. She chatted easily and within moments had made him laugh. He could see easily why people flocked to be near her. She radiated an energy that begged to be basked in.
Behind Aaron, Ellie cleared her throat with a tiny noise, and he realized with a start that he’d almost forgotten she was there. Her look as he turned was one of mild disdain but not surprise, as though he and Luke had failed a test they hadn’t been expected to pass. His gaze jumped from Gretchen’s smile to Ellie’s cold expression, red flags popping up loud and bright but far too late. He glanced at Luke, expecting to see the same realization dawning. Instead, Luke was watching with curious amusement. For a tense moment, no one said anything.