For a dear friend, and a wonderfully talented writer. To Carly Carter, for always, always providing stunning insights on these two. The master of a ship I never shipped, but that you've made so real, so compelling. I'll never have your elegance or finesse but here's a miserable stab at it. Sorry Carly if I am wrecking havoc on them totally.

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All wrong

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It's wrong. All wrong.

The way she looks. Crouching down at the edge of the ocean, waves licking at her feet, wetting the back of her trousers. Her back too curved, the ridge of her spine sticking out too much. Wrong, how she looks like she is just in her element there. Elegantly, effortlessly so.

It's wrong, how the sun hits her arms, just at the right angle, making the silky down appear dewy, pearly like the inside of a shell. There is something definitely askew with the way her hair falls forward across her face. And how just like that, the morning breeze lifts them up, swings millions of fine blonde threads around so that her head looks as if it's surrounded by a haze of light. Something amiss with how she clenches her jaw as she scrubs at the dirty dishes, rubbing them off with a lump of straw. How she couldn't be more out of place, more right, more perfect than this.

And surely it's not right how it can make your mouth dry and your eyes smart. How your fingers want to reach forward and touch some of that golden certainty. The envy of something you cannot be, something you cannot have. Off limits. That ability of fitting in anywhere, with anyone. That flighty, elusive quality, the aptitude to melt in, to adjust, to connect. The pure genius of it.

What she can't do.

Could never do. Isolated by her own scantiness, an unbridgeable gulf of separation. Spending her life, all of her formative years trying to make two links of a chain come together. A stupid impossible yearning for that bond. Changing in every which way she'd thought her mother would want. Jumping through hoops to make that connection. Always just out of reach. Always slipping away. Never quite getting there. Always feeling out of place, never belonging inside her own skin.

And it's wrong.

Everything is amiss with it. How she watches them from across the fire in the evening as the sun slumps down behind the horizon. She can't help but stare. An envy so ugly, so dirty, it has to be hidden at every cost. Jack and Juliet, laughing easily, the flames tinting them a warm, kind orange. The little swift moments of physical contact, a small reassuring hand on his sleeve. A whisper in his ear and the smile that arises from it. Always that blonde hair, that shimmers, shifts with the light. As if she absorbs it all, carries it with her and leaves nothing to the rest of them. She resents how they seem to just fit. How they seem like they belong. There. On the other side of the fire.

How he falls over her. It hurts. How he fawns over her, obviously delighting in her ability to just be, to give as good as she gets. To meet him half way. And her here, across the fire, always on the other side. Always. Trying not to stare too hard at the sight of their smiles, wide white teeth glimmering. The palpable ease between them. As if it's all so easy. Nothing to it.

Can never be like that. Always stirring up tension, always kicking up a storm where there is none. Insufferable, impossible, panic-inducing for her – to just be. Has to always move, always be mobile. To stop is to die. That she's learned. There is no place safe. Anywhere.

The jealousy. Unexpected, unwanted, disproportionate. But innate to her. Part of who she is. Always wanting what she cannot have. Throwing away the things that come easy. Though that's a lie too. Nothing comes easy to her.

And it's all wrong, how he comes lumbering behind her. How he catches her watching them. Awkward and hypersensitive to all that she does. A love she's done nothing to deserve. His own jealousy, clearer, more perceptive, more justified than hers. How he sits down next to her by the fire. How his misdirected envy feeds off hers, a pathetic chain of resentment from them to him. How he looks at her, exactly like she watches them. His bulk next to her. Blonde hair too, shimmering bronzed skin, but all wrong. Too large, too solid.

Always off.

"So that's how it is huh?" he grumbles, pretending it matters none to him. "Feeling a bit left out ain't you?"

"You don't know anything," she says as if she were sure. Wants him to leave her alone. His presence distracting. Interruptive.

"Well, I guess I can expect you later then…" he says and he doesn't sound especially happy about it. But she knows he can't deny her. He'll take what he gets. From her.

"Wouldn't wait up if I were you…" she says coldly. As if he's not spot on. As if the envy wasn't there every damn second, clawing away at her, eating at her. As if that jealousy won't lead her back to his tent as sure as she's breathing. They both know she will be sprinting across the beach towards his bed in no time, her jealousy always hand-in-hand with the shame, the disgust, the self-hatred. As if this is not what always happens, the very same sequence of predictable steps growing more and more desperate with each footprint she leaves. As if that's not how it always is.

Evenings like this.

Shoving his tarp to the side and barging in, pushing him down. Taking him instead. Takes him. Because she knows nothing else. Hates how it feels. How his mask slips as she slides down on him, that hopeful vulnerability that she can't face. Her own cruelty. All wrong. All wrong. His skin too rough , his cheeks too coarse. The way he grunts, too crude, too much. The way he waits for her, hopes for her, longs for her to come around. To come for him. It's wrong.

Hates how she feels. Like she doesn't belong. Like she is an error of nature. Yanking up her jeans tugging on her shirt. Something distorted, twisted and perverse. Walking, no; running back to her own tent, kicking up sand as if she needs to leave a trail. The sweat on her skin, the lingering smell of him. Regretting how it feels, every single time. The pain she leaves behind, with him. Hates how it feels. All wrong.

Despises herself for standing there in the morning, watching the woman gazing out at the ocean. Hands on hips, graceful and unashamed. The way she looks like she is part of the scenery. Like someone who makes love when she wants to. Because she wants to. Not because she knows nothing else. Not because she hinges on someone to tell her that she is not. Irrelevant.

The brushing by her, accidentally for sure. A grotesque envy that goes deeper, beyond the thing with Jack. Wants to be her. Wants to be someone like that. Someone who walks with ease, padding through the sand, hips rolling gently, doesn't hurry, doesn't run.

It's wrong how she obsesses. Hanging around like a creepy little puppy-dog. Telling herself, she doesn't trust her. Trusts nothing about her, needs to keep a watchful eye on her. And that she does. That's all she does. Follows her, stealthily, at least she hopes, through the tree-line near the beach. Stalks her, relentlessly. As if she's hoping to pick up something. A secret. How to be.

Like that.

Hates her, envies her, but the inexplicable fascination goes beyond that. And she knows that the other woman is aware of it. Pretending she doesn't notice, Kate's soft footsteps behind her. Everywhere she goes. Like a shadow.

Watches from afar, how she steps gingerly among the slippery rocks, the waves rolling in, washing a darker color up the edge of her rolled up trouser legs. Picking something from beneath the stones, crabs perhaps, lifting the rocks up, raffling underneath them, placing them carefully back again. As if careful to leave everything behind her as she found it. Not like her, not like Kate. Desperate to leave a mark. Make a slash, a sharp cut in everything she touches. As if wanting to leave proof, that she is alive. That she matters.

Hates how it feels, when Juliet stops. How she swirls around, her eyes hitting their target immediately. As if she knows exactly, Kate's precise location. As if she can't be fooled. It's wrong how Juliet doesn't seem surprised as she spots her there sitting on the beach. Gives her a peculiarly knowing smirk, 'you here'. As would be expected. As if Kate is no mystery to her.

How she walks, self assured, the natural smoothness of her gait, approaching the beach. Fearless and frightening, how she smiles. An impossible anomalous of a smile that you can't trust, can't put your hopes on. That swift, brusque smile, that isn't about happiness. Isn't about joy. Just part of the repertoire, the show she puts on.

Kate doesn't buy it, not for one second. It's all wrong but she can't do anything but stare.

"What do you want Kate?"

And it's all wrong. The way she surveys her, as if Kate were just a curious little animal. A crab that's just crawled out from under a rock, a little disoriented, stupid, combative. A little interesting, but not overwhelmingly so. The way her eyes studies her, intelligent and sharp, far too sharp for that deceptively soft face. That golden shine of hers, around her, inside of her. It's wrong.

"I don't trust you," she says. Her own voice childish and ridiculous.

A shrug that tells her that she doesn't care. That it's of no significance at all if Kate trusts her. Or not. Inconsequential. That what she is.

"That's too bad."

That radiance that you can't believe in. The suspicion that it's all an act. She's not what she seems. Still she envies her. For faking it so well. For looking like she is, a complete human being. Whole. Watches her as she walks away, with her bucket in one hand, bare feet as comfortable and relaxed as if she were strolling through her own house on the softness of an inch-deep wall-to-wall carpet.

Nothing right about it. How she has to swallow hard, and remind herself. That this isn't who she is. Not what she wants.

How wrong it is, that urge that grips her, pushes her. How sometimes she takes a detour, walks a different path. How sometimes she ends up there, in a different place, a different tent. A brief flash of guilt, of him. The one that bears the brunt of all her insecurities, of her jealousy and anger. How all is different, but the shame is the same. They way she gives in, reaches out and looses herself. The vain hope that some of that sureness, the lack of doubt, that ability to belong will rub off. Throwing herself like scraps to the wind. Anyone who catches her can have her.

It's all wrong, so horribly wrong. How she doesn't want her. She doesn't. Still she returns, time and time again. And though golden is golden and a smirk is a smirk. It's different. All is different.

How things are not what they seem. How she doesn't know what she wants either. Isn't as whole as she wants to appear. How there are no secrets to be stolen here.

Not from her.

The way they sometimes can do nothing but surrender into the sand. Let the fine warm grains swallow them up. Unsure and uncertain. It's wrong and it's wrong to want it. Forgetting everything for just a short moment. How the skin wants the skin. How lips want to follow the curve of an ear or the slope of a neck. How the fingers want to pursue the little downy hairs on arms, the smoothness of a face. How eyes have to be clenched shut, how voices have to be silenced. How none of them dares to breathe. Because it's all wrong, all wrong.

But the way her hands can hold on to fingers, how they can meet half way. How they can sometimes feel, just as if they were right. The right size, the right shape. The way a pulse can be felt if you brush your thumb up a slim wrist, slowly putting pressure onto pale skin. How the envy is far away then...

That.

There is nothing wrong about that.

…..