Seventeen.
We walk along the edge of the train tracks until we find the derelict railway yard that local kids have turned into a makeshift skatepark. There is a kaleidoscope of graffiti tags and half-hearted attempts at murals on the buildings, but none match the old, giant, tentacled sea monster dragging the crumbling towers of Shelton down into The Black Sea. Whoever did it could see into the future. I hope they got out before it sank.
There are a couple of people here already, the sound of wheels rattling over the uneven surfaces, the smack of boards against feet and walls as they race in and out of the shadows. Cullen kicks a faded can of Coke while we walk along the last gasp of light, the sun dipping out of sight. He's waiting for the interrogation. I almost don't want to spoil the moment by bringing it up.
"Where were you today?" I ask, watching the fading sunshine soften his sharp angles. His eyes are greener than I'd remembered.
"I had some stuff to do, so …" He boots the can into the tangled, worn bushes.
"So you didn't bother to come to school?"
"Nah. I'll catch up."
I open my door a little, not wide, but enough so he can catch a glimpse inside my thoughts. "I was worried when you didn't show."
"You were worried about me?" When he smiles, it's playful but uneven, like he doesn't want to fully commit but can't stop himself.
"Maybe a little."
"You shouldn't."
"Yeah, but I don't know anything about you."
His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "I can count the things I know about you on one hand, with leftovers."
"Like?"
He spreads his fingers and counts. "Your name is Bella Swan, you've got brown hair and browner eyes, you attract trouble but don't realise it, and then there's space for more. You might as well let me know."
"Let you know what?" I'm grinning at him until he speaks.
"What Ben is to you."
I open and shut my mouth, the wrong answer waiting. I try again. "We were seeing each other, sort of."
"So he's not your boyfriend?"
"Not at all."
He nods and squints into the view over the skatepark, watching some kid too young to be hanging out here, fall on his ass under the sunset.
"What happened at the party? I … well, I kind of have a blackout about it."
He waits until the kid's back on his board and skating away from us. "He was crossing a line."
"What line?"
"The one around you." He looks over at me, searching for recognition or agreement or relief. The memory is flickering like a candle struggling for air.
"I think I remember you, or at least a voice that could have been you."
"It was me. I saw you were wasted. He didn't care." He shrugs like it's obvious what happened next, but it's still not enough for me.
"I can't remember it. Whether I was okay with what was happening or not." Snatches of a heavy weight pressing down on me, and panic crawling up my throat, float to the surface. I wasn't okay. Not at all.
He doesn't respond to this other than a twitch in his lip.
I answer my own question. "But I suppose if I was okay then you wouldn't have got involved." I flush at the thought of him seeing me in such a state.
"Is that the kind of relationship you want?"
"No, of course not," I reply, leaving out that those are the only kind of relationships I've ever known. My mum, for all her sins, has always ended up with the devil.
He nods, pleased with my certainty, and continues, "You told him to leave you alone."
"And … he didn't?"
One sharp shake of his head, eyes turned black again, as if the sun's eclipsed.
"So you stepped in?"
"I reminded him how to treat women."
I feel ashamed and furious, all rolled into one. Ashamed that I can't remember, furious at Ben, furious at not being with it enough to look after myself. Ashamed that Cullen had to look after me. A theme, it seems.
"Thanks for looking out for me."
"Anyone else would have done the same."
"But they didn't." I've learnt to depend on one person all my life, myself. And to have someone, a total stranger, step in like Cullen has, more than once, is sending my little world spinning off its axis.
He shrugs again, and I don't know what else to say. We walk a little further and sit on the grassy bank beneath the sea monster's wall, watching the lights flicker on in Shelton. Cullen turns his lighter around and around, nervousness or just habit, I'm unsure. He sparks it up against an old bit of newspaper. We watch it burn away, eating up the abandoned words, igniting the dry weeds around it, smoke carrying their remains through the air. The silence drags on for too many punctuated heartbeats. "So, now you know five things about me, you gonna let me in on your secrets?"
He turns back to me and dusts his hands off, then he reaches out and picks a tiny singed dandelion feather out of my hair, flicking it into the wind. His hand hovers, like he's going to touch my cheek, but it's indecisive and drops to his side, disappearing into his hoodie. His eyes are all over me, studying, searching for something, maybe everything, but I don't think he finds what he was looking for. He straightens up, creating a space that feels vaster than The Black Sea behind us and says, "Not today."
AN: Thanks for reading and reviewing. I appreciate each and every one. Happy Mother's Day to those celebrating.
Kim and Choc tidied this up for me. They're stars. x