-Chapter 2-

Despite having been asked to pick up the phone straight away, Bryon had somehow found enough jobs to procrastinate going to her place until a couple of hours later. When he had originally been asked, he was a little concerned about seeing Bethany again. By the time he actually was driving up her driveway, Bryon had reached a point of undoubtable hysteria. His heart was beating so fast, it was causing him to spin out, his breathing sounded like he needed to be hooked up to a respirator, and he had reached a point of shaking so badly, he was barely able to stay on the road. It had actually gotten so bad, he had to pull over, or more than one occasion. He was trying to calm himself down long enough to pull himself together, even just a little bit.

His car more of reluctantly rolled up to her house, rather than drive: that was definitely his fault. As he cranked in his slightly rusted out handbrake, he just sat.

In front of him stretched out Bethany's house, woven throughout a pocket of palm trees. The windows and doors were wide open, allowing an uninterrupted flow from the sea through their house, as the Hamiltons' always do. They were practically born and bred in the sea, and it visibly seeped into their everyday lives. It has been a while since Bryon had visited their home; he could tell this by the length the trees had grown around him. Despite the time, he still recognised the place, thanks to all the photographs and video footage that plagued the news after that shark attack. In his mind's eye, he could picture the news vans and interviewers pilling up, parking their cars where his truck was now, eager to find out how Bethany was coping. He could picture her peaking out from the windows by the front door, imagining how she would have struggled to adapt, while they crowded around the outside of her place, trying to force their noisy cameras inside her life.

As much as the media disgusted him, and it honestly made him sick to the stomach thinking of all that extra strain they must have put onto Bethany and her family, it caused him even more pain knowing that he hadn't even been able to find the strength to try and help her. And he calls her a friend.

As he watched, still from the driver's seat of his old truck, the front doors were pushed a little wider, and Bethany's eldest brother Noah strolled out. Searching his bag for something, Noah was halfway to his car, before he recognised Bryon sitting there.

"Mate! It's been a while! I have got to get going, but Dude, just come on in! The girls are somewhere inside." Bryon had zero chance to respond, and therefore no opportunity to deny the offer, for Noah had already thrown his stuff in the back of his own preowned, much loved car, and was climbing into the seat. After such an official invitation, Bryon had little choice but to climb out of his truck and shuffle up to the front door.

Since the door was already open, he kind of hesitated at the door, unsure if knocking was still appropriate. He decided to knock, because, lets be honest here, he was just procrastinating out of fear. Fear of meeting the girl whose own misfortunes have seemed to have destroyed every wall within his mind, had shredded him to pieces, had changed everything.

"Just come in!" His heart actually stopped a beat. The very second time today, and all for the same girl.

She was sitting on the couch, her legs draping over the armrest, her back propped up by some pillows, as she read a book on the couch. He could see the cover, and noticed the familiar look of a crashing wave on it, giving it the highest possibility that it was about surfing, in one way or another. She smiled when she saw him standing there, seemingly oblivious to his awkwardness.

"Hey, Bryon! I haven't seen you in like… Forever."
"Yeah, it has been a while."
He wanted to ask her how she was. It was on the very tip of his tongue. But she gap where her arm use to be was almost like a visual barrier. Obviously, life hadn't exactly been easy for her.
"I'm great Bryon. That's so kind of you to ask. Thanks!" She folded the edge of the page, before dropping the book to the floor, and getting up.
"I'm sorry! I just-" Bryon flipped, devastated that he was offending her, when he was trying to hard to do the right thing.
"It's cool. I am just teasing!" His eyes snapped up to her face, just in time for possibly the cutest smile he had ever seen. It was the perfect blend of mischief and humour. But Bryon didn't see it long as she turned away to walk through her place. "The phone's in my room," She explained as she disappeared from sight.

"So, how's life been for you?" She called out to him from the depths of the house. He felt a little rude to call his response back out, so he followed the direction she went in, until he had found her bedroom. Hovering outside her doorway, he watched her climb over to her bed and unplug his sister's phone, that Bethany must have decided to charge for her.
"I'm good," he finally replied, "You know, haven't been up to too much." She smiled back at him and she brought the phone over.

Bethany held out his sister's phone, and Bryon reached up to let her drop it in his hand. But she hesitated, both their hands outreached, him waiting patiently for her. To him, it looked as though she got distracted by a thought, and simply forgot to give it to him.
"You look… Tired…" It was almost a whisper. Like she didn't know how to ask him, but she knew she had to, nonetheless. "Are you okay, Bryon?"

It wasn't that nobody ever asked him. At his point, his tiredness was something that he could hardly hide from people. But it was different when she asked him: when Bethany asked him. Because it was Bethany who was concerned about him, and Bethany had seemed to become everything.

He shrugged, not even trying to think of words to describe to her that it was her own pain that was actually what was destroying him. He knew there was no way he could ever actually voice what was going on inside his head. It wasn't logical, it made zero sense to him, so he had no hope that anyone else would be able to understand what was going on, let alone her.

And suddenly, the look on her face as she lay in the water, blood pooling around her, was not the look that hurted him the most. He knew that it would no longer be the face that would keep him up at night, not allow him to sleep. The new face that would be plaster permanently onto the back of his mind's eye would look like the way she was looking at him now. Like she knew he was unwell. That he was sad. And she felt sorry for him.

He felt weak, like his soul had just given up on the world. He was just pathetic.

When he didn't reply, she eventually remembered the phone in her hand, and dropped it into his own.

"Thanks for this," he muttered, before swivelling around. He could feel her eyes on the back of him, watching him go. He really wanted to turn back around, to apologies for being so rude, to be able to tell her everything in his head, to voice every single thing that so desperately needed to be said; but it was as though his body knew their was no chance that he could find the right words, so it guided him straight to the door.

He was almost through it, when Mrs Hamilton's voice appeared out of nowhere.
"Bryon! You're here!"
"Yes mam. Just picking up my sister's phone." Mrs Hamilton was standing in kitchen, a knife in one hand, and looking like she was ready to do some damage, possibly to the potato she held in the other hand.
"Well, while you're here, I can officially invite your family over for dinner tonight. We were going to have burgers! Do you think they would be interested?"
"I'm sure they'd be thrilled. I can pass that on to them if you'd like."
"Will you be able to join us to?" Bryon could see Bethany, waiting in the shadows of the hallway, just watching them both. He didn't think he could go through seeing her again. It was all just too hard. He wasn't strong enough.
"I would hate to be an inconvenience…"
"Then don't be. We will see you all at 6pm tonight."

And with that, Bethany's mother roped Bryon into having to seeing Bethany for a second time in one day.