Handle Me with Care (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maddie, Ally and the boys were at the beach nice and early, making the most of their weekend away from it all.

‘Come on, Maddie, you did say you would,’ Josh insisted.

She groaned. ‘I guess I did. Okay.’ She lifted her arms in the air to stretch languorously. ‘Race you!’

Maddie sped off along the beach before Josh could reply, but she had forgotten how hard it was to run on sand and soon he was powering past her, grinning from ear to ear as he ran backwards.

‘Keep up, slowcoach!’ he called, looking back at her.

Josh beat her to the water sports area at the other end of the beach where they watched two teenage boys being towed back in on the inflatables.

Maddie climbed into the first inflatable ring, and just as Josh was about to climb into the other, a man grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

‘Evan!’ shouted Maddie.

‘I think this seat’s taken,’ he said to Josh, who was too stunned to react quickly enough before Evan launched himself into the inflatable next to Maddie.

The speedboat driver seemed oblivious to Josh’s protests and he headed out to sea. Maddie felt the tug as the rope lost its slack. Evan hadn’t said a word since he’d climbed in next to her, and she was so surprised to see him that she hadn’t said anything either.

At first they bobbed along at a pleasant pace, lightly bouncing along the surface, but then the speedboat’s driver upped the ante until they were flying across the water. The inflatable skimmed across the waves and every time it landed it thumped on her bum. Despite the situation, she couldn’t help but laugh her head off, as much at Josh’s face and Evan’s out-of-character bolshiness as the thrilling ride.

They were whipped left, whipped right. And when the speedboat pulled them into a straight line again Maddie turned to Evan, opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

‘Hold on!’ Evan called from his inflatable.

Maddie looked up to see that the speedboat had changed direction suddenly, and she knew what that meant. She tightened her grip, unable to stop smiling, and the inflatables flew across the water side by side, whacking the water every time they made contact.

When the speedboat slowed and pulled them back towards the shore, Maddie tried to sort out her hair that hung in clumps around her face, full of the salty sea. Her heart pounding, she daren’t even look at Evan.

Maddie climbed out of her inflatable first, and Josh handed her the rash vest and sunglasses that she had left on the shore.

‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’ Josh gave Evan a powerful shove in the chest the moment he stepped out of the other inflatable.

Evan held his hands up. ‘I don’t want a fight, mate.’

‘Well you’re going to get one!’

‘Josh!’ Maddie stepped in between both of them. She faced Josh but could feel the warmth of Evan’s chest against the bare skin on her back, his chest hammering as he tried to get his breath back.

‘Josh, this is Evan,’ Maddie explained. ‘He’s the guy I was seeing.’

Josh’s face softened when she met his eyes. ‘Yeah, well it was still poor form.’

Evan still stood so close behind her that she felt his breath in her hair when he spoke. ‘You’re right. I was an arsehole to do it. I just wanted to get close to Maddie.’

He still wanted her, and the feeling was mutual. This time she didn’t want to run from the past, she wanted to confront it.

Josh only left when he was sure he could trust Evan with Maddie.

‘That was really out of order, you know,’ said Maddie as she wandered along the shoreline with Evan. She tugged the rash vest on over her bikini, suddenly self-conscious.

‘I know. I don’t usually behave like such a caveman. Usually I’m your average calm and collected primary school teacher. But when I saw you with him again, I just—’

‘Were you jealous?’

She heard him sigh and he stopped walking, stared out into the ocean. She could see jealousy leaking out of his every pore. She’d seen it on his face, heard it in the tone of his voice.

‘How have you been?’ she asked.

‘Not bad. I had the chemo.’

‘How did it go?’

‘It wasn’t pleasant, but it also wasn’t as bad as all that. I was lucky compared to some.’

Maddie stepped ankle-deep into the water and rinsed the pearly shell that had stuck underfoot. She held it in her hand, admiring the grooved outside, the smooth inside.

‘Why are you in Hamilton Island, Evan?’ She wondered if he could possibly have known that she would be there, but that was crazy.

‘A good friend of mine got married.’

‘In the white chapel on the hill?’ she asked.

‘Have you seen it?’

‘Yes, it’s beautiful.’

They walked on, their feet just touching the ocean.

Evan cleared his throat. ‘So was that the same guy as before?’

‘That was Josh, yes. But we’re not together, Evan. I’m here with my friend Ally and a few others, him included. I promise you.’

Had she imagined his body relax?

‘Are you interested in him?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Why? I bet he’s uncomplicated, and you seem happy in his company.’

‘Evan.’ She felt her cheeks colour. They had been intimate with each other, but the way he was looking at her in broad daylight sent goose pimples racing up and down her arms as though anticipating the feel of his touch. She wanted to say, ‘Because of you; because I’m head over heels in love with you’, but in her head it sounded crazy, let alone out loud.

His hand wrapped around one of hers as he pulled her to a stop. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t contact you sooner, Maddie. After all the shit I had to deal with, I know that I didn’t behave very well. But I’ve been trying to call you for the last couple of days.’

‘I left my phone back in Melbourne, Evan. And I was the one who left your apartment that night, remember?’ She watched her toes sink into the sand as the tide moved out. ‘I could’ve called you, but I didn’t.’

‘And why was that? You were happy when you brought the cake over. You seemed to want to keep trying with us. Was it because I told you that I definitely had cancer?’

She couldn’t take her stare away from his hand that drowned hers within it. ‘I know that it shouldn’t have been a shock. I thought I was prepared for it, but I panicked. And I shouldn’t have barged into your apartment that night in the first place being a do-gooder with my cake, thinking a naughty sponge could fix everything.’

His hand reached up, and she felt his fingers against her skin as he moved a clump of hair away from her face.

‘You know, after you came to see me that night I convinced myself your leaving was for the best. I didn’t want you to see me having treatment for cancer, I didn’t want you to see me feeling sorry for myself and I couldn’t bare you thinking less of me.’

‘I would never have thought less of you, Evan.’ She wanted to believe they both had the strength to start this relationship and carry it forwards. ‘I should have explained about Josh before now, too.’

‘You have already.’

‘No, I apologised for what happened, but I didn’t elaborate on why I had gone back to his place that day.’

‘I think that going on one date with a guy and being told he has cancer would send anyone into a blind panic.’

‘Your cancer was a huge shock, but it was more than that.’ She took her time to find the words. ‘When you told me, all I could think about was dying.’

He made a face. ‘That’s encouraging.’

‘Sorry, that didn’t come out right. I meant that immediately I thought of Riley, how he died, and how I’ve never really come to terms with losing him. You see, Riley wasn’t just my boyfriend of the moment, he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.’

‘You never told me what happened to him.’ Evan followed Maddie as she moved further up the beach away from the water and sat down on the dry sand.

Linking Riley’s death with the events of 9/11 was what Maddie did her utmost to avoid. She hated letting that one day in history define who she was now, who Riley had been. It was as though her life was a newspaper and 9/11 made front page news no matter what the date; no matter what had come before, what had come afterwards. But if she wanted any hope of having a relationship with Evan, then it was time to tell him everything.

‘Oh, Maddie, please tell me he didn’t die of cancer.’

She knew that her eyes had glazed over, but she needed the tears to hold back this time. ‘It was nothing like that, no.

‘Riley spent some time working in New York – it was his dream and he thrived on it.’ She let herself wallow in memories for a moment as she raked the sand and let the granules fall through her fingers. She remembered Riley’s face, elated at the prospect of going to live in the States, living in the city that never sleeps.

‘Riley was killed in the September 11th attacks.’ She watched the speedboat in the distance have its fun with another couple braving the doughnuts.

‘Maddie, you should’ve told me.’ Evan’s voice fell on her like a blanket around her shoulders.

‘Every year, in September, I still avoid newspapers, the radio, internet, the television. I’ve never been able to watch the coverage of the 9/11 attacks and I’m not sure that I ever will. Linking Riley’s death to 9/11 feels to me as though I’m sensationalising it. I know that sounds ludicrous to other people, but to me that’s how it feels.’

‘It sounds perfectly logical to me.’ Evan nudged her arm. ‘But how on earth do you avoid the coverage? It pops up all over the place in this day and age with the internet and media everywhere.’

‘It’s tough, but somehow I manage it.’ She looked out across the ocean. ‘It’s a self-preservation thing. And I don’t need to see the footage over and over again to remember it from the first time round. I don’t need to see the photo of a man freefalling from the towers preferring to die that way than wait to be engulfed in debris and smoke. I don’t want to think of how Riley died, how he would’ve suffered. Some people say that it’s therapeutic to see a united front.’

‘But you don’t see it that way?’ Evan picked up the shell Maddie had discarded.

‘I remember the counsellor telling me that some people look at anniversary events as a chance to stop the forward focus and feel the pain of the past and the loss. But I’ve always avoided it. It seemed like the right thing for me to do.’

Evan left the shell on the sand and sat forwards, his arms hugging his knees. ‘My dad died years ago now, but I couldn’t imagine having those reminders year after year, sometimes when you least expect it. I’m not surprised you find it hard to cope with.’

He briefly leant his hand on his forearms, shook it side to side. ‘No bloody wonder you freaked out when I told you about my cancer. You must’ve thought, “Here we go again, someone else who will end up hurting me, intentionally or not”. God, you don’t deserve a bloody hopeless case like me.’

‘You’re far from hopeless, Evan.’ She smiled at him, moved her hand closer to his in the sand. Now that she’d started to talk, she couldn’t stop herself.

‘There was no lead-up to Riley’s death, no time to say goodbye. One minute he was there, as part of my world, and the next minute he wasn’t. They never even found a body.’ She looked up to the sky, her head tipped back to enjoy the feel of the warm sun on her skin; the simple pleasure that Riley and too many others had been robbed of forever on that day.

‘Tell me about him. Tell me about Riley.’ The tip of Evan’s little finger touched hers in the sand.

Nobody had ever come out and asked her to do that before, and she didn’t know how she would have reacted if they had. But sharing with Evan felt different in so many ways.

‘He was charming, fun to be around and always had the ability to see the good in people. He had a passion for travel – I didn’t really share that – and more energy than you can imagine.’

‘Did he ask you to go to New York with him? I’m sorry, you don’t need to tell me that if you don’t want to.’

‘I don’t mind you asking. It’s nice to remember all the good things that we shared rather than just that one awful day in history. I realise that now. I never did before.

‘Riley did ask me to go with him, but I was busy here, had a job that I was happy with. I lacked the travel urge, and so we agreed that I would visit on holiday, he would go and get the experience, and then we would settle down back in Australia.’

‘Get married you mean?’

It was endearing to hear a note of jealousy as Evan spoke. ‘Yes, we would’ve got married and bought a place down by the beach, had kids, the whole package. I think Riley would’ve had me barefoot and pregnant in New York if he could, but he knew how much I wanted to stay in Australia. We were in our early twenties; marriage and babies were way, way into the future.’

‘Do you still want all that? With someone else, I mean.’

‘For a long time, I didn’t. It was Riley or nobody as far as I was concerned.’

‘That was your grief talking. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I do now.’ She wanted to reach for his hand or for him to make the first move, but no matter how hard she stared, both hands stayed where they were in the sand.