Summer of Secrets (9 page)

EIGHTEEN

Rhi sang better than she'd ever sung before, her head resting against Brody's as they played their set for the wedding. Every song they performed was met with an enormous cheer. The bride and groom even stood on their table to applaud at the end. Rhi took her bow, holding tightly on to Brody's hand. She was in some kind of dream, and she never wanted to wake up.

The moment they were off the stage, Brody was kissing her again. “You were sensational out there today,” he said, hugging her close.

“I wonder why?” Rhi teased.

For that she got another kiss. “Are you busy tomorrow?” he asked when they broke apart. “Can we go out?”

“Are you asking me on a date, Brody Baxter?”

He laughed. “Yes I am, Rhiannon Wills. Meet me at the clock tower tomorrow at ten?”

Rhi hugged him, curling her fingers through his hair. “Wild horses wouldn't keep me away,” she promised.

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny. Rhi found herself singing in the bathroom as she brushed her teeth. It was amazing how different she felt to the previous day.

Sometimes you have to do the thing you're scared of
, she thought, recalling her doubts about meeting Mac.
Then you won't be scared any more.

It had done her so much good to talk with Mac the way she had. She still felt guilty about her part in the accident, but now the pain was shared it didn't seem to hurt as much. Now she felt like she had wings. Wings that would fly her all the way to the clock tower, to meet a boy with blond hair and blue eyes who made her heart melt.

Brody was at the clock tower just as he'd promised, his head bent over the strings of his guitar as he plucked out a tune, flip-flops on his feet and his favourite beaded necklace around his neck. Rhi felt a tiny flip of nerves in her stomach. She'd hate it if the magic of yesterday had gone. If Brody had decided in the clear morning light that he would listen to his AA sponsor and not date her after all.

She hesitated, watching him for a moment. She loved the way his fingers moved so deftly over the guitar strings. She loved … him.

The moment he saw her, he was on his feet, setting his guitar down at the base of the clock tower and striding towards her with a wide smile on his face. Rhi felt the relief of his arms coming round her, and his lips pressing down on hers. She kissed him back joyfully, for what felt like a very long time.

“Hello,” he said, coming up for air.

Rhi had such a stupid grin on her face she could hardly speak. “Hello yourself,” she managed, before he started kissing her again.

They walked together on the beach, hand in hand, stopping every few minutes to kiss each other. They climbed along the bottom of the cliffs and sat curled up together with their backs against the warm rocks. Brody played his guitar, and Rhi sang.

“The mermaids are listening,” Brody told her as they reached the end of a song, raising his voice over the crash of the sea against the shore.

“Right,” said Rhi, rolling her eyes.

“I'm serious,” he insisted. “Look over there, you might see them.”

Rhi looked towards the low-lying rocks near the shore that he was pointing at. She sat up very straight as she glimpsed a dark, wet head swimming in the water. “Oh my gosh,” she said, startled almost beyond words.

The “mermaid” flopped out of the water and settled down to sunbathe on the warm rocks. Rhi gaped with a combination of amazement and disappointment, then shoved Brody in the side. “You said it was a mermaid!” she accused, laughing.

“Seals
are
mermaids. Did no one ever tell you that?”

Rhi looked at the seal's ugly, friendly face with its bristling whiskers and blubbery brown body. It was adorable, but hardly beautiful.

“Are you telling me sailors fell in love with
seals
?” she said.

“You need to sing more sweetly for the pretty ones to come along,” Brody said, laughing.

“You'll pay for that,” Rhi joked, pushing him back so that he lay flat on the rock they were sitting on.

“What are you going to do? Tickle me to death?”

Rhi snuggled down beside him. “Kiss you to death, more like.”

With the warmth of the sun on their backs, it was easy to lose track of time. The seal grew bored of its rock and slid soundlessly back into the sea.

“Hungry?” Brody inquired. When Rhi nodded, he grinned. “I have an idea.”

They busked in the town centre for an hour, earning enough for two generous portions of fish and chips, which they ate with their legs dangling over the end of the pier.

“We should do this every day,” Brody said, dipping his chips in Rhi's ketchup.

“School would get in the way,” Rhi pointed out.

“Me and classrooms never got on,” Brody admitted. “I knew early on that music would be my future. Are you going to stay on after GCSEs?”

“Mum wants me to.”

“What do
you
want?”

“I want to finish my education, but I want to make my life in music. Best of both worlds.”

“Good plan.”

It
was
a good plan, Rhi reflected that night as she lay in bed and thought about her perfect day with Brody. If only her mother could see it that way. She drifted away to sleep, thinking of seals and mermaids, ketchup, kisses and music. Always music.

 

“Results!” Mr Morrison announced at school the following morning. “Try to contain your excitement, class. Any questions, I'll be happy to answer.”

“I can't look,” Lila groaned as their form teacher laid two pieces of paper on her and Rhi's desks. “Rhi, can you read them out for me? My parents will kill me if I've failed anything, provided Josh hasn't killed me first. As long as I've passed everything, I'll be fine. Please tell me I'm going to be fine.”

“As, Bs and a D,” Rhi said, scanning Lila's results sheet.

Lila sat up. “I got a
D
?” she said. “In what?”

“Whatever happened to ‘I'll be fine as long as I've passed everything'?” Rhi enquired. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she took up her own sheet. C, C, B, C… Not great, but at least they were passes. Her eye moved further down the sheet.

She'd got an F for geography.

 

Her mother was waiting for her when she got in from school, eyes sparking with rage. She waved her phone under Rhi's nose.

“What is this?”

Rhi found she was feeling strangely reckless. “A phone,” she said calmly.

“Don't get fresh with me. The school texted me your results. An
F
?”

“I passed the rest,” Rhi said, setting her bag down by the door.

“Bs and Cs might technically be passes, Rhi, but you'll never get anywhere in life with those. And the
F
… I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am. Did nothing I said to you sink in?”

“Mum, they aren't GCSEs, they're just school exams—”

“Just school exams? Rhi, your teachers will use these results to predict your GCSEs!”

“I will study harder for my GCSEs, OK? I promise. But these—”

“I don't want to hear it,” Rhi's mother began.

“You never want to hear anything, do you?” Rhi shouted. “Never! When are you going to understand that I don't
want
the life you've mapped out for me, Mum? I want a career in music, with Brody! We're going places already. We're booked solid all summer, we've even had to turn down gigs! We have a massive following on the internet and it's growing all the time. Why can't you hear what I'm telling you? Why can't you be proud of me? I'm not Ruth, Mum! I'm me! Look…” She hurried into her mother's study and typed her name into the search engine that stood open on the computer screen. “I'll show you. I'll prove it to you…”

The first video that popped up surprised Rhi. She didn't think anyone had been filming that night. She stared at herself on the stage at the Heartbeat.

“
This is a song called ‘With You By Myself
'
. I wrote it for my sister. Ruth died two years ago now, but she's right here in the song. At least, she—
”

Rhi shut down the video and closed the laptop. She wasn't ready to talk about that song with her mother. She felt defeated. All the good things that had happened to her lately suddenly felt like a long time ago.

“Forget it. You'll never understand.”

“Rhi, come back here!” her mother shouted after her as she ran up the stairs to her room. “We need to talk about this!”

Rhi grabbed clothes, throwing them heedlessly into a bag. “No,” she said, picking up her guitar and coming back down the stairs, pushing past her mother in the hallway and opening the front door. “
You
need to
listen
.”

“Where do you think you're going?”

“To live with Dad!”

Slamming the door felt intensely satisfying. Rhi moved as fast as she could, half running and half walking, desperate to get away. Her dad would make room for her in the flat. She'd sleep on the sofa, she'd sleep anywhere but back at the house. She couldn't live with her mother any more. It was too hard.

Her case was heavy. With her guitar bumping on her back, Rhi took the stairs up to her father's flat and banged on the door. It creaked open all by itself.

“Dad, I
have
to live with you,” she implored, barging in. “Mum—”

The words died in her throat. Her father was kissing a stranger on his sofa.

NINETEEN

Rhi felt as if her feet were frozen to the floor. Her father and another woman. A woman who wasn't her mother. A woman she'd never seen before.

This isn't possible. This is not happening.

Her father leaped to his feet. Rhi looked at the woman on the sofa, who had clapped her hands over her mouth in horror and was now gazing at Rhi over the tops of her fingers with wide, dark eyes. If it hadn't been so shocking, it would have been funny.

Rhi suddenly realized she
had
seen the woman before, painting a bowl of fruit in her dad's art class. She'd been the one touching her father on the arm, like she owned him. Her eyes darted sideways to the easel propped up beneath the skylight by the kitchen. The painting her father had covered up the last time she was here was visible now. The same woman's wide dark eyes looked out at the room. Everything was becoming horribly clear.

Her father was walking towards her, his arms held out. “Rhi, I'm so sorry, I never meant for you to find out like this—”

Rhi flattened herself against the door frame. “Don't come near me,” she hissed.
Mum
, she thought in anguish.

Her father stayed where he was, looking pleadingly at her. “It's important for you to understand, Rhi. Please listen to—”

“This is why you didn't want me moving in, isn't it?” Rhi cut in. Anger was descending like a heavy sea fog, making it hard to think straight. “You didn't want me to find out your dirty little secret.”

Her father looked like he had been slapped. “I… Your mother and I broke up, Rhi. I didn't start anything until afterwards—”

Rhi tipped her chin jerkily at the woman on the sofa, who still hadn't moved. “Is
she
the reason you destroyed our family?”

“Rhi, our family was broken long ago. You know that. We've talked about this.”

“You never mentioned
her,
though, did you?” Rhi's legs were shaking. She could hardly bear to look at her father. “How long has it been going on, Dad?”

“Not long, Rhi, please believe me…”

Why did everyone always say that to her? Why should she believe her father when he'd never said a word about meeting someone else?

“You were
kissing
her!” Rhi shouted. “You left barely a week ago, Dad. Don't tell me this has all happened in just one week! I'm not a child, I don't believe you any more. I don't believe anything you say.”

The woman had stood up now. “Hello Rhi,” she said nervously. “I'm Laura. I've heard so much about you.”

The fog of anger was blinding Rhi now. “Well I've heard nothing about you,” she said coolly. “I'm not interested in anything
she
has to say,” she said, switching her gaze back to her father. “Tell her to go away.”

She sounded like her mother, she realized. She didn't care.

The woman gave a sob and fled past Rhi, out of the door and down the stairs. Rhi's father stayed where he was as the door down at ground level banged hard.

“Rhi,” he tried again, “please try to understand. None of this is Laura's fault. Your mother and I – our relationship has been over for years. Laura's an artist, she understands me in ways your mother never could. We never meant to hurt you. Life goes on, darling. We have to make the best of what we have.”

Rhi could feel her heart contracting in her chest. Slowly squeezing down to a small, hard nugget of stone.

“You know what, Dad?” she said. “I'm past caring. You chose her over us and that's all I need to know. You and Mum are the most selfish people I've ever met. I have no home any more. I have no family. I lost it all when Ruth died.”

“Rhi, don't say that—”

Rhi sprinted away down the stairs and out into the street, clinging to her guitar and her bag. They were all she had left. She ran through the old town, sobbing and gasping. She needed somewhere to go…

Any time you want to escape, you can come here, OK? It's really important to have a space where you can just
–
be.

Polly.

Rhi wanted to cry at the thought of Polly's calm, bright, welcoming home. Polly would understand. She had known it would be like this. She had even warned Rhi about it.

Rhi swerved up Polly's road. Sweat was pouring down her face. She could feel blisters forming on the palms of her hand from her guitar and her bag.

Polly opened the door before Rhi had even reached the doorbell. Rhi found herself wrapped up in Polly's embrace, held and rocked on the doorstep.

“Dad… Mum…” Rhi choked in Polly's arms. “He… I caught Dad with someone else. Polly, I don't think I can stand it—”

“It's OK,” Polly soothed. “Breathe, Rhi. You're going to be fine. Just breathe…”

Rhi tried to get herself under control. She sobbed more hopelessly than ever. Had it really been just yesterday that she had been so happy with Brody at the beach? So much had happened in just a week. Mum, Dad, Mac … Laura. She cried until she couldn't cry any more. Then at last, feeling as weak as a kitten, she let Polly bring her inside and sit her down at the kitchen table.

“You need some sweet tea,” said Polly. “For the shock. They always do that in the movies. I think sweet tea is vile, personally.”

Rhi gave a weak laugh. “Tea would be nice,” she said. She was going to cry again, she could feel it.

The tea was disgusting, but soothing at the same time. Rhi wrapped her hands around the mug and bowed her head over the sweet steam.

“It will get better,” said Polly, watching her.

Rhi groaned. “I saw him kissing this other woman, Polly. It was the freakiest thing ever.”

Polly grimaced. “That must have been bad.'

Rhi felt sick just thinking about it. “Polly, can I stay here?” she blurted. “I don't have anywhere else.”

“Of course you can,” Polly said. “Listen, Mum's got some chocolate biscuits hidden somewhere. She's on a healthy eating lark, apparently, but she keeps a stash for moments like this.”

Three biscuits later, Rhi was starting to feel a little more normal. Even a tiny bit ashamed of her behaviour. She of all people had seen how unhappy her father had been lately. Wasn't it a good thing that he'd met someone who understood him at last? She wished she could feel happy for him, but all she could think about was how her mother was going to react when she found out. She was
bound
to find out. Like Eve had said, Heartside Bay was a small town. Rhi felt like an old elastic band being pulled between her parents.

“What am I going to do?” she moaned, resting her head on the table between her hands.

“You're going to tell me about Brody,” said Polly.

Rhi jerked her head up. “You know about Brody?”

“Ollie and I saw you kissing by the clock tower yesterday,” Polly beamed.

“Don't tell the others,” Rhi begged, feeling embarrassed. “This is still really new for us. I want to enjoy it a bit longer without any gossip, you know?”

“Cross my heart,” Polly said. She looked misty-eyed. “You look so adorable together. When did it happen?”

Rhi's heart lightened. “We got together on Saturday,” she said shyly. “He's so wonderful, Polly. He understands me. I'm a better person when I'm with him.”

As Rhi said the words, she realized her father had said something similar to her about Laura, but she'd been too angry to listen.
She understands me in ways your mother never could…
Was this something else she ought to learn? That she was no different from her father?

“What?” said Polly, watching her.

Rhi shook her head. She needed to think that one through by herself first. “Nothing,” she said aloud. “Do you want the last biscuit?”

They both heard the car wheels screeching up outside the house. Someone sounded like they were in a hurry. Rhi followed Polly curiously to the door as Polly flipped the latch.

Lila's dad was standing on the doorstep in full police uniform.

“Hello, Polly. Is Rhi here?”

Rhi realized she had started screaming. It was the day Ruth had died all over again. Police cars, uniformed officers on the doorstep. The end of life as she had known it. The end of everything. It was happening again. It was…

She slumped sideways into darkness.