Bookmark Days by Scot Gardner Page A

was better inside. After my splash in the creek, I could feel the sun going right into my core and frying the shadows that had come to rest in there. If Les Senior had a problem with me, it was his problem and there was nothing I could do about it. If Katie wanted to live her life as one messy lie after another, then that was her choice. I’d live my life differently.
    There was one problem that wouldn’t come clean. No matter how I held it in the light of that new day, I couldn’t find a way to casually hook up with Nathaniel. Those parting words were still hanging there. We’d met by accident more times in the last week than we had in our entire lives, but I wanted to see him again and couldn’t wait for chance. I couldn’t just turn up at his place on the horse, unless I was clad like Ned Kelly or disguised as a religious salesperson. I couldn’t ring and expect a happy greeting unless he happened to answer the phone. Four to one odds against that happening, although if Marilyn answered . . . hmmm. With his father out of action he’d be working every daylight hour and then some. I could write a letter, but they probably checked his mail. The sorts of things I wanted to write could get a Carrington killed if they fell into the wrong hands. Colluding with the enemy, they called it in the war stories. Maybe I wouldn’t have to find him. Maybe he’d come for me. It would be so totally sexy and so totally embarrassing if he found me beside the creek wearing just my skin.
    I couldn’t sit still after that. I kept imagining eyes on me, even though I was several kilometres from houses and people. If Nathaniel found me it would be one thing, but if my little brother found me it would be something completely different.
    Eeeew.

CHAPTER 16
    ‘Seems like you guys had an eventful night,’ Mum said. Her hands and forearms were powdered white with flour. I could smell bread baking.
    ‘That’s one word for it,’ I said.
    Katie entered the kitchen. Her hair was wet from another shower and I couldn’t look at her face. At some level, she disgusted me.
    ‘Here she is!’ Mum sang. ‘How you feeling now, Katie?’
    ‘Fine. Why?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. Sounds as though you had a fun night.’
    Katie nodded and changed the subject. ‘Uncle Lance said there was an accident?’
    ‘You don’t remember?’ Mum asked.
    She shook her head. ‘Should I?’
    ‘I thought you were part of the rescue team?’ Mum said.
    ‘She was asleep in the car the whole time,’ I said. I didn’t mean it to sound so bitchy. I was talking about Katie as if she wasn’t even in the room.
    ‘I see,’ Mum said. She washed her hands and vanished into the lounge. She quite literally cleared out. It left me and Katie and this big, awkward silence alone in the kitchen.
    ‘Sorry,’ Katie whispered.
    ‘I wish you’d stop apologising,’ I said aloud. ‘What are you sorry for now?’
    ‘For everything.’
    ‘Everything?’
    She nodded, solemnly.
    ‘What, for dumping me so you could get drunk with strangers? Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time.’
    The sarcasm was wasted on Katie. She was laughing under her breath.
    ‘For disappearing when it was time to go? For initiating a manhunt in the rain then turning up half dead and half naked in the carpark? For vomiting on me? For what?’
    ‘I vomited on you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Seriously? Oh, Avvie, I’m sorry.’
    ‘Shut up with your sorry. You’re not sorry. You’re not sorry about anything. You don’t think about anyone other than yourself.’
    I looked at her then. I don’t know what coloured lightning bolts were coming from my eyes, but the smile melted from her face.
    ‘It was a bit of fun,’ she said. ‘Should try it some time, you might like it.’
    She turned away. We were just so different. The more time I spent with her, the more I realised it was true. Katie’s idea of fun and my idea of fun were as different as sheep and chickens.
    ‘Have you seen my phone? I