The Day Of The Wave (29 page)

*

Back at Shady Palms I park up and try to make my way at a normal speed down the path towards the huts on foot. I don't want anyone seeing me running, least of all Izzy if Colin really is here. My mind's a car crash. I care more than I should. I care more than I ever have. Would I have been this wound up if Kalaya's ex had shown up after we'd slept together for the first time? Or the chick before that? Or the one before that? Do I even care now I know it took Kalaya all of five seconds to move on with
Justin
, of all people?

No. I didn't care about anyone, till Izzy.

There's no one on her deck when I reach the beach. I open my door, throw my waterproof pack on the floor and shut it loudly behind me. Maybe the noise will bring her outside, if she's in her room. I stand by the closed door, listening hard for any sound at all next door, but I can't hear anything. 

Get it together.

I almost laugh at my own absurdity as I pull on a new shirt. I step back outside, walk to Izzy's steps, climb them in one leap, knock on the door.

Silence. 

She must have gone out. Colin probably isn't here at all. Sasi must have misheard. Maybe it was someone else. I press my hand to the glass above my eyes as I peer through the window, but when I block the sun and see into her room, my heart rockets into my throat. A backpack. A huge one, leaning up against her bed on the floor. It's not Izzy's.

I half sit, half drop onto the wooden chair on the deck, stare out over the tranquil ocean, breathing deeply. OK, so he is here. It doesn't mean anything except the fact that he's desperate, and quite possibly deluded, but it's my own reaction that's bothering me right now. 

I told myself I wouldn't get in this deep. I told myself I wouldn't do it to her. I didn't even mean to sleep with her last night... it just... happened. And now, not only do I want to do it again, but I'm getting wound up about another guy who's quite clearly in love with her.

Fuck this. This is not who I want to be. 

I can't stop my legs, though. They're running now, off her porch, back up the path to my bike. In under ten minutes I'm pulling up at the store at the end of the street, close to the school. 

'I'll have these, please,' I say to the old man. He's half asleep amid a pile of boxes. I throw a bag of sugary candies down on the counter, hand him some folded notes. In another three minutes I'm driving a little too fast down the gravel road I was so concerned about bringing Izzy down that day she first got her scooter. So much has happened since then.

The shriek of the kids playing outside hits my ears before I see them. Class is starting in less than an hour but their parents bring them early to play most days. I see Mali first, running out of the school building towards Izzy, followed by three other boys. I see a guy following her out of the building now, onto the grass. Colin. I've never even seen a picture of the guy, but I know it's him. Dread swirls in my stomach like leaden butterflies. 

'Ben, Ben, Ben!' Mali's shrieking my name, running towards me.

Izzy spins around. Her eyes widen when she sees me, then a look of sheer panic crosses her face. She starts hurrying towards me, but I'm accosted by Mali. 'Ben!' she shouts again, springing into my arms immediately, almost making me drop the candy.

'Hey, cutie,' I say.
Act normal 

'Hey,' Izzy says, stopping right in front of me, wringing her hands. She looks so stressed. 'I'm so sorry, Ben, I didn't know he was coming!' She looks behind her and back to me. 

'He just showed up?' I say, putting Mali to her feet and sending her off with the candy. 

'He says he's booked flights home for us, leaving in three days!' 

I'm so stunned, I can't even speak. I look over her shoulder. Who the hell does this guy think he is? Colin is kicking a ball around now, but he looks up when he feels our eyes on us, slopes across the grass towards us.

He's tall, not as tall as me. He looks very English somehow; short brown hair that almost looks glued to his head, like a Lego man's. He's wearing reading glasses. Weirdly he looks a little like I pictured he might look - like he wants to be hipster but hasn't quite made it. Is that a rugby shirt he's wearing?
I'm an asshole.

'Hey mate, you must be Ben?' he says.

I shake his hand. 'That's me. Colin, right?'

'Ah, so she talks about me?' he winks in Izzy's direction. I can almost feel her simmering. 

Izzy crosses her arms across herself. 'Colin, Ben's the one who set me up here, at the school. He's been showing me... everything.' She flashes me a look that speaks volumes. Her cheeks flame and a sudden burst of something I don't even recognize flares through me. Anger? Irritation? Jealousy? 

'You've done a great job here,' Colin says, gesturing round him. He puts an arm around Izzy, tries to kiss the side of her head. She pulls away instantly, turns round and walks quickly towards to the schoolroom, shouting to the kids. 

'Time for class! Let's go everyone, who remembers their colors?'

The class scatters from the play area, start streaming inside. 'They love her,' Colin beams. He's watching her in total admiration and I can't help picturing him with Izzy. Really with her. Like I was last night. The image throws me. I go to follow her inside but he grabs my arm, stands in front of me now, shoves his hands in his khaki pants pockets.

'Ben,' he says over his glasses. 'I can't thank you enough for what you've done for Izzy, really. She needed to come here, she needed to see all this. You have no idea how different she is now.'

'Really?' I say, ramming my own hands in my pockets so he can't see my fists balling. I chew on my cheek. Does he know anything about us? Did she tell him we've hooked up? Did she even tell him I exist? 

He laughs, rocks on his heels in his too-white sneakers. 'Bloody hell, she's a different person. She wouldn't even have gone to Brighton before this!'

I nod, trying to appear indifferent. Even his British accent is pissing me off. I don't know what Brighton is. He looks like a yuppie more than a wannabe hipster, actually. I bet he has a huge house all to himself and an expensive car. I bet he spends a fortune when he takes her out. 

I'm an asshole, he's just in love with her. 

Colin looks behind him now to make sure she's definitely inside. 'We said we'd take a break while we figured stuff out,' he tells me, 'but when I heard her laughing and joking on Skype, and talking about riding scooters and teaching kids... wow. I mean, that's a completely different Isla. I had to see her here for myself. There's room for me, right?'

So he hasn't moved into Izzy's room? 'We can ask at the resort, or -' 

I pause as something else springs into my head. 'We just had someone move out of the shack at the dive shop. You can stay there for a few days, if it helps.' I don't want him close to her if I can help it, not at night.

He smiles, slaps my shoulder now in a way that suggests we might be best buddies. 'Thanks Ben, that would be brill.'

Brill? Who says brill? 

'Shall we go in, watch our star teacher in action?' I say, forcing myself to act normal as the rain starts to spit, as usual. It's like clockwork these days. 'I'll show you the memorial wall, too.'  

When we get inside and I realize both of us are watching Izzy with as much infatuation as the kids it hits me that this situation is most definitely not normal. Especially not for me. I watch the kids shouting
purple, blue, pink, orange
- all of Izzy's colors - and the way she laughs and stays patient as she spells and corrects and encourages them one by one, even as her eyes flicker nervously to us.

I can't help my sideways glances at Colin; at his hair, his handsome English face with what Charlie would've called a strong nose. I've never seen them together in photos but I can almost picture them now, cozied up and smiling. I bet they look good together. I bet he really thinks he knows her. He says he sees how different she is now, but seriously, does Colin see Izzy's colors as brightly as I do? Her real ones? 

Fuck this. 

'I'm leaving, I'll go set up your room,' I whisper to Colin. I don't give him time to respond as I head back outside, into the drizzling rain.

'This must be so weird for you,' he says, standing right behind me. He puts a hand to my shoulder, studies the photo with me. I can't even speak. I remember when it was taken. 

My mom was so happy that day. She'd taken me shopping and we both bought green summer dresses for the holiday, from Zara. Dad was wearing a green shirt when we got home, so he handed me the camera and instructed me to take what he called their
sea creature photo.
I refused to be in it. I called them cheese-balls, so they're laughing in the shot, at me. I'm not surprised Maria chose this one.

'It's very weird,' I reply finally, turning to Colin. I don't say it, but it's even weirder to be doing this with him instead of Ben. 

I sort of envisioned Ben would be with me when I finally plucked up the courage to visit the memorial wall, but I've hardly seen him for the past two days. He says he has a lot of admin to finish now that Kalaya's gone and they're about to close the season at Dream Dive. He also had to spend a night in the village at Lawan's after it rained too hard for him to get home. I know he's making excuses because of Colin. 

'Don't treat me differently now he's here,' I said to him last night, after I finally got hold of him on Skype of all things. 'He'll be gone in two days and I'm not going with him. I've told him we're over, Ben.'

'Nobody's treating anybody differently. You need to do your thing with him without me, hot cross bun, whatever that is,' he replied, before the signal died on us. He sounded breezy about it, indifferent almost, but it made me feel sick. I just want Colin to go. 

I look at him now, walking up and down the walkway, looking at the wave-shaped wall and the photos of people's loved ones smiling out alongside my parents. He's been trying so hard. I've almost given up telling him we're not together; he just looks at me like a lost puppy dog every time. I've decided to be civil while he has his holiday, but I can't help comparing him to Ben every time he opens his mouth. They're so different in every possible way. They both make me feel different.

I feel like I've been here much longer than I have. It's like those eight amazing days I spent before the tsunami, magnified one hundredfold. It's completely changed my life. Seeing Colin somehow just hammers that home and even he seems like a different person.

'This little kid looks so cute,' he says now, squinting in the sun. I walk over to him in his pressed black shorts and yet another rugby shirt and when I look at the photo he's pointing at, I feel even more sick. It's Toby. I recognize him instantly; the curly hair that was so much like Ben's, the laughing eyes and scarlet cheeks. He's holding up a shell at the camera. 

'He looks just like I remember.' My arms curl around myself before Colin's do and I don't even have the strength to fend him off again. 

'You knew him?' he asks, resting his head on top of mine for a second.

'Ben's little brother,' I say, just as my eyes fall on the next photo along. Charlie. He's grinning just as hard. His shaved head is glinting in the sun. His scuba mask is hanging round his neck and I can see the dive shop, how it used to be, behind him. 

This is everything that still haunts Ben. This is the reason he cries; the reason he comes back here to Khao Lak, again and again and again. They never found either of them, so a part of him can never let go. He's seen the world, but all he really sees is Toby, every time he closes his eyes. He can't stop thinking he might come back. He built the dive shop up the same so his brother will recognize it if he does.

My eyes cloud over for him. He loves that slither of hope, I think, but he hates it too. It must be so hard. At least I had closure when my mom and dad were identified. 

'Take as long as you need,' Colin says now. The golf ball in my throat expands an inch. Colin could never give me enough time; not for myself, not to forgive him, not for anything.

I've already decided I'm quitting my job. I'm going to stay and teach at the school till the rains stop and someone else can take over. I love it, it's the best thing I've ever done. And I want Ben, every day. I want his words in my ears, not Colin's. I want his arms, his heart for as long as he'll have mine. I've been looking for a home since my parents were killed but home was never a place, not for me, not after losing them. I didn't know that, I didn't see it. 

The conversation keeps going round in my head - the one I had with Ben at the waterfall:
When we set out looking for a loved one who's never going to be found, maybe we wind up finding something else, in ourselves.

Home is a feeling, an acceptance perhaps, that you can't control everything and neither do you have to. I've never had that, but I do now. The way I feel for Ben is out of control. It's the craziest thing I've had to face since that tsunami, but I don't want it any other way. 

It's twilight by the time we're back and I make my way along the beach to Pete's. Ben was nice enough to let Colin stay in Kalaya's old room so Colin's agreed to meet me there. He wants to talk, and I have a few things to say myself. He seriously thinks I'm getting that flight with him tomorrow. It's like he's deaf and blind to how we're worlds apart; how we probably always were. 

My heart flies up to my mouth when I realize he's not sitting alone. Ben's with him. So are the American couple he was diving with, and Sasi and Sonthi. There are buckets on the table already. They must have asked Colin to join them. Crap.

'Hey,' Ben says as I approach the plastic covered tables on the sand. Colin hurries to pull a chair out. 'All good?'

'Fine thanks,' I say warily as his blue eyes pierce mine. I hope I don't sound as anxious as I feel. Ben's biceps bulge almost in 3D in the candlelight as he slides the menu over to me. He's wearing a sleeveless black shirt and his khaki pants, looser than Colin's. My heart pangs. So different. Or am I just different?