The Lost Summers of Driftwood by Vanessa McCausland

Author:Vanessa McCausland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The rain fell in sheets across the river and Phoebe picked over a bowl of dry cereal. It stuck to the roof of her mouth and she could barely swallow.

Phoebe had never thought herself capable of being the other woman. It was something that women with more cleavage and less empathy did. But this was Jez. They had done nothing but hold hands as the sun slid towards the water, but a line had been crossed, she knew that. It wasn’t a physical line as much as an emotional one. Phoebe didn’t know if she believed in soulmates, but sitting there overlooking the river, she felt as though she had never been closer to someone. And she realised that maybe this was what Nathaniel had been talking about when he told her something was missing. Maybe it was simply being vulnerable to someone and feeling seen and held and safe. It was glimpsing someone’s hurts and pains and still loving what you saw. She didn’t know why she couldn’t do this with Nathaniel. She just couldn’t.

She thought back to the beginning with Nathaniel. Had there been an opening up about their feelings? An emotional connection? No, not like she had with Jez. If she was completely honest, Nathaniel had always had a slightly distracted quality, as though there was something going on somewhere else that he was missing out on. She’d never taken it personally, but perhaps she should have. The irony was that it had initially been him who had pursued her, even though her heart hadn’t at first been in it. If only she’d listened to her own feelings—perhaps they’d been telling her that she needed something more. Their relationship had been a sphere that turned on the axis of dinner dates with friends and who would do the vacuuming on the weekend. Of course, she’d never lived with Jez and shared those practicalities, but somehow she knew the deeper thread of their communication would make things different. It was strange now to think that the more superficial relationship she’d had with Nate had been enough. It was strange how little you could know yourself and hide your own feelings.

And Jez. He wasn’t one to hide from anything. He would never have gone looking for a bit on the side, Phoebe knew that. But unhappiness and circumstance had woven a particular kind of net, steeped in the honeyed nostalgia of their past. They had known each other in that difficult time of late childhood, so their becoming, their movement into the world, had been shared. It was as though something formative had fossilised in their brains and their bodies.

Phoebe had wanted to still time on that veranda yesterday, his hand in hers. The first sounds of others in the house and they had parted, Jez to shower and Phoebe to help Wendy and the Texan with dinner, guilty and elated and pouring too much gin into the cocktails. She avoided eye contact with Jez for the rest

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.