The Secrets in Silence by Nicole Trope

Author:Nicole Trope
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, book
ISBN: 9781743434963
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2014-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

In the passage Max stood with his hand on Tara’s door and tried to banish images of Sasha from his mind. Tara couldn’t be like her—she just couldn’t be.

Tara had his dark eyes but everything else came from Sasha. Sometimes he caught sight of his daughter’s profile and felt his heart lurch with recognition.

Did this silence come from Sasha too? He wanted to burst back into her room and shake her by the shoulders until she opened her mouth and told him what had happened and where the bloody baby was. Normal people didn’t have a baby and forget about it. Normal people remembered giving birth.

He wanted to force her to speak, to answer, to just be an average sullen teenager, but there was nothing he could do. Just like there had been nothing he could do for Sasha.

Sasha had spun into his life one hot night on the beach.

Literally spun.

Max had gone out with friends on New Year’s Eve and after many parties and more drinks than he could remember he found himself on a beach as the sun rose. A large fire was just burning down and music blared out into the dawn. People were huddled in groups or fucking under towels or dancing. Max had stood watching the embers, waiting for his head to stop feeling like it was going to fall off, when someone careened into him from behind. He turned and caught the girl just before she fell into the fire.

‘I was spinning,’ she said and Max felt the world stop. She locked eyes with him and Max noticed how green they were even in the dim light of dawn and then she stood up on her toes and gently bit his lip. Then she laughed and Max laughed and then they were drunk on something else altogether.

Her blonde hair hung all the way to her waist. He held on to her even though she had stopped moving and he knew in the way that people sometimes know that he would never want to let go of her.

She was studying art and he was studying accounting and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Every day with Sasha was an adventure. She liked to sleep naked under the stars and climb on a plane when the flights were cheap. She swam with the old guys in the sea in the freezing cold of winter and she took dance classes at the seniors centre. She dressed in flowing skirts and tight little tops that made men stop and stare. They ate and drank and fucked their way through their final year of uni and Max had to force himself to go home for a few weeks so he could study and get through his exams.

He proposed when he got his first job offer. His mother wasn’t the only person to sound a note of concern. ‘She seems restless, Max—like she’s looking for something more. She’s always running.’

‘She’ll settle down, Mum. She’ll be fine once she gets a job and we’re married.

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