Page 55 of Bay of Plenty

“Oh my God.” She threw up her arms. “Janey was the one who spread around that he was gay and gave him that name, and he knew it. She’d be his friend in public, and he was too scared to confront her.”

I wanted to cling to my disbelief, because it protected my glittering memories of Janey, but something in me hinged open with a creak, and a sliver of doubt edged in.

“I’d thought that Janey had rescued that girl from a rope course in PE,” I said.

“Janey chased her up there in the first place.”

My voice scraped up my throat. “So you agree with Sarge?” I swiped back my hair. “That she was unhappy, and that’s why she took her own life?”

“I mean…” She scrunched up her face. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

I slumped into my chair, dizzied by the swift turn in the conversation. I might have gotten some things wrong aboutmy childhood, perceptions of people, but this didn’t mean I had to question every memory that was lodged in my thirty-four-year-old mind. I knew what I’d seen.

I’d thought Janey was happy when she’d waited for me after school and asked me to take the note to Snow. I thought she was happy later that night too. She’d bounced along our shared driveway, animated when she met someone on the beach. But after reading her diary, how could she have been happy? My whole career had been based on my ability to read between the lines. To see what others didn’t.If what CeeCee was saying was true, I didn’t know my friend at all. I felt so… unsettled.

I checked the clock in the kitchen. Ten minutes left.

“Time to head out,” she said. “I’ll drop you home.”

Oh no. It would have seemed churlish to point out it wasn’t fifteen minutes.

She stood up and tapped into her phone. While she was occupied, I peered into the two bedrooms, desperate to find something that stood out.

Yes.There it was.

*

One room was a puzzle.

Not the main bedroom, which had three different kinds of floral wallpaper and a beautiful old walnut dressing table laden with roses.

It was the spare bedroom, plain and undecorated.

A surf magazine lay on an unmade single bed. I recognized a couple of the shirts that were laid out. Snow’s. Maybe the ones in the closet were someone else’s? But Snow was a rich man now—why would he need a housemate? If there was a housemate, it was a secret one.

On the drive home, I only had a few minutes to make a connection with her.

We passed the campground. “I wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened,” I said. “About your dad.”

She rubbed at her exposed forearm. “My father was a horrible drunk and then a horrible addict. Sarge tried to help him, but he was too far gone.”

“Sarge?” I creased my forehead. “Why would Sarge try to help your father?”

She shrugged. “They were big rugby mates together back in the day, won loads of tourneys. My dad was small, but he was fast.” She glanced out to sea, her mouth twisted. “Apparently. I never saw him move faster than a slug. He was locked up by our second year of high school. Even when he was out, he never came back to this town, thank God.”

“You had to cope with so much at such a young age, CeeCee. I’m sorry. I know we weren’t friends, but I wish we were.”

“Me too.” Her eyes drifted back to me. “You had your own shit to deal with. To think—we could have helped each other, if only we’d known. Bit of a tragedy all around.”

She looked tortured, and it made me feel ghastly for how I’d initially judged her. She’d suffered loss, much more so than I had.

She smiled, but her eyes glistened wet in the early-evening sun. “It makes me sad thinking about it.” She sniffed. “Snow, too, poor guy. His father was a ratbag, beat him senseless, terrible hidings.”

Mum, Dad, and Rosemary had said the same about Snow’s father. Maybe that was why CeeCee had latched on to Snow—he’d also had a crappy home life. Otherwise, it washard to know what she was getting out of the relationship. She seemed frightened of him.

Mum was out on the deck with Fred and waved as we pulled up.

“God.” I breathed out. “And your mother.”

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