I followed her to the door, anxious to get her out of there.
‘I guess I’d better get to the shop anyway,’ she said as we walked across the back porch.
‘You’re not going on the search either?’
‘Didn’t you know? The search has been scaled right back out this way. Apparently there was a sighting of Dylan further south, near Flaggy Creek, the day after he disappeared. They moved most of the searchers down there.’
‘Really?’ I hadn’t expected a sighting. ‘But Flaggy Creek, that’s ages away, isn’t it?’
‘Other side of town …’
‘Oh.’ For some reason the whole conversation was making me feel unsettled.
‘Are you sure you’re alright, Sunny?’ Leanne said as she opened the door to her car.
‘Yes, it’s just that … what about the creek? They haven’t searched it properly yet.’
‘They’ve still got a few SES people out in the rainforest just north of the creek and there are helicopters flying over. But the area’s been searched pretty thoroughly.’ Leanne frowned at me, and I realised from the puzzled look on her face that I was acting a little weird. ‘Anyway, I guess people have to get back to work, get on with their lives, you know?’ she added. ‘I think they’ll find him soon.’
‘Right. I suppose.’
‘Will I see you at the shop on Saturday? If you’re well enough to do a shift?’ She waited for a reply.
‘Oh, right. Yep. That’d be good.’
Leanne climbed into the car and shut the door, leaning out so she could talk to me through the open window. ‘Put that lasagne in the fridge, won’t you?’ She blinked her little blue eyes at me.
‘Yeah. I will.’ I nodded.
She drove off to the crack and roar of a broken muffler and I was left standing there in a mist of dust, the sun pounding on my broken head. My thoughts whirled and churned into a vortex that led me straight back to the waterhole.
The next day I went back to the waterhole. As soon as Kevin left I got up and dressed as coolly as I could in shorts and a singlet. It was so hot that by the time I’d trudged along the logging track behind the farm I was already sweating and feeling sick. It must’ve been thirty-five degrees and the cloudless sky swelled with a hazy humidity. Even the rainforest canopy didn’t cool things down much. When I finally reached the waterhole, I was feeling pretty unsteady on my feet.
I climbed down the track to the water to cool off and wait until the pounding in my head and the nausea passed. Not far from the warning sign I found a flat, shady rock, which seemed as inviting as a queen-sized bed. I lowered myself down, cross-legged and rested my head in my hands, thinking maybe it hadn’t been the greatest of ideas to go out.
‘Sunny. Hi.’
I tilted my head back to look up toward the voice. The image of Matthew Bright coincided with the sharp pain of the sudden movement.
‘Hi.’ My head spun and my mouth began watering. ‘Oh, um … actually …’ I jumped up and staggered to the bushes where my guts clenched and I heaved up my breakfast in several hearty lurches.
Matthew came up behind me. ‘Hey, are you okay?’
‘Hang on,’ I said, wiping my mouth. ‘Give me a second.’ I went down to the water, knelt and scooped icy handfuls to my face. The sudden nausea had passed but I was drained of energy and my legs shook.
I sat back, wiping water from my face.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ he said, coming a tentative step closer.
I looked up at him. ‘No. I’m fine.’
‘What happened to you?’ He was looking at the bandage on my head.
‘Oh, this?’ My fingers went up to the cotton. ‘You should see the other guy.’ He smiled, but I knew he was waiting for an answer. ‘I fell off a rock. Concussion. And in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have walked all the way here.’
‘Maybe not,’ he said, sitting down next to me.
‘Yeah. Sorry about that.’ I indicated the bushes where my breakfast now lay. My face was flowering into what I knew from experience was an unflattering shade of scarlet, not a feminine pinking of the cheeks that exudes a charming modesty; I’m talking full-blown she’s-in-the-midst-of-typhoid-or-some-equally-terrible-infection-from-the-Middle-Ages-and-needs-to-be-placed-in-an-ice-bath-immediately red.
Things not to do to impress a guy on your second ever meeting:
1. Hurl up your breakfast in front of him.
2. Turn an alarming shade of red.
Matt shrugged. ‘It’s okay. What are you doing here anyway?’
‘Oh,’ I pushed my hair away from my face, praying there were no vomit morsels clinging to the strands, ‘I don’t know. I just needed to get out of the house.’
He nodded.
Yeah, he got it. He knew I didn’t really want to tell him why I was there. It seemed unreal and stupid now anyway. He understood the code. A vague answer means, I’m not comfortable telling you. This is something my mother never got. There would always be more questions. I looked across at his bare feet, not quite ready for eye contact.
‘Are you going for a swim?’ I said, looking at his slender toes. They were tanned like he didn’t wear shoes much. As body parts go, they were extremely interesting.
‘No, I just like hanging out,’ he said.
A pause.
‘Do you come here often?’ I cringed at the words as they were coming out of my mouth, but it was too late to stop them. Do you come here often? Really? For this I had to look at his face.
He raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow and a small grin turned the corners of his mouth. ‘I do, actually. It’s peaceful. A good place to draw.’ He reached across to
