Everything Left Unsaid Read Online Free Page A

heights every year. Even the huge old fig tree in their backyard. The familiarity is normally comforting – but not today.
    I stand in Tai’s doorway, my throat dry, not knowing if things will still be weird between us. It’s like I can’t remember what Just Friends felt like. He’s sitting on the bed and I don’t know whether to sit next to him or not, worried I’ll sit too close or not close enough and he’ll take it as some kind of sign either way. In the end I sit on the floor, against his bed, glad he can’t see my face.
    ‘Comfortable down there?’
    ‘I guess.’ Except I can’t look at you. And I can’t quite remember how to talk to you without it being strange .
    Suddenly, his fingers are brushing my hair back, tucking it behind my ear, and he’s there beside me, his eyes staring right into mine. ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Um . . . everything?’ Like, I kissed you and you seem to want to pretend it never happened?
    ‘Hey, do you want to have a handstand competition on the driveway?’ Hendrix and River are grinning at us from the doorway, and I kind of don’t really want to but it’s got to be better than this level of awkward, so I say, ‘Sure.’
    We’re still out there when Mia calls us for dinner.
    When we’re all sitting at the table, Mia asks me, ‘So, Juliet, how much did your mum hate that piercing?’ She waves her fork in the direction of my nose, just in case I wasn’t sure which one she was talking about.
    ‘Um, on a scale of one to ten, about a thousand.’
    ‘It looks kind of sore,’ Mia says gently. ‘Do you think it might be infected?’
    That would explain why it still hurts. I touch the nose stud hesitantly. ‘I don’t know. I think it’s just healing.’
    After dinner Mia tells the boys they’re on washing-up duty, leaving Tai’s dad Stanley to supervise, then makes me sit on the edge of the bath while she attacks my nose stud with cotton balls and salty water.
    ‘This is what I always used,’ she tells me, ‘and I never had an infection.’
    ‘On your . . . piercings?’ No. Way.
    Mia grins at my look of disbelief.
    ‘I wasn’t always this ancient, Juliet. So you and Tai . . .’ she says, doing a super job of pretending to concentrate on my nose stud. ‘Is everything okay? You don’t seem like yourselves tonight.’ There’s silence for a second and then she adds, a little too quickly, ‘I’m not trying to pry or anything.’ She pushes a stray curl out of her eyes and peers at me.
    I’m trying to work out what to say when Tai appears in the doorway. ‘You ready?’
    The front door closes behind us with a thud. We walk faster than usual tonight.
    When we’re sitting on the sand, I look at Tai, who’s pretending to watch the waves, and decide I can’t stand this anymore. ‘I need you as my friend, Tai. I don’t care if you want to pretend the party never happened, but we need to be friends still, okay?’
    Tai looks at me. ‘Juliet, did you mean what you said on Friday night? Or was it just one of those things that happens after too many shots?’
    The embarrassment has reached new heights now, and I’m silently cursing Gen for ever suggesting that I tell him, but I answer anyway. ‘I meant it, Tai.’
    The faintest smile flickers across his face, but he doesn’t say anything.
    There’s a long silence as we just stare at each other. Then curiosity gets the better of me and I ask, ‘When you kissed me . . . was that just because I was there and we were all liquored up? Or did you mean for it to happen?’
    He keeps his eyes on mine. ‘I meant it.’

 
     
     
Tai
    Juliet is quiet for a little bit, staring out at the waves.
    Eventually I say, ‘You okay?’
    ‘Yeah. I’m freezing though.’ To prove her point, she slides her hands under my shirt, resting her palms just under my ribs, holding them there like two ice packs.
    ‘Right, that’s it.’ I grab her wrists and pull her icicle fingers out from under my shirt and pin her