"Okay then..." I folded my arms. "I despise you..." Affectionately.

David smiled to himself. "I can live with that-for now."

We walked in silence for a bit then; me, trying to control my breath so I didn't sound puffed out, beside him, who walked so straight and tall I wondered if he really felt the ground beneath his feet at all.

"But it's true, you know," I said after a while.

"What?"

"Your inability to elaborate. I've asked you heaps of questions about yourself and, somehow, you've managed not to tell me anything. And I didn't even realise how little I actually knew until Emily started telling me all about Spencer, you know, what brands he likes, what colour his bike is. And she hadn't actually even spoken to him yet." I shook my head. "I don't even know if you like cats or dogs."

He laughed to himself, his boots crunching dry leaves beneath his steps. "Cats, if I'm sitting at home on a cold night; dogs, if I'm going for a run."

"You run?"

He nodded. "I like to keep fit."

I let that simmer for a while, thinking about everything.

After a minute of silent companionship, David stretched out his arm and pointed ahead of us. "See that slight thinning of the trees up ahead?"

I nodded.

"That's where we're headed."

"What's up there?"

"It's a surprise."

Everything with you is.

We walked toward a newly decaying cedar tree, laying sidelong, slanted a little down the slope of the trail, making a wooden partition between us and the sudden openness of whatever was beyond. As we came nearer to the opening, the muddy clay smell disappeared under a damp, kind of mossy scent, spiked with the lemony fragrance of tree sap.

David stepped up quickly and took my hand, guiding me around the tree. "Welcome to the lake."

"What the..."

The leaves stole my gaze upward before casting it out to the unspoiled, reflective body of water in front of me. A grand pathway of clover blanketed the trail toward the edge of the lake, and tiny hovering bugs danced above the star-shaped foliage left abandoned by maple trees. Though the sky dominated the space, it still felt cool and shadowed and kind of...private. A place not so very different from the mountain-surrounded picnic spots my dad used to take me to, but with an element of magic to it, like, somehow, I could believe we were the only two souls left in the world.

"David, this is beautiful." I searched the vacant place beside me where David no longer stood, finding him leaning on a bulky, waist-height rock, right by the water's edge. "How did you find this place?"

"It's not something you'd find on a hike." He unhitched himself from the black rock and walked behind it, then squatted down. "No one comes out to this trail anymore."

"Anymore?"

He stood up, smiling, and presented a pillow-sized black bag. "This land is owned by my family. We closed the hiking trails to outsiders about a hundred years ago."

"You say that like you were a part of the decision."

"Well-" he reached into the plastic bag and pulled out a picnic rug, "-it's up to each generation to decide. I chose to keep the land private."

"Why?"

"I like knowing I can come here to think. That when I do, I'll be completely alone."

"Alone is right." I looked around again. A few metres out, in the middle of the lake, a family of trees gathered on a small island, surrounded by a moat of algae. And the only other signs of life here, aside from David and I, were a couple of ugly brown ducks. "It's very...private here."

"It originated as hunting land." He tucked his hands into his pockets, taking a long breath, squinting as he observed the landscape.

"What did you hunt?"

"Hunt?"

"Yeah. You said it was hunting land."

His jaw rocked. "I did, didn't I?"

I nodded.

"It was..." He ran a hand through his hair. "Foxes."

"Foxes?"

"Yeah."

"And...what about now? Do you still hunt here?"

"Only if the foxes stray onto the land-disregarding the warnings around the border."

"What!" I laughed. "Last I checked, foxes couldn't read."

"Well, then they die," he stated, then plonked down on the blue-and-red chequered blanket, with his back against the rock. "Don't be shy." He patted the spot next to him. "I won't bite."

I folded my arms, remembering suddenly why he brought me out here.

"Come on, Ara. You know you wanna talk to me." The arrogant smile on his lips filtered through his voice. "You also know I'm not going to let you go until you do-and no kitten-force Kung-fu is going to help you. I'm not sure if you've noticed, ma petite, but I'm a lot bigger than you."

"What does ma petite mean?" I twisted at the shoulders to face him.

He smiled to himself, looking down at his outstretched legs. "Roughly? Little girl."

I huffed. "I am not a little girl!"

"Good. Then stop acting like one. Sit down."

I wanted to sit there, so badly, but letting him in to my world meant opening it, and I wasn't sure I even could anymore.

David shrugged, then rested his hands behind his head-keeping his smiling eyes on me. "I've got all day."

Slowly, with his conceited stare melting my icy exterior, my frown dropped, my arms following, until, with a low sigh, I wandered over and sat down about a metre across from him. And he waited, saying nothing. I was happy to let time just pass around us-happy to be this nice, sweet girl he thought I was, for just a little longer. But I knew it would come to an end. It had to eventually. He had to know the truth about me-about what I'd done. "I'm sorry, David."

"Why would you need to be sorry?"

"I think I might've given you the wrong impression about myself." I lowered my gaze. I didn't want to see his face as I said this-the way any compassion would dissolve from his eyes, and that look, the smile that seemed to be reserved only for me, would vanish into disrespect. "Actually, I deliberately gave you the wrong impression."

"So, you're not a schoolgirl with a broken heart?"

"Is that all you see in me?"

He shook his head when I looked at him. "You know what I see in you."

I nodded. "And that's exactly what I wanted you to see-everyone to see. But I'm not nice. I'm not sweet and I'm not this golden child that organises benefits and listens to people talk about their day. I-" I laughed a little. "Half the time I really don't care what Emily thinks about the latest books she's reading and, most of the time, I cut her off-talk about things I want to talk about."

David laughed. "And your honesty is one of the other things I like about you."

I shook my head. "But it's not honesty. It's horrible. I mean, it's not like I don't care about people, but, I...I never really place them first."

He exhaled. "And you think that makes you a bad person?"

I shrugged. "Maybe just selfish."

"Okay, so maybe you're selfish. I still like you."

I couldn't help but smile at that, but dropped it quickly. "What if...what if my selfishness went so deep it cost someone their life?"

He rose to his knees and shuffled closer. "Then you have to take a risk, right now-you have to put faith in our friendship, and just know that when you tell me what you're going to tell me, I'm here-for you. Not for anyone else. I don't care about Emily or her trivial conversations either, Ara. Not right now." He grabbed my hand. "Right now, I'm here with you, my little friend, and you're going to tell me what's on your mind."

I stole my hand back and pressed both palms to my now cool cheeks, swallowing the tight lump in the back of my throat.

"Ara," he said softly, cupping his hand over mine, his fingertips resting just beside my ear. "I can see you holding back tears."

"I know. But if I let them go, I'm not sure I'll stop."

He clicked his tongue. "Can I tell you something? A little story-a legend among my people."

I nodded, resting my hands in my lap.

"They say that the tears one cries for loss are the Tears of the Broken. We call them the Devil's Liquid because, for each one you shed alone, you sacrifice a piece of your soul."

I sniffled, looking up at him.

"And they also say that for each tear shared, you give a piece of yourself for someone else to safeguard until you're ready to see the sun rise again."

"And you..." Hot tears doubled my vision; I blinked them out. "You want to be that someone?"

He stared at me, his round eyes unmoving. "Ara, I am that someone."

Only a short sniffle passed before it all fell to pieces. "She shouldn't have been there, David." I covered my face, inaudible gusts of explanation dribbling through my lips. "She should've been in her bed, sleeping."

"Your mom?"

I nodded into my hands. "It was my fault."

"Why?"

"It was late." I swallowed. "I called her to come get me. I could've walked home, but-" I wedged my thumbnail between my teeth. "It was so stupid. I'm seventeen. I'm not a child. But I was angry and all I wanted was my mom. I just wanted to go home."

"So you asked her to come get you?"

"Made her."

"And that one act makes this your fault?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because, I-" I looked over at the lake, at the ducks splashing about, without a care in the world. I wanted to be them; brown and ugly, but free.

"Keep talking," David ordered softly.

"I don't know what to tell you," I explained, using my hands as if to animate my words. "The memory has, like, faded or something. It all looks like it was filmed on some camera with this blue filter. I can't see it all as clearly as I did before. I just...it's like it happened to someone else."

He sat down, his feet flat to the floor on either side of my legs, our faces almost touching. "But it didn't. It happened to you, and I need you to talk to me about it, Ara."

I nodded. "It feels silly-like, no matter how I paint the scene, you just won't understand-you won't get it."

"Then don't try to make me understand. Just tell me how you feel."

"I feel..." I closed my eyes for a second. "Alone. Lost. So, so empty and so full of this incredibly strong...regret."

"Regret for calling her or for what you've suffered?"

"For Harry." My voice completely broke.

"Who's Harry?"

"My baby brother. He...I got in the car-I shut the door and the first thing I did was look at Harry. He was pale. He'd been sick for a week or so, and he just smiled at me. Two teeth, all gums. So bright. So happy."

"It made you feel lighter-to see him?"

I nodded. "Yeah. That's...exactly."

"And now? How do you feel to look back on that memory?"

I closed my hands around my face. "Dark. Hollow. I can't see his face anymore. It's like...it's just so dark. And a part of me still feels scared-like I'm gonna get in trouble from my mom when I get home, you know-for all the bad decisions I made that night. But, for that one moment, when I got in the car and she smiled at me like Harry did, I felt like I'd made one right choice. Just one. And then..." I couldn't say it. I just couldn't bring myself to say the words out loud. It wasn't until right then that I realised I'd never had to. My dad broke the news to everyone, while I stood, numb and silent.

"Keep talking," David said, with the insistent tone of an adult.