It’s almost intoxicating, how easy on the eye the Welsh late August beaches are. Gray, rocky, harsh but softened by the clouded light. The textures do the work. Even when I had never been here before, I have the feeling I’ve never been elsewhere. The landscape is infinite, endless and universal. Matthew Berry’s hands on the sand seem to know that. 

Lord, his whole body knows this is the only place that has ever existed. His gaze upon the sand, long eyelashes and mottled quartz blue eyes, tells me there’s more to him here but I don’t ask why.

He may as well have gotten better at this. Who knows. Maybe he’s just pretending he can do this: lying, cheating, sort of letting it happen.

We’re all just pretenders, letting people believe whatever they want.

These jeans are getting on my nerves, so I adjust the bottom of the legs by folding them. Kneeling next to him, my ankles exposed to the weather, barefeet, I can almost taste the sea in the picture I’m showing him right after I take it.

“Oh.”

Charlie’s idea of a flashing memory is perfect.

“I’ll edit them just a little bit,” I say. “Before I send them to Charlie, anyway. But, this way, you can see your tattoo, see?”

He smiles. I assumed he’d like that, but there’s some sad touch in the way his lips curl up. It’s a toned down smirk but, when he looks up at me, he seems to have found a way to make it look real. 

I’m tempted to ask, but I remind myself that I am not Billie Grace: I’m not allowed to do whatever the hell I feel like doing. 

Besides, I like having boundaries. I’ve crossed too many of them in the last few days and Matt doesn’t strike as the type of person who would enjoy Billie’s methods. Again, I can’t help but wonder what he thinks of the kiss, of having her at home, with his real family and his real lost past. It feels as if he is slowly diving into it all. Where he once looked anxious and scared, he looks gently calm now.

“You’re a great photographer,” he smiles.

“Oh, I’m not.” I help him up. “But I like taking pictures, yeah.”

“Did you study photography?” His curiosity strikes me as a way to feel comfortable, so I give him everything he needs.

“Not really.” I should’ve, right? I probably should’ve done that, and I’d have a small studio, and I’d take pictures all of the time, and people would stop thinking I’m a model. They’d start seeing me as less of a shallow thing. “What about you? Are you trying university again?”

“Oh, no.” He shakes his head like the idea terrifies him. “Should I?”

“Billie got a Classic Studies degree last year.” I smile as I put down the camera. “There are ways for you to study, if you want to. You don’t really have to go to class.”

“Really?”

I nod, surprised that no one has told him before. Once again, it comes to show that university is not that important when you’re already making money, right?

A few pictures after that, I think I have enough content to make it look like Billie took some pictures of him. There’s a few he could’ve taken himself. To get those, I’ve had to lean on his back a little. He’s been really nice about it, so I’m sort of calm, which is new.

I always tense up at the thought of boys around my body.

When it’s Billie’s turn, I let Charlie write her part of the story. I know she’s good with words. I know Billie works that way, too. The petite woman tells her something she wants to see, and Billie knows how to echo that same sentence back in an image. And they do that for a while, as if it was some sort of secret language I can’t understand. 

But it’s working, because the pictures are great.

Billie Grace is charming, and even when she’s in the center of everything, she never looks shallow. Not to me. Not to Charlie. And she never thinks people are, either. She lets herself be marvelled by everything, the way a child would. After all, she’s the artist. She is the voice. She is the author of this, even when we want to believe we had some part in it. 

In the end, everything is her.

She kisses Matt’s cheek because she wants to, gracefully turns around to look at the camera when asked, even when spinning on her toes and lets me think I caught her slipping. And then she holds onto Charlie’s shoulders to check that she’s done her best for the pose in the picture, asks her what she sees, even when I am the one holding the camera; and she does everything I would never think of doing.

There’s a green goblin in the pit of my stomach, a jealousy I can’t and won’t deal with.

“You look just as beautiful as always,” I add, as she examines the picture.

“It’s not the beauty we’re looking for,” she smiles. “But it does help, doesn’t it? This new haircut looks great on me.”

I raise my brow and scoff, trying to comb my loose baby hairs, getting my bangs to their place. I look like a mess, don’t I?

Then, why is Charlie looking at me like that?

“I’d say this is a wrap,” she adds.

Matt jumps on his feet, happy to know he can get dressed now, because we won’t need him to wear a swimsuit any longer. The boy is glowing as he claps with his jacket sleeves like a penguin would. 

I let out a big laugh, shaking my head.

Charlie is still looking at me when Billie tangles her arm around mine and asks for her clothes, joking lusciously as she whispers it in my ears.

I look at my boss, overwhelmed and confused, and she laughs as she carries me away, back to the car.

The big blanket is holding us together. It’s soft to touch but thick enough to prevent the sand floor from conquering the meal. There’s bread, expensive cheese, jam and some ham, too. Billie’s basket is big enough for the four of us. A bottle of wine pops. The girl opens it and offers Matt some, promising him it’s French and therefore, it can’t be wasted. 

She’s now dressed with a baggy jumper and mom jeans, and she’s wearing her glasses. She was tired of wearing her contacts, which I understand.

“Here you are,” the boy says, offering me my glass.

“Thank you.”

Matt is wearing a hoodie and he’s biting the sweater’s cords like any other anxious child has before him. When he hands me the glass, his fingers are trying real hard not to touch mine, which feels tender.

“And here is yours,” Billie says, as she offers Charlie a glass, even when she has stated she won’t drink any of it.

“I’m working,” she says for the second, maybe the third time already.

Billie raises both eyebrows and doesn’t move.

“She won’t let you live unless you drink some of that,” I say right after a sip.

“Yeah, listen to her.” The blonde pop star puts the glass in Charlie’s hands and then hides the bottle in the basket before raising her own glass for a toast. “Here’s to us all. Complete strangers, new found friends.” Her hand falls on her chest, as if she wanted to be the one to joke about her dramatic tendencies before anyone else does. “You’ve been the best company for this trip.”

The glasses touch, and a choir of cheers fills the scene. Security is making sure no one can find us. But it’s not like there was anyone here to begin with. I can tell the girls who live in town will go batshit crazy when they discover this was the shooting location.

When I put down the glass, I catch Billie looking away to the sea. The image strikes me then as the real reason why she wanted this trip to happen. In waves, her heartbreak comes and goes. This was supposed to be her honeymoon. And it’s the complete opposite, isn’t it? 

She’s burying them on this shore.

I bite my lower lip, trying not to pity her. Now that I know a little bit more about her and Anna’s story, I know for a fact that she got herself in this mess.

“I’m glad you guys came to Wales in the end,” Matt says, with a wide smile. “London is… yuck.”

“Yuck? Is that the best you could do, man?” Charlie teases him. “This is why I write your captions.”

And I’m laughing.

“London was fine,” I complain. “But I get the feeling. This place is kind of… magical.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

He seems to really like this beach. I’m sure he came here often, and that he feels at home. After all, no one can take that from him. His tenderness and comfortable pose find me asking myself if there is any place in this world I could feel like that. 

If there’s anywhere I’d dare to call home like that.

“You guys did a great job,” Billie says. “I will speak wonders of you, Charlie.”

“Well, thank you. You better.”

I open my eyes wide, surprised to see her talk about business so directly. We hadn’t spoken a word about that before today. This is the third time she reminds us we were here for work and work only, while toasting to us being her best company. Billie’s contradictions are driving me insane.

Or rather, I’m just too tired to follow her mysterious train of thought.

“Sadly, I can’t say I will be able to do the same with you, Matt.” Billie laughs, cleaning her hands in the air. “You know, because you’re going to break my heart and all.”

The boy seems to feel included in the joke.

“We’ll always have New York, my dear.”

“Isn’t it Paris?,” I ask, confused.

I guess all’s well that ends well. But, is it ending?

“We’re not calling our song New York,” my girl complains. “You need to get better with titles. There are like 37 songs with New York in the title. Besides, didn’t you just write Liberty? Why are you so obsessed with me?”

“But it’s the perfect title!”

I look over at Charlie, surprised by their sudden friendship. I’m smiling, about to burst into laughter again. She looks just as surprised. For a second, it feels as if we’re still in Hyde Park. Even when it wasn’t Hyde Park at all. It feels like we can still reach out to each other.

The moment is endless, playing in the back of my mind. It’s a memory, much like the thing we’ve manufactured today. 

Am I making this up? Is it just me?

And then it strikes me, the same moment the wine reaches my bloodstream. Dizzy and confused, I know this is goodbye.

The room is quiet as we get in bed. Even when I’m too tired to speak a word, Charlie grants me as much. She is sweet enough not to try to talk to me much. I drink water as if it could help with my headache. As if it was only some sort of casual migraine I suffer from time to time and not the result of this whole trip driving me completely insane.

I’m running my fingers through my hair, playing it all back nonstop. Billie’s jet, the room, the conferences, the smiles, the bonding moments, the day in London, the almost at the bottom of the stairs, the lingering questions I’m avoiding, Billie and Anna crashing a car, sleepless nights, my heart pounding and survival mode.

I hadn’t felt this much in years, which is both exciting and terrifying.

“You okay?” Charlie’s hair is wet as she comes out of the shower, dressed in yet another stupid pijama combination.

“Just tired. You?”

“Well, if I’m honest, still kind of tipsy. But it’ll go away.”

I nod. The idea of scolding her like she scolded me for drinking with Billie crosses my mind. But I don’t want the banter right now. I want quiet, and the clarity that comes with real silence. 

“We should sleep,” I say.

“Of course.”

And I hope she’s not uncomfortable with that.

I hadn’t considered this. Goodbye. Sleeping in the same room. In fact, I considered nothing while I leaned in for a kiss. I just wanted to. I felt something, and I wanted it to stop driving me insane. And as disgusted and scared I might be feeling about that, it hasn’t changed.

Maybe I did it because I knew we would be saying goodbye anyway. But we don’t really have to say it. In fact, what would happen if we didn’t? What if we grabbed this stupid almost and planted it like a seed back in that beach? What if we just let it come and go in waves?

What if we took that, and made something out of it? 

What if I dared to call it a sad love story? Am I allowed to do that? Isn’t it about me, too, and about my own stupid heart? Is this about my heart at all? Maybe it’s just hunger. Maybe it’s just out of spite, because my boyfriend cheated on me. 

But it’s not.

I know it is not.

It wasn’t that. And the fact that I’ve thought about Charlie more than I have ever thought about him at all gives me away. I’m a terrible liar. Because after these days, I know I would’ve. No matter what had happened, I still would’ve led her there, leaned in, waited for it to happen. And as confusing as that is, I still want it. And what if I do? What if I can’t stop?

In the dead of the night, with the lights off, we’re both tangled in our own sheets, a few meters away from each other, and I’m exhausted.

“We’re leaving for New York in the morning,” I whisper. Is she still awake? I can hear her breathing. “Char?”

“Hm?” Silence. “Have you got everything ready?”

My heart is pounding, the floor carpet makes my hair stand on edge from head to toe.

“Well, there’s one last thing I haven’t solved.”