Then you’re up and brushing dust from your knees. You grab the bag and stride away from this ancient art and back to the path.
At the pool, we both strip, unconcerned by our nakedness now. We drift into the water, sighing, and float on our backs.
‘You never told me what you lied about?’ you say. ‘Your name, for one thing. Kate?’
You stretch out my name as if it has two syllables, as if you’re trying it out.
‘My name really is Kate now, no lie. I changed it officially. And I really work for a travel company. That’s not a lie either. Unless they’ve fired me by now.’
You snort. ‘This trip part of your research?’
‘Maybe.’
I remember my client Rose, how I abandoned her. Apart from you, she’s the only person who knows I’m in Australia. Would she tell anyone if an alarm went out again? But she doesn’t know I’m Gemma, doesn’t know what I look like. I don’t think she could join the dots.
You dip your head underwater, come up blinking. ‘And you think you don’t know me?’ you say. ‘I have no fucking clue who you are now.’ You study me, curious for once.
I tilt my head, not quite a nod, not quite a shake. ‘You knew more, once.’
‘Nah. Not sure I ever did.’
‘Well, if you don’t, no one does.’
You frown, water dripping in your eyes. ‘That’s fucked, Gem.Youknow you.’
Do I? Or have I only ever been made up from how others see me, how others want me? Maybe until now, I have.
You flip to standing, then wade away from me, towards the deepest part of the pool. I wait, studying your back, discovering muscles that weren’t there before, or I hadn’t noticed. Then I move towards you. Closer, I see the wounds from the burns, some of them already fading to scars. I reach out and touch them. The muscles stiffen, but you don’t move away. I run my fingers down the red patterns on your skin, down to your waist, and you let me do this too. When I wrap my arms around you, resting my cheek against your hot, scarred back, you remain still. Are you just going along with me, thinking it’s what I need to get better, or what you need to do to help you escape, or is there a part of you that is starting to enjoy it? I listen to the chime of honeyeaters above, the rattle of dry leaves.
When you finally turn towards me, you sigh and wrap your arms around me too, running your fingers down my backbone, then through my hair, no longer as short as when I arrived. This is different, this gentleness. Your fingers in the small of my back, exploring, different too. You are letting me in, surrendering. When you smile, I see a hint of the hope from before, of your misguided enthusiasm. We could turn back into the creatures we were, adapt ourselves like animals do, find scales to place on our skin, and colours to match.
‘Kate,’ you say, trying it out again.
It’s wrong in your mouth, too ordinary.
‘Gem,’ I say.
‘Gem.’
My fingers thread into yours. ‘And your name—is it really Ty?’
You smile. ‘Course.’
And I believe you. Because I want to, and because maybe things like names and classifications don’t matter anymore. Only the ones we make for ourselves.
This time when I kiss you, your lips aren’t dry or cracked, but wet from the pool, tasting like undergrowth. I draw you closer until we are skin to skin, my heat and your heat. I press myself into you, against the rocks that connect to the cave below. I touch your shoulders and neck, press my fingers to the scar on your cheek. This is all new, something we couldn’t do before, not like this.
‘Maybe we could stay,’ you tell me, whispering into my neck.
And you release into me and sigh.
Afterwards, we lie on the rocks, sunning ourselves like snakes. The desert wind has dried us, so I use one of the towels as a pillow.
‘Gem?’
I must have been asleep, soothed by the heat of your body next to mine. I pull myself up to where you’re sitting and see how dark it is now. The air is cooler. There are goosebumps on your belly. You wrap an arm around my shoulders and draw me back to lean against your chest.
‘I meant it,’ you say. ‘About staying. What else have we got now, anyway? Just this.’