chapter three

Rose’s POV

The last time Phoenix visited was almost two years ago, but I knew he would show up around my birthday. It’s not every day a girl turns sixteen after all. He turned up in the evening after being away ‘on a job’ he said, and I ran right at him and into his arms when I saw him at the bottom of the steps. It had felt like forever, and something had changed in that time. I didn’t get the warm, safe embrace I had become accustomed to and looked forward to more than I realised.

Instead of loving smiles, scooping me up and spinning with me in his arms before ruffling my hair and giving me the biggest bear hug, he was tense. His eyes were cold and hard, and in a clipped tone I had never heard from him before he told me to ‘wait for me’, then turned around and stalked away.

He didn’t even look back. My chest felt heavy, like the world had come crashing down and landed right on top of me, and I sobbed in granny’s arms for hours that evening. It was my first taste of heartbreak, and every time I have seen him out of the corner of my eye since, that scar opens up a little bit all over again.

When I told Granny Gwynn what had happened that evening I saw one side of her mouth turn ever so slightly upwards as if she was trying to hide a smile. Why would she find it funny? She knew how much I looked forward to his visits and how hard I worked at my online lessons so I could show him how well I was doing. She even made jokes about me loving him, but I never once told her how right she had been. Visits from Phoenix were the one thing that broke up the monotony of my life. He was my hero, he gave us so much and was always there when we needed him. My hormonal teenage brain tried to put the pieces together. He wouldn’t look after us if he didn’t care about us, would he?

My heart hurt as I wondered what I could have done to make him cross with me, what I had done to make him leave. My grades were as good as always, I had been helping around the house and doing my chores, and ever since the one time I actually plucked up the courage and tried to sneak further up the beach to get a closer look at the party happening around a huge bonfire and was unceremoniously flung over Rangers shoulder and taken home, I have never broken a single one of Phoenix’s rules.

When I was busted before getting within a hundred feet of the firelight, I knew I must have been being watched at all times, there was no way it was a coincidence that Ranger was there at that precise moment. Phoenix has four brothers, but since that first visit, it was only ever he who came into the house. Sometimes, the others would hang around outside, and I would go and chat to them whilst Phoenix and Granny Gwyn talked, but they never crossed the threshold. Ranger was even bigger than Phoenix and always looked do stern, honestly, he scared me a little bit. I was worried sick about what Phoenix would say about my sneaking out, but Ranger promised he wouldn’t tell, as long as I never did it again, and I didn’t.

Phoenix is watching me now, I could tell before I saw him, by the sickly feeling in my tummy and the way every nerve in my body seemed to be tingling under my skin. He told me to wait for him. Wait for what? He wasn’t away on another job. He is right here. He has been for the last two years, so why is he treating me like a leper? Now that I am technically an adult, maybe he will wash his hands of me. The thought brings tears to my eyes, and my heart hurts a little more at another loss. All this time, had he just been waiting out the clock on my childhood, waiting to be free of me?

Granny Gwynn always said Phoenix was like family and that one day, I would understand that sometimes heartache paves the way to happiness. Sometimes, the things she said made no sense at the time, then in hindsight, it was like she was psychic or something. Even the day she died, she told me not to give up hope and that I would never really be alone. She always seemed to know what she was talking about, so I believed her, but I don’t understand what I could have done that was so terrible that he would leave me to suffer my grief alone.

I don’t think I ever really knew him at all.