Alastair's absence left me a machine. A machine that cycled through thoughts, spiralling through them at a rapid pace, feeling every range of the emotional spectrum. The cycle went a little like this:

Sad. It made me sad, because something between us had fractured, and it was unable to be healed with a plaster cast and a little time. We weren't friends, and we could probably never be on that level again. Not properly anyway.

Angry. Angry at Logan. Angry at Alastair. Because if I wanted to believe the best in Logan, that meant I had to acknowledge what could be the worst of Alastair. If he did create the idea in my head that Logan had different motives for whatever was between us, it meant it was constructed for Alastair's benefit. He had told me he loved me, and he had also told me Logan didn't. Was he trying to push me towards him? I had put enough thought into our conversation to realise that it could have been a possibility. But that would mean tarnishing my trust in Alastair, a trust that had grown stronger than I knew.

Betrayed. Because believing that I trusted Alastair meant understanding Logan's imperfections. His imperfections that left me feeling weak and raw at the thought. His imperfections, the things he'd said to his friends, displaying the insecurities he clearly had, they had a much deeper hurt to them than he could know. Firstly because his friends were my friends too. Secondly because when I was with him alone, I could never believe he'd betray me like that.

Confused. Not a new one. But it was a very deep one. Confusion because Alastair leaving left me feeling so empty that sometimes I'd clutch my hollow chest in an attempt to remind myself it was still there. It was stupid. He hadn't taken my heart with him. He had just reaffirmed how damaging our friendship could become, for both of us.

And there's where I arrive at sad again. Repeat cycle.

In front of me, Logan cutback on a wave and was sent over the front of the board. I paused my thought cycle to sit up from my laying position and embrace the historical moment in which I was able to witness him stack it.

His head bobbed back out of the water and I wondered if he'd seen me laughing. Probably not, I'd been in my reading spot for an hour and he hadn't come in to see me. I'd come in the hopes of confronting him about Alastair's words, but for some reason he was selecting today to not come up and talk to me. Even though Noah was absent from the water, and it was just us on this stretch of the beach because of the heavy cloud cover threatening rain.

I sighed, my book wasn't engaging me enough to take my mind away from the cycle. I dusted my ankles and shook my towel. If he wasn't coming to me, I was going to him.

The water was cool as it brushed my toes, and I didn't hesitate to adjust to the temperature of the ocean. Instead I skipped over the foamy waves until I was as deep as my hips. I felt goosebumps rise on my legs beneath the surface. A wave came and I was forced to go deeper, the water reaching my waist and lifting my feet from the ripples of sand beneath me.

I dove into the next wave, feeling the water wash the hair from my face and seeing the blurry murkiness which lay beneath the postcard-worthy blue surface. I didn't have my board, but that didn't mean I was any slower. My arms calved the water, my feet gliding as they kicked. I reached where he was sitting in no time.

"Didn't expect you to make it out here," he mused. His eyes were on the horizon, no doubt scouting his next wave.

"Well, you fell over. I thought I'd come to tell you it was funny."

"Ha ha," he said sarcastically. He rotated a-hundred-and-eighty degrees and peered behind him, his shoulders flexing as he angled his position better. As the wave came he disappeared with it.

Clearly he was avoiding something. I floated, drifting over the waves as I stuck my feet out in front of me. I would give talking one more try. His avoidance was leading me to think that maybe there was something to feel betrayed about. I just needed to break the damn cycle. I needed my chest to feel whole again and my mind to return to normal.

He returned a minute or so later, his stomach flat on his board as he paddled to the spot he was in before. Watching the horizon.

"I didn't come out here to swim," I told him.

"I didn't think so," he said. "You want to talk?"

"Well, yeah."

Logan raised his leg and swung off of his board, joining me in the water. He swam to where I was and obtained the same position, we were both floating with our feet in front of us.

"What do you tell your friends about us?" I asked him.

He gave me a look, like he was trying to work out which direction I was about to attack from. "I don't tell them much."

I raised an eyebrow. "Much?"

"Well, what do you tell your friends?" he sighed. "I'm sure Maisie knows more about us than I do."

My cheeks went a little flushed. "That's not the point."

"What is?"

"Alastair told me something he overheard."

"I'm sure he tells you lots of things," he said with a disdained look. There was a moment if silent between us and I thought none of us was going to break it until he continued. "This isn't about him though."

"Alastair and I are not friends anymore anyway," I said quietly. My heart scraped against my hollow chest. "He's leaving soon. You don't have to worry."

Another look at me. A satisfied and surprised look. This made me a little annoyed.

"Sometimes I'm a dick," he said.

"All of the time you're a dick," I told him. But I smiled a little so he knew I was joking.

"But when I'm with the guys. I just say stuff that will impress them, especially when I'm drunk."

"Like I'm easy to crack?" I asked, recalling Alastair's words.

"Well, yeah." So Alastair wasn't lying. Alastair hadn't made it up in an attempt to manipulate me. My insides breathed a sigh of relief.

"Am I?" I asked him in response to his confirmation.

"No. But it's a guy thing. You haven't dated anyone around here properly, Val. I was joking around when I said that. They knew I was talking shit."

His honesty helped things a little. But betrayal was still a strong player in the cycle. "You really are a dick all of the time."

"I'm sorry." His lips were salty when he brought them onto mine. Salty, but a sweet kiss. Not hungry and passionate like the other day, but light and friendly and apologetic.

I didn't know how I felt about gaining a reputation with the guys of Sandy Cove, and I knew if things were going to develop further then Logan and I would need to find a way to secure some form of trust between us. But then again, I was beginning to realise that if we were going to take things further, it would need to happen fast. Separation was looming over us, and the only option would be long distance. I shuddered.

Our salty kisses ended at the first few drops of rain. The drops were wide and heavy and made little ripples erupt around us as we both paddled his board to the shore. My book was wet from the rain which was disappointing because it was one of my favourites, about a heroine who embarked on a quest to find a remedy to cure her sick mother. The remedy was death, but that was what made it interesting. Now its pages were curled and the ink faded.

We kissed one last time and I ran home in the rain, wet from the sea and hot from our proximity.

Dad was home. I thought he'd be sleeping, but instead he was sitting on the dining room table, a thick book propped up against his arm. A recipe book.

"Thinking of cooking tonight, Dad?" I asked him. I hung my towel over the back of a chair.

"Yeah," he looked a little sheepish. "I was wondering if you'd be here for it. For dinner, I mean."

"I'll be here for dinner," I told him. But his awkwardness made me aware of the topic which was about to be upturned. He ran a hand nervously through his silvering hair.

"I want you to meet my- my friend, Penny," he said. "She is coming for dinner tonight, and I really want to introduce you to her."

"Penny." There was one Penny in sandy cove, I recognised her name from the newspaper. "The journalist?"

"Yeah, she writes for the paper." A smile brimmed on his face, a goofy smile that became infectious. I was smiling too.

"I'd love to meet her."

I was glad I'd found out about Penny beforehand. Having the idea of my father seeing someone already planted in my head made me ready, and even excited, to meet the woman my father was possibly dating.

He sent me out on an errand to pick up some groceries he needed for his seafood pasta. I took the car for the small journey into town, parking outside the supermarket which was nearby the esplanade. It didn't take me long to find the six items on the list.

As I left I looked over towards the painted sign advertising Cherry-On-Top-Ice-Creamery. I went over in my mind who was working today, wondering if it was worth popping in. It was a Tuesday, so Mallory was working for the afternoon. I wasn't working, and Susan was in the city for a few days. That left Dan with her to supervise. Dan and Mallory.

I heaved the groceries with me as I decided to walk past, for Maisie's sake. The last time I'd seen them working together, things had looked suspicious. This time, the shop was empty, even from customers. I walked through the open doors to see the colourful ice-cream display beaming happily at me, everything set up as it normally would be. Weird.

Setting my groceries down, I went behind the counter. Everything was out as if the shop was running as usual. If they'd abandoned the shop for a break I was going to kill them.

But then I noticed the back room's door was closed. I took a deep breath, because I knew there was no way I was leaving without opening it. Not if there was the possibility of Dan and Maisie being in there alone.

I didn't knock, because I didn't want them to pretend everything was normal between them if there was something up. Not that I expected something was up, because I really didn't believe Dan was capable of cheating. I didn't think Sandy Cove was capable of that drama. And I definitely didn't want to be the one to tell my best friend her boyfriend was with someone else.

Except he was.

The back room was very cluttered. It housed a large freezer, containers of waffle cones and stacks of paperwork lodged between boxes.

Today it was used for other things.

I felt as if I was watching one of those films made from still images, where in each image the picture moves slightly, and when they're played in a slide-show really fast it shows a haunting video. This video comprised of four scenes.

Scene one. My hands rested on the door-knob. I decided not to knock.

Scene two. I twisted. The door was open. The back room was cluttered. Dan was tall, his hair was a murky red in the fluorescent light. Mallory's was curly and brown. Each of their hair contained the other's hands knotted into it. Their lips were connected, in a way that could only be described as passionately.

Scene three. Split. They jumped apart as if I'd tasered them.

Scene four. The begging.

"Please don't tell her," Dan cried.

Mallory knocked over a stack of boxes and began to sob. I took a step back and put my hands on either side of my head, like I could rip out my hair.

"What the hell are you thinking?!" I yelled. "Dan, are you serious?"

"Valerie, please, let me explain, please don't-"

"You are disgusting!" I took a long breath, trying to force myself to calm down. There could be customers outside for all I knew. "How could you, Daniel?! How could you do this to her?"

"You don't understand." He looked like he was about to cry, his eyes were watery and his face was as pale as the vanilla flavoured ice-cream we stocked.

"Well I hope you understand," I hissed. "Susan's going to fire you both for this. And don't even get me started on Maisie."

Mallory whimpered and I forced myself not to sympathise for her. She was young, but she knew Daniel and Maisie had been together forever. Everyone knew.

"You're a monster," I told Dan. "You've broken her heart."

"Please don't tell her," he begged. "Let me tell her. Please."

"Let me guess, you've had plenty of time to tell her over the months, right?" I accused. I knew this wasn't the first time he'd kissed her. I could tell.

"I'll tell her. I'll tell her tonight."

"You're going to break her with this." My voice cracked, and the emotion I was feeling was becoming overpowering. I was either going to punch him or cry.

"Please let me tell her," he repeated. "Please, Valerie."

"If you don't tell her by tonight, I will," I said smoothly. "But I'm telling Susan anyway. I could have been anyone coming back here, anyone could have broken into the freaking place!"

Mallory hastily began re-stacking the boxes she had knocked, and I took a step back out of the tiny room. I was so disgusted, I could felt bile rising in my throat. I felt like returning to the car, driving around here and running over Dan several times. Poor poor Maisie. Poor Susan. Both of them trusted him.

The saddest thing was I knew Dan, and I knew he was a good person. I thought he loved Maisie. How could someone do this to someone they love? Is this how it was supposed to be? You love someone, but then it was okay to break them as long as they didn't know?

Alastair said he thought he loved me. How do you know you love someone, or even that love exists, when things like this happen, probably every day? Maybe love is so blurred that it doesn't mean anything. Maybe love is reserved for movies and novels. Stories.

I fled the ice-cream parlour and drove home, my fingers shaking on the wheel. My father was about to introduce me to the woman he maybe-loves. Maybe could love.

My mind filled with images of my father after my mother left. Piles of tissues. Empty bottles of scotch. Uneaten meals. Crying at night, sleeping at day.

I used to think of Dan and Maisie when I thought of love. If I believed in it at all, I believed in it with them.

Love was a lie all along. A pretend thing that meant people could pretend to like each other. A word used as an excuse to have lives together. Something that makes people feel better about the emptiness in their chest.

When I pulled into the driveway I took a long time to get my feelings in line. I broke the cycle, at least. But instead I was left with heartache. Heartache for Maisie. Heartache for Alastair's absence. Heartache for my father, who was putting his heart on the line again.

Deep breaths. My dad was an adult. My dad had gone through heartbreak in the worst of ways. My dad would know when it was right to try to consider love again. If he believed in love, maybe I could humour that. Maybe I could try and understand it for him.

I stepped out of the car, and I stepped out of my bubble of distress. Clear eyes, happy smile. I would need to go to Maisie's after dinner, to comfort her tonight. But for now, I needed to meet the woman who had been plaguing my thoughts for days now.

Penny was exciting. She was animated, she was cheerful and she was obsessed with telling jokes. She arrived with a warm smile and a flannelette shirt. She told me she was excited to meet me and my dad spoke about me so much. Her laugh was chiming even up close.

My dad smiled at Penny as if she was the funniest woman on the planet. His eyes searched her face as if he was examining a fine painting. He asked her questions and they told me stories. They went to high school together, right here in Sandy Cove. She told me how my father used to sneak water balloons into the classroom and balance them on the air vents.

Penny smiled at my dad as if he was a mystery. Each time she glanced at him it was as if she was seeing him for the first time. I was watching them when I realised my father wasn't alone. He wasn't going to be left by himself when I travelled to Perth, and he wouldn't be on his own if I travelled to Sydney.

What had Alastair said, when I'd told him I was going to Perth because it was easier for everyone? I just thought you were a little more determined than that. Maybe I was.

After dinner Penny hugged me goodbye and it didn't make me uncomfortable. I thought of the similarities between her and my mother. They both had brown hair, but that was where it ended. My mother didn't have a chiming laugh and from what I remembered she never looked at my dad that way.

I went to my bedroom to gather some things for Maisie's house, and I decided to fire up my laptop. I still had a day to apply to a different university.

The website greeted me in cheerful green and blue colours, and it took only three clicks to rearrange my preferences. It meant my acceptance to Perth would be terminated. It meant that if I didn't get accepted into Sydney I'd have nowhere to go. But I was determined. Like Alastair said.