come in!’ yelled Ciara from inside.
‘You are in so much trouble, Ciara!’ Holly screamed. She burst her way inside, putting on her most terrifying face.
‘I told you not to come in!’ wailed Ciara.
Holly was about to start screaming all sorts of insulting things at her sister but stopped herself when she saw Ciara sitting on the floor with what looked like a photo album on her lap and tears streaming down her face.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Oh, Ciara, what’s wrong?’ Holly said soothingly. She was worried; she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Ciara cry. In fact, she didn’t even know Ciara knew how to cry. Whatever had reduced her to tears must be something serious.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Ciara said, snapping the photo album shut and sliding it under her bed. She seemed embarrassed to be caught crying and she wiped her face roughly, trying to look as if she didn’t care.
Downstairs on the couch, Declan peeped his head out from under the cushion. It was eerily quiet up there; he hoped they hadn’t done anything stupid to one another. He tiptoed upstairs and listened outside the door.
‘Something is wrong,’ Holly said, crossing the room to join her sister on the floor. She wasn’t sure how to deal with Ciara like this. This was a complete role reversal; ever since they were kids it had always been Holly who had done all the crying. Ciara was supposed to be the strong one.
‘I’m fine,’ Ciara snapped.
‘OK,’ Holly said looking around, ‘but if there’s something on your mind that’s upsetting you, you know you can talk to me about it, don’t you?’
Ciara refused to look at her and just nodded her head. Holly began to stand up to leave her sister in peace when all of a sudden Ciara burst into tears again. Holly quickly sat back down and wrapped her arms protectively round her younger sister. Holly stroked Ciara’s silky pink hair while she cried quietly.
‘Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?’ she asked softly.
Ciara gurgled some sort of reply and sat up to slide the photo album back out from under the bed. She opened it with trembling hands and flicked a few pages.
‘Him,’ she said, sadly pointing to a photograph of her and some guy Holly didn’t recognise. In fact, Holly barely recognised her sister. She looked so different and so much younger. The photograph was taken on a beautiful sunny day on a boat overlooking the Sydney Opera House. Ciara was sitting happily on his knee with her arms wrapped round his neck and he was staring at her with a huge smile on his face. Holly couldn’t get over how pretty Ciara looked. She had blonde hair, which Holly had never seen on her sister before, and a great big smile on her face. Her features looked much softer – she didn’t look as if she was going to bite someone’s head off for a change.
‘Is that your boyfriend?’ Holly asked gently.
‘Was,’ Ciara sniffed, and a tear landed on the page.
‘Is that why you came home?’ she asked softly, wiping a tear from her sister’s face.
Ciara nodded.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
Ciara gasped for breath. ‘We had a fight.’
‘Did he …’ Holly chose her words carefully, ‘he didn’t hurt you or anything did he?’
Ciara shook her head. ‘No,’ she spluttered, ‘it was just over something really stupid and I said I was leaving and he said he was glad …’ She trailed off as she started sobbing again.
Holly held her in her arms and waited till Ciara was ready to talk again.
‘He didn’t even come to the airport to say goodbye to me.’
Holly rubbed Ciara’s back soothingly as though she was a baby who had just drunk her bottle. She hoped Ciara wouldn’t throw up on her. ‘Has he called you since?’
‘No, and I’ve been home for two months, Holly,’ she wailed. She looked up at her older sister with such sad eyes Holly felt like crying too. She didn’t like the sound of this guy at all for hurting her sister. Holly smiled at her encouragingly. ‘Then do you think that maybe he’s not the right kind of person for you?’
Ciara started crying again. ‘But I love Mathew, Holly, and it was just a stupid fight. I only booked the flight because I was angry. I didn’t think he would let me go …’ She stared for a long time at the photograph.
Ciara’s bedroom windows were wide open and Holly listened to the familiar sound of the waves and the laughter coming from the beach. Holly and Ciara had shared this room together as they grew up, and a weird sense of comfort now embraced her as she smelled the same smells and listened to the familiar noises.
Ciara began to calm down. ‘Sorry, Hol.’
‘Hey, you don’t need to be sorry at all,’ she said, squeezing her hand. ‘You should have told me all this when you came home instead of keeping it all inside.’
‘But this is only minor compared to what’s happened to you. I feel stupid even crying about it.’ She wiped her tears, angry with herself.
Holly was shocked, ‘Ciara, this is a big deal. Losing someone you love is always hard, no matter if they’re alive or …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. ‘Of course you can tell me anything.’
‘It’s just that you’ve been so brave, Holly. I don’t know how you do it. And here I am crying over a stupid boyfriend I went out with for only a few months.’
‘Me? Brave?’ Holly laughed. ‘I wish.’
‘Yes, you are,’ Ciara insisted. ‘Everyone says so. You’ve been so strong through everything. If I were you I’d be lying in a ditch somewhere.’
‘Don’t go giving me ideas, Ciara,’ Holly smiled at her, wondering who on earth had called her brave.
‘You’re OK, though, aren’t you?’ Ciara said, worriedly studying her face.
Holly looked down at her hands and slid her wedding ring up and down her finger. She thought about that question for a while and the two girls became lost in their own thoughts. Ciara, suddenly calmer than Holly had ever seen her, sat by her side patiently awaiting Holly’s reply.
‘Am I OK?’ Holly repeated the question to herself. She looked ahead at their collection of teddy bears and dolls that their parents had refused to throw out. ‘I’m lots of things Ciara,’ Holly explained, continuing to roll her ring around on her fingers. ‘I’m lonely, I’m tired, I’m sad, I’m happy, I’m lucky, I’m unlucky; I’m a million different things everyday of the week. But I suppose OK is one of them.’ She looked to her sister and smiled sadly.
‘And you’re brave,’ Ciara assured her. ‘And calm and in control. And organised.’
Holly shook her head slowly, ‘No, Ciara, I’m not brave. You’re the brave one. You were always the brave one. As for being in control, I don’t know what I’m doing from one day to the next.’
Ciara’s forehead creased and she shook her head wildly. ‘No, I am far from being brave, Holly.’
‘Yes you are,’ Holly insisted. ‘All those things that you do like jumping out of aeroplanes and snow boarding off cliffs …’ Holly trailed off as she tried to think of more crazy things her little sister did.
Ciara shook her head in protest. ‘Oh no, my dear sister. That’s not brave, that’s foolish. Anybody can bungee jump off a bridge. You could do it,’ Ciara nudged her.
Holly’s eyes widened, terrified at the thought and she shook her head.
Ciara’s voice softened. ‘Oh,