It’s midmorning by the time we arrive at the entrance to the Oswald West State Park.

Unsurprisingly, there are a few other cars in the carpark – it’s a popular area after all, a suggested daytrip mentioned in just about every Oregon travel guide on account of the magnificent scenery and countless hiking trails. 

At least the beach probably won’t be crowded – Smuggler’s Cove is a popular surfing spot, but it’s too far from Portland for casual beachgoers. Alix mentioned it to me one time. He said Smuggler’s Cove has the best waves along the whole coast, and there’s meant to be some sort of waterfall cascading down into the ocean on one side of the beach.

I always thought it sounded nice, but I never really imagined myself coming here to check it out. Not after everything that happened.

The parking lot is lined with giant Sitka spruce, the start of a forest that stretches all the way to the shoreline, wrapping the cove in a shaded green embrace. Even this lovely scenery sets my stomach twisting, the nausea bubbling up at the back of my throat.

I remember gazing out at trees like these as the bus meandered along the cliffs that day, enjoying the late Autumn light turning the feathery branches golden-green.

How is it that a moment from almost two years ago feels like it happened just yesterday, while yesterday feels like a thousand years ago? Will I ever break the chains of my past?

All through the drive after I fainted, everyone was laughing and chatty. No one asked me what happened, or what was wrong with me. No one made a big deal about it. They could tell I wasn’t ready to talk. But they know something’s wrong. Something big.

Snap out of it Ash.

Brushing aside my worries, I focus on the present, the here-and-now.

The boys are unloading stuff from the back of the car – rolled-up picnic blankets, bags, and the all important cooler box keeping Alastaire’s champagne cold. 

“What can I carry?” I ask, going around to the boot. Kitty passes Elliot a backpack, before turning her attention to me.

“You don’t need to carry anything babe,” she says. “Just yourself, ok?”

She smiles and gives me a soft nudge, and I feel like I’ve somehow taken one step forward, two steps back. The last thing I wanted was to have everyone treat me like I’m made of glass, some fragile thing to be wrapped in cotton wool and sheltered from the rough grasp of reality.

I’m not weak.

So I reach for the largest, heaviest-looking backpack, but before I can grab a hold of it Kitty sighs and shoves a wicker picnic basket in my direction.

“I was going to have Ben carry the food, but on second thoughts, that’s a terrible idea,” she says. “His stomach’s like a black hole or something. Him and Lyall both. And I don’t fancy getting to the beach to find there’s only crumbs and wrappers left.”

“I’m sure Ben wouldn’t-” I begin.

“What’ve you got there Ash?” Ben says, sneaking up behind me as he eyes the picnic basket. “Let’s get some crisps to have while we walk. And something sweet too. What’s sweet in there, Kitty? We have chocolate, right? You packed chocolate? Yeah?”

“Chocolate?” Lyall chirps up, appearing next to us in a flash. “Did someone say chocolate? What type?”

Kitty rolls her eyes, picking up the picnic basket and shoving it into my arms.

“Protect it with your life,” she says.

“No problem,” I say, giggling at Ben and Lyall’s hungry eyes following the basket.

The walk down to the beach isn’t as steep as I expected – more of a gentle stroll along a winding leaf-littered path. Red huckleberry and salal bushes brush our ankles; colossal Douglas-firs and cedars shade us from above, and all around there is the soothing sound of morning bird song.

For a moment I forget to be afraid, and I practically skip over the spruce footbridge that crosses Short Sand Creek, laughing as I swat Ben’s hand away from the lid of the picnic basket for the fifth or sixth time.

I can almost imagine I’m deep in some inland forest, far from the ocean and the dark memories it brings.

The trees thin out up ahead, and the path opens out, like a corridor of light glimmering through the forest.

I step out onto the beach.

Ben runs past me, hollering and whooping over the golden sand, Lyall hot on his trail, the treasures I’m guarding in the picnic basket all but forgotten.

There it is.

The ocean, the ravenous salt monster, crouched low on the horizon like some primeval beast with gaping jaws, a menacing frothy green.

And the smell.

Salt. Seawater, tears and blood.

I stumble back a few steps, steadying myself against the twisted trunk of a hemlock tree. As I watch Ben and Lyall and Elliot running towards the ocean, Kitty and Alastaire following behind, it takes all my willpower not to scream at them to get back, to be careful.

As if the waves could reach out like giant hands and pluck them right off the beach, like something you’d see in a cartoon or a Pixar movie.

My hands are shaking, and I squeeze my eyes shut, clutching onto the picnic basket.

It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago I loved the ocean. Swimming and bodyboarding and making sandcastles with my dad. A beach trip was the best thing ever.

Now it feels like some form of torture.

You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. My internal monologue is racing, screaming at me.

“You can do it,” a voice whispers in my ear.

Felix is next to me, gently taking the picnic basket from my hands. He must have been walking behind the rest of the group, or maybe he came back for me.

He wraps his free arm around me, guiding me out of the forest and onto the beach. As usual, his expression is slightly distant, deadpan – at odds with his tender actions.

“Lean on me more, ok?” He says, still staring straight ahead as we walk along the tree-line, over the sand towards the others. “Don’t try to be so strong all the time.”

The way he’s talking… it’s like he knows.

“Did… did Kitty tell you?” I ask, praying she didn’t. “About… um… what happened to me?”

There’s a long pause, then Felix shakes his head.

“She doesn’t need to,” he says.

I wish I could refuse his help, hold my head up high and stick to my resolve – but he’s right. This is too much for me to handle on my own.

I nod, and we walk in silence, the forest to my right, the sea and Felix to my left. Felix’s arm is gripped firmly around my shoulders, like he’s holding me up, shielding me from the vast ocean.

I can feel the warm press of his body against my side, and with a start I remember him tearing my towel off and pinning me against the bathroom wall in the dark. It’s almost impossible to reconcile these two sides of his – the darkly passionate, complicated Felix who bit my neck so hard that he made it bleed, and the calm, controlled Felix leading me across the beach.

Further down the beach, Kitty and the others are laying down picnic blankets in a spot sheltered by the cliffs and the trees. 

The falls are just a few yards away, tumbling over the moss-slicked rock face into the sea.

Unsurprisingly, Alastaire’s already cracked open the first bottle of champagne, before anyone’s even had a chance to sit down.

He’s too busy digging around in the backpacks looking for a glass to notice Felix’s arm wrapped around me, for which I’m grateful – the last thing I need is for those two to start snapping at each other.

Lyall on the other hand does notice, and runs over to us as we approach the group.

“Ashlin’, what happened?” He asks, nervously casting his eyes around my face, probably taking in my pallor, the shakiness I’m trying so hard to hide. “Are you ok? We could go back.”

“And pull the plug on your birthday before it’s even started?” I say, hoping I sound cheerful and lighthearted. “No way! I’m fine, really. See?”

I shrug off Felix’s arm to prove my point, marching towards the picnic blankets.

I flop down next to Kitty, who’s pulling a pack of slightly squashed styrofoam cups out of a backpack.

Alastaire takes them from her unenthusiastically, muttering about ruining seven hundred pound champagne.

It doesn’t stop him getting stuck in, and he fills up several of the cups almost to the brim.

Felix sits down next to me, passing me a cup of champagne with a solemn expression.

“It’ll take the edge off,” he says. “Just don’t make it a habit. You don’t want to wind up like Alastaire.”

“I heard that,” Alastaire says.

The cup is pleasantly cool in my hand, and I don’t hesitate, sipping the cold sparkling liquid as I stare out the bluish-green expanse before me.

Now that I’m up close, it somehow feels more manageable. Almost like it’s too late to run away, so now I’m numbly going with the flow. Like a bird that stops struggling in the jaws of a hungry cat.

There’s no more to be done, and that’s comforting, in a perverse way.

I watch a pair of surfers catching waves far out, happy to throw themselves at the mercy of the sea for five seconds of standing upright on a fiberglass board.

No thank you. I won’t be taking up surfing anytime soon.

“GOOOOOAAAALLLL!” Ben hollers as he runs over the sand, kicking a soccer ball past Elliot into the trees.

“We agreed the waterfall was your goal post,” Elliot says.

“I changed it!” Ben says, doing a celebratory backflip over the sand.

“BEN ONE - ELLIOT ZERO!” He shouts.

“Not for long,” Elliot replies evenly, picking up the ball and kicking it past Ben.

“Now let’s see what’s in that picnic basket ‘o yours,” Lyall says, settling down between Felix and I. “I’m de birthday boy and I demand chips. And dip.”

“Aye aye captain,” Kitty says, fishing the snacks out of the picnic basket.

“And another refill ‘o that champers, my good man,” he says, passing his empty cup to Alastaire. “It’s way hotter out here than I thought it’d be.”

He peels off his jumper, revealing a bright yellow t-shirt with “Proud Hufflepuff” emblazoned across the front.

I can’t help laughing, doubling over in a fit of giggles and almost spilling champagne all over myself.

When I look up Lyall is biting his lip and his face looks a little red. “Me mam bought it for me,” he says, the embarrassment clear in his voice. He casts his eyes down shyly, and I want to tell him I love it, but I’m distracted by a sudden beeping.

Felix shifts uncomfortably next to me, and the beeping sound rings out again, his phone lighting up on the picnic blanket next to him.

That’s right. Unlike back at the cabin, we have reception out here.

Which reminds me – I still haven’t found my phone. It could be in the recording studio, or under a sofa in the lounge or something like that.

I even put my phone in the fridge on time by accident. So really, it could be anywhere.

Felix’s phone beeps for a third time.

“Aren’t you going to see who it’s from?” I ask.

Felix gives me a strange look, like I’ve asked about something I shouldn’t have.

OMG. Maybe it’s her. Zara Quinn. The super-famous-queen-of-the-charts pop star who Felix is rumored to be dating, according to just about every tabloid and gossip site in existence.

“It can wait,” he says coolly.

“Well, it’s all very well if you can just ignore that irritating buzzing sound, but the rest of us can’t,” Alastaire says. “So kill it.”

Felix glares at Alastaire darkly, before picking the phone up and switching it off.

Alastaire stretches out languidly, stripping his white tank top off to reveal the beautifully sculpted physique that’s won him the title of People Magazine’s Hottest Man Alive two years in a row. He lies back on his beach towel, pulling his shades over his eyes with a yawn.

“I didn’t expect to catch a tan today,” he says. “Yaaaaasssss.”

“Goddam Ken doll,” Felix mutters under his breath.

Lyall is just ripping open a bag of Lay’s crisps when Ben comes running over, a sly look in his eye.

“Are you ready?” He asks Lyall.

“Err… ready for what, exactly?” Lyall asks suspiciously.

“Now that you’re seventeen, we’re initiating you into the Seventeens Club,” Elliot says just behind us, causing me to jolt with fright.

“I see,” Lyall says slowly, turning from Elliot to Ben. “An’ what exactly does this initiation entail?”

“You’re about to find out,” Ben says, grabbing Lyall’s arms and knocking the packet of Lay’s all over Kitty.

Elliot grabs Lyall’s feet, and they’re off down the beach running with him towards the ocean, while he yelps and screams out Irish obscenities all the way.

They run into the shallows, before swinging him and attempting to throw him into the waves.

Lyall has other ideas though, and clings onto Ben, taking him down into the water with him.

Elliot strips off his shirt and throws it onto the sand, before running into the surf after them, laughing and splashing Lyall as he dunks Ben under the waves.

“Fee! Fee!” Lyall screams. “Come help me! I need you Fee! Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Felix rolls his eyes, stripping his tank top off and throwing it down on the sand.

“You’ll be ok?” He asks me, his hazel eyes flashing with concern.

I nod.

He looks from Kitty to Alastaire warily, as Kitty paints her toenails bright silver (the sand getting stuck in the polish is part of the ‘textured look’, she says) and Alastaire lies sleepily in the sun with his usual half-finished bottle of champagne.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “Leaving you with these idiots probably isn’t the brightest idea.”

“Hey! I’m not an idiot!” Kitty says, looking up from her silver toenails. “Alastaire, sure, but don’t go talking about your big sister that way. Anyway, chill. Go swim. Ash isn’t a child you know. She doesn’t need you watching her every move.”

“Feeeeeeee! Feeeeeee!” Lyall yells.

Felix looks at me uncertainly, then nods and runs to join the others.

“Shut the hell up Lyall!” He yells. “I’m coming already.”

I look up and down the beach, wondering if anyone’s questioning what the hell this crazy bunch of teenagers is up to.

But as far as I can see, it's only us on the beach, and the surfers are too far out to hear us.

I strain my eyes, looking for them past the breakers, but they must have come in.

I feel a sudden chill run down my spine.

The surfers are emerging out of the waves, wading out onto the sand with their surfboards at their sides.

A boy and a girl, though I can't make out their features.

I look away as they walk down the beach, fighting an explicable desire to bury myself under the picnic blanket.

My scar burns, and my head feels prickly, like someone turned on a radio inside my brain, and set it to static on the loudest volume possible.

I shut my eyes, drop my head down.

“Ashling? Is that you?” A voice says, coming closer. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I look up.

Standing before me in a wetsuit, his red surfboard propped up at his side, is Alix.

And behind him, Zee.

Dammit.