‘Just…stop fucking dodging the question please.’ She heaved her heavy rucksack onto the bench, the empty bottles at the bottom of the bag making a dull thud against the wood. ‘You told me time and time again that "this is it, we’re set, we’re on our way, we’ve got everything in our sights, everything is going to be okay." but it just isn’t, is it?’
The boy tried to stroke away the hair from her face but she pushed his hand away.
‘Now I can’t even touch you?’
‘Not when I’m this angry.’
The boy sighed. ‘Everything is going to be fine.’ He sat on the bench and his eyes narrowed at the blue horizon. It was cold. ‘We just keep headed up this shoreline and we’ll reach there.’
‘And then what? What’s there waiting for us?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? So there could be absolutely nothing there for us. Nothing.’
‘There is nothing anywhere until we get there.’ He paused. ‘And there’d be nothing without us.’
The boy stared at his hands until he watched her pull at one of them.