Hindsight Read Online Free

most today, young lady.’ Again he closed the distance between them, and again he stopped short of touching her. This time she felt him stroke the air slowly down the length of her arm, and her body responded with a ripple of goosebumps.
    ‘Mira, if you have a problem, you can tell me.’
    ‘Actually, I think you’ve nailed it already; must be last-day jitters.’ She meshed her fingers to prevent them from shaking. ‘I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, but thanks to you, “institutionalised” is a monster word that’ll no longer apply to me.’
    ‘Which earns me a small smile at least?’
    She obliged as best as she could manage, turning just enough to let him see her face over her shoulder.
    ‘Is that the best you can do?’ He sounded hurt. ‘I thought I’d need a backhoe to shift your grin today. Seems I’ll need one to drag out a smile in the first place … There has to be a reason, surely?’
    ‘If there is, I can’t explain it.’ She wished she could. She stared across the bridge to Serenity, the last in a decade-long line of orphanages, asylums and secure ‘health sanctuaries’. The best of a bad bunch, but still a place which limited her freedom. ‘I thought I’d feel better over here … Instead I feel edgier.’
    ‘Grass always looks greener from the other side.’ He sighed, and paced away a few steps. ‘I suspect we’ll both feel on edge for a while. What we need is a change of pace.’
    ‘Oh, absolutely! And much more adventure! We could travel, maybe?’
    ‘Actually, I’m planning on something more sedate.’
    ‘After ten days staring at hospital walls?’ She could hardly believe it. ‘I’m not hoping for much; just a few trips to explore a city? Any city. A shopping mall would do; somewhere I could buy my own clothes for once.’
    ‘Trust me, busy malls and shopping crowds are the last things we need. I still jump every time my own car backfires.’
    ‘Then we could go natural, with caves and bushwalking through mountains and national forest, maybe? How more sedate can you get than singing songs at night around a campfire?’
    He laughed, making her feel foolish. ‘You’re an expert at dodging the subject.’
    ‘And you’re an expert at digging up my problems.’ She pouted, knowing he wouldn’t stop needling her with questions until he got what he wanted, even when she was unaware if she still had anything festering under the surface. The only thing that made it easier for her was how much he cared for her, and trusting that he only did it to help her. If only she trusted herself enough to release her darkness in bites small enough not to hurt him.
    ‘Quit fighting me, Mira. Quit fighting yourself. Was it something you saw? Or something you’d like to?’
    ‘Beats me, honestly! I have a knack for seeing bad things everywhere, so maybe it’s something I still see.’ She wrung her hands, wishing she didn’t have to sound crazy to explain it any more than that. ‘Do we really have time for this now?’
    ‘I won’t know that until you give me the summary.’
    She glanced over her shoulder to the beach, but the ticking clock and ghostly purple haze made the dead body seem even more surreal and threatening.
    ‘I wish you could see for yourself, Ben. It’s like a silent movie — and my luck, not a comedy.’
    ‘Okay, longer summary. There’s still plenty of time to get you back by car …’ although she noticed he still left the engine running. ‘Tell me everything you see.’
    Mira forced a small smile for him. ‘Do you feel crazy, asking a blind girl what she can see?’
    ‘Actually, in your case, I’m more worried if someone is listening.’
    She shivered, preferring not to think about him . Of all the other residents at Serenity, ‘the listener’ was the only one she’d come to fear. He hadn’t left the isle in sixty years, hadn’t said a word to anyone for the first fifty, allegedly, and yet all the wrong people seemed inextricably linked to him.