‘School okay?’

‘Yeah,’ was all I could manage. She came over to me with a long glass of iced water.

‘Thank you,’ I said, sitting up to drink.

‘Pleasure. Make sure to keep up your fluids. It’s so hot, isn’t it?’

I nodded as I drank, knowing that Caitlin would be fretting about the temperature and climate change.

‘Do you want a smoothie?’

‘No thanks, the water is good,’ I told her.

Caitlin drank her smoothie at the bar. After a while, she said, ‘Do you want to go and check out a different beach, maybe grab some food?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Your dad won’t be home until late.’

I thought about the alternative, which was sitting in our stinking hot house and having Caitlin hassle me about watching television or spending too much time on my phone. ‘Okay then.’ Anything was better than this heat – even spending one-on-one time with Caitlin.

‘Well, when you cool down, grab some bathers and things and we’ll go.’

I switched on the television and caught up on the NBA replays, wanting to see how Patty Mills was doing. Amazingly, Caitlin didn’t bother me.

When Caitlin came out of her room wearing a sarong, I knew it was time to get my stuff together.

‘Make sure to throw some clothes in a bag that are suitable for dinner,’ she told me.

‘Where we going for dinner?’ I called out as I was getting changed.

‘Not sure yet, but we shouldn’t try to get served wearing wet bathers.’

I threw some clothes into a bag as Caitlin locked up the house. When we got into her Subaru, I was surprised that she cranked up the air con. We started driving, and not long after travelling on the highway south, we pulled off onto a side road.

To the left of me there was a valley with cattle in the paddocks and dams scattered among the fields. ‘You wouldn’t want to be a cow today, would you?’ I said. Caitlin laughed, and then I did too, realising how Caitlin could have interpreted my words.

‘It’s hot and dry but still really pretty, isn’t it?’ Caitlin said, taking in the paddocks, the gum trees lining the road, the rolling hills and clear sky. She was right.

Caitlin pulled down another track that took us to a beach called Second Valley. I gripped my towel before Caitlin parked, keen to get out of the car and into the ocean.

The water, dark blue fading to crystal clear, looked so perfect from the car park. And the white sandy beach, sheltered by some small rocky hills, stretched a couple of hundred metres towards a towering hill, a giant grass-covered castle on the edge of the ocean. I loved the smell of the ocean and breathed it in deeply. I knew that the beach was good for me. Dad had really drummed that into me.

We threw down our towels and bags and walked straight into the water, which was still and surprisingly warm. Caitlin dived beneath the surface and I immediately followed, then started floating, so buoyant in the water that I didn’t even need to put any effort into it.