Thud.

A dull noise swooped past Sally's ear. She listened out for it to loop back, yet all her hearing picked up was the delicate dance of the morning breeze through the fields beside the main road. Only heaving farm equipment and murmurs of milling sheep breached the ride's peace in the sound's wake, and Sally settled back into her study of the land beyond the car.

Thud.

The noise's return came with a blow against Sally's heel sudden enough to send a jolt up her leg. Lifting her feet up, she waited for the unseen object to rattle out from beneath her seat. Her core complained after holding her legs up for too long, however, and she wondered if she had imagined the impact as well as the sound to stop herself dozing off again. Falling asleep in Flick's car was a one-off mistake she did not want to grow into a bad habit.

Thud.

Cursing to herself, Sally lowered herself as far as possible to reach beneath her seat. Rather than the bottle or drinks can she expected to find, however, her hand brushed against the outer shell of a bag that, though rugged to the touch, was sleek enough to slip between her legs. She held the messenger bag over her lap, eyes passing over the small bulge in its slender shape. "What's this doing under my seat?"

Flick stirred a wad of chewing gum around her mouth. "Nice one! I was hoping you'd find that, that's my prized possession right there." Her answer gave Sally no hints as to what it was, but the pride that glimmered across Flick's face confirmed that she valued whatever the bag held as much as she claimed. "Take a peek, let me know what you think."

Though Sally's head screamed at her to stay far away from any nondescript bags with vague contents, her base curiosity won the battle. She rattled the zips apart to uncover a bulky, well-used instant film camera. "Your prized possession is...an old camera?" Sally asked, taking the device in hand.

"First off, Miri's not old, she's experienced. She's been there, done that more times than you have fingers and toes to count!" To stress her point, Flick took both her hands off the wheel, returning them as a yelp screeched through Sally's throat. "Sure, she's got a few nicks and scratches here and there, but who hasn't?"

Sally removed the camera from the bag. Scuffs darkened its blocky white casing, yet its flawless lens shone through the scars, ready to capture every amber leaf that sparkled in the sunlit fields beside the car. A thin silver stripe glided through the centre of the unit, the slim chips in its sides taking nothing from its air of elegance. Though she liked the aesthetic appeal of film photographs, Sally buried her desire to test the camera out herself. "Is this why you're all the way out here? To take pictures?"

"Can't a girl have a hobby?" Flick feigned a note of hurt, winking at Sally over the rim of her sunglasses. "Miri and I are two peas in a pod. Where I go, she goes. Where she goes, I go."

Holding her tongue about the oddity of Flick's final statement, Sally slipped the camera back into its home. "It – I mean, she's lovely," she said, her gaze cast towards the fields to avoid needing to say more. She had wondered who 'Miri' was since she met Flick, but not once had the camera seemed like a valid answer.

Flick spat out her gum over the side of the car and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "She's a total boss, right? I've tried other cameras, both film and digital, and not one of them holds a light to Miri. She's just better." The boundless love that lit up Flick's face was too infectious for Sally to resist. She found her lips curling up as she stared through Flick's sunglasses, the girl's unblinking eyes shimmering through the shaded lenses. "My friend thought so too."

"Your friend?" Sally drifted closer to Flick's side, surprised at how easily the movement came to her. "A friend back home, you mean?"

"How about we take a teensy detour?" Without waiting for Sally to answer, or even process, her sudden question, Flick swerved to the left and clattered the car over a swollen mound of dirt.

Sally's back thumped against the back of her seat, and she fell forward again as the vehicle landed on a mud-slicked farm trail strewn with stray leaves and stones. "What are you doing? We can't drive here!" she cried, narrowly avoiding choking on saliva.

The car swerved again to dodge a deep ditch, Flick's cheering punctuating the move. "Says who? Seems we're driving here just fine to me!" Bumps in the road broke her speech into snatched syllables, yet the rough ride did little to knock the wind from her gleeful sails.

A bump in the road cannoned Sally back into her seat. "Flick, this track's for farm vehicles. We're going to get stuck here!"

"Just trust me, Sal!"

Creaking bodywork and a rattling suspension left Sally with little choice but to trust Flick, the driver unfazed by the steady stream of complaints that flowed from every corner of her car. A glimpse ahead revealed flocks of sheep stood by the fencing of their pens, their unfussed faces close enough to touch if Sally could keep her arm straight for more than a second.

They drove past the patches of oak trees scattered around the sheep pens, then Flick pulled the car to a stop as the hill levelled out. Her lungs burning for breath, Sally escaped from her seatbelt and fell out of the vehicle, the wet grass soaking her jeans with fresh green stains. "Where are we?" she gasped, freeing herself from her coat and scarf and tossing them into the car.

Flick vaulted over the door beside her, shoving the car key into her pocket. "Follow me, I've got a surprise for you. Bring Miri, too!"

A glance at her phone told Sally she had to be at class in around half an hour. She had no idea how close they were to Bosmouth here, yet the thrill that coursed through Flick's bouncy steps strung her along effortlessly, Miri's bag across her body. Sally peered inside the bag's core to find Miri, and the sight that greeted her when she looked up again stopped her in her tracks.

She had lived by the ocean her whole life, but this was unlike any view of the ocean she had seen before. Gentle waves lapped at spires of black rock at the base of the cliff, the threads of sea foam woven into a sprawling web below her feet. The unfettered sunlight glanced off the water to paint its crystalline surface in sparkling sapphire, finished off with twinkling silver specks that eluded her direct gaze. Farther out, the Isles graced her eye with their small, shadowy figures on the clear horizon.

Sally's speech paled in awe of the scene. "Flick, it's..." she began, her voice little more than fleeting sighs. As Flick came to her side, she turned to meet the girl's eye and let a smile shine on her face. "It's beautiful."

"See? Aren't you happy you trusted me?" With her sunglasses hanging from the front of her top, Flick's joy became even more potent, and the slight chuckle that passed her lips soothed the burn in Sally's chest. Flick took hold of Miri and scanned the horizon for a shot, landing on an angle that snuck Old Norton's lighthouse into the frame's left side.

The wind picked up around them both, and Sally edged closer to Flick's side to hear the satisfying click of the camera at work. "How'd you know about this place, anyhow?" she asked, hands vanishing into her cardigan sleeves.

Flick withdrew the film and held it up, nodding and humming to herself. "Call it my super-secret photographer sixth sense! I passed the trail on my way to the village, and I just got a hunch about it," she said, passing the photo to Sally. Even though the picture had minutes of development time to go, Sally could already see how Miri had whittled the pictured sunlight to be almost as sharp and glossy as the real sight. "Like I said, she's a boss, right?"

"Too right. I see why you keep her close!" Sally left the photo on her seat, set the camera bag beside it, and huddled up in her cardigan.

Her companion, however, had other ideas. "I'm dying for a picture of me here. Feel like taking Miri for a spin?" Flick pushed the camera in Sally's chest, catching the girl's flinching wrists and placing her hands on the device. "She doesn't bite. Not unless you really want her to, at least. You got this!"

Sally heard the wind grow louder, yet not a flake of chill struck her hands as Flick coaxed them from her sleeves. The girl's grasp blanketed her skin in an even warmth, the tips of her black nails sketching soft lines between Sally's knuckles to stretch the contact out for longer. Soft trails of hot breath brushed past her face, the faint sweetness of peppermint and liquor dropping like a dense fog over Sally's thoughts. It took all her strength to take the camera and part from the safety of Flick's touch. "Right. How does this work? Do I just...point and shoot?"

"That's all there is to it. Get me in your sights and take the shot, and make it a good one!" Flick smiled and tapped Sally's shoulder before hopping towards the sea, angling her body to catch the light. "How am I looking, bud?"

Whether it was the stunning scenery around them, the shuddering excitement of getting away with trespassing, or just the aftereffects of the heavy booze on Flick's breath, Sally found herself floundering to answer the question. Flick looked good with the morning light pouring over her, and she had always looked good since the moment she had rolled into Sally's life. Even though the careless state of Flick's clothes implied she did not pay much heed to her appearance, Sally had come to believe such carelessness was exactly the appearance Flick wanted. And it worked for her, because Flick looked good.

Yet, as much as she tried, Sally could not bring herself to say Flick looked good, because Flick did not just look good. With the smooth sands of her golden skin beaming warmth, the loose folds of her verdant shirt sweeping off her shoulders in the breeze, and her eyes and lips sparkling in the sun, Flick looked gorgeous.

"Sal? Sal!" Flick also looked puzzled, bursting Sally from her speechless stupor. "Am I good here or...?"

Sally swallowed. "Sorry!" she cried, rubbing her eyes to find that whatever blurred her vision was not physical, but mental. "You're...you're perfect there."

"So if the shot sucks, it's your fault. Got it." The words did not even inflict mock wounds, as the sharp wink and fiendish smile Flick delivered them with gave Sally the shot she did not know she had been waiting for.

As soon as the film posted itself from the camera's body, Flick skipped over to snatch it up. "Bold move going for a candid kind of shot, bud. I like it!"

"How do you know?" Sally asked, eyes flitting between the inky film and her companion's glittering features. "The picture hasn't developed yet."

Flick led Sally back to the car and set the picture beside its partner on the passenger seat. "It's simple," she said with a shrug. With perfect timing, she took Sally's loose hand and sat her on the front of the car, the sun's glow flaring through her dark hair. "I'm a big fan of bold moves."

Stutters cracked through Sally's voice as she stared into the depths of Flick's eyes, looked at her hand in Flick's, then saw herself in the girl's eyes again. "You are," she managed to say as a statement rather than the question she meant. "Right."

Humming as she nodded, Flick leaned closer to Sally's face, her breath rushing over Sally's burning ears. Slowly, her hand danced along Sally's arm to her shoulder, coming to rest in the dip by Sally's neck. "And seeing as you're feeling bold too, I've got one more surprise for you. See, Sal, I..."

Sally's heart thundered against her chest. She wondered if this was real, if this was the work of some invisible spirits in the clifftop air, if this was what she had wanted from the moment she defied her parents to ride with Flick. What she did not wonder about was whether she wanted it now.

Flick's lips brushed against Sally's cheek as her voice mellowed to a barely audible whisper. "I...left the handbrake off."

"You – you what?"

Suddenly, Flick grinned and shoved the car towards the hill. Sally rolled back into the windscreen, and Flick hopped on the bonnet beside her as the car tilted over the hillcrest.

The tumbling car shook under Sally's back as it started to gather speed. Flick hopped over the windshield and landed in the driver's seat with a whistle, smiling at Sally through the glass. "Don't squirm too much! Unless you don't want me to get the engine going, that is."

"Me? You're the one that pushed us!" Clinging to the car with enough force to pinch her fingertips, Sally wanted to chastise Flick further, but her breathing was too sporadic to keep yelling.

Flick turned the key, yet the engine's screeches came to nothing.

"Flick?" Sally wailed, her body frozen to the front of the car as it crashed over a bump in the ground.

Another series of screeches was followed by pure dumb silence.

"Any day now, Flick!"

The car raced towards the thick woodland and sturdy fencing at the bottom of the hill, yet just as Sally thought to scream, the engine roared into life. "Aha! There we go!" Flick cheered, bringing the vehicle to a jerking halt. "Hop on in, and I'll get you to class for real this time. No more detours, I promise!"

Sally peeled herself from the windshield, tucked Miri back inside her bag, and settled inside the car. Looking across to Flick's bright red face, her cheeks round with stifled laughter, Sally knew her own sour expression was on borrowed time. As Flick broke down into crying laughter, Sally let herself laugh along with her, if only to vent the pressure that had taken hold of her gut since a stark realisation had dawned on her.

It had not been the surroundings or the alcohol. Flick really was as stunning as she had looked in that moment, if not more so. Admitting that terrified Sally more than any runaway vehicle ever could.