‘I was outside.’
‘Did you bring a jacket?’
‘I’ll be right.’
It gives him an excuse to shift closer, anyway. Small talk for a few minutes, movies and music. I play along. It doesn’t take much thought. It always pans out pretty much the same. He gestures to the group in the corner passing joints. Hand at the small of my back, fingers hot on my skin. Gentle nudge forwards. ‘Come check it out.’
The potheads are giggling. Nick takes the jay as it comes around and inhales. Offers it to me with a grin.
God, how unoriginal. I ignore the offer and reach out to the centre of the circle and draw the baggie and box of roll-your-owns closer. Cool and deliberate, like I don’t know everybody’s eyes are on me. Pack, roll and seal, quick and methodical. Look up. ‘Lighter?’
One-handed catch and the flame flares up with a single flick. Good thing I’ve done this so many times, because my head is swirling like a vodka slushie machine. Steady. Let it catch properly. Take a good hit and pass it on.
Nick takes it and grins. ‘Impressive.’
I shrug. ‘Not exactly rocket science.’
‘Where’d you learn that?’
Jesse O’Sullivan taught me in the Applebys’ back shed when I was thirteen. That was where he kept his stash. We sat on piles of old hessian sacks and he ended up totally off his face and told me things too horrible to comprehend. Don’t know why I kept going back in there. I didn’t have anything better to do, I guess.
I arch an eyebrow. Meet Nick’s gaze. ‘Does it matter?’
Shrugs. ‘Not to me.’ Leans in closer, breath hot on my face. Hand on my back, thumbing under the edge of my dress. Whispers into my ear.
I don’t do this, like Izzy does, for a tally to boast about. I do it because the roar of whatever it is—adrenaline, hormones—is enough to shut everything else up for a while.
Now the lights are back on, and we avoid eye contact as we dress. It’s a much more awkward and protracted process.
I’m always clear-headed afterwards. Doesn’t matter how wasted I was. I’m clear-headed and a bit empty, too. Like no matter how good it was, it’s never enough, it never lasts.
‘Going back out there?’ He’s brisk. More businesslike than before.
I’ve already checked the time on the bedside table. Just past midnight. Early, really. ‘Nah, I’m done for the night.’
‘Want a lift home?’
Shake my head. ‘I’ll get a taxi.’ Pause with my hand on the doorknob. Glance back casually. ‘Thanks for warming me up.’
Terry, or maybe Rose-Marie, left the kitchen light on for me. It’s too bright. Bounces off the marble and glass surfaces. I pull out the Froot Loops and sit on the bar stool to eat them. Stare at Tash’s drawings on the fridge. She’s starting to make things you can recognise instead of just scribbles. She can do a T for Tash now. Cute kid. Pain, though. Never shuts up.
I shut myself in my bathroom and peel off my clothes. Two late vodka shots I did on the way out collide with the Froot Loops in my stomach and I upend it all into the toilet. A multicoloured mess stinking of alcohol. Sit under the shower for twenty minutes, eyes closed in the hot spray and steam.
My eyeliner’s run, I look like Halloween. I grab a wipe and stare at my reflection for a long minute. He wasn’t the biggest jerk ever. Just another guy. I still hate him, though. Among others.
Tash is asleep. Watching her, part of me wishes she was awake just for the company. In my own bed I roll straight onto my side and my mind starts to play through the usual routine. Being a show-off with the pot. Taste of watermelon vodka. A stranger’s hands on me. My face in the mirror.
I clamp my eyes closed, will the memories away, and search for something else to replace them. It gets harder every time.
before
after
later
‘You’re late,’ he teases. Stands up as I approach his table. I was wide awake last night worrying that I wouldn’t recognise him but I do, straight away. He’s immediately familiar even though I don’t think I saw him smile last time. His hair is cut shorter but his eyes are the same.
‘Sorry. Left my walking stick at home.’
With Mum and Alan I feel awkward talking about my leg—guilty, somehow. If they had their way I’d be scooting around in one of those motorised wheelchairs so my leg never had to take any weight. I’d never dare make that sort of smart crack with them. Mum’d blow her fuse.
He sits down opposite me. ‘How is the leg?’
‘Getting better. The scar’s pretty epic.’ I raise my left leg, prop my foot on the edge of his chair and pull up my jeans to show my calf. It’s been over a week since I shaved my legs but if regrowth ever bothered me, it doesn’t now. There’s been too many strangers pulling, prodding and examining this leg for me to have any shyness left, at least with anyone I’m not related to.
I love how Daniel reacts. He doesn’t wince, he’s just interested. I watch his eyes assess the longer scar, trace the bumps that mark the stitches. I know his doctor’s eyes are looking at how neat it is. How well it’s healing and all that. But there’s an added element to it, beyond the professional detachment. He’s remembering how it looked before.
‘Tidy work.’
I grab his hand and press it against my leg where the surgeon put the metal plates in. ‘Feel that?’
He prods gently, obedient. ‘How long till you get them out?’
‘Next year, probably.’
‘Your surgeon did an excellent job.’
‘I got the guy who works with the AIS, on all the Olympians.’
‘Only the best for you, hey?’
‘Exactly.’ I push the jeans leg back down. ‘I was lucky.’
A grimace flits across his face. I know he’s remembering how I looked then. The way my shattered fibula had broken through my skin. The translucent flaps of skin, vibrant red of my blood. And Robbie, of course.
‘Lucky?’ he echoes.
‘Not a word you’d use?’
‘Probably not.’ He changes the subject. ‘How come you walked here?’
‘I didn’t tell my parents I was meeting you. I didn’t know what they’d think of the idea, so…’
He nods, slides the menu across the table at me. ‘What do you want?’
We’re only a few minutes from my house. This is where I used to meet up with some of my friends, so I know the menu pretty well.
‘I’ll have a banana cinnamon smoothie.’
He wrinkles his nose. ‘Really?’
‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’
I watch him scan the list. It’s been nearly a year, but I still have the sense of connection. There’s none of that awkwardness that I have with the kids at my new school. Even Mum and Alan, at times. I feel safe. Bold enough to be my brutally honest, curious self.
‘Do you ever think about it?’
He looks up at me, realising we’ve detoured off the path of easy banter. He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again. The waitress wants to take our order.
I let him do the honours and it’s only when the waitress has gone that he answers.
‘Yeah. I do.’
‘A lot?’
He shrugs. ‘Every once in a while. When things remind me. People. Patients.’
It rained that night. Absolutely poured. We’d been in the worst drought in a hundred years and it ended that night, with so much rain that half the city flooded. There were blackouts right across Sydney, and by the time they got me into the ambulance the traffic was chaotic, lights out everywhere. It was a spectacular storm, with thunder and lightning and hail. Those are the things that remind me, now. Dark clouds in the sky make my stomach knot just that little bit.
I change the topic. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
He smiles at the sudden shift. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
A cocked eyebrow. ‘Do I need a reason?’
I shrug, smile a teasing smile. ‘I’d say a high percentage of high school girls would classify you as pretty hot.’
He laughs at that. ‘Just what I want, a bunch of high school groupies.’ Then, more seriously, ‘I was in a relationship. We ended it last May.’
May. ‘Before or after…?’
‘That night. After I put you in the ambulance.’
‘Why?’
A pause. ‘It had to end. We both knew that. I guess what happened just gave me the push I needed.’
‘You’re welcome.’ There’s irony in my voice, but I don’t mean it unkindly, and I know he knows that. I bite my lip, but the curiosity gets the better of me. ‘What was she like?’
The question surprises him. I guess he doesn’t exactly get interrogated by high school girls every day. He thinks about it for a while before answering.
‘She was stubborn.’ He smiles at the thought. ‘You’ve never met a more stubborn person in your life. She was the “I don’t need anybody’s help” girl.’
‘How did you meet?’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘You really want to know?’
‘Why not?’ I haven’t ever had a boyfriend, but it’s not like I have no interest in learning how these things work. I need romance in my life as much as the next person, even if it’s vicarious.
He thinks again. ‘I was overseas, in the Philippines. I was in an internet cafe in Manila one day and she came in. We started chatting, just two Aussies catching up. I took her around the place to show her some things. She was studying medicine at uni, so we had a lot in common. She wanted to work with Doctors Without Borders, asked me all sorts of questions about it. We just kinda ended up hanging out for a couple of weeks.’
‘Was she beautiful?’
He cracks a smile. ‘What are you, six?’
I shrug. It was a reasonable question. He’s a really good-looking guy, he wouldn’t have trouble picking up a beautiful woman. I know I’m never going to get a guy like him. That’s all right. Most of them are probably pretty vain anyway.
He shakes his head, still amused. ‘She was…Not beautiful by any traditional definition, I suppose, but she had something about her. This energy…The most intense blue eyes you’ve ever seen, and when she smiled—if you could get a smile, it was always hard work—it was just…’ He flushes, as if he realises what he’s saying, and shakes his head. ‘God, I sound like a total wanker.’
I laugh, wanting to disarm him. ‘I think it’s romantic.’
‘Well, it was good while it lasted.’
‘Did you love her?’
Another surprising question, it seems. Don’t people ask this sort of stuff? Why not?
‘Yeah.’ Quietly, but there’s no warning in his voice to back off. I wonder if he has friends or family that he tells this sort of stuff to, or if this is the first time he’s actually had a chance to talk about it. Why are people always so determined to keep their emotions all bottled up? It’s just stupid.
‘But it didn’t work?’
‘Nope.’
‘Why not?’
‘I screwed up. I
was
screwed up. I was struggling with being me. I wasn’t in a place where I could have a healthy relationship. Lauren wasn’t really either.’
‘That sucks.’
He laughs briefly, as though I’ve just made the understatement of the century. ‘Yeah.’ He braces himself against the edge of the table, thumbs curled over the edge of the aluminium top. Pondering. ‘I would never wish what happened to you on anyone,’ he says slowly.
There’s obviously more coming. ‘But?’
‘But that night…’ He stops again. He seems perturbed by what he wants to say.
‘Spit it out.’
‘It helped me. Somehow. It got me out of this rut I’d got myself into, out of that place I was in. You know what they say…Reminder of your own mortality and all that stuff.’
He stares at the tabletop, as if he can’t look up at me. I try to read his face. Guilt? Why would he feel guilty? If saving my life made him feel better about himself, I’m not going to complain. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I stare at my ceiling and wonder about the other people who were there, whether it changed them somehow too, or whether they simply walked away and forgot all about me and Robbie. I remember their faces: Daniel, the Asian girl who helped until the ambulance arrived, the ambos, even the people in the crowd. They all had that look on their faces that said,
That’s terrible, but at least it didn’t happen to me.
I shrug, try to be nonchalant. ‘We’ll call it even.’
Our drinks arrive and I watch him tip one sugar into his coffee and stir it, wait for him to taste it before I hit him with the big one.
‘Do you believe in God?’
He looks up, meeting my gaze with surprise that becomes frank curiosity. ‘Why do you ask?’
I shrug. ‘It’s a valid question.’ I swirl the straw around in my smoothie, stretch my legs out straighter under the table. My leg is starting to ache again, right on schedule. ‘I think I do. I want to,’ I say.
‘What’s stopping you?’
Another shrug. ‘The usual arguments. I don’t know if I’m that trusting. I look at the world and I want to believe that there’s some grand designer behind it all, but…Usually it all just seems a bit too pointless. Random. Maybe existentialism is more my style.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Existentialism? I didn’t know philosophy was part of the current high school curriculum.’