All the Invisible Things

by Orlagh Collins

  ‘Vetty!’ she says, pulling herself vertical. ‘Look, my very own beam!’ she claps her hands together. ‘Pez carried it over from his garden all by himself.’ She’s standing by my feet, waiting for me to say something, but my conscience has swallowed my vocal cords.

  Pez jumps off the wall. ‘A superstar, isn’t she?’ I open my mouth, but no words come out. Arial cartwheels off but Pez steps closer, moving me back off the grass. ‘What’s up with you?’ he whispers.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘And the beam’s awesome.’ When I look up he’s making that face. The one that says I know you really stole those Haribo, Helvetica, and I slump down on to the wall in the shade.

  After a long minute he walks inside. I stand up and follow him. ‘I’ve gotta run,’ he says, grabbing his backpack. ‘I’m having a chat with Mum.’

  ‘Wait!’ I say and he turns back. ‘You mean, the chat?’

  He shrugs. ‘Let’s see,’ he says, but then he tilts his head, looking right at me, sunlight from the garden making his eyes tight. ‘Mike in Stranger Things called it,’ he says. ‘Because friends don’t lie.’ Then he walks off to the hall door.

  I’m too stunned to say anything, and he’s gone before I can wish him luck.

  * * *

  My eyes latch on to a fine crack in the plaster above my bed. It’s after midnight but I can’t sleep. I open my laptop and type BISEXUAL into Google. 194,000,000 results in 0.93 seconds. OK …

  I scan the Wikipedia definition – sexually attracted to both men and women – tick. I then move on to articles underneath that talk about definitions and advice and dos and don’ts and coming-out tips, until I land on an Am I Bisexual? quiz and even though I know the answer I click on it and start scrolling through the simple questions, taking care to be as honest as I can.

  Result: Sounds like you might be bisexual!

  SHARE YOUR RESULT

  SHARE

  TWEET

  You’re open to dating and/or having sex with either gender. Continue exploring and discovering what you’re comfortable with … It doesn’t have to look the same for every person you’re attracted to. If you’re ready, check out how to come out to friends and family.

  Oh really? Ya think!

  Share your result? I laugh out loud. Yeah, that’s the trickier part, isn’t it? Then I sit up and lean against the window, peering out into the night. It’s completely dark. Nothing stirs apart from Old Giles’s grey cat, who is prowling along Pez’s front wall. I watch her slink around a street lamp then curl herself up against the black pole of the residents’ parking sign, wrapping and unwrapping her tail, writhing in some mysterious pleasure. It’s her usual sultry show.

  I push away from the window and sit on the edge of the bed, trying to shake the restlessness from my limbs. I stare at my T-shirt and bare legs in the half-light, listening for sounds that aren’t there: no hum of pipes, no creaks or slow footsteps above my head. The flat is quiet, soft, silent. Then I think about tomorrow night and I try to think about seeing Rob and the prospect of kissing him again. I focus on the smell of coconut shower gel as he leaned against me on the couch. I’m concentrating hard but all I get is Doritos and then in my mouth, I taste peppermint and my head fills with vanilla and I know that although I’m attracted to him, the connection is nothing like it is with March. I didn’t need to take a quiz to know this is real. I can’t stop thinking about how it felt to kiss her.

  I run my hands down my belly and under the elastic rim of my knickers, watching my face as my fingers search the space between my legs. Whatever I’m doing feels good and soon I’m not thinking at all. A rushing sensation starts somewhere deep inside me, close to my stomach and it’s intense and new, so new I dash to my door and even though everyone is asleep, I lock it. I pull my knickers down and tip on to my knees, moving my fingers in small circles until I’m only my body, allowing my mind into places I’ve never really let it linger in before.

  Soon I’m sweaty and dizzy and I throw my head back as my body writhes and twists, but I don’t stop. I’m sure I’m about to pee or die or something because the sensation is there and everywhere, building and building until finally I’m creased double, frozen, hand slammed against the mirror. Every little part of me cramped up tight, face twitching, mouth silently open as my hand slides slowly down the glass, just like Kate Winslet’s in Titanic only mine comes to rest on grubby Minions stickers, but who cares because OH. MY. GOD.

  I crawl on to the bed and wait for my breath to settle. When it does, my mind and body are so very still and I lie there for a long time, enjoying how strange it is to feel this calm and excited at once.

  30

  I lie in bed thinking about last night and I’m awake a good ten minutes before I reach for my phone. As soon as I do, I sit up because there on the home screen sits a text from Pez that I missed last night.

  Maybe for the best

  That’s all it says, so I swipe across, finding the earlier messages he sent too.

  Mum went out

  Our chat never happened

  Maybe for the best

  I drop the phone on to the bed. Jesus, Luna! How can it be so hard for her to see that Pez is reaching out? I’d try talking to her, only that could upset Pez and it’s not my place. And she’s Luna Boyd after all. I text back something as supportive as my guilty conscience will allow.

  Then I drag myself up, staring at my face in the mirror, turning it from side to side, searching for something that wasn’t there yesterday. Some sort of sign. I move forward and back to check, but no; still the same heart-shaped face with wonky bushy brows I went to bed with. I haven’t changed in the night but I still take Pez’s camera from the shelf and hold it to my eye, examining myself in the mirror from behind the lens, hoping it might see something I don’t.

  I hold myself straight and take in my reflection. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at myself half-naked like this. I mean really looked, at all of me. I adjust the light and then focus on how my right shoulder sits higher up than the left, then I catch the new roundness to my hips and then snap some images of the hairs on my thighs catching the sunlight like tiny flecks of spun gold. Then I set the timer and position the camera on a high shelf so it might catch me in profile as I stare at my reflection. Just a photo of me, for me, and I stand and wait but I don’t know how long it’s auto-set for and then, as I turn to check why nothing has happened – FLASH! It catches me looking right at the lens.

  I shuffle into the kitchen, where Dad and Arial are at the counter, already dressed. ‘Here she is,’ Dad says, jangling his car keys.

  I check the clock on the microwave: 9.18. ‘It’s Saturday, right?’

  Arial jumps down. ‘Emergency food shop,’ she says. ‘There’s literally NOTHING to eat.’

  It’s not the first time this has happened since we moved back. I look to Dad, who is by the recycling, shuffling through junk mail, like he doesn’t want to think about whose job this really is either. ‘Five minutes,’ I shout out. ‘I need to jump in the shower.’

  Of course, everyone in Camden Town is doing their weekly shop this morning and there are tailbacks in the fruit aisle. Arial flees down the hard shoulder on a quest for bananas while Dad waddles along beside me looking lost. ‘D’you have the list?’ he says, eyes ahead.

  I stop pushing. ‘I’m supposed to write the list too?’

  ‘Just asking,’ he says, slinging a bag of apples inside our trolley. I spot a gap by the potatoes and tell Dad I’ll cover the dairy aisle if he finishes off the veg. It’s too cold to sulk amongst the yoghurts for long so I head off in search of bread, biscuits or the warmth of some comforting carbohydrate. I stomp along, wondering how the highs of my early hours could have crash-landed so quickly. I see Dad holding a bunch of carrots and a sack of potatoes as I pass the detergents, but I wheel on by, slinking into the cereal aisle for more alone time. I’m happily comparing the price of mueslis when Arial skids up and tips a ton of brightly packaged crap from her arms into
the vast cavity of our trolley. Then she turns her head in wait while I lean over and rummage through her stuff. I hold up a four pack of butterscotch Petits Filous and some cheese strings.

  ‘Please, please, please!’ she says, hands clasped.

  I let them drop and quickly fish out the variety pack of cereals she’s just swept from a nearby shelf. ‘Put these back,’ I say, handing them to her.

  She climbs on the front and leans over the trolley. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve already got Weetabix … and Cheerios.’

  ‘C’mon, Vee!’

  ‘They’re full of sugar,’ I say, pointing to the shelf they came from.

  She jumps down. ‘You say no to everything.’ She says it under her breath.

  I jerk the trolley towards me. ‘Um, no, I don’t.’

  Her eyes squint and her chin juts forward. ‘Yeah, you do,’ she says. ‘Even Mum would’ve said yes sometimes.’ Then she storms off, passing Dad, who is standing at the end of the aisle like an apparition.

  He walks towards me and drops the veg and some toilet roll into the trolley, then he checks my eyes, looking at me questioningly. I go to say something about how unfair everything is but my lip quivers and I turn away. ‘Hey,’ he says, squaring my shoulders back to face him.

  ‘She thinks I’m mean but I’m not.’ My voice shakes. ‘And she’s in my face the whole time, asking questions.’

  I feel his arm around me. ‘You had your own questions at that age, far as I recall.’

  My eyes fill up. ‘She expects me to know everything! But I don’t.’ My legs turn to jelly and I collapse down into a gap in the Crunchy Nut boxes on the bottom shelf. ‘And … I miss Mum.’ I whisper it as warm tears stream down my face.

  Dad slides the Frosties boxes along, plonking himself down beside me and the shelf buckles under his weight. ‘Me too.’ He wipes his eye as he says this and if it’s possible this makes me feel worse. ‘But Mum didn’t have all the answers either. None of us do.’

  I snort. ‘That’s comforting.’

  ‘Look,’ he says. ‘I don’t need to tell you how much I’m winging it as a dad. A lot of the time, I haven’t a clue. I told Wendy last week that I’m afraid I’m getting worse.’

  I shoot him a look. ‘What did she say?’

  He snorts. ‘Stuff about you girls growing up and your needs changing. It was very sensible and Wendy-like, but the bottom line is, I’m your dad and Arial’s your sister. It’s not up to you to parent her. Somewhat terrifyingly, that’s my job.’

  I almost smile. ‘It’s not that I mind her asking me that … stuff—’ I take a huge, rickety breath. ‘I just wish I was better at it. I wish I could be more like Mum.’

  He shuffles along and leans his shoulder into mine. ‘You are,’ he says. ‘More than you know.’ Then he squeezes my knee. ‘Ever wonder why she loved fonts so much?’

  I shrug. ‘No.’

  ‘She aspired to their neatness and their order. She loved them because they were everything she wasn’t. Remember her handwriting? Illegible, right?’ It’s true. It was, and I sweep at my nose with my sleeve, bobbing my head up and down. ‘Real life,’ he says, ‘is scatty and messy and brilliant, like your mother and like you.’ He looks into my eyes and sighs. ‘Let’s just try to be there for Arial,’ he says. ‘Thankfully, I think she wants that more than she wants answers.’ I try to smile but I’m so choked up my face can’t do it. ‘And for what it’s worth,’ he says, taking my hand, ‘you’re doing a wonderful job.’

  I’m drying my hair in my barely recognisable bedroom, flipping through photos on the camera, when Dad knocks. ‘Want me to put out some snacks for when your friends come over?’

  I frown. ‘Snacks?’

  ‘We’ve got those Tuc crackers, or maybe some … crisps?’

  ‘Seriously, Dad?’ I almost laugh, but his eyes are so soft, like he really is just trying to be nice.

  Then he shoves his hands into his jeans pockets and looks around. ‘Well, it looks like you found the hoover anyway,’ he says, backing out the door.

  I return to the camera and the wonky self-portrait I took earlier is there. At first I disliked how startled I look, and I almost deleted it, but the blurry bunny-in-the-headlights thing is kind of growing on me. The doorbell goes. I leap up to answer it but Arial gets there first.

  ‘It’s Pez!’ she screams.

  I walk out and drag him back into my room, where he circles, staring at the photos I’ve stuck up on my wall. Finally, he sits, but it’s a while before he speaks. ‘How long before they get here?’

  I’m looking for leggings in an overstuffed drawer. ‘March said they’d call over around eight.’

  ‘It’s after quarter to!’

  I stop tugging. ‘Ohmygod, relax.’

  ‘I’m nervous about seeing her, that’s all,’ he says, standing again.

  ‘Thought you both decided not to be together for a while?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, staring at an old photo of Mum. ‘But the last time I saw her … well, you remember. I left her on Rob’s bed half-dressed before bolting out the door. It’s not an easy one to come back from.’

  ‘No, guess not. Sorry,’ I say, yanking a top over my head. Pez slots his phone into my speaker dock and starts scrolling. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve managed to have that chat with Luna?’

  He shrugs. ‘She starts night shoots tonight, so she slept late.’

  ‘But you told her you wanted to talk?’

  His head drops. ‘Not in so many words.’ Then he slumps against the wall. ‘You sure it’s a good idea for me to come out tonight?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Everything’s OK with you and March, isn’t it?’

  He nods. ‘I mean, she wanted to know where she stands, which I get, but she didn’t push me.’ He looks down at his shoes again. ‘She’s a bit special, is the truth. ’

  ‘She is.’ As soon as I’ve said it he looks up at me and in that moment I have the strangest feeling, like he senses how much March means to me too. I turn to the mirror and start lining up make-up brushes.

  ‘It’s the others though, isn’t it?’

  ‘You mean Rob, Kyle—’

  ‘All of them,’ he says. ‘I’m afraid it’ll come up and I’m not prepared for how to handle it.’

  I pop my mascara wand back in the tube and turn around. ‘March was the only one you owed an explanation to and that’s sorted, so you don’t need to worry. I think the rest of them will just be happy to see you.’

  He sighs, looking at me full force. ‘What did I do without you,’ he says, stooping to lean his forehead on my shoulder. ‘Actually, don’t answer that,’ he adds, standing straight again. ‘Less said about it the better.’

  I return to the mirror, trying to scrape my hair up, but it’s all bumpy.

  ‘So,’ he says, after a while. ‘Have you been speaking with Rob?’

  I give up on the high pony and try it down with a severe middle parting. ‘Said we’d see him there.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he says. ‘What’s going on there?’

  I turn back. ‘He asked me to come over to his house last night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It was Mum’s anniversary and—’

  ‘It’s not like Rob to have girls over to his place. Maybe he actually likes you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Sorry for being cynical,’ he says, ‘but the bloke’s not known for developing feelings. Would you have gone, if it was a different night?’

  I sit down to think about this. Maybe I would have but after everything that’s happened in the past thirty-six hours, it’s obvious that whatever I feel for Rob doesn’t compare to the connection I have with March.

  ‘Probably not,’ I say, trailing off. Then I pick up a lipstick, and as I open and close the lid it seems so clear that I must end whatever it is I’ve kind of started with Rob. I know in my heart it’s right but I’m nervous about how to do this when whatever it is we�
��re doing seems so casual.

  I’m trying the new lipstick on when Arial knocks on the door. ‘Your friends are here!’ she shouts.

  I turn to Pez. ‘OK?’ I say, and he nods. ‘I’ve got your back. Got mine?’

  ‘Always,’ he says.

  I drag him up off the bed with one hand. ‘Right,’ I say, grabbing my bag with the other. ‘Let’s do this.’

  31

  Arial is circling March and Amira, studying them like exhibits in a museum, not even pretending to be discreet. She sees me and Pez and she gives us the equivalent of a thumbs up with only her eyes. It’s quite something. I walk over and hug them both quickly, but Pez hangs back, holding up his hand in a small wave. I quickly spin back to Arial, who is still watching us. ‘I see you’ve met my little sister.’ Arial waves at them again and soon Dad is up from the couch before I can stop him. ‘And this …’ He’s already shaking their hands. ‘… is my dad.’ I think about being embarrassed but I’ve too many other things on my mind. Besides, March and Amira are being so nice I quickly push his cringy enthusiasm out of my head. ‘C’mon,’ I say, tugging on March’s jacket. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Outside, Pez unlocks his bike from the gate and wheels it up ahead to the road. March follows him and I watch from a few strides behind as they fall into step. She’s on the right, wearing a Supreme hoody she told me was fake, over a minidress and she looks comfy and casual. He’s on the left, jeans low and high-tops fresh like always. Still, I can’t but notice their movements and how different they are to the first time I saw them together by the canal. Pez’s swagger has long gone and March’s steps have changed to a different pace and watching them now I see that the envy I first felt wasn’t jealousy over Pez, as I wanted to believe, but a pull towards her. At the junction with Camden Road, he shifts his bike around to the other side so that it’s no longer between them and he walks on, wheeling it along with his left hand. Their voices are soft and it’s impossible not to see the tenderness between them.