Lucid

  ‘I don’t want to lose you, Tyler.’

  ‘I don’t wanna lose you either.’

  ‘I don’t want to know, but if that’s what I need to do to keep you for now then I’ll do it, I’m listening.’

  ‘It’s not only for now. I mean, I know you’re amazing and all, but don’t you think you’re being a little bit cocky to think you’re this powerful?’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’ I shoved him, and we laughed.

  ‘You’re beautiful when you laugh,’ he said and warmth rose beneath my cheeks. ‘You’re always beautiful, but I like these creases.’ He placed his thumbs on the edges of my eyes, adding pressure as he drew me in until our mouths met. I entwined my fingers in his hair and pulled him closer. He kissed me urgently, tenderly, and I melted into him. His lips were ecstasy, and I imagined a world without this, without him, as new tears formed.

  We broke apart, but Tyler’s forehead rested on mine, and he brushed away the tears with a single stroke of his thumb.

  ‘What if you stayed here each night,’ I said, my face still inches from his, fingers still in his hair. ‘We’d dream together and I’d be kept too busy to dream of the plane.’

  ‘I think I could live with that.’ He gave me one of his wicked smirks. I’d missed that look. We laughed and I felt more at peace than I had since the news broke.

  I folded my hands in my lap. ‘So what now?’

  ‘You find out, I guess.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘I don’t think I can.’

  We fired up the laptop, and I went online for the first time in two weeks. I sat on Tyler’s lap; one chair wasn’t so bad when you had the right person to share it with. His arm rested around my waist like a seatbelt. He said he didn’t think I had the power to do it, but the pressure of his arm around me indicated he had some reservations; he’d buckled the seatbelt in tight, ready to hold firm for the oncoming collision. My heart thundered wildly, and as if he felt it through my back onto his own heaving chest, he whispered in my ear.

  ‘It’s going to be all right. Whatever happens…it’ll be all right.’

  I squeezed my eyes closed, sucked in a breath, and as I opened them, clicked on the third news story down the page.

  My job is one of the easiest in the world. Balance a tray of perfectly prepared-earlier canapés around a room full of strangers, and smile. My only threat to society, if I trip up, is a shirt full of blue cheese and tomato tart.

  The repercussions when other professions stuffed up had the potential to leave a stain too permanent to be scrubbed away. Paramedics, surgeons…pilots. I’d seen the dangerous wake left in the operating room of a not-so-skilled surgeon. It didn’t take much for a surgeon’s role to deviate into that of the grim reaper. One slip of the scalpel, one misguided move, and their hands were potentially the touch of death.

  For a pilot, the wake if they tripped up had fatal consequences for countless others.

  Tyler’s dad had tripped up; he’d made a misguided move.

  No wonder Tyler wasn’t okay.

  The words in the article were like another language. Even Tyler, with his linguistic skills, struggled to fathom the complexities of it all. From what I could decipher and get my head around, a lot of things went wrong that day.

  Apparently it all came down to a cup of coffee and a spill they determined had occurred on the pilot’s side of the centre console. Spilling his drink had toppled the first domino.

  ‘Coffee? Shouldn’t the equipment be strong enough to withstand a coffee spill?’

  ‘Obviously not. That’s why they make the rules, I guess.’

  ‘What rules?’

  ‘The pilot’s supposed to receive his drinks from his left side, from the outside of the plane.’

  ‘Maybe it was the steward’s fault.’

  ‘Recordings say otherwise,’ Tyler said. ‘I don’t understand it. He was so good at what he did, why did he do something so reckless?’

  ‘It was coffee, sounds more like a lapse of concentration. Or maybe he was in desperate need of a caffeine fix.’ I huffed out a half-laugh, instantly letting it fall away. ‘Sorry.’

  I continued to read the article.

  The liquid in the console eventually played havoc with the navigation equipment, giving the plane, and the pilots, incorrect data on the altitude. The plane, automatically correcting the position, had sent the nose pitching up. I remembered being thrust back in my seat in my dream.

  The biggest problem, in the end, all came down to a misunderstanding, both technical and human. And when the pilots failed to correct the plane, they contacted the one place that could have helped them confirm their correct altitude – air traffic control.

  Such was their luck, and that of the other three-hundred and twenty-five souls on board, their tactical contact at ATC was busy, and fumbled her reply. With her co-worker distracted with an email instead of double checking her numbers like he was supposed to, the error hadn’t been picked up. They could’ve saved them, but instead they knocked over the last domino that sent them straight into the sea.

  ‘So it wasn’t only your dad’s fault, not completely. The air traffic controllers were supposed to help; I’m putting blame on them. If they’d actually been doing their job properly, your dad would’ve been able to bring the plane down safely. It’s so many things. You can’t blame him.’

  ‘I know. But they do, and that’s almost worse.’ He sounded broken-hearted, like a child told he wasn’t good enough for the team.

  ‘Oh, Tyler, I wish I’d known. I’m so sorry.’ I turned around on his lap so I could see him. How could I have been so selfish?

  ‘It’s okay. I know it’s been hard for you too.’ The sadness in his eyes remained but his mouth turned up. ‘You know what I keep thinking?’

  I shook my head slowly.

  ‘How pissed he’d be. Seriously pissed off. He’d be so annoyed at himself for this. And the other guys. Dad had such a high work ethic, he’d be fuming.’

  Tyler’s gaze grew distant. I’d made the right decision to learn the cause. He couldn’t talk openly with his mum or sister without upsetting them. I was the only person who understood him. The realisation only made me feel worse for not letting him talk to me.

  Not anymore. Tonight it’d be all about him. How he felt; how angry he was at his dad, how upset that his dad had to leave like this, with it hanging over his name, and how it wasn’t fair what the reports were saying.

  ‘He was a good man, accidents happen every day. His just had bigger consequences than most. He wouldn’t have wanted this. I feel like I need to talk to the family members of the victims, to tell them how sorry I am. Then I’m angry at Dad that I feel like I have to, but I need to tell them how wonderful he was too, so they don’t continue to see him as a monster.’ I gripped Tyler’s fingers and pressed my lips into his shoulder – the only support I could offer, because nothing I said would help.

  I listened all night. We lay in each other’s arms until we were almost asleep. Until Mum tapped on my door and told us the time, suggesting Tyler needed to head home.

  I didn’t want him to leave, if I let him go, it might be the last time I saw him. Fear tightened its hold on me, constricting my lungs.

  He walked out of my room with a promise that he wasn’t going anywhere, and I believed him. I believed him enough to fall asleep, even though it was the last place I should be heading with the knowledge I now possessed.

  — 31 —

  I didn’t have a second to panic. I landed in the cockpit as the plane dived and pitched, throwing me around the floor of the cabin. I screamed as my body slammed into the door and straight into another part of my dream.

  My breath caught, struggling to keep up with the sudden shift. I stood in a room, surrounded by the flickering glow of rows of computer monitors in the crammed rooms of air traffic control. My head spun as voices crackled to life around me, familiar voices – Tyler’s dad’s.

  �
��We have a tech problem. Can I get an altimeter check?’

  A lady with a thick bun on the back of her head received the call. She flicked her eyes toward a man at a nearby computer and groaned. Adjusting the headset in front of her bun, she said, ‘Standby,’ before swivelling on her chair to tend to another issue, even though nothing could be more important than this one.

  I scanned the room. The man sat to her right with the back of his buzz-cut head to her. He glanced up before returning to his email. Across the room a suited gentleman stood with a foot propped into a set of glass doors, finishing off a conversation with another man walking backwards away from him. Buzz-cut shot another peek over his computer screen, and I wanted to smack him over the back of the head and shout, ‘Do your job’.

  After what felt like a hundred years the lady shifted her attention back to Tyler’s dad and, as fate would have it, distractedly gave him the wrong information.

  I groaned and waved my hands. ‘No, look properly, concentrate!’ I yelled at her, my hands on my head. She didn’t hear me – no one could.

  I whirled in disgust, back to the plane cockpit. My heart rate accelerated; anxiety clutched at my chest. I knew what happened next, and yet, I still held onto a hope – I was on the Titanic and we were going down, but maybe, just maybe…

  I shifted my weight in a futile attempt to get a better grip of the handrail at my side. My clammy fingers slipped, and I jammed my foot into the back of Ken-doll’s chair. It held for a second, until the plane veered into a steep dive, and I was flung, like a ragdoll, back toward the door.

  They flicked switches and tried to get the aeroplane to co-operate. Their voices strained, and although I’d never say as much to Tyler, his dad sounded panicked. It ricocheted around the walls of the cockpit and filled the small space with air too thick to breathe until the indecipherable words around me became ones that needed no explanation.

  ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday, flight S108 is going down.’

  The speakers crackled. The captain’s last words – Tyler’s dad’s last words – pierced my soul as deeply as the first time I heard them. ‘Brace for impact!’

  But I couldn’t brace myself any more than Ken-doll could. And as the plane dove toward the sea, I flailed about like a tattered rag doll.

  *****

  First thing in the morning, Tyler met me in the library for our free. My heart somersaulted at the sight of him, gorgeous and carefree and here. I stared as he crossed the carpeted floor, determined to commit every detail to mind: his long stride, the way he hooked a hand under his bag strap so it didn’t slip off his shoulder, and as he drew closer, the tender smile and softening of his eyes, as if I were the most beautiful sight he’d ever laid eyes on. I didn’t want to forget a single thing.

  ‘Hey you,’ he said, dropping his bag and rounding the table to wrap his arms around my shoulders. He pressed his mouth firmly to mine. ‘It’s so good to see you.’

  I mumbled an agreement, too transfixed in the sight, scent, and feel of him.

  He dragged a chair right up to mine and sat. ‘Anything?’ Anticipation and worry lined his forehead.

  I stared, unsure if I should tell him about the dream. It seemed like a clear indication that things had progressed, and my mind was steadily moving forward, toward a destination he still denied existed. I told myself the dream proved nothing, and that I was overreacting. Though a remorseless murderer trying for a ‘not guilty’ charge would’ve been more believable in front of a jury.

  Just the thought of telling him terrified me. Saying it made it true.

  ‘What is it?’ Tyler asked.

  My throat dried up, I couldn’t speak. I ran my hand along my neck. Tried to swallow, nothing.

  ‘Really? You’re gonna play that card? How old are you again?’

  I grabbed my water from my bag and chugged a big mouthful. I held the bottle in the air and coughed. ‘Same as always. Sixteen years, four months,’ I croaked, my eyes growing wide as a thought occurred to me. ‘You won’t be here for my seventeenth birthday.’

  ‘Of course I will. When is it?’ he asked.

  ‘March twenty-fifth, you’ll be long gone by then.’

  ‘Hey, what’s gotten into you? Where’s this come from?’ He placed his hand on mine. ‘You did have a dream.’

  My shoulders sagged. I had to tell him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The plane? Was it different?’

  I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I’m still here,’ he said, like it was a triumph, something we’d overcome and won.

  We hadn’t.

  ‘It was just a new dream, different view, same story. You’re still here because I haven’t altered anything yet. I needed to see the whole story first. Now I have. Now it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Stop talking yourself into it. I’m gonna pinch you every time I see you daydreaming today, how’s that sound?’

  ‘Painful. You do know how much I daydream, right?’

  He screwed up his face. ‘Please tell me you haven’t already come up with a solution?’

  ‘Nothing concrete yet.’

  ‘What do you mean…yet?’ He pressed his fingertips to my cheeks. ‘How do we stop you from thinking? There must be a way to ward off your train of thought.’

  I wished there was.

  Tyler’s hands fell away when my face remained straight – if I knew a way I’d have already used it. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He balled his hands and dropped his eyes. ‘No. You knew this would happen. I should’ve listened to you. I didn’t…I’m sorry.’

  ‘No more sorrys. It is what it is.’

  *****

  ‘What will it be like if you go back to your old life? What was it like?’ I stood, and looked out my bedroom window at the neighbouring houses and mountain peaks in the distance.

  ‘Why would I wanna go back to my old life?’ he said. ‘I like it here.’

  ‘Yeah, but if something happened you would.’

  ‘If you brought my dad back from the dead, you mean?’ He shook his head and stepped over to stand beside me.

  I scowled. ‘Don’t shake your head, I’m serious.’

  ‘I know you are. I can’t imagine it, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t have to, I do.’ The weight of the responsibility was heavier than all my dreams stacked together.

  ‘I know. I’m not being fair, I’m sorry.’

  ‘So, tell me about your life. I want to know, so I can imagine all the things you’ll be doing when you’re gone.’ It was only a matter of when for me. There was no if.

  ‘You really believe it’s gonna happen, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah…I do.’ I swept my fingers through my hair. ‘And I know it’s hard for you to understand why I’m so paranoid, but you haven’t felt what I’ve felt. When I saved Cal, when I woke up and everything had changed, it was horrible.’ Tears stung the back of my throat. Afraid they’d erupt if I continued to speak, I swallowed. ‘I can’t explain it, Tyler. I was the only one who’d lived something different the day before. It was scary…seriously scary. I was terrified, thought I’d lost my mind. I’m scared to do it again. And I’m scared to lose you. You won’t have existed to anyone but me, and I’ll have to act like I’m normal, but I won’t be, because you’ll be gone.’ The tears fell fiercely, and I wiped at my sodden cheeks. ‘But if I know you’re okay and happy in Sydney, I’ll be okay. I can live with that.’

  Tyler pulled me to him, and I cried into his shoulder. I held onto him tightly, as if the harder I gripped, the better chance I had to make him stay.

  He held me and told me everything I needed to hear about his old life in Sydney. About the almost daily afternoon surfs during the summer and his mates, who would be his mates again. Then he reassured me that even though he missed the surf, he really didn’t want to go back.

  ‘Who wants that when you can have ice-cold snow and frostbite.’ My shoulders shook with laughter.

  He shared stories about hi
s dad. All the things he’d do if he got the chance to see him again.

  ‘Except, I wouldn’t be seeing him again, I’d just be seeing him, same as I always had. I wouldn’t be seeing him in any new special, “Oh my God I almost lost you” kind of way. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere in my mind, would he?’ he asked, frowning.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t. It’d be as if nothing’d changed.’

  ‘Then nothing will’ve changed. I’d still barely see him. I’d still choose surfing over tinkering in the shed with him. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him, but back then I hadn’t realised how much. Why don’t we realise it before it’s too late?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have I left it too late to tell you I love you?’ Tyler’s forehead rested on mine, his eyes clouded with his own tears. ‘Is it too late?’

  ‘I hope not,’ I said.

  He kissed me then, gently and earnestly all at once, then slowly pulled away. ‘Je t’aime, Lucy, I love you.’

  I’d known it long before he said it. I felt it in his words, the way he held me, kissed me, and more importantly the way he looked at me, his eyes peering into my soul and sharing a piece of his with mine.

  I’d known, and yet my breath still hitched when he said the words out loud.

  So many people struggled to say those few words, refused to succumb to the power they held. A certain vulnerability existed with the proclamation of love. It said, ‘I need you, don’t ever leave me, you are my world’. It shouted desire and devotion far greater than anything physical. It shocked the fundamental core of your being, and if removed would take your breath away – as if it were the air in your lungs. And the biggest problem of all, if you admitted you loved deeply, you opened yourself to an equally deep pain. But the admission didn’t alter how you felt. If you loved, you loved, regardless of whether you said it out loud or not, the pain would still be the same on the other side. I’d once thought love weakened a person, but it didn’t, it was the loss of love that brought people to their knees.