I shouldn’t be surprised when he follows me. When I look left-right-left-right-left before crossing at the lights, I see that there are about three lampposts between us. I try not to look behind me after that, but I know he’s there.
After sliding down the bank, I sit beneath the bridge, watching the river slip past my feet. The water’s murky, littered with broken branches and silt. I count ninety-three seconds before I hear Bailey’s shoes sliding over the rocks. I bring my knees up to my chest and push my forehead into the space between my knees.
‘Five.’
I ignore him.
‘Five,’ he says, his voice cracking a little. I raise my head. He’s standing half a metre away, his arms dangling at his sides.
‘My old man b-b-backhanded me last night.’ He moves his hand in a quick yet careless gesture that makes my heart lurch. ‘I yelled at him, because he was b—an asshole.’ He shrugs and looks away, swiping his hand past his nose again. Rusty smears track up his arm. I don’t know what to say. Not about his father anyway.
He sighs. ‘What about you? How come you ran out of class?’
I swallow. ‘Zero knows about us. It’s all over Facebook.’
Bailey goes very still. ‘What, like photos?’
‘No. But I think Alex must have told him, after he went home last night.’
‘Last night,’ Bailey echoes and sits beside me, dragging his hands down the sides of his face. ‘Can I have a look?’
I open up Ruby’s Facebook account and hand him my phone. Bailey goes silent for a moment, but I can hear the thick sound of his breathing.
After a long twenty seconds or so, he says, ‘You want to look at this?’
I bury my head in my arms. ‘No.’ There’s bound to be at least fifty new comments since I last looked. I don’t want to know how many other ways people can spike me with their words.
‘You want me to d-delete the account?’
I inhale. ‘Yeah.’
‘What’s your p-password?’
‘Fibonacci.’
‘Well, that’s a surprise.’ Bailey bends his head over my phone. After another minute or so, he says, ‘Done,’ and pushes the phone back into my pocket. I glance up, watching him walk to the river. He drops to a crouch and cups water in his hands. After splashing it over his face, he rubs water up and down his arms until all the blood has gone. Then he sits beside me again, his thigh resting against mine.
‘No one knows if what Zero said is really true,’ he says. ‘Right?’
‘Yeah, but it’s not as if we can deny it.’
Bailey lets out a slow breath. ‘No one has any proof. What Alex thinks he saw doesn’t mean anything.’
‘So you want to lie about it?’
‘I’m not asking you to lie, Five. But if we just lay low for a while, then it’ll b-blow over.’
‘I’m not ashamed of us,’ I say, even though I’m pretty freaked about being outed too. But one day it’d be nice not to have to hide anymore.
Bailey puts his hand on my thigh. ‘Me neither. I just can’t cope with this right now, OK? I’ve got enough crap to deal with. And my dad — Jesus, he’d never understand.’
I nod. ‘Yeah, I — sure. We don’t have to tell anyone.’
‘Thanks, Five.’ He kisses me on the ear, and my stomach does a little tumble. I lean into him, listening to him breathing in, out, in, out.
‘Breathe invisibly,’ I whisper. ‘That’s us.’
‘Invisibly breathing …’ He kisses me again. ‘Yeah, I like that.’ He sighs. ‘B-b-before I met you, I used to think about running away. A lot.’
I wrap my fingers around his knee, feel his muscles tense. ‘Don’t run away, Two,’ I say and, when he doesn’t reply, ‘Why was your dad being an asshole?’
‘That’s just the way he is.’ He keeps looking straight ahead, at the detritus tumbling through the river. ‘Nothing I do is right. He even sold my caravan.’
‘That sucks. How come?’
‘He needs the money,’ he says, his voice faint. ‘And, well, I think he hates me.’
‘He doesn’t hate you,’ I say uncertainly. Bailey gives me a smile, but not because he’s happy, I don’t think. I frown.
‘What does your mum say when he’s picking on you like that?’
Bailey lobs a stone into the river. ‘She tells me not to wind him up. I mean, she doesn’t like it, b-but she’s scared of him too.’
‘What if you told someone? Like a teacher?’
‘It’ll make things worse,’ he says. ‘I just need to stick it out for a couple more years.’
‘Less than two years,’ I say, and he nods, but I know it’s not enough. What if his dad really hurts him before then, worse than he has already?
‘We should g-g—return to school, Five. We’re probably in enough trouble as it is.’
‘I don’t want to go back to school,’ I mumble.
Bailey takes my hand and stands up, pulling me to my feet.
‘What will you do about Zero?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know.’ I need to think. I need to be smarter than Zero, way smarter than before.
He lifts his chin. ‘What if I talk to him?’
‘No,’ I say quickly. At the moment, Bailey’s just my collateral damage. I hate to think what might happen if Zero gets his hooks into him too. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything.’
Bailey stares at me for a moment. ‘OK, I won’t say a thing.’
When we arrive back at school, we walk past the administration block, where I tell the office lady that I’ve been tending to Bailey’s bleeding nose, and he tells her that he gets them all the time.
Coitus, the deputy principal, emerges from her office like a turtle from its shell — slow, blinking.
‘You should get to class, Felix.’ She turns to Bailey. ‘I’ll find an ice pack for your nose.’
I walk back to chemistry as slowly as I can, so the bell for the end of first period rings before I reach the classroom. Diverting to biology, I spot Bindi on the way.
She’s kissing Dallas in the stairwell, seemingly oblivious to the catcalls and whistles from the junior boys walking past.
I sidle up to her, and yank on her canvas bag.
‘Hey.’
‘Wha—’ Bindi steps back, running her hand over her lips. ‘Oh. Hi.’
Dallas leans against the wall, grinning. ‘I hear you and your friend Ruby have started a war.’
‘She’s not my friend.’ I turn to Bindi. ‘Are you coming to biology?’ I really don’t want to turn up by myself.
‘Well, I guess technically Ruby’s not your friend.’ Dallas follows us down the corridor. ‘More like a split personality or your alter ego, right?’
I stop walking, and give Bindi the evils. ‘You told him?’
‘He’s not going to tell anyone else, are you, D?’ Bindi’s cheeks are capsicum red.
Dallas draws a finger across his lips. ‘These puppies are sealed.’
‘I can’t believe you told him,’ I mutter, and walk into the classroom. Bindi’s obviously feeling guilty, because she sits beside me and says, ‘I had to tell someone. It was such a great trick.’
I fumble in the bottom of my bag for a pen, then give up and turn it upside down instead, sending a pile of books cascading onto the bench.
‘Obviously you haven’t seen how he got back at me then.’ I find two pens, both of them green. Great, now my notes are going to be ruined. I’ll have to copy them out tonight in black and blue.
Black and blue, like Bailey’s face. What am I going to do about that? Is there anything I can do about that?
‘Yeah, like anyone’s going to believe those bullshit gay rumours,’ Bindi says, her voice dropping to a whisper.
What do I say to that? I don’t want to betray Bailey, but I don’t want to lie either. I grip my pen so tight that my hand starts to spasm.
‘You’re going to get him back, aren’t you?’ Bindi asks.
I scowl at her. ‘Like how?�
��
‘You’ll think of something.’
‘This is not a movie.’
Bindi taps her pen against her teeth. ‘Dallas thought it was hilarious.’
‘Today,’ Mrs Kumar announces, ‘we are going to talk about DNA replication.’
‘I still can’t believe you told him,’ I say.
At lunchtime I eat half my sandwich on the way to judo, leaving the other half for afterwards so I won’t get a stitch during warm-up. Judo feels like an oasis in the middle of the day, a chance to see Bailey and avoid the haters for an hour.
I’ve just walked out of the main block when I hear chanting. As I round the corner to the gym, I realise they’re saying one word, over and over.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
I’m not interested, so I give the crowd a wide berth. But I feel a hand on my arm and a voice says, ‘You might want to stick around for this.’ It’s Ethan, a large sports bag slung over his shoulder. I turn my head, and feel a jolt in my chest.
Oh no. It’s not a pair of scrapping juniors the crowd is egging on. Bailey’s pacing around Zero like a lion about to pounce. Zero’s standing dead still, a leer plastered across his face. It’s hard to tell if he’s amused, or scared, or a bit of both.
‘What’s he doing?’ I whisper.
‘I don’t know,’ Ethan whispers back. ‘One minute we were walking to the gym and the next minute, Bailey was taking off after him.’ He gestures at Zero, who’s spreading his hands, still smiling. ‘But Bailey hasn’t said a thing.’
Zero’s voice cuts through the damp air. ‘What’s the matter, H-h-hunter? Cat got your t-t-tongue?’
Some people laugh at that, but not as many as I thought, considering there must be at least thirty of us gathered around the boys. Suddenly Bailey thrusts his hands forward and shoves Zero, hooking Zero’s leg from beneath him at the same time. Zero is still lying flat on his back, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, when Bailey launches himself on top of him and swings his fist.
‘Oh,’ Ethan says. ‘That wasn’t judo.’
‘Stop!’ I yell, but no one’s listening to me, least of all Bailey and Zero, who are tumbling around on the concrete. When I step forward, Ethan grabs hold of my arms, which makes me even angrier, but he won’t let go.
I hate looking, but I can’t tear my eyes away. It’s not really a contest. Before long, Bailey has forced Zero onto his back and has an arm locked around his neck, one of Zero’s arms trapped between Bailey’s legs. I can see Bailey’s lips moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. All I can hear is ‘fight, fight, fight!’ and the blood rushing through my ears.
There’s a piercing whistle behind me.
‘Hunter, get off him right now.’ Mr Leadbetter pushes through the crowd, his cheeks flushed. Bailey stands up, running his hand beneath his nose. It’s bleeding again, all over his shirt.
‘It’s OK,’ Bailey says. ‘I’m done.’
‘My arm, my arm,’ Zero howls, rolling onto his side.
‘There’s nothing wrong with it,’ Leadbetter says, after a brief inspection. ‘Right, to the office, both of you.’ He nods at Ethan. ‘Can you get going with the warm-up? I won’t be long.’
‘Sorry,’ Bailey whispers as Leadbetter marches him and Zero past us. Turning my back on him, I follow Ethan into the gym.
I’m sick of people breaking their promises. I’m sick of being lied to. It seems like the only person I can rely on is myself.
CHAPTER 16
BAILEY: SCAR TISSUE
Sitting outside the principal’s office is not what I had planned when I got up this morning. Beating up Zero is not what I had in mind either. Mostly I was focusing on finding painkillers for my headache and resisting the urge to run away.
The urge to run away is pretty fricking overwhelming at the moment. I’m not sure about my chances, though, considering I’m sitting next to black-belt Leadbetter. Zero’s sitting on the other side of him, and we’re all staring at Mr Wheeler’s door, as if that will make it open any faster.
Promise me you won’t say anything.
OK, I won’t say a thing.
I didn’t break my promise to Felix, not at first. Not a word left my mouth, not until I’d pinned Zero to the concrete. But then I had to say something, something to make sure he’d stop spreading rumours once and for all. Zero hasn’t said a word to me since. I should be happy, but I’m not.
Mr Wheeler is very short, one hundred and sixty centimetres at the most. That doesn’t make him any less scary than Mr Leadbetter, although he’s far less terrifying than my dad.
‘Thanks, Colin,’ he says, after Leadbetter pushes Zero and me through the door, one hand on each of our backs. ‘I’ll take it from here.’
Zero sits down with a thump, cradling his arm. I can feel him glaring at me, even though all I’m looking at is my hands. My left knuckles are grazed where I scraped them on the concrete. My head’s still the sorest part of me though. When I run my fingers through my hair, I can feel a mountainous bump beside my ear.
I sold the caravan.
‘So, Joseph,’ Wheeler says, sitting behind his desk and making a tent with his fingers, ‘want to tell me why you two were fighting?’
Zero snorts. For a moment I think he’s going to say something like Hunter started it. He’d be right. But when I finally look at him, I see his eyebrows draw together as he weighs up whether he’s more scared of the principal or me. He clamps his lips shut, and gazes down at his feet.
Wheeler makes a noise, a cross between a groan and a sigh.
‘How about you, Bailey? What do you have to say for yourself?’
The silence stretches out for a long time. All I can hear is the ticking of the clock on the wall behind me, and muffled shouts and laughter from the field outside the window.
‘Fine,’ Wheeler snaps. ‘You’re both suspended until Monday. Get back into the waiting room. I’m calling your parents to come and pick you up.’
‘What on earth were you fighting about?’ Mum’s livid. I bet she wasn’t planning on having to deal with her suspended son when she woke up this morning. Bruises and bleeding noses are no surprise, but I’ve never been in trouble at school.
Until now.
I wind down the car window, inhaling petrol fumes and cut grass. Imagine if I told Mum what the fight was really about.
I decked him because he was spreading rumours about me and Felix.
Yes, Felix, the guy whose house I keep going to for dinner.
Yes, Felix, the guy who I’ve been kissing and almost-having-sex with.
I blink at my mother. Her hands are curled so tight around the steering wheel that her normally red knuckles have gone white.
‘It was stupid,’ I say, my voice flat. ‘I won’t do it again.’
Mum pulls into our driveway and kills the engine.
‘You’re lucky they called me and not your father.’
I push my door open. ‘Yeah, lucky me.’
‘Don’t take that attitude with me, Bailey Hunter.’ Mum grabs my arm before I can escape. ‘Now, look. I’m not going to tell him, and neither are you. OK?’
I stare at her for a moment. I don’t know why, but part of me wants Dad to find out. Hell, maybe I should tell him everything, the whole truth. Maybe he’ll kick me out of home. It’s not the worst thing that could happen.
But because I’m scared of the worst thing that could happen, just like Mum, I say, ‘OK. Sure.’
Mum lets go of my arm, runs a hand over her forehead. Her mascara is sitting in little dots on her eyelashes. Maybe I should get Felix to give her a lesson on smoky eyes. The thought makes me smile in a semi-hysterical kind of way.
‘It’s not funny,’ she says, and I swallow the smile. ‘I don’t know what got into you, but getting suspended from school isn’t going to help you get into university, or law school.’
‘Selling the caravan isn’t g-going to help me g-g-get into uni or law school either.’ I gesture at the house. ‘You think I�
��m going to get any study done in there?’
Mum’s shoulders slump. ‘Hon, we’re just trying to make ends meet the best way we can. I think things are going to settle down. It’s been hard, with the move and all, but—’
‘I don’t see how this is settling down,’ I say, fingering my swollen lip. ‘He hates me, doesn’t he?’
‘He doesn’t hate you,’ Mum says, just like Felix did earlier, but she’s wrong. They’re both wrong.
‘I’m the only one he does this to,’ I say, my voice rising. ‘The only one. Why is that? Do you know?’
Mum’s hands are trembling. ‘Bailey, just get inside,’ she says, and something lurches inside my chest. Does she think I’m going to hit her too?
‘I’m not like him,’ I say. ‘I’m not, I’m not.’
I jump out of the van and stride around the side of the house. Mum’s calling after me, but I pretend I don’t hear her. After entering the caravan, I close all the curtains and turn up my ancient stereo as loud as I can, Red Hot Chili Peppers singing ‘Scar Tissue’.
It feels like the worst thing that could happen is getting pretty close.
Three messages come through on my phone over the next couple of hours. The first is from Ethan: Is it true you got suspended? The second is from Wiremu: Man you kicked Z’s ass good he SO deserved it. The third, surprisingly, is from Felix: Are you OK?
I don’t reply to any of them. I’m too busy packing up the caravan, and it’s ripping my guts out. Dad auctioned it on Trade Me. The lucky bidder’s coming to pick it up on Saturday. Part of me is tempted to douse it in petrol and chuck a match at it. Another part of me is hoping Dad will change his mind. Both of those parts of me are really fucking stupid, but dreams are free.
Maddy comes to see me around four o’clock, but I don’t notice her until she taps me on the shoulder.
‘Jeez, your music’s really loud,’ she says, turning the volume down. I sink onto my bed, flipping hair out of my eyes.
‘Are the kids home?’
She nods. ‘And Dad.’
‘Already,’ I mutter. I hope he drinks really fast and passes out by nine o’clock. It’s much more peaceful when he does.
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