Invisibly Breathing

by Eileen Merriman

  It’s short but sweet: I missed you, Two.

  ‘I missed you too, Five,’ I whisper, my breathing all ragged again. Breathe, just breathe. I fold the note to put in my pocket again, but hesitate. Felix’s writing is so distinctive. If anyone finds the note on me, they’ll know it’s from him and then …

  What? I’ll be the butt of everyone’s jokes.

  For a moment I dare to think of a time when I won’t have to worry about that. A time when I can be with whomever I want, girl or boy, and not get bullied for it. When I go to uni? Or is that just another melting dream?

  After shredding the note into tiny little pieces, I flush it down the loo. And as I watch Felix’s words swirl down the drain, the empty feeling in my chest grows and grows, until it feels like it’s going to swallow me up.

  When school finishes, I get on my bike and do a long circuit to Felix’s house, detouring past the subway to make sure he gets there before I do. There are no cars in the Catalans’ driveway, but I can hear music coming from inside. It’s loud. It’s Green Day.

  It’s Felix, got to be.

  No point knocking with that racket going on, but the front door’s unlocked anyway, so I walk straight in. I stride down the hallway to the room at the end, where the music is coming from. The door is slightly ajar, and there’s a minifigure Blu-Tacked to the outside. I think it’s Yoda, but I’m not entirely sure, because someone’s yanked his head off.

  Peering around the door, I see Felix standing with his back to me, his guitar in his hands. I move forward and curl my fingers around his shoulders.

  ‘Hey, Five,’ I say in his ear. Felix starts and whirls to face me, his black-rimmed eyes widening. He twists away from me, flings the guitar on his bed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ At least, I think that’s what he says, but it’s so loud. I reach for the volume control on his speaker and turn it down.

  ‘I wanted to t-talk to you.’

  Felix lets out a strangled noise. ‘Jesus, you haven’t replied to any of my texts—’

  My heart speeds up. ‘That’s b-b—’ I try, but he won’t let me talk, won’t give me a chance to explain.

  ‘And you treat me like a leper all day, and now you want to talk to me?’

  ‘I couldn’t talk to you at school. You know why.’

  ‘So you’ve come to break up with me?’

  ‘No. Why would you think that?’

  He clenches his fists. ‘Why wouldn’t I think that?’

  ‘I told you how I f-f-feel about you.’ My voice rises in frustration. ‘I just don’t want everyone to be talking about us when it’s none of their b-business.’

  Felix steps back, stumbling over a pile of what looks like dismembered Lego parts on the floor.

  ‘Yeah? Well I haven’t seen or heard from you for nearly a week, and I wasn’t asking you to throw your arms around me or anything, but if you’d even acknowledged my existence then that might have been nicer than you ignoring me completely, in front of everyone.’

  ‘F-f-f—’ Five, I try to say. Five, I didn’t mean to push you away, I’m in love with you. But it’s all twisted up in my mouth, and I can’t stop the avalanche of words heading for me.

  ‘You’re just like everyone else,’ he says, kicking at the Lego. ‘You make me feel like nothing, and I’m not putting up with it any longer. You can piss off.’

  I stare at him. ‘So what?’ I ask. ‘Are you b-b-b—’

  I don’t finish my sentence. I don’t have to, because Felix finishes it for me.

  ‘Yes.’ He slams his hand against the wall, so hard it makes me jump. ‘Yes, Bailey Hunter, I’m breaking up with you.’

  A door slams, somewhere, but I no longer care who might have heard us.

  I don’t care, because I’ve just been dumped, and nothing else matters. Nothing.

  CHAPTER 19

  FELIX: POLONIUM-210

  After Bailey leaves, I sit amongst the gory pile of minifigures on my carpet and start throwing heads and torsos and limbs at the walls. I don’t even notice Mum until her feet appear beneath my nose.

  ‘I think we need to talk.’

  I glare at her red toenails. ‘I don’t need to talk.’

  Mum sinks onto my bed. ‘I saw Bailey leaving. He looked pretty upset.’

  ‘Good,’ I mumble, although I don’t feel good for what I did just now. Maybe Bailey deserved it, but I feel like crap anyway.

  Screw you, Bailey Hunter.

  ‘Felix,’ Mum says.

  ‘What?’ Why can’t she leave me alone?

  ‘Felix, look at me,’ she says, so I raise my head. She sucks in her breath. ‘What did you — oh.’ Why is she staring at me like that? I swipe the back of my hand across my eyes and stare at the black smear on my index finger.

  Oh crap.

  My mother’s forehead wrinkles. ‘I think we need to — is that my eyeliner you’re wearing?’

  ‘You should buy waterproof,’ I say, and a weird expression flits across her face, as if she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘Did I hear you tell Bailey you were breaking up with him?’

  ‘I’m breaking these,’ I say, holding up a decapitated minifigure. Even Batman isn’t exempt from my massacre.

  ‘Can you be serious for a moment?’

  I fling Batman away. ‘Fine. Yes, I’m wearing your eyeliner, and your mascara too. And yes, you heard me breaking up with Bailey, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you do.’

  Once Mum has closed the door behind her, I select the saddest Green Day song I know, which is ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’, and listen to it four times in a row. I’m about to listen to it a fifth time, but that reminds me of how Bailey calls me Five.

  Called me Five, past tense. No more Five, no more Two, no more kisses by the river.

  I’m alone again, and I don’t want to be, and I hate that Bailey made me realise that. I wish I’d never met him. I wish I hadn’t broken up with him. I wish I didn’t have to live through the next minutes-hours-days-months.

  Wishing never got me anywhere.

  On Tuesday morning I start counting as soon as I wake up. It’s the only way I’m going to get through today. Triangular numbers get me through breakfast, briefly interrupted by Mum trying to engage me in conversation (Mum: Maybe you should ring your dad for a chat. Me: Why would I do that??). Thank God Alfie’s away on camp, so I don’t have to deal with him talking at me as well.

  Square numbers in the shower, Fibonacci numbers on the way to school. No one hurls abuse at me, which is something, I suppose. My second class of the day is English, which means I’ll have to see Bailey. I’m dreading it, but not as much as I’m dreading physics. At least in English I don’t have to sit next to Bailey. I keep my head down, trying to concentrate on the task Ms Ralph has set us. She wants us to pull apart a short story, looking at setting and theme. Our take-home assignment is to write a short story of our own, taking these elements into account.

  I can’t concentrate on the boring short story Ms Ralph has given us. I’m too busy thinking about the story I’m going to write, with Sam and Henry as vampires out to get me. I’ll have to change their names, of course. How do you kill a vampire? I think it’s with a stake through the heart. That’s not very original. Perhaps I could poison my blood. But then I’d have to be immune to my own blood. Maybe I could coat my skin with arsenic instead. Does the skin absorb arsenic?

  Then I remember the creepy true story I read on the internet the other day. It was about an ex-KGB agent who was poisoned with polonium-210. His enemies slipped it into his tea, and it took him twenty-one days to die. He lost all his hair, because he was being radiated from the inside.

  Do vampires drink tea? No, but perhaps they could drink strong coffee when they’re between victims. Polonium-210, double shot, yes. I decide that polonium-210 is my new favourite word, because it is so exotically deadly, and because it incorporates a
number. I like it so much that I write it over and over on my notepad, until Ms Ralph picks on me.

  ‘Felix,’ she says. ‘Would you like to give us your thoughts on the connection between setting and the themes of helplessness and desperation in this story?’

  I blink at her. All I can think about is vampires and polonium-210.

  ‘Um …’ I say.

  Ms Ralph sighs and looks towards the back of the room.

  ‘Bailey? What do you think?’

  Bailey clears his throat. ‘The woman is scared she’s going to die. She’s worried no one will hear her if she can’t get out of the b-bath.’

  My toes curl when I hear Bailey stumble over ‘bath’. As much as I dislike him right now, I don’t think I can stand to hear someone make fun of him. But no one says anything, and Bailey keeps talking.

  ‘It’s kind of like it’s become a grave.’

  Ms Ralph gives him an approving smile.

  ‘Very good. Sometimes, for elderly people, the very act of taking a bath, or walking to the letterbox, can be a terrifying thought.’

  ‘That sucks,’ Wiremu says, and there’s a ripple of laughter. I’m not laughing. I’m thinking about Bailey in my room yesterday, when he said I told you how I feel about you. I’m thinking about how he promised me an infinitude of stars. And I miss him, I miss him, even though he’s in the same room.

  But then I remember how he ignored me yesterday, how he screwed up my note without even reading it. I remember how he didn’t contact me the whole time he was suspended from school.

  You’re a user, Bailey Hunter.

  If he really cared, he would have sent me a message last night to apologise, wouldn’t he? But no, he’s ignoring me again, as if I don’t exist.

  Well, I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.

  If I tell myself that enough times, I might start to believe it.

  At lunchtime, I go home and sit in my room, reassembling minifigures while I listen to ‘When September Ends’ again. It should be renamed ‘When March Ends’. March only just began. Bailey and I only just began, and now we’re over.

  For fuck’s sake, I wish I could get him out of my head.

  After that, it’s back to school to drag myself through two more hours of meaninglessness. In chemistry, we learn that changing from a solid to a gas without passing through a liquid phase first is called sublimation. Carbon dioxide and arsenic can do that. Usually, I’d be fascinated, but today I’m too distracted to wrap my brain around that concept. Even calculus seems pointless. Why bother coming to school when I could teach myself this stuff anyway? Apart from English, which I’ve already established I don’t need, because no one ever died from not being able to analyse themes and setting. If I didn’t have to go to school, I could avoid the haters and Bailey. I could avoid people, full stop.

  I don’t need people. They’re unstable, imperfect, and basically just a pain in the ass.

  When I get to my last class of the day, physics, I don’t sit in my usual seat in the middle of the bench. Instead, I perch on a stool at the wall end, where Bindi usually sits. I’m hoping Bindi will arrive next, but no, it’s Bailey. He sits at the other end of the bench, my usual seat a yawning chasm between us.

  I’m trying not to look at him, but when I do peer at him, I see his legs are jiggling, his face flushed. No new bruises or cuts on his face, but why should I care anyway?

  Fighting a rising tide of I-don’t-know-what in the back of my throat, I bury my head in my bag, pretending I’m looking for a pen. My phone buzzes.

  Dad: I’m finishing early today — how about just you and I hang out for a few hours? Meet you outside the front gates after school?

  I’ve just sent back a reply — Sure, see you then — when I hear Bindi’s voice.

  ‘Felt like a change, did you?’ Neither Bailey nor I say anything. Bindi raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh-kay,’ she says, like she’s finally figured out that Bailey and I aren’t talking to each other. Obviously she hasn’t figured out what’s really going on, because she shoves her phone under my nose and says, ‘When were you going to tell me about this, Romeo?’

  It’s a text from Coke: Has Felix told you how he SCORED on Friday night? Make sure you ask him for details cos he ain’t giving me any.

  Bindi grins as if this is the biggest gossip ever. ‘What’s her name?’

  I hesitate, about to tell her Coke’s got it all wrong. Then I realise Bailey can hear every word we’re saying, even if he’s making out like he’s not listening, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

  I don’t lie, not exactly.

  ‘Lucy,’ I say. ‘She plays the electric guitar.’ I could add and all I scored is a jam session, but why should I? Cutting my eyes across to Bailey, I see that he’s stopped jiggling his legs.

  Yeah, you listen up, Bailey Hunter.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  Bindi lets out a squeal. ‘Oh my God, that’s so cool. When are you seeing her next?’

  ‘We’re going to have a jam session sometime.’ I shrug. ‘I don’t know when.’

  ‘Ooh, Mr Cool,’ Bindi teases.

  Mr Campbell’s voice rings out. ‘Right you two, I’ve had enough of your chit-chat. Felix, you can come sit down the front. Iosefa, can you swap with him please?’

  That’s probably the only good thing that happens in physics. Getting to sit as far away from Bailey as possible, I mean. As for the misunderstanding about Lucy, I don’t know how I feel about that. Maybe I’ll make Bailey jealous, but for what?

  I don’t know anymore.

  When I walk out of the front gates after school, there’s no sign of Dad. Sighing, I loiter beneath the trees, hoping none of the haters will walk past.

  ‘Felix.’

  I frown, swivelling my head. That’s Dad’s voice, but where’s his car?

  ‘Felix.’ There he is, leaning over the top of a Toyota Corolla sedan.

  I slide into the passenger seat. ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘This is my car.’ Dad pulls away from the kerb. ‘Didn’t think I needed the SUV anymore for just me.’

  ‘I liked the SUV,’ I say. Dad raises an eyebrow at me. I sigh. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Thought we’d head back to the flat, get pizza for dinner.’

  ‘OK …’ I want to ask if Mum called him, but that might invite a whole bunch of questions I don’t want, so I turn up the radio. And oh man, they’re playing ‘When September Ends’ and I can’t bear to listen to that in front of my father in case he can read my thoughts.

  I think I just ruined something wonderful yesterday.

  No, Bailey ruined something wonderful.

  Maybe it wasn’t that wonderful.

  So I change the station and oh God, even worse, Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Under the Bridge’. Bailey plays that song all the time.

  I turn the radio off.

  Dad says, ‘Everything OK?’ We’re driving over the bridge, and my mind is spinning back to just weeks, just days before, when Bailey kissed me in the river.

  And then we went under the bridge, and kissed some more.

  And more.

  And now … now …

  ‘No,’ I say.

  We’ve stopped for a red light. I hate red. I hate the feelings coursing through me, red-red-red.

  Stop. Stop. Stop.

  ‘Want to tell me about it?’ Dad asks.

  ‘No.’ I’m trying to remember when I last felt good — maybe a week ago, when Bailey and I were lying on my bed, his head on my shoulder, and I whispered my anagram into his ear.

  U breathe invisibly.

  But what if being invisible is impossible?

  The light turns green. But instead of driving onto the motorway, we’re turning left into a car park. What?

  Oh my God, he wants to have a chat and I don’t want to talk about this right now. Or ever.

  Gripping my thighs, I gaze at the river glistening below, remembering Bailey’s voice in my ear: holy shit, that
was awesome.

  Dad says, ‘Want to drive?’

  I’ve driven before, but only in a five-kilometre radius around our house. Never on the motorway, with the glassy harbour glistening to the left and the hills rising ragged to the right. I wonder if Dad would let me do this if he knew I was feeling a little bit crazy right now, like I could easily swing the wheel left or right to tip us either into the briny blue or slam us into the median barrier.

  But maybe he knows what he’s doing, because after a few minutes I realise I’m so busy concentrating on the road that I’ve almost forgotten about Bailey and the haters and my fake relationship with Lucy. We cruise past the ferries, through the city and onto Oriental Parade. The day is still, the harbour sharp and blue.

  ‘Won’t be long before you can sit your restricted,’ Dad says, as we wind up the hill to his flat.

  ‘I can’t parallel park,’ I say.

  ‘This weekend,’ he says. ‘I’ll teach you this weekend.’

  I pull into his driveway, on a platform beside his flat, and yank the handbrake up as hard as I can.

  ‘Thanks. And yeah, the parallel-parking lesson would be cool.’

  ‘Done,’ he says, taking the keys from me. For a moment I stay where I am, looking at the houses dotted around the cliff.

  I think about sending a message to Bailey.

  I don’t send a message to Bailey.

  I walk inside.

  That evening we sit on the miniature balcony to eat our pizza and watch the city lights wink on like fireflies. Dad doesn’t have gory work stories like Mum, but we always have great discussions about things she doesn’t get, like how digital information can now be stored within an individual atom.

  Atoms are so cool. Everyone used to think they were the smallest unit of matter, but it’s not true, because atoms are made up of quarks and leptons. An electron is made up of one lepton. Protons and neutrons consist of three quarks each.