After it gets dark, we migrate inside to watch TV. We watch Bear Grylls eat a tarantula, followed by a giant centipede. Once the episode has ended, I head to the loo. When I walk back into the lounge, Dad’s outside again, his arms propped up on the railing.
‘Hey Felix, come and look at the stars.’
I lean beside him, peering up at the Southern Cross and Orion’s Belt and the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. Looking into the past, because the light we are seeing has taken years to reach us. Some of them don’t even exist anymore.
Just like me and Bailey.
No, don’t think that.
‘Did you see that?’ Dad asks.
‘The shooting star?’ I say. ‘Yeah.’ We both know they’re meteoroids rather than stars, bits of rock and dust falling into the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up. But we humour each other.
Dad says, ‘I know things have been a bit tough for you lately.’
What does he expect me to say? No, it’s not that bad? Or Yes, it’s been shit, thanks for acknowledging that, Dad. I press my lips together. This is one of those times when I feel like an alien, observing how many redundant statements humans make in order to try to make each other feel better. It’s not making me feel better.
He clears his throat. ‘Your mum said you’d had a falling out with Bailey.’
Oh no, here it comes. I let out a breath and lower my head onto my arms. In the distance I hear a siren and, faintly, the hiss of the sea.
‘You two were pretty … close, huh?’
I close my eyes, wincing at the past tense, wincing at what I think is coming next.
‘Sometimes,’ my father says, ‘we can have pretty strong feelings for our friends. It’s normal to experiment when you’re young. It doesn’t mean you’re …’ He clears his throat again. ‘Look, one experience doesn’t mean you’re—’
‘Doesn’t mean I’m gay?’ I raise my head. Dad’s looking at me, but I can’t see his expression in the dark, and I probably wouldn’t be able to read it anyway.
‘I am, though,’ I say. ‘Gay, I mean.’
He runs a finger down the side of his nose. ‘That’s a pretty big decision to make.’
‘It’s not a decision.’ I push away from the railing. ‘And that wasn’t a shooting star, it was space junk.’
Dad follows me inside. ‘I wasn’t judging you,’ he says, sitting on the couch and watching me pace around the tiny lounge, like a fly trapped under a glass.
‘Can I go home now?’
‘Sure,’ he says, and the whole way home we don’t say a thing to each other. Which is good, because I feel like I’ll cry if I do.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Dad says when I get out, and I say, ‘Don’t bother.’ He stays outside the house in his stupid non-SUV anyway, until after I’ve walked inside and slammed the door.
CHAPTER 20
BAILEY: DAYLIGHT FALLS
On Tuesday night, I can’t sleep. That’s partly because Harley keeps mumbling to himself, something he does every night. Mostly it’s because I’m still reeling over how Felix froze me out in class today, and because I’m wondering how much truth there is in the conversation I overheard.
When were you going to tell me about this, Romeo? What’s her name?
Lucy. She plays the electric guitar.
Felix doesn’t like girls, though. He told me that.
I roll onto my back, blinking into the dark. What if Felix didn’t know he liked girls because he hadn’t met the right one yet? Just like how I didn’t know I was attracted to guys until the thing with Dog? What if that’s why he broke up with me, because he’s hooked up with this Lucy girl?
No, he’s lying, winding you up.
But Felix doesn’t lie. I don’t think he knows how.
It doesn’t make sense. Surely he’d have told me if that was the real reason? And he wouldn’t have been so angry at me.
You shouldn’t have ignored him like that.
I wasn’t ignoring him. He didn’t give me a chance to explain.
I turn onto my side, trying to slow down my thoughts, but it’s no good. Sighing, I slide out of bed and pull on my shorts and t-shirt. After walking across the dewy back lawn in my bare feet, I sit in the tyre swing Dad strung from the magnolia tree last Sunday. Last Sunday, when I worked my first shift at Murray’s service station. I almost earned enough in one day to pay for a term at judo. I should be happy, but all I can think about is Felix.
If only I had my phone, so I could message him. I saw it in Mum’s handbag yesterday, when she took out her wallet to give Maddy money for milk. In four days, if I toe the line, I’ll have it back.
Four days is too far away.
The next step is to find Mum’s handbag. If I’m lucky, she’ll have left it in the lounge or the kitchen when she got home from work. But nine times out of ten, it’ll be in her wardrobe, where she dumps it before getting changed out of her supermarket smock.
I check out the kitchen first. An empty flagon of beer sits on the bench, along with a bowl containing traces of two-minute noodles. Carrying on into the lounge, I find one shoe, Maddy’s hoodie and Libby’s unicorn wand. Dad’s empty beer glass is on the windowsill, a scud of foam on the bottom, like an outgoing tide.
No handbag. Great.
I walk into the hallway and hover outside Mum and Dad’s door. It’s just gone midnight and everyone else is asleep. Through the door, I hear the soft seesaw of Dad snoring. He’ll be sleeping deep, his brain awash in beer. Mum, I’m not so sure.
After turning off the hallway light, I push open the door. So dark, but I can’t risk waking them up. I drop to my hands and knees then crawl towards the wardrobe.
Dad snorts. I freeze, my heart hammering. Once his snoring resumes, I start crawling again, feeling along the wall with my hand until I feel the gap between the wall and the hinges of the wardrobe door.
It’s open.
Groping into the black hole that is my parents’ wardrobe, I feel shoes, a cardigan that’s slipped off its hangar and—
The crumpled faux-leather of Mum’s handbag. Yes! Cradling it against my chest, I shuffle backwards, the fingers of my free hand trailing over the wall.
Dad snorts again, which just makes me crawl faster — back into the hallway and out onto the back porch. Not far enough, though. If Mum or Dad catches me I’m dead.
I walk around the side of the house and suppress a yelp when I knock over a long, hard object, sending it clattering to the ground. Crouching down, I realise it’s Jack’s cricket bat. God, does he ever put his stuff away? After propping it against the weatherboards, I crawl into the tray of Dad’s ute, which he hasn’t driven in over a week. It doesn’t take me long to find the familiar curves of my phone in the depths of Mum’s handbag.
Of course it’s still dead, the battery completely drained. Why does everything have to be so difficult?
Leaving Mum’s handbag in the ute, I slip into the house and spend the next few minutes fumbling around in the mess beneath my bed (‘I want two,’ Harley mumbles, while Jack sleeps as still and silent as a rock). Once I’ve found the charger, I sit in the lounge and plug in my phone. At last, at last.
There are three missed calls from Mum, and several messages from Felix.
I read through them all, my heart sinking as his tone gets angrier and angrier:
I was angry with you before but I’m not now. Message me if you’re OK … OK?
Where are you?
Are you mad at me?
I’m really worried about you, can you at least let me know you’re OK?
Are you finished with me? Is that what this is about? Can you at least TELL me?
Two? Would you PLEASE put me out of my misery?
Well FUCK YOU TOO.
Sighing, I read the next message.
Ethan: Coming to judo on Saturday? Want to practise kata afterwards?
My chest heavy, my head aching, I look at the message that failed to send to Felix last Wednesday night.
/> ‘To send or not to send?’ I mutter. Shall I send something else? But I liked that message, and I want him to know I was thinking of him, even though he thought I wasn’t. So I press send, and then I send a follow-up message: This is the message I was going to send you on Wednesday night but there was no reception. And now it’s twelve twenty-one, a palindrome, the numbers reading the same left to right as they do right to left. Can numbers be palindromes, or does it only apply to words? Felix would know. After waiting for ten minutes, I unplug the phone and head back outside.
I climb into the back of the ute and go to turn the phone off, but hesitate. Maybe I’ll wait for a bit longer, in case Felix wakes up and replies to my message. I shove the phone in my pocket and lay back, my head on the handbag. It’s colder now, but there’s a blanket in the corner Dad used to wrap around a second-hand dressing table the other day. I pull it to my chin, and gaze up at the Southern Cross.
I can see Alpha Centauri.
That’s actually three stars … a triple star system.
Checking my phone again, I reread my message for about the hundredth time since I wrote it. Maybe that’s not enough. I need to tell him I’m sorry for the way I acted towards him at school on Monday. So I send a third message, and if that’s not enough to change Felix’s mind about breaking up with me, then I don’t know what else I can do.
With that out of the way, my brain slows at last. I need to return Mum’s handbag, need to get some sleep before school tomorrow, but not yet. I want to drink in the starlit silence for a bit longer. Just … a … bit …
Daylight falls like an axe. It’s not the grey dawn that wakes me, though — it’s my father’s voice stomping into my ears.
‘Too noisy inside for you?’
I sit up, shivering. Dad’s rubbing the stubble on his chin, looking more amused than angry.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ I rub my stiff neck. My father’s dressed in his overalls and work boots. Crap, what time is it?
‘It’s quarter past seven,’ he says. ‘You might want to get moving.’ He moves closer, squinting. ‘What’s that?’ Panicking, I shuffle back, trying to cover it up, but it’s too late. A furrow appears between his eyebrows. ‘What’s your mum’s handbag doing in there?’
I shrug, trying to act casual, even though every muscle in my body is coiled. ‘Maybe she left it there?’
Dad turns. ‘Did you leave your handbag in there, Jen?’ Mum’s standing on the doorstep, her eyes on me. My heart speeds up.
‘Bailey,’ she says quietly. I can almost hear what she’s thinking. Disappointing my father is one thing — I seem to do that on a daily basis — but doing the same to my mother makes me feel like a complete turd. Dad’s looking between Mum and me, his eyes narrowed.
I take a deep breath. ‘I was just g-g-g—’
Dad leaps onto the back of the ute. I try to scramble over the side but he’s already yanking on my arm. He pushes me off the tray, sending me sprawling onto the gravel.
‘You little shit!’ he yells. ‘You can pay back every cent you’ve stolen from your mother, and more.’
‘I just wanted my phone!’ I yell back, and now Mum is yelling, too, telling Dad to leave me alone. He’s not listening. He never listens. I spring to my feet and scuttle back until I feel weatherboards against my spine.
Dad points a finger at me. ‘How much is Murray paying you an hour?’
What? Trying to slow my breathing, I say, ‘F-f-f—’
‘Sixteen fifty an hour,’ he says. ‘That’s how much he’s paying you. Well, from now on, every dollar you earn is a dollar for the family, to pay us back for all the money you’ve nicked from us over the years.’
‘No,’ I explode. ‘That’s not f-f—’ I put my arms up. No, I’m not letting him pound me this time, I’m not. It’s hard to know how much of the screaming I hear is coming from me, and how much is coming from Mum and Jack. Oh no, Jack? I want to tell him to go inside, but there’s no time.
Dad rushes at me. I duck and weave around him, but he just comes for me again. Everything seems to slow down, as usual, but this time instinct from years of judo kicks in. I’d be a fool to waste Dad’s forward momentum, so I don’t, and next thing Dad’s tumbling over my leg and onto the concrete.
‘Stop!’ Mum screams. ‘Both of you, just stop!’
Dad, still lying on his side, stares up me.
Run. Run now.
No. I need to set things straight.
‘I didn’t steal anything,’ I say. My father rolls onto his knees and stands up, drawing himself up to his full height.
And oh, but I’m taller than him and … He. Doesn’t. Like. It.
‘I was getting my phone,’ I carry on, doggedly. ‘Mum took it off me after I got suspended last week.’ I decide to leave out the part about going bush. I don’t want Mum to get into more trouble than she already is for covering up my lies.
‘Suspended?’ My father spits out. ‘For what?’
Out of the corner of my eye, Mum moves her head, the movement so slight I could almost have missed it. She’s trying to warn me off, but I can’t stop now. I’m going to let him know who I really am. I want him to hate me as much as I hate him.
‘Fighting.’ I spread my hands. ‘Are you proud of me now? You taught me so well.’
Dad’s top lip curls. ‘You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Well, think again, buddy, because I’ll always be one move ahead of you.’ He’s got one hand behind his back. Maybe I’ve hurt him more than I thought I did.
‘I think you’re wrong,’ I say, and he moves towards me. I step back, flinging my words at him like rocks. ‘Do you want to know why I was fighting?’ Dad doesn’t say anything, but his eyes narrow. I’m smiling as I pound the stake home. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I beat up some guy who told everyone about me and Felix.’ My heart is a metronome out of control. ‘The guy I was kissing in the caravan when you came home the other week.’
A crystalline silence fills the air. Silence, until Dad, his voice heavy with loathing, says, ‘That little faggot. I should have known.’
I clench my fists. ‘Do you want to know who else I kissed?’
‘Bailey, stop it,’ Mum hisses behind me, but I can’t, and I won’t. So I tell Dad what I did with Dog, and when the word cock leaves my mouth, he slams his hand into the porch post. I know it’s me next, but I’m ready. I fill my lungs with air, try to breathe.
‘And you know what?’ I say. ‘I’m still more of a man than you will ever be.’ I know enough not to take my eyes off him, and I don’t.
I can handle this. He’ll come at me and I’ll send him flying, and then I’ll run run run.
That’s what I’m thinking, right until he swings the cricket bat into my head.
I’m running. I’m running, and it’s hard to see, blood trickling into my eyes and my mouth. My head feels like it has split down the middle, cleaved like a watermelon, and when I breathe it feels as if there are knives in my lungs.
But I can’t stop. If I stop, he might find me, and if he finds me, he might kill me.
He might finish killing me.
For now, the adrenaline’s enough to keep me moving. Into the gaping maw of the subway, past the curious eyes of early-morning commuters, turning left for the river at the end instead of right for school.
When I reach the river, I stumble beneath the bridge and take my phone out of my pocket. It’s nearly dead again, five per cent battery. There’s no reply from Felix, but I need to send him one more message before the phone goes flat, one only he will understand.
I send the message. My phone dies, and something deep inside me dies, too, the last part of me that held any love for my father. I stand up, blinking against the explosion of pain behind my eyes, and try to breathe. Then I run. And run. And run.
CHAPTER 21
FELIX: RED RIVER
One of my strategies for coping with the haters and breaking up with Bailey is to stop checking my phone all the time. No more Facebook, no more chec
king for messages that never arrive. So I don’t see the messages Bailey sent me, not at first. I don’t think to check my phone when he doesn’t turn up to judo at lunchtime. I’m just relieved he’s not there, so we don’t have to go through the whole ignoring-each-other’s-existence thing again. And when he’s not in physics either, well, what do I care?
I do care, a little. But I’m trying to pretend I don’t.
I’m leaving my last class of the day when Maddy and I walk into each other. Like, literally, because she’s moving really fast, her head down. She falls down on her butt, her eyes wide. Before I can help her up, she springs to her feet and grabs me by the arm.
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘Heard from who?’ I ask, and she rolls her eyes at me.
‘Bailey, who do you think?’
‘I haven’t seen him all day.’ I start walking and she follows me outside, past the bike sheds and the gym.
‘But has he messaged you?’ Her voice sounds weird, and I can’t work out why.
‘He doesn’t message me anymore,’ I say.
‘So you don’t know where he is?’
I halt. ‘No, I don’t know where he is, why would I?’ How many different ways does she want me to tell her we’re not talking to each other anymore?
‘I thought you would know,’ she says. ‘I thought you two were—’ When Maddy raises her eyes to mine, I see they’re swimming with tears. My heart begins to thud.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. People are swirling all around us, laughing and calling out to each other, and the sun is so bright, and something is very, very wrong. Maddy wraps her arms around herself.
‘They had a fight,’ she whispers. ‘This morning.’
‘Who?’ I ask, but I think I know, and I don’t want to know, don’t want to hear this.
‘There was blood on the concrete,’ she says. ‘I don’t know — I’m worried Bailey’s really hurt. Dad’s never got this angry with him before.’
My chest is so tight I can hardly breathe. ‘Where did he go?’
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