Malaise

by Max Henry

  His T-shirt lifts as his arm extends to shut the car door. “We live near each other, so I thought it’d be polite to ask.”

  We do? “We do?” How did I not know this?

  He nods, an amused grin tugging his lips. How the fuck does he even know where I live? My brother, Den. It has to be.

  “Are you picking Den up?” I thought they weren’t friends anymore?

  Jasper’s expression falls flat, eyebrows pinched together. “Den and I haven’t talked for months, Meg.”

  “I know.” Which makes no sense as to why you asked the question—idiot.

  “Tell you what,”—my heart rate rackets up as he approaches at speed—“I’ll give you my number, and if you need a ride, text me before nine.”

  Is this my life? Hello? Somebody pinch me. “Uh….”

  “Usually requires a phone.” He holds a hand out, and I stare at that thing like it’s made of gold.

  His laughter pulls me out of my stupor and I wrestle my bag to the ground, pulling my phone from the front pocket. Shaking like a leaf, I hand the device over, considering the cost of a glass case to display it in once he’s finished touching it. Seriously. The guy had the hottest chick in school in his car minutes ago, and here I am, mere mortal Megan, getting his number.

  “Nice.” He holds it up, showing the Marilyn Manson cover I made.

  “I like my music.”

  “Cool.”

  Silence envelops the two of us as he punches in his details. Long, awkward as fuck silence. After what feels like years, he hands my phone back, nods, and walks away. That’s it. No “goodbye,” or “see you later, maybe.” He just turns and goes.

  Quintessential Jasper; always has the last word.

  I stoop to put my phone back when the message from Mum catches my eye. Shit. How much time did I lose just now? The rumble of Jasper’s car breaks the still evening as I hoist my bag onto my shoulder and spin for the road. He exits as I move to cross, forcing me back to wait as he passes. I can’t see a damn thing through his tints, so I have no idea if he’s looking or not. Windows that dark are illegal as all hell, but hey, when your old man is the head constable for the local coppers, then yeah, one tends to get away with that kind of shit.

  I opt against waving like a loser, and run across the road as soon as he’s passed, heading toward home at a quick walk.

  The summer sun has barely started its descent. Daylight saving means it won’t be dark until after nine, probably the exact reason why that’s the time Jasper gave me. Who in their right mind wants to party and do illicit things in the daylight? The night adds mystique, the illusion of danger. It’s where inhibitions are left behind and rules don’t apply.

  It’s release from the daily grind. A chance to let go of the world for a while.

  It’s escape, fantasy, and a chance to pretend I’m actually somebody who matters to the world.

  If only for a little while.

  TWO

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Hello to you too, Mum. “Can I get inside?”

  I’m answered with an inconvenienced huff as she steps back to let me through our front door. “Did you not get the message?”

  “I got it, and I came straight home.”

  “It doesn’t take almost an hour to walk home, Megan. Don’t you dare start with that atti—”

  “Sandra!” Dad booms from the lounge. “Knock it off.”

  “What’s so urgent, Mum?” I drop my bag beside the hall table and turn to look at her properly. Her pupils are wide, but her features are enraged, not sad, as the puffiness under her eyes would have suggested.

  She swallows. Says nothing. Stares.

  I swear I feel every litre of my blood drain to my feet. So wrong. The woman is unflappable. I witnessed her drop a three-tier cake she’d made for a friend’s wedding on the floor and laugh it off. She doesn’t get agitated, and yet, she looks as though she’s about to go black widow on me and rip my head off.

  I take two steps back to align myself with the lounge door, and incline my head toward Dad without taking my eyes off Mum. “Dad? What’s the urgency?”

  “Sit down, Megan.”

  He paces the room. The man who eats, sleeps, and drinks in his armchair every night is pacing. I’ve walked in the right house, haven’t I?

  “Sit,” he barks again.

  My legs buckle on command and I perch on the closest thing to me, the piano stool.

  “Lemonade?” Mum asks, all chipper.

  “She doesn’t need fucking lemonade, Sandra.” Dad stills. “Nobody’s thirsty.”

  “What the fuck is appropriate then, Peter?” My parents don’t swear. “Since you’re the goddamn authority on this, you tell me.”

  Dad’s eyes narrow; his jaw stiffens. He doesn’t speak a word, but even I can read he’s telling Mum to calm the hell down. Her nostrils flare as she stares him down. He points to her reading chair. She stomps her foot.

  My mother just stomped her foot like a freaking toddler.

  Who the hell are these people?

  “Sit down and offer your daughter support.”

  Support? What do I need that for?

  “Did it occur to you that I can’t stand to be in the room, that I don’t want to hear it twice?” Mum’s voice cracks, tears flowing free. “I shouldn’t have to hear it once,” she whispers. Her skirt billows as she spins and bolts across the hall to their room, slamming the door behind her.

  I look to Dad and find him with one hand on his hip, the other over his bowed face. “What’s going on?”

  “Meg….” He shakes his head and takes a seat, perched on the edge of the cushion. “I’ve got bad news, honey.”

  I’d love to say I drift here, that my body shuts down and blocks out what he says, but it doesn’t. Terror has a funny way of taking control of your body. I would have loved to blank out his next words, to not have them tear a hole through my heart and rip my soul to shreds, but it isn’t to be. My ears tune in to every muted sniffle from Mum, to every tick of the clock over the mantle, and to every draw of breath my father makes before he manages to compose himself enough to say, “Den’s been killed in an accident.”

  God, I’m going to be sick…. Shock—the first stage of grief. “Tonight?”

  “On his way home from work. His bike was struck by a bus.”

  “Why didn’t you come and get me? Why did you wait to tell me?” I thought it couldn’t have been that bad if they let me finish work first, but this….

  “What could you have done, Meg?” Dad asks. “There was no reason to alarm you at the supermarket. We thought it best to wait until you were at home to hear the news.”

  Is anywhere really best when it’s this kind of news? Did it honestly matter? I rub my temples as I replay what Dad’s just said. An accident. Den was killed riding his dirt bike. His pride and joy. He rode that two-stroke to the shop he worked at every day, and more often than not, would detour past the river to have a bit of fun on the way home. “But he should have been at the river. There aren’t any buses at the river, Dad.”

  He sighs. Disbelief—the second stage of grief. “They think he went up the main road to get something from the shops. There wasn’t anything on him, so it’s just speculation.”

  “Well they’ve got to be wrong. Are they sure it’s him?” Denial—stage three.

  Dad scrubs both hands over his face, blowing out a heavy breath. I’m not making it easier for the man by a long stretch. But he’s had time to process this—I’m still working it out. Den. He’s life personified. Everywhere he goes people perk up and respond to his happy-go-lucky nature and joker personality. How can you kill life itself?

  “We still need to ID the body,” Dad murmurs, “but they know it’s him, Meg.”

  “They could still be wrong.” I push off the stool, darting for my backpack. “Has anyone tried ringing him—”

  “Meg….” Mum’s hand covers mine as I tug at the zipper. When did she come back out?
r />   I jerk my hand from under hers and yell, “Well? Have you tried?”

  She recoils, new tears breaking the dam. “What the fuck do you think?”

  “Try again. He might not have heard it, he might be busy or something, I don’t know….” Dad appears at the door to the lounge. “Try it, Dad!”

  “Megan, you need to breathe. Calm down.”

  “Calm down?” I shove my backpack roughly away. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Watch your language, young lady.” My father’s face is pure anger; it’s the expression that would make me cry as a small child. But today—today it makes me want to punch him.

  “Watch my language?” I snarl. “That’s rich coming from somebody who’s been dropping F-bombs the whole time I’ve been home.”

  “I don’t need this right now,” Mum murmurs, hands knitted in her normally perfect bob. She shakes her head from side to side, then drops her hands away and pins me with the weight of her frustration. “Stop being so selfish. Think about how we feel.”

  “I am.” I dive around her and grab my backpack. “And right now I’m wondering who the fuck you both are. You’re not even trying to find out if they could be wrong.” When did the tears start? “You’re both happy to just accept your son, my brother, is dead. It’s like you couldn’t care less.”

  Dad reaches for me, softness in his eyes. “Honey—”

  “No.” I wrench away, twisting out of his reach. “I need to get out of here. I need to….” I don’t even know. I just know I can’t be in this pressure cooker a second longer. “I’m going out.”

  “Megan!”

  “No, Sandra. Let her.” Dad places his arm over Mum as a barrier, stopping her from inhibiting my exit.

  I don’t say a thing. What can I say? They watch me leave, neither saying a word as I do. It seems the lot of us are tongue-tied for a change. This isn’t how bad news is supposed to be dealt. There’s meant to be tears, sure, but isn’t everybody supposed to hug one another and find comfort in numbers? I can’t recall ever seeing this scene played out in the movies or on TV and having the family screaming at one another. It’s not normal. It’s all wrong.

  The whole day is fucked.

  Den’s dead.

  Den’s dead.

  My brother has died.

  I could rephrase it a thousand ways and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference; I can’t bring myself to find resolution in that. I’m not even sure if seeing his body would convince me. I spoke to him just yesterday. We were going to have brunch tomorrow. He teased me about taking me to the noisiest café he could find because he knew I’d have a hangover after tonight.

  We had plans.

  Den doesn’t renege on plans.

  He doesn’t quit on a person.

  He fucking quit on me.

  How could he? How could he be so stupid? What the hell went wrong that he didn’t see a bus? A damn bus! What was he thinking….

  When the hell did I reach the corner? I spin around and look back up the two-kilometre stretch to our house. I’ve walked blindly, lost in my head for blocks. Finding a seat on the nearest meter box, I slip my backpack from my shoulder and feel around for my phone. The display lights up, showing me the time: eight forty-five. Plenty of time. I don’t care what they think… I need this. My thumb flies across the screen. Everybody processes their grief in different ways. What if this is mine? I hit Send and drop the phone in my lap. Who’s to say that getting blind drunk to forget the pain isn’t a suitable way to survive the chasm growing inside?

  Den’s dead.

  Nothing about this feels real. Nothing about this makes sense. It’s as though I’m a spectator in somebody else’s life. This wasn’t part of the plan. This was never meant to happen.

  It did.

  It happened, and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do to change it.

  Cars pass me as I sit with anger pulsating in my veins. People head home from work, some probably on their way out for the night, and the odd vehicle goes by with a family crammed in the seats. People just go about their lives, a life my brother no longer has the privilege to share. Why him? Why not any one of them? My eyes are fixed to the boughs of a tree waving in the light evening breeze when the glint of a chrome wheel catches my attention.

  Jasper smiles at me from the open front window of his sedan. “You called?”

  “Texted, technically.” I force a smile as I approach the car, running the side of my hand quickly below each eye.

  He leans across and catches the handle, opening the door for me. “Ready for a big night out?”

  “Yeah.” I drop into the seat and pull the door shut behind me, placing my bag between my legs. “I heard it’s going to be huge.”

  “Marcus sent the invite out to a whole bunch of guys he knew at his old school.” He checks the side mirror, and then eases us into the road. “When Amelia got the invite back from the girls’ school in town it was pretty obvious the word had spread.”

  “Wow.” Fucking Amelia. “Sounds crazy.”

  “Guess we’ll know when the cops turn up, hey?” He smacks me on the thigh with the back of his hand.

  Jasper Arden touched me. I swear I’m never washing again. “I guess.”

  The car falls near silent, only the rumble of the engine and the muted tones from the radio between us. Jasper dials the music up and sends bass echoing off every surface around us.

  There are a lot.

  I relish the distraction, the inability to hold a conversation without shouting at one another. My brow furrows as I try to work out why the hell I can be upset at the news, and yet already I’ve stopped crying. Where are the constant tears? What kind of cold bitch doesn’t bawl inconsolably when her best friend, her brother, her light, is taken away?

  Maybe it’s my brain coping with the trauma? Just like Mr Clavers, I’ve numbed myself. There’s a roadblock between my synapses—a safety switch, and until I see the physical and undeniable truth of what’s happened, I’ll live in this self-inflicted limbo.

  Daylight dims in the time it takes us to travel to the party site. I shift in the seat, cursing the fact I didn’t have the foresight to go to the damn toilet before I stormed out of the house, but heat of the moment and all that. Besides, catching Jasper’s reflection in my side window proves enough of a distraction. He’s got that permanent smirk on his face, which coupled with his sharp jaw and Roman nose makes him look confident and cocky. Jasper’s the kind of book a person can totally judge by its cover. He’s all of those things, and sure of himself. He’s out of my league.

  “Do you have any friends going?” His hand retreats from the volume dial on the stereo.

  “Not sure.” Liar. I don’t have friends, only acquaintances—the kids that I feel some strained connection to because we suffer the same torment and humiliation at the hands of the “in” crowd. Not that any of them would dare show up; a select few of us in our year were warned against going. “You’d be best to stay away unless you want your head bashed in.” “It’s only the popular people who are going, and you… well….” “Don’t you get it? Nobody likes you.”

  I’ve heard it all before. Scare tactics. They’ve yet to follow through on any of the pathetic threats. “They,” being the kids in the cool clique. You know, the ones who have their own area in the quad that nobody dares contest? The ones who always get the best seats in class, whether they arrive first or last. The ones everybody is super nice to in the hopes they’ll be accepted, noticed, and welcomed into the fray, even though anyone with half a brain knows what a bunch of arseholes the posers really are.

  Those kids.

  “If you want to stick around long enough, I’ll drop you home when I go, too,” Jasper offers.

  Any other day and I would have swooned at that. Any normal day and I would have damn near passed out from nerves. But today isn’t normal, it’s hell, and I couldn’t care less if Jasper dropped to one knee and proposed right now—I’m burning alive with anger and frustration
I’m doing my best to forget. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow….

  “I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

  He casts me a suspicious look. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Why?” The glass of my window feels cool against my face. It goes some way toward easing my nausea from the swirling pool of emotion in my gut.

  “You’re not normally this quiet and laid-back.”

  How would he know? We’ve never spoken directly before today. It’s always been as part of a group, one that I’m usually in the process of being elbowed out of. “It’s just been a rough day.” I cram my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Not now. Don’t finally cry now.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t have to wait long for me to pick you up.”

  “Yeah?” I half-heartedly reply.

  “Yeah. I heard there was some fatality on the main road. Guy versus bus. Messy as hell. So I thought I better get a head start because the traffic might still be shit.” I catch his head turning rapidly in my peripheral vision. “Meg? You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.” My voice is hoarse, but my words are clear. I should tell him the accident was Den. After all, they were friends once. But putting voice to that sentence is hard enough to think about, let alone do. “Are we almost there?”

  “About five minutes I guess.”

  I nod, my forehead stuck to the window. I don’t have a thing to drink; my cash and fake ID are still at home. “Did you bring much alcohol?”

  “You need something?”

  “If you have any spare.” His touch startles me, the heat of his palm penetrating my jeans.

  “I’ll hook you up, Meg. Don’t worry about it.”

  He knows. Not about Den, but from the conviction and gentleness to his words, he knows that I didn’t come out tonight prepared for a reason; that something went down.

  He cares, just like Den does.

  Just like Den did.

  THREE

  People are every-fucking-where. The grove is a large grassy area just off the east bank of Whitecaps River. Kids have been coming here for decades, as far back as when my parents were teens growing up in the area. It’s perfect for nights like this when a huge group want to get together. Logs rot amongst the overgrown grass around the tree line, creating seating for the bonfire that rages in the clearing. Stars shimmer above the grey smoke, breathtakingly beautiful in the frame created by the tops of the trees. Oaks mix with native Pohutukawa trees, the odd willow thrown in for variety the closer you get to the water.