Malaise

by Max Henry

  “Nope. Don’t know. What?” he deadpans.

  Arsehole. I sigh out of exasperation. “Pretty.”

  He says nothing, the silence heavy between us. I sweat, my heart knocking on my ribcage. Eyes on the door handle, I’m seconds away from lurching out of the car so I can breathe again when his touch literally has me jumping in the seat.

  “Hey.” Carver’s fingers brush against the underside of my chin, coaxing me to look his way.

  I give in, but with my eyes closed, and turn back to him with a frown pinching between my eyebrows.

  “Look at me, Meg.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Come on….” His words are humoured, his tone playful. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I say with a smile, snapping my eyes open.

  The intensity in his makes my next breath catch in my throat.

  “You are pretty. You’re more than pretty. You’re unique, confident in who you are, and unafraid to show that to the world. You’re brave, and even though you might not feel it today, you’re strong enough to get through this.” His fingers graze a gentle path along my jaw as he speaks, returning to my chin where he drags them upward to brush the underside of my bottom lip.

  It’s the most erotic touch I’ve ever experienced. It’s the only non-platonic touch I’ve ever experienced. Friends don’t touch each other like this, they don’t talk with their lips mere inches apart, and they sure as hell don’t look at each other in that way.

  What does he want from me? Really?

  “Do you believe me, Meg?”

  God, how I wish I could say yes. He makes me sound so badass, like a damn warrior against this unfair and fucked up world. But I’m not the girl he sees—I’m fooling him just the same as everyone else. He doesn’t see her, the real me, the scared me. The girl who’s barely holding on to herself.

  “Meg.” His thumb makes a pass over my lip, and I reel back.

  “No,” I bite out. “I don’t see it.”

  “Why not?” His hand hovers between us as though he’s unsure what to do with it, before he rests it in his lap.

  “Because I’m none of that,” I whisper. “I dress like this to push people away, because I like to be the outcast since fitting in is so much harder to do. I’m not confident with who I am, because every day I question if the people who are slinging insults my way could be right. Are they seeing something I’m not?” I shake my head and sigh. “And I’m definitely not brave when the only place I feel safe is in my dead brother’s bed, pretending he’s still here. I never realised how much I depended on him to reassure me of who I am until he wasn’t there to do it anymore. I feel as though I’m unravelling, like something’s not right and he’s the only one who can tell me what.” A tear tracks a path over my cheek and I swipe it away in frustration. “Most of all I feel so damn pathetic that I relied so heavily on him to make me okay, to keep me together enough to face another day. How fucking sad is that?” I ask with a pained smile. “I can’t find it in me to love myself enough to give a shit anymore.”

  “You’re not pathetic, Meg. You’re finding your place without him.”

  I shake my head vehemently. “But I never wanted life to be without him. He was more than my brother, he was truly my best friend.” My head hits the back of the seat. “My only friend. I mean, I know we would have gone our separate ways eventually. He was training here, and once he had his qualifications he was going to look for a job overseas. But he would have been there when I needed him, when I needed advice. I could have phoned him up, or visited on the weekend. But now?”

  “Don’t cry, babe.” Carver reaches between us, wiping away more tears I didn’t realise were there with the backs of his fingers. “It sucks, and yeah, it’s unfair. But it’s only been a few days. I promise, things will settle down.”

  “I hope.” Especially at home—I’m not sure how much more of that fresh hell I can endure before things go nuclear.

  “If you need someone to talk to, you know you’ve got Tanya and me now, eh?”

  “We’ve only known each other for a few days, Carver.”

  “Brett,” he corrects with a smile.

  I slap both hands over my face and groan. “I’m sorry—it was kind of what I called you in my head before I knew your real name.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nod, smiling with my bottom lip pulled between my teeth. “Sorry.”

  “Babe,” he says on a sigh, stretching out in his seat. “You can call me whatever you want as long as I get to see that cute smile again.”

  God—could he get any sweeter?

  “I don’t know about you,” he says as he tugs the keys from the ignition, “but I’m starved. How about we get that bite to eat?”

  “Yeah.” Anything to step out of this hotbox of emotion.

  “And after we’re done, I’ll take you home so you can try talking to your olds again.”

  My light and loved mood sours in a heartbeat. “Why should I bother? They made their feelings, or lack of, pretty damn clear.”

  “Because family is key, Meg. Friends come and go, but your parents will always be your parents. They love you, and that’s something you shouldn’t turn your nose up at.”

  “You finished going all Dr Phil on me yet?”

  He sighs, my joke flatter than a pancake, and drops his forehead onto the steering wheel. “Just listen to what I have to say, okay? And trust me when I say that a family like yours is something to hold on to.”

  I shove my bag out of sight under the dash with my foot and huff. “You clearly don’t know our family that well then, because I wouldn’t call it loving, and I wouldn’t exactly say that home is a nice place to be right now.”

  “Your brother died, Meg,” he snaps. “It’s bound to be tense.”

  “Isn’t grief supposed to unite people?”

  Carver drags a hand over his face, keys clenched in the other. “No. It’s not. Stop fantasising about how this is supposed to be and face the reality. They need you as much as you need them, so talk it out, scream it out if need be, but just sort it out.”

  “What the hell makes you the expert?” I reach for the door handle, yet halt when his fingers wrap around my elbow.

  “Experience. You said I obviously know nothing about your family, well, you only know about mine what you’ve heard from the same people who are picking on you. Let that simmer for a bit, Meg, and tell me what the takeaway message is when you’ve figured it out.” He withdraws his hand and settles back in his seat with a sigh.

  Silence fills the car as I stare out the window at a pair of young men checking the tie-downs on their dirt bikes. One of them wears the same riding pants that Den owns. Owned. I swallow hard and force the frown from my face before I turn to Carver.

  “You’ve made your point, so should we eat?”

  “Whatever you want, Meg.” He tosses the keys repeatedly in his palm, staring down at the mass of clinking metal. “No matter what else I say, I’m sure your stubborn mind’s made up already.”

  I ball my fist in my lap, wanting so badly to reach over and sock him one. “You’re being an arsehole.”

  “That’s who I am, precious.”

  “Not to me you’re not.”

  “We’ve known each other a couple of days, spoken twice,” he snaps. “What the fuck do you really know about me?” He throws his door open with such force I cringe, waiting for the impact with the car next to us. But he steps out without issue, and slams the door hard enough to leave my ears ringing.

  A minute passes where I don’t move a muscle. Last thing I want right now is to get out into the eye of his storm, but what other option do I have? Sit in the car and swelter in the afternoon sun? I’m not going anywhere as long as I stay in the seat—if I want to go home without him, that requires me to exit the vehicle and walk.

  Fuck this shit. I don’t need to add a bipolar outcast to my list of hassles right now. We’ll have lunch, he’ll drop me home, and then that
’s that—no more Brett Carver. Maybe the bastards at school really were right?

  I open my door and step out, bracing for the burn when he lets rip with whatever else he needs to get off his chest. I’m not being that selfish by boycotting another failed heart-to-heart with my parents, am I? It’s not unreasonable to expect your mum and dad to step up when you’re feeling lost like this, is it? Surely he can’t really think I’m solely to blame for the tension currently coursing through my house?

  Carver locks the car and stomps off toward the diner. I fall into step with him as we cross the forecourt, avoiding eye contact by watching my toes as we walk.

  He huffs beside me, exhaling heavily through his nose, and throws a glance my way out the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you, Meg. I’m not trying to marginalise this shit, but fuck, I wish I knew what to say to make things better. Reality is, this is going to suck for a while to come yet, and the sooner you come to terms with that and stop looking for somebody to blame for how you’re feeling other than the crap situation with your brother, the better.”

  “I’m not blaming my parents for how I feel,” I clarify. “I’m blaming them for not doing a thing to try and make it better.” I stare down at the asphalt pockmarked with used chewing gum and oil stains.

  “Maybe they don’t know how to? Did you think of that? Maybe they’re too scared of making you worse if they screw it up, that they feel safer not trying?”

  “That’s whacked.”

  “So is burying your child.” He places a hand to the side of his neck as we step up onto the path that runs around the building, and sighs. “When is the funeral?”

  “End of the week. Mum wants to make it as easy as possible for people out of town to attend.”

  “How do you think you’ll handle it?”

  “With the same effortless finesse I have everything else,” I sass.

  The automatic doors open and freezing air-conditioned air hits us as we enter the truck stop diner. He frowns down at me, clearly unimpressed with my coping mechanism of smart-arsery.

  “Truth is, I haven’t given it much thought,” I admit. “Mainly because I know that I’m going to be a fucking mess. If I have to get shit-faced most days to cope with Den’s absence, then what the hell will it take to get through his funeral? Class A drugs?”

  Carver grumbles something I don’t quite catch, and then gestures to an empty booth opposite the register. “Take a seat and I’ll order for us. Anything you don’t like?”

  I shake my head and look over at the man occupying the table beside the booth. He’s rough and rotund in the middle, a sweat-stained cap resting on the table beside the paper he currently reads. The guy glances up at the two of us, his dark eyes flicking back and forth, and I can only imagine what he’s thinking: two young punks have gotten lost and stumbled in the wrong place.

  The vinyl creaks under my weight as I slide along the booth seat to the window that overlooks the forecourt. If only I could melt into the cushions and lose the next week, re-emerge after the funeral when everything’s as normal as it can be. Therein lies the problem: what will the new normal be? Do I want to know?

  Carver stands at the counter pointing out what he’s ordering to the middle-aged lady who looks as though she gave up her dreams of a Caribbean holiday years ago. Her dead eyes fix on him as he talks, the slightest quirk of her eyebrow giving away her curiosity at why she’s serving a guy like him in a place like this.

  Makes me wonder if this is some test of his? Does he do this on purpose: go somewhere he knows he’ll stand out like a sore thumb just to garner a reaction from everyone?

  My phone chimes in my pocket, and I retrieve it to check the screen. A message from Dad fades as I set the phone on the table, and I tap the button to bring it up again.

  Dad: Who are you with?

  Damn principal. It has to have been her. She must have looked up Dad’s number and contacted him after I left the school grounds.

  Me: A friend.

  Dad: He wouldn’t be the same one who dropped you home the other night?

  Me: And if it was?

  Dad: Get home now.

  I switch my phone to silent and pocket it again as Carver approaches the table. Deal with it later.

  “Everything okay?” He lifts his chin to gesture at my pocket.

  “Fine.”

  He frowns, yet doesn’t say anything more on it.

  “How much do I owe you?” I ask.

  “Nothing.” He slides onto the seat opposite mine and rests both elbows on the Formica table. “It’s my shout.”

  “Thank you.”

  I watch his hands as he reaches for the skinny sugar sachets and pulls them from the holder by the fistful. Carver’s fingers work quickly, shifting the oblong packets around, flipping them over and aligning them into a flower-burst shape.

  Every passing second of silence seems to thicken the air around us. The longer he’s quiet, the less appropriate my mundane conversation starters seem. What do I even expect him to say? We covered everything in the car already. I’m just here to eat, right?

  “What’s on your mind, Meg?” His eyes never leave the shifting art form before him.

  “Nothing.”

  “At all?”

  I shake my head and turn to look out the window at a sleek grey sports car that’s pulled in beside the fuel pumps. “Nothing.”

  What can I tell him? That I’m wondering if there is a side to him that I haven’t met yet? That perhaps the majority of the town can’t be wrong, and there is something with his family that I’d do well to avoid? He said he’s speaking from experience when it comes to dysfunctional families and grief—but why? What happened?

  He focuses on the sachets as he replaces them in the holder one by one, making sure they’re lined up perfectly. His normally light eyes are dark, and that crushing smile is nowhere to be seen. The sharp point of his jaw flexes every so often, and I could almost reach out and touch the tension he radiates.

  Something isn’t right, but I can’t help the feeling that the unrest doesn’t start with him, it’s merely reflected from something a lot more complex that I don’t want a thing to do with right now.

  Me.

  TEN

  “You took your time.” Dad stands in the front doorway; arms braced on either side as he stares over the top of my head at the Falcon retreating down the street. “We need to talk.”

  I’m done with talking. It’s too awkward, too open, and more often than not ends up with me saying the wrong thing and the other person being in a foul mood with me. Case in point with Carver.

  We didn’t say much the entire meal—which was the best burger I’ve ever had. I spent the majority of the time watching him as he ate, wondering what it is about the taut muscles than span the side of his neck that drives me so crazy.

  He’s just a man.

  A man.

  And I’m a girl.

  There it is, Meg. There’s your problem.

  Us being friends makes no sense, and yet despite how awkward the time with him was, I got the distinct feeling it wouldn’t be the last when he wordlessly tapped his index finger on the top of my nose and smiled before I got out of the car.

  He listened to me. He might not have agreed with what I had to say, but he took the time to hear me out, which is more than I can say for Mum and Dad… until now.

  “Your mother’s doing the groceries,” Dad says, breaking my daze. “I thought you and I could have a chat while she’s gone.”

  This could be a good thing—or really, really bad. “Okay.”

  He steps aside, and I walk past him to place my bag at the hall table, careful not to disturb the two bottles of liquid magic I procured on the way home. Carver didn’t agree that more alcohol would fix the problem, but there wasn’t much option for him but to stop at the liquor store when I threatened to get out at the next red light and walk. Problem with old cars: no central locking.

  I left this morning turning a
blind eye to the chaotic state our home is in these days. The dishes had piled up and washing to be folded was spread from one end of the couch to the other. Junk mail had been piled high on the coffee table, and Dad’s work boots were discarded in the doorway, dried mud and all.

  But now… now the house is pristine, cleaned to show home standards. Yet the thing that really disturbs me is the personal touches that have reappeared: Den’s running shoes by the door, Den’s magazines on the side table, and Den’s jacket thrown casually over the arm of the chair, as though he’s just walked in.

  “I know,” Dad says, staring at the same spot as I am. “She did a one-eighty this morning just after you left.”

  “She’s not coping with things, is she?”

  He shakes his head and walks through to the kitchen, leaving me to follow in his wake. “No, but then neither are you.”

  I say nothing, and take a seat at the table to watch Dad as he retrieves a beer from the fridge. He twists the top off and swirls the liquid inside absently before he drops the bomb.

  “You’ve got to stop trying to make this all about you, Meg.”

  I frown, gobsmacked at his view of things. “I’m a part of this family too, you know.”

  “Yeah, you are, but you’re not the only one in it that needs time to heal. This behaviour of yours, this drinking and socialising with the scum of our town—it has to stop.”

  “You think that’s what I’ve been doing?” I ask incredulously. “Healing? You think me getting three parts fucked off my face is therapeutic?”

  He slams the bottle down on the table so hard I’m surprised the base doesn’t shatter off. Foam sloshes over the side and trickles a lazy trail to the bottom. “I don’t know what else to call your behaviour but delinquency, Meg, because you don’t talk to us about what the hell is going through that head of yours.” He rips a seat out from under the table and drops his stocky frame onto it.

  “Why would I?” I say quietly. “Why on earth would I want to talk to you and Mum when you both act like I don’t exist most of the time?”

  “We’re not acting that way at all,” he says softly, picking at the top of the bottle. “We just… we don’t know what to do either.”