Numb

by Tanya Paterson

  Alex and Ally.

  Ally?

  I knew Ally had her sights on Alex but still I was shocked. Not that Alex had hooked up so quickly, I was expecting that, hell the entire female senior class was lining up for their shot at glory. No, I was surprised because I didn’t think Alex would be interested in a girl like Ally even though she was obviously into him. Ok, she was attractive, in an obviously up-for-it kind of way but my instincts were shouting that Alex wasn’t like the other guys. He was better than them. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt Alex was different, but my sixth sense – the sense gave me a vibe about who people really were and one which I always trusted wouldn’t lie – it was telling me there was much more going on underneath Alex’s party-boy facade. Sure, Alex fell in with Dave and his in-crowd the second he arrived. Ok, he walked and talked like a guy who could do anything and have any girl (or boy) he wanted. And, all indications were that he was a player, a good time guy, someone who knew he had the world at his feet, but…but….but what?

  But, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Alex wasn’t as two-dimensional as he would have people believe and that deep down he wasn’t really interested in a girl whose only attributes were her hair extensions, highlights, and push-up bras. I’d thought Alex would be interested in someone real.

  Someone like me.

  Oh my God. It was official. I’d totally lost it.

  Nonononononononono…..

  I wouldn’t let a boy affect me like this. I couldn’t. I’d sworn off boys.

  I shifted the weight of the books in my arms and trailed after Pete, who was still ranting about something to do with ‘lost chances’ and ‘Shakespearian tragedy’ as he stalked down the path to class, oblivious to what was going on in my head, which was just as well because obviously my current state of mind needed anti-psychotic medication. My imagination was way out of control.

  What happened to the good old reliable hard-working no-nonsense not-interested-in-boys Hayley?

  Ok, there was that freaky electric thing I felt around Alex but please….what was I thinking? I wasn’t that kind of girl. Thinking about him was one thing but jealousy was a whole different ballgame. It meant I was too interested and I would not let a guy affect me like that. I couldn’t. It would be too….complicated.

  “Complicated?” Pete asked.

  I blinked and realised we’d come to a stop outside biology. Unbeknownst to me, I’d been speaking my thoughts aloud and Pete hadn’t been as oblivious and introspective as I’d assumed. Damn it.

  “U-umm…” I stuttered, stalling for time while I hurriedly tried to think up an explanation. I wasn’t ready to spill about the feelings I had for Alex, especially since I had absolutely no idea exactly what those feelings were and especially-especially as Alex was Pete’s latest infatuation. “It’s going to get complicated,” I said, slowly, making it up as I went and trying not to completely lie. “Because…it will…end…badly…one way or another. Alex will be leaving at the end of the year.”

  Pete stared at me as if I’d turned into a species from an alien planet. The morning I was having, I agreed with him.

  “So what if Alex is leaving at the end of the year? All I wanted was sex,” he said bringing the subject back to himself. “And a bit of fun and frolicking, maybe a candlelit dinner or two, and some more sex. There’s nothing ‘complicated’ about that. I didn’t want to get married and have his children.” Pete’s bottom lip pouted sulkily as he turned to walk into his class. “I should have been the one,” I heard him mutter to himself as he slouched through the doorway and into biology.

  Something about these last words rang true in me too.

  CHAPTER 14

  ALEX

  Dave, Tony and I were walking from Business Studies to our next period. It was stifling hot, even in the shade. The climate was insane – oppressive heat all day until, if we were fortunate, a late afternoon downpour would pelt the earth with such ferocity the rivers threatened to burst their banks. I know it’s very English to go on and on about the weather but, bloody hell, this country was extreme. The news was full of warnings about flooding across most of North Queensland while in stark contrast, there were reports of drought and bushfires obliterating huge swathes of southern Australia. The climate made me homesick for reliable, unchanging, miserable cold, grey drizzle and dim sunlight.

  So, imagine my surprise when I realised I was feeling almost happy.

  “So, you and Ally huh?” Tony asked, guessing correctly that a girl was the reason for my good mood, only he guessed the wrong girl.

  “She’s great.”

  “I know. That’s one awesome set of legs,” he agreed. From the glazed look in his eyes I suspected he knew the rest of Ally’s body intimately. It didn’t bother me; it wasn’t like I was an angel myself.

  “What have you got now?” Dave asked referring to my next class.

  “French…in the library.”

  “With Hayley?”

  “Yes, except she studies….”

  “Legal studies,” finished Dave.

  “That’s right.”

  “She wants to be a hot-shot human rights lawyer or something. I heard she won some award and a scholarship to uni in Brisbane.”

  “How would you know? You Facebook stalking her or something?” Tony asked, as surprised as I was that Dave knew so much about Hayley.

  “She’s smart, isn’t she? IQ of a thousand or something. Wouldn’t know it to look at her – trés weird.”

  “Tre bien Dave, you spoke French,” I said sarcastically, annoyed at his criticism.

  “Shut up.”

  As we passed the science buildings, I saw the girl in question walking down the path towards the library. I left Dave and Tony and walked over to follow Hayley inside just as Dave called ‘oh rev-wah Alex’ so loudly that Hayley paused outside the door and glanced in our direction, her eyes darkening slightly when she spied Dave.

  “Oh rev-wah my cher-rie,” Dave shouted at Hayley and I bristled at his familiarity more than his terrible pronunciation. His interest in her concerned me. Hayley narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like it either.

  “Hi,” I called as I approached.

  “Hey.”

  “Do you and Dave have a history or something?” I blurted out as I held the library door open. I shouldn’t have been nosy but Dave’s parting remark bugged me. I felt odd…if I didn’t know better I’d say I was jealous.

  “Something,” Hayley replied, walking in to the cool, dark interior and I followed.

  “I heard you punched him once.”

  “Yes, he didn’t know how to take no for an answer,” she said, then looked as if she didn’t mean to. She quickly tried to cover it up by mock-glaring and holding up two fists in a fighter pose, “I’m not the type of chick you mess with unless you want to end up in hospital.”

  I burst out laughing and Hayley smiled. Mrs Watkiss frowned from her seat behind the main desk. I didn’t know why she was glaring – we were the only ones in the library – it wasn’t like we were disturbing anyone.

  “It’s good to hear you laugh like you really mean it,” Hayley whispered, taking a seat at my table.

  She knows. The voice said.

  I frowned and put my books on the table as I sat down across from her. My mood around her was so up and down. I was in uncharted waters.

  “Most of the time there isn’t a lot to laugh about,” I muttered truthfully. It was a relief to finally admit this to someone.

  “Oh I don’t know. Sometimes I think there are too many ridiculous things in this world that I have to try hard not to laugh. Dave’s new hair is pretty hysterical.”

  Dave had arrived at school that morning with a head of yellow spikes after a disastrous experiment with a bottle of bleach.

  “Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?”

  Hayley burst out laughing again, unbothered by my teasing. A loud “shhh” came from Mrs Watkiss.
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  “I like it when you speak without filters and say what you really think,” she said once she’d stopped laughing.

  She knows. She can see you.

  I avoided her eyes as yet another remark hit too close to home. How did she get past my defences? I opened my notebook vainly trying to concentrate on French but it was futile. After a few minutes I said, “Are you saying I liar?”

  Hayley’s head snapped up in surprise. One of us was having no trouble studying.

  “Um,” she started, her eyes blinking as if to focus her thoughts, “no, I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean to call you a liar. I just I get the feeling you say one thing and think another.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “I suppose so,” she agreed. “But I think you do it more often than everyone else. It’s like you’re the person people want you to be, not who you really are.”

  She’s right.

  “You’re wrong.”

  Hayley’s eyes challenged me.

  She’s knows.

  “You’re wrong,” I repeated.

  Hayley smiled a small secretive smile. She knew I was lying but she wasn’t going to press it. So I don’t know why I did.

  “Even if you were right, which you’re not, it’s not wrong to keep some things private. ‘Most people are other people’,” I said and Hayley’s eyebrows shot up in recognition.

  “Oscar Wilde, right?” said Hayley and I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d know the reference. She was smart. “Wilde also said ‘one’s real life is often the life that one does not lead’, and I can totally empathise with why he believed that because Wilde was persecuted for his ‘real life’. But our generation is luckier. Look at Pete, out and proud in this tiny hick town. I can dye my hair orange, or Dave can dye his yellow without either of us being hauled to the principal’s office. Everyone has the right now to self-expression and free speech. To be whoever they are. To be ‘real’ and honest. Without fear or persecution.”

  Hayley face had become more animated as she spoke, her eyes wide and bright and her pale skin slightly flushed. I’d never seen her speak so passionately and I felt more drawn to her than I’d ever been to anyone. This girl who believed so fervently believed that everyone had a right to live their life the way they want. That I too had that right. She was going to make a great human rights lawyer one day.

  “Sorry,” she apologised, casting her eyes downwards, her cheeks flushing a deeper shade of rouge, “you must think I’m crazy. Next time just tell me to shut up.”

  “I would never say that.”

  “No, you’d never be so rude.”

  “Can we stop with the psycho analysis now?”

  Shame coloured Hayley’s cheeks. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to go on and on at you like that. Sometimes I speak first and think later. I shouldn’t have said all those things about…”

  “Its ok,” I interrupted, realising it actually was ok. She was the first one to really see and I was glad it was her. Anyone else and I would have been out of there long ago.

  Hayley held my gaze a moment longer. We stared at each other until the electricity in the air was so charged it began to pulse and we both looked away at the same time.

  “Besides,” I muttered under my breath to myself, soft enough that I hoped she couldn’t hear. “You’re completely wrong about me.”

  Denial was a habit that was hard to break.

  CHAPTER 15

  HAYLEY

  I spotted Alex’s red Mini the moment I pulled into the pool car park. It was 7.30am. Usually the only swimmers at the pool that early were members of the blue-rinse set – ladies in their pastel 1950’s-style swim caps adorned with rubber flowers, and men whose wrinkled skin hung so loosely from their limbs it swayed from side to side as they walked. Most mornings, I was the youngest swimmer by several decades and I’d never once seen anyone else under fifty there that early in the day.

  So what was Alex doing there?

  I saw him as soon as I pushed through the heavy metal turnstiles. Alex had just pulled himself out of the pool and was standing by the shallow-end while a puddle formed at his feet. He slicked his wet hair back and took off his goggles, and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw me.

  I crossed the short distance trying not to ogle him but failing miserably. He had a fantastic body and it wasn’t even like I could see much skin. Quite the opposite. Knee length swimming trunks, the type worn by elite swimmers, hugged his thighs and concealed the deep scar that I knew marred his thigh. A long-sleeved rash-vest clung to his torso, its high collar almost obscuring the scar that ran from below his hairline down the back of his neck. The suit clung to every millimetre of his body, every muscle, every contour. I tried to not to stare but my eyes were hungry for every square millimetre of him. He was so good looking it almost hurt to look.

  Would you get a grip Hayley!!

  “Hi.”

  “Morning.”

  He looked uncomfortable. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t expect to see me here or because he hadn’t forgiven me for my rant the other day. I didn’t know what had come over me that day, it wasn’t like me to make personal attacks.

  “I didn’t know you swam,” I said, sounding like I was apologising for intruding. “Usually it’s just the oldies this time in the morning.”

  “Yes, its nice…I like it when it’s quiet.”

  “Oh.” So I had intruded.

  “I’ve been coming every the morning,” he added.

  “Every day?”

  He nodded. No wonder he had such a fit body. Then realisation dawned, “Oh, of course, your leg.”

  Surprise and embarrassment flashed across Alex’s face and he automatically glanced down at his right leg.

  I was dying to ask but I’d done enough prying into Alex’s life lately. The seconds ticked by then before I knew it it just came out.

  “What happened to you, Alex?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Were you involved in an accident?”

  “Umm…” Alex’s forehead creased into a frown.

  “I thought…your scars…I mean it looks like you were in a car accident or something,” I said, thinking I really should shut up because he obviously didn’t want to talk about it but my mouth would not oblige. “It looks like you were. Like you’ve been through a lot…turned inside out.”

  And it did look like that, even though I didn’t mean to just say it. Alex’s scars were like physical manifestations of what was going on inside. Like Pete thought my hair was.

  Alex’s eyes flickered to mine and for a second I thought I saw another face, the other Alex, the silent and sad one, but a half-second later that face was gone leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing. Instead Alex focused on the puddle at his feet.

  I should have just left it but as usual, my mouth would not shut up.

  “Do you want to talk-”

  “Sorry, I have to go,” he interrupted, cutting me off and grabbing his things, still not looking at me. “See you at school Hayley.” He fled into the changing rooms.

  I watched him walk away from me. I was shocked, stunned and angry at my behaviour. Just when we’d been getting along, I went and pushed him away with my questions. Damn it, Hayley, why can’t you just shut up for Christ’s sake?

  The past two weeks, I’d been telling myself I shouldn’t be interested in someone like Alex, but all that was irrelevant now because there was absolutely no chance Alex would ever be interested in a nosy freak like me.

  CHAPTER 16

  ALEX

  I wasn’t following Hayley; I only wanted to get to know her better.

  That’s all.

  Honestly.

  I don’t know what is was about this girl but the more she saw of me, the more attracted I was to her. While her interest and insight should be repelling me, instead it was like she had her own gravitational pull. The speed and intensity of my feelings for her and the very fact
that I was feeling something, anything, in the first place scared the hell out of me. Now that I was in Hayley’s orbit I couldn’t help but let everything revolve around her. At school I automatically searched for her. My eyes sought hers in every room even when I knew she was elsewhere. I imagined her face every time I closed my eyes. All five senses were set to red alert and craved the irresistible danger of her presence.

  I didn’t recognise myself.

  Why this girl? Why this strange girl with a head of flames and flashing green eyes? A girl who would have never before registered on my radar. Why Hayley?

  She terrified me so I avoided her.

  She fascinated me so I sought her out.

  I started dropping by Juicy Bits every day once I’d dropped Ally home after school. I learnt that Hayley often worked there in the afternoons and I would linger in the surf shop opposite furtively trying to catch a glimpse of her through the window display. That afternoon, she wasn’t at Juicy Bits. I went in and ordered a smoothie anyway and decided to visit my uncle at his office across the street. Charles had retired after Matthew’s death but still kept his hand in things part-time with pro-bono work for people who couldn’t afford a lawyer. He said his legal-aid cases were his way of atoning, whatever the hell that meant.

  My uncle’s office consisted of two small rooms above a dive shop on Main Street and I climbed the concrete stairs to push open the door with simple black letters on an opaque glass panel announcing “Charles Sheppington QC”. Margaret, his secretary/receptionist/legal assistant was sitting behind a desk facing the entrance and she glanced up from the person she was talking to when she heard the door swing open. This was the last place I’d expected to find her.

  “Hayley?”

  Hayley was sitting at the desk next to Margaret’s and I blinked my eyes to see if I was imagining things. Was my need to see her so strong that I could somehow subconsciously seek her out? Was that even possible?