Numb

by Tanya Paterson

  “He’s busy at the moment,” continued Dave. “But you could take a number and get in line.”

  “Look we can’t stay,” Pete jumped in obviously deciding that it was time for an intervention. “Places to go, boys to meet, that sort of thing. Actually we really do need to get going sweet pea.” He sounded flippant and light-hearted but I could tell Pete was uncomfortable. He put a protective arm around my shoulders and began to steer me away. Pete didn’t like being here any better than I did.

  Neither did Krista. “Yes, you should go,” she said, wrapping her hand around Dave’s arm either to pull him away or to prevent him from following us. Either way she didn’t realise what a favour she’d done for me.

  “Thanks for coming to see me, Hayley,” Dave slurred sourly as Pete led me through the crowd and into the lounge.

  “He still has a thing for you, you know,” Pete said as quietly as he could over the thumping music, his lips pressed to my ear.

  “I know,” I murmured back.

  “Except now he’s also jealous of Alex.”

  “He has no reason to be jealous. Nothing’s happened.”

  “Yet.”

  I’d told Pete everything on the way over: my real feelings for Alex, the freaky body zaps, the dreams, everything. Of course he already knew most of it and had just been waiting for me to tell him myself. Damn those mind reading best friends – you can’t keep anything from them.

  “Okaaay,” he drawled, “I’ll give us five minutes to find Alex and if he’s not here we’ll skedaddle.” Pete glanced around the room, his eyes skimming over the tops of people’s heads searching for something. “I’ll just need to use the ladies first.”

  I led Pete towards the bathroom near the bedrooms at the front of the house. There was another toilet out the back but that would mean we’d have to walk past Dave and through the kitchen and I didn’t want to go back there. While I waited for Pete to finish in the bathroom, I looked around at the party and my eyes caught on the light from the spare bedroom where the door was ajar. Through the opening, a faint glow from the bedside lamp illuminated two figures writhing on the narrow bed, clumsily trying to remove each other’s clothing. This wouldn’t normally interest me: I’d heard lots of kids in my class would get drunk at parties and sleep with someone but I’m no voyeur so it’s not typical behaviour for me to do a double-take and move in for a closer look.

  “I want you so much,” a girl’s voice gasped. It was Rachael.

  “God you feel so good.” It was Alex.

  My stomach felt like it had been punched.

  “What about Ally and Krista?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t want anyone but you,” he replied, cupping Rachel’s breasts and kissing her passionately. She moaned in response before telling him to shut the door.

  Every shred of hope I’d held that Alex was genuinely interested in me went supernova. It was as if the bright house lights had been switched on mid-performance and I could suddenly see the frayed edges of the costumes, the heavy powder makeup and the badly painted sets. The illusion had been shattered and the cold hard reality was I’d been suckered into the performance. Everything I’d believed was a lie.

  “Alex,” Rachel breathed huskily. “I can’t wait much longer. The door!”

  Alex pushed himself off Rachel, his shirt partially unbuttoned and his unbuckled belt slipping from the hoops in his jeans. He stood and turned, walking towards the door. As he reached for the handle he glanced up and saw me still standing in the hall. His eyes narrowed in confusion as if he was wondering if I was the illusion before they widened in shock and his mouth opened in surprise.

  “Hayley?!”

  I was frozen as pain gripped my stomach into a tight fist.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! What had I been thinking?

  I took a deep breath to stifle the pain but it only felt worse. I thought was going to be sick.

  “Hayley?” Alex repeated, yanking open the door and stepping towards me into the hall, wide-eyed and sober.

  I needed to get out of there before I threw up. I begged my body to get out of there and finally it obeyed.

  “Wait! Hayley!” Alex reached out and grabbed my shoulders. My traitorous body let him spin me around until I faced him again. His dark brown eyes were inches away and torn with emotion. He was that good an actor.

  “What did you – ? What are you doing here? I thought…you weren’t coming,” he said mortified, desperate and guilty all in one.

  I pressed my lips pressed and clenched my jaw tight. If I opened my mouth I was worried something humiliating like a sob would escape. God, I’d been so stupid. A stupid, naïve, misguided fool. Alex paid me a little attention and held my hand for one minute after class and from as little as that I imagined he actually felt something real for me. He probably used the same technique on all his girls and like all the others, I’d fallen for it. Me. The girl who trusted her sixth sense like it was a lie detector. All these weeks I’d been blinded by my arrogant belief that I knew Alex better than anyone else, that only I could see behind the mask, that despite all evidence to the contrary, the intelligent, thoughtful Alex I met every day in the library was the real deal. But that Alex was the façade. The real Alex was facing me with his hands on my shoulders, drunk and wasted on drugs and about to screw his girlfriend’s best friend.

  My stomach heaved. I should have known better.

  All the signs were there in plain sight and I’d ignored them. I’d been the one to find him with Krista at the restaurant, I’d heard the whispers at school about the other girls and here he was about to have sex with Rachel just hours after telling me that he cared for me and that I was the one he wanted. I’d been blind to the real Alex. The gorgeous, popular, superficial and shallow guy who had countless girls after him and who he’d tell whatever they wanted to hear in order to get them into bed. He’d been playing me all this time. Telling me what I wanted to hear. Pretending to be the person I wanted him to be. Pretending to be someone I could care about. Alex was so very good at this game that his magic had even worked on me: the girl who never let her feelings run out of control.

  Well it wouldn’t work anymore. Not now that I’d finally discovered the truth.

  “You said…I didn’t realise….I thought – ,” he stumbled, trying to find his own words. “If I’d known you were coming…”

  I tried to leave but his hands were still holding onto my shoulders.

  “No…don’t go,” he started, his voice pleading.

  “Let me go,” I said.

  “No!” he said so forcefully he shocked me. He must have realised this because he dropped his hands from my shoulders, took a deep, shaky breath and lowered his voice. “Fuck! I’ve fucked everything up. Again. Please don’t leave, Hayley. I…I would never have…if….I didn’t think you were interested…I thought you believed the lie.” The last sentence came out in a desperate rushed whisper as if he was sharing something very private with me but I now knew how Alex worked and I wouldn’t fall for it again.

  “I did believe the lie but I guess I know better now I’ve seen the real you,” I said, motioning to the scene in the bedroom. “I liked the other guy better but he was the fake, wasn’t he?”

  Alex looked like he’d been punched in the stomach as self-loathing, pain and loss cross his face. He looked genuinely distraught but my eyes were wide open and I refused to listen to my inner voice again.

  “Alex, what are you doing?” Rachel asked loudly and impatiently from inside the room. “Hurry up.”

  That was my cue to leave.

  I turned and fled down the hall to where Pete had been waiting and watching us. I didn’t look back at I fell into his arms.

  “Oh sweet pea,” Pete said sympathetically, putting his huge arm around my shoulders and hugging me close as we pushed out way through the crowd towards the front door. “That was….disappointing.”

  I let out a pitiful snort of sad laughter.

  “Let’s get out of her
e,” he said, squeezing my shoulder as I fought to keep the tears from flowing. “This house is bloody cursed or something.”

  I was just about to agree with him when Dave stopped us.

  “So you found Alex then. Did he give you a number? Ask you to wait in line?” Dave had appeared out of nowhere, blocking the exit.

  My body tensed as did Pete’s beside me when we both heard the malice in Dave’s voice. I threw Pete what I hoped was an I’m-ok-I-can-handle-this look and took a deep breath to calm my anxiety.

  “We’re just leaving, Dave,” I said, ducking out from under Pete’s arm and edging past Dave.

  But he blocked the way. “He’s all wrong for you Hayley.”

  “See you at school,” I said, lightly. I needed to get out of there. Fast. I started to ease further past Dave.

  “Hayley – ” Dave grabbed my arm, his whole hand encircling it, his fingers pressing hard and cutting off the circulation. I glanced up in alarm and his stare was intense and leering. I’d seen that look before. I had to get out of the house.

  Please don’t touch me, I thought as panic gripped me.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “Let her go,” Pete warned.

  I struggled to keep the fear out of my voice. “Please let go of my arm.”

  Dave’s grip tightening as his face leaned into mine. “No.”

  “Let her go!” Pete’s voice boomed more loudly from beside me. He’d drawn himself up to his full six and a half feet, fists clenched at his side and he was staring menacingly down at Dave with a look that didn’t just threaten violence, but promised it if Dave didn’t release me. I’d never seen Pete so angry.

  Dave glanced at Pete. He was surprised but the drugs in his system made him defiant. “And if I don’t? What are you going to do make me you fat fag…” he spat the words out in hate, “…suck my dick?”

  I’ve known Pete my whole life and I know that he didn’t have a violent bone in his body. He might have been the biggest guy in school but he was a gentle giant, more teddy bear then grizzly. But the look on Pete’s face as he glowered at Dave was one which meant business if Dave didn’t let me go as Pete demanded. They stared each other down for what seemed like ages before Dave’s glare softened slightly. He must have realised he wouldn’t win this round because he released me from his grip and stepped away.

  “Get out,” Dave growled, his narrowed eyes never leaving Pete’s, “and don’t come back.”

  “We won’t. Come on, sweet pea,” said Pete in his normal, soft voice, putting his arm around me as he directed me out the door. “We don’t belong here.”

  CHAPTER 28

  ALEX

  Just when I thought I’d sunk as low as I could go, a trap door opened and I fell deeper into oblivion.

  I didn’t want to think.

  I didn’t want to breathe.

  Most off all I didn’t want to feel. But inside I burned as surely as I was in Hell.

  I set the volume on my ipod up as loud as it would go, stuck in my earbuds and willed the music to numb the pain.

  I finally made it out of bed after Maria came to check on me a second time. I didn’t go far, just to the sofa where I lay with the volume painfully, soothingly, loud.

  Years of nothingness before Hayley made me want to open up and now I couldn’t get the lid back on the bloody box. Self-loathing, hatred and despair consumed me. I wanted the emptiness back. Where had it gone?

  Hayley wasn’t supposed to be there, I told myself again and again as if it was somehow her fault, as if her rejection had justified my actions.

  I blamed the drugs.

  I blamed Rachel.

  Mostly I blamed myself.

  You screw everything up.

  True to form, I’d destroyed the one good thing in my life: her friendship. It was inevitable I would fuck up because everything I touched turned to ashes.

  The midday sun was at it brightest and I cursed my aunt for not hanging blinds in the living room. I rolled over and buried my face in the back of the sofa. The sunlight in this country was agonising, it illuminated everything and there was no hiding from its ferocity. What was wrong with this country? Why couldn’t there be heavy grey days, cold drizzle, frost and fog? I needed English weather not uninterrupted Queensland sunshine.

  Why did she go to the party?

  Hayley has said she didn’t want me. She believed the lie and of course she did because everyone did.

  I was sure she felt something for me. Friday after school I’d finally found my courage and offered her my heart in my hands. For weeks we’d been dancing around the fireworks so I took a chance and told her how I felt. She’d told me she knew appearances could be deceptive and I was sure she knew the truth and felt something for the real Alex because how could feelings that intense one-sided? They were so corporeal I could have grasped them with both hands. But I’d been wrong. She pulled away and rejected me.

  Or did she?

  I rolled over on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. Why did Hayley go to the party if she’d rejected me Friday? Why did she look so hurt and betrayed when she saw me with Rachel if she didn’t care?

  Did she care? Did she go to Dave’s looking for me? Was that why she was there?

  Christ, I didn’t know. I shook my head side-to-side in frustration. What did it even matter anymore? Hayley would never look twice at me now. Now there was nothing between us but empty air. I didn’t even know if we could still be friends anymore. Not after last night.

  I put my face in my hands, shuddering involuntarily from the irrational loss that threatened to crush what was left of my hope.

  I had no reference for the way I felt about Hayley, no experience to give leverage to the overwhelming emotions when I saw her face or heard her voice or felt her hand in mine.

  Hayley made me feel. The magnetic pull towards Hayley had been there from the moment I first saw her. It had hit like a bolt out of the blue and ever since an electric current ran through my veins whenever we were near each other. Every cell reached out to know her, hold her, love her.

  You love her.

  No!

  Yes, you idiot!

  I pulled the headphones from my ears and sat up, stunned that I hadn’t realised this before.

  I’d fallen for her.

  Oh my god.

  That’s what was wrong with me.

  That’s what I’d been trying to tell myself all this time. I didn’t even realise I was capable of feeling this way about anyone. Until a few months ago I didn’t think I was capable of feeling. Anything. Full-stop. The emotional vacuum that was inside me had been like an infection which had left me as cold and empty as the artic wind.

  Until I met Hayley.

  Her name spread like an antidote through my veins; driving out the cold and sending my soul soaring towards the sun.

  Hayley!

  Oh shit. A heartbeat later I was crashing again, my head in my hands as I slumped back against the sofa.

  You’d so fucked up.

  The door opened and Charles walked in carrying a plate of food. Great. Just what I needed right now when my head and heart was rollarcoastering:, a post-party lecture to brighten my day. In London, these lectures had been as regular as Sunday morning services, hail and brimstone raining down on me for my sins. Even though a sermon was the last thing I wanted, this time I deserved one. This time I really had screwed up. Big time. And no-one was to blame but myself.

  Charles put the plate on the table and sat in a chair next to the sofa. “Maria thought you might be hungry. How was the party last night?”

  I grimaced and turned to stare out the huge windows because I couldn’t tell him the truth and yet couldn’t bring myself to lie. The sun was high and light streamed through the naked windows. I scowled at the cloudless, bright sky and prayed for thick clouds and darkness.

  “Like that was it?” he said to my silence. “Many people there?”

  I nodded.

  “Anyone I know?” />
  I drew a breath and nodded again. Charles would find out sooner or later. Easier coming from me. “Hayley,” I said quietly.

  “Hayley?” Charles said, surprised. “I didn’t know she was in with that crowd.”

  “She’s not,” I admitted. “She left early.”

  We sat together feeling a little uncomfortable talking about Hayley. Charles shifted in his chair and when he opened his mouth to speak he hesitated as if searching for the words. An awkward pause followed before he asked, “Is everything ok?”

  “Yep.”

  Nope.

  “How’s your head this morning?”

  “Ok.”

  …not.

  “How big a night was it?”

  I smiled grimly. You have no idea.

  Charles rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. I waited for it.

  “You’re so like Matthew.”

  I looked up, surprised. “Matthew?” My dressing-downs didn’t usually open with a reference to my dead cousin. What did Matthew have to do with any of this?

  “Look at you Alex…” he gestured to me. “You’re coming down from something or a combination of somethings. Happy as Larry one moment then reckless or depressed the next. This isn’t hormones or typical teenage behaviour like your parents want to think it is and I know because Matthew was exactly the same. I didn’t know what was going on then but I know what to look for now, Alex,” alarm bells exploded in my head as Charles eyed me knowingly, “and I won’t let it happen again. I won’t wait until it’s too late and you self-destruct….”

  “Look Charles,” I interrupted quickly. I could handle a lecture, as long as it didn’t stray too close to the truth. I’d expected the usual parental rant of “how can you do this to us” or “what will people say” but Charles was too focused on what I was doing to myself instead of what I was doing to him or my parents. That was the standard I was expecting. Not this. I needed to put a stop to this right away. “I’m sorry mum dumped me on you but…”

  “Dumped you on us?” he frowned, puzzled. “Alex, it wasn’t like that. We asked your mother to let you come. We practically begged her. We did everything we could to convince her you needed to stay with us this year instead of locking you away in some school or institution.”