Valentine

by Jodi McAlister

  ‘Make me.’

  ‘Show some respect.’

  ‘I’ve seen it all before.’

  ‘Excuse me?!’

  ‘You think I’ve never seen a girl with her kit off?’

  ‘Well, I’m not just some girl. Close your eyes.’

  I’m all geared up for a fight, but surprisingly, he obeys. ‘Got that right,’ he says, as I pull the top on over my head. ‘You’re not just some girl.’

  I wonder if he’d say that if he knew the kind of dreams I had about him – no, Pearl, do not, under any circumstances, let your mind go there! ‘Um, do you want a cup of tea or something?’ I say helplessly, cheeks flaming. They say tea fixes everything. I hope it fixes uncontrollable Seelie-fairy-induced cases of extreme lust.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Well, um, I’ll be back,’ I say, and rush out of the room before I actually rip his shirt from his body.

  I lean against the wall in the corridor and breathe heavily, scolding myself thoroughly. I’d slap myself in the face if I didn’t think he would hear. I can’t hear the Seelie music any more, thank God, but my whole body feels warm, tingling, like it’s full of electricity.

  Calm the hell down, Linford.

  I march determinedly towards the kitchen. It’s just Finn. That’s all. They were just dancing in that clearing, just dancing. With maybe a splash of torturing Holly-Anne, but that’s not something I can do anything about right now, not in this mental state. And he’s just Finn, the same guy that’s been the bane of my existence for –

  ‘That is so not the point, Shad!’

  I stop.

  ‘You leave her out of this. She’s done nothing.’

  ‘Nothing – nothing?’ Disey’s voice cracks. Her hands are balled into fists at her sides. ‘Do you remember that night when Pearl fell into a coma?’

  ‘God, Dise, do you ever let up? Sure, she asked a few questions, but she never –’

  ‘I don’t want her round here ever again!’

  ‘Just because you don’t like her,’ Shad says quietly, ‘doesn’t mean she put Pearl in a coma.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘What has she done, Dise? Tell me exactly what she’s done.’

  ‘What, do I have to make a list?’

  ‘Yes, you do!’ Shad snaps. ‘Because you know what, Disey? There is nothing on that list other than the fact that she once asked Pearl a few mistimed questions.’

  ‘Leave Pearl out of it!’

  ‘Fine, you leave Pearl out of it!’

  ‘Pearl doesn’t like her either!’

  ‘I know,’ Shad says, ‘but at least she has the decency to be polite to her.’

  ‘Pearl’s a kid –’

  ‘She’s seventeen, Disey, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘We are not arguing about Pearl!’

  ‘You know what? We are arguing about Pearl now. When are you going to stop locking her up like an animal?’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘She’s seventeen!’

  ‘She’s been sick!’

  ‘– she’s getting better! And she’s champing at the bit to get back to her life, to get back on the horse, just like she’s supposed to, only you won’t let her!’

  ‘She needs time to heal! She nearly died, Shad, or don’t you remember? She could have had brain damage!’

  ‘But she doesn’t!’

  ‘None of this makes your girlfriend any less of an insane bitch!’

  ‘You do exactly the same thing to Pearl as you do to Helena! You completely steamroll her –’

  ‘I’m protecting her!’

  ‘From what?’ Shad demands.

  There’s a long silence. Finally, ‘Screw you, Shadow Linford,’ Disey says from between her teeth. ‘Screw. You.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Pearl is not the issue here.’

  ‘Pearl is exactly the issue here. Do you have any idea how much we tiptoe round your feelings in this house? Helena’s terrified of you. You ride roughshod over anything I ever have to say even though Pearl is just as much mine as yours. And you’re making Pearl hate you.’

  I close my eyes and clench my teeth together to keep from making a sound as my world falls out from under me.

  ‘How can you say that to me?’

  ‘Because it’s true,’ Shad answers. ‘She’s already afraid of you –’

  ‘She hasn’t been herself since she’s been sick –’

  ‘And neither have you. You don’t talk to her except to tell her what she can and can’t do.’

  ‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ Disey says. I hear the jingle as she grabs her keys.

  ‘You’re a coward, Disey!’ Shad yells after her as she opens the back door.

  She says nothing, just slams the door in response. Shad swears and hits the table with the flat of his hand, which makes me jump.

  What has happened to my life?

  ‘Babe?’ I hear Shad say. ‘Hey, Hels, it’s me. Can I come round? Yeah. Yeah. See you in a minute. Bye.’

  The back door slams again. I stand pressed against the wall for several long moments.

  I bite my lip. I will not – I will not –

  ‘Pearl?’ Finn says, emerging from my room. ‘I heard the shouting. The cars. Are you –’

  I look at him, standing there awkwardly in Shad’s too-big shirt, his hair frizzing as it dries, an uncomfortable look on his face, not having a clue what to do. And I throw myself at him, bury my face in his shoulder which smells like soap and boy and home, and sob.

  I don’t know how long I cry for. I don’t know how we got from the hallway to my bedroom, and I don’t know why he stays with me.

  But he does. And when my sobs finally subside, he’s there.

  We remain silent for a long time. I can hear his heart beating, thud thud, thud thud, and feel his chest rise and fall as he breathes. I close my eyes and that sound, that feeling, becomes the centre of my world for several long moments. In. Out. In. Out. Thud thud. Thud thud.

  ‘Before I ask you if you want to talk about it,’ he says, and I can feel his voice vibrating in his chest, ‘you should probably know that I’m not very good at it.’

  ‘Good at what?’ I ask. My voice is hoarse from all the crying.

  ‘Talking about stuff,’ he answers.

  ‘Neither am I,’ I admit. ‘I remember this one time Tillie tried to sit me down and have a D&M about – oh God, I can’t even remember what – but anyway, she was having this massive crisis, and you know that feeling when you think there’s something you’re supposed to say, like a list of questions you’re supposed to ask or something, but you have no idea what they are?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, and chuckles, and it reverberates against my ear like an organ in a church.

  ‘Phil’s worse at it than me, though,’ I babble, unable to stop the fountain of words bubbling out of me. ‘It’s like pulling teeth to talk to her about anything.’

  ‘Anything like what?’

  I blush. ‘Oh, you know, emotional stuff.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I was so surprised when she got together with Julian. She didn’t even tell me that she liked him. It was like bam! boyfriended. I never even saw it coming.’

  ‘Wow.’

  A silence.

  ‘So do you want to talk about it?’ he asks.

  ‘I wouldn’t even know where to start.’

  Another long silence.

  ‘It’s just –’ I say, ‘– they never fight, you know? I mean, sure, they argue and they disagree but I’ve never heard them – never heard them – not like this.’

  And it’s all my fault.

  ‘That sucks,’ he says.

  All my fault. All my fault. If I hadn’t – if none of this had happened and I hadn’t started lying to them – then none of this would – we’d still be ourselves – I want to go back – I want to –

  ‘So what’s the story with you guys anyway?’ he asks. />
  ‘The story?’

  He moves underneath me, adjusting his weight, but his arms are still tight around me, and I want to cling to him, cling to him so I don’t drown or float away. ‘No one really knows much about you,’ he says. ‘You’re different.’

  ‘Not really,’ I say.

  ‘No, I mean – I told you I wasn’t good at this. Your family. You’re not like –’

  ‘Other families? No, I guess we’re not.’ I think of Finn’s little family: loving mother, proud father, annoying little brother that obviously idolises him. ‘But I wouldn’t change it.’

  Disey. Shad. Doors slamming.

  ‘Oh no, I wasn’t saying that you should want to or anything. It’s just – it’s weird, yeah? It’s like this massive secret or something that no one knows.’

  People talk, I hear between the lines.

  ‘It’s not a secret,’ I say. ‘I guess we just keep our family life to ourselves.’

  ‘Pretty much all that people at school know is your brother is some kind of computer genius and your sister’s a lesbian,’ he says.

  That shocks a laugh out of me. ‘Well, that’s true on both counts.’

  ‘Pearl, what happened to your parents?’ he asks.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ I say softly.

  He doesn’t say anything. I listen to his heart beating. Thud thud, thud thud.

  ‘Disey and Shad’s dad died when they were eight,’ I say. ‘He was a really good guy. I’ve seen pictures. They all looked really happy. There’s this one of him holding them when they were born – I’ve never seen anyone ever look so proud. Like, “Look at me, I have twins, how smart am I?”’

  Old photographs, faded and greying. A childhood blown away like leaves in a breeze.

  ‘And then he died. It was cancer – leukaemia, I think – and it was pretty quick. Disey told me once that she was glad it was that way. He was such a big strong guy that a long illness would have hurt him more than a quick death ever did.’

  ‘What happened then?’ he asks.

  ‘Things got bad,’ I answer.

  ‘How?’ I can feel his warm breath against my hair.

  ‘I’ve never asked for the exact details,’ I reply. ‘It’s . . . for Disey and Shad, it wasn’t a good time. Mum – Mum was –’

  ‘She was what?’

  ‘Unusual,’ I say, after a long moment of consideration. ‘She was a very strange person. You know how you see some people, like in the street or whatever, and they just sort of seem to be wafting around, living in a dream half the time, not really in touch with reality at all, just totally absorbed in their own little world?’

  ‘Like Miss Rodriguez the art teacher?’

  ‘Sort of, yeah, but even more extreme. My mum was – well, she was a bit of a hippie, I guess, and she was . . . she had some strange ideas.’

  He pauses before he speaks again. ‘So after their dad died, what happened?’

  ‘Well, Mum wasn’t exactly the best guardian in the world,’ I say. ‘She was very self-absorbed, and totally wrapped up in her art. She was a singer. Not like a famous one or anything – she used to work in the supermarket to pay the bills – but she would do backup vocals and stuff . . . she’d go to Sydney or Melbourne or wherever for weeks at a time sometimes. But at home she was pretty much married to her piano. She’d sit there for hours and hours, just playing and making stuff up and . . . she was totally out of touch with everything. Disey and Shad had to learn to be pretty independent pretty early on.’

  ‘That sucks,’ Finn says.

  ‘And then Mum . . .’ I stop, trying to think of how to say it. ‘She was totally gorgeous. Like, amazingly beautiful. She had all this long red hair . . . I don’t look much like her, really. She was beautiful, and so she used to pick up all these men, and a lot of them weren’t too keen on the fact that she had these two kids running around, and they used to get picked on pretty bad. Shad especially.’

  ‘Poor guy,’ Finn says.

  ‘When they got old enough, they both used to work like, three part-time jobs each to make money. And to get out of the house, I think,’ I say. ‘There were the boyfriends, and . . . they’ve never told me this, but I get the impression that Mum wasn’t too keen on the fact that Shad and Disey weren’t like her.’

  ‘All artistic and stuff?’

  ‘I guess,’ I say. ‘I don’t even know how to explain what she was like. She was just . . . I was so little when she died, but, even then I could tell she was different.’

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I pause. ‘Anyway, eventually, when Disey and Shad were seventeen, one of Mum’s boyfriends got her pregnant. And that was me.’ I pause, my voice trailing off. ‘I’m pretty sure they both thought it was the worst idea ever. Mum couldn’t look after a pot plant, let alone a baby.’

  ‘Did your dad hang around?’

  ‘No. I don’t know anything about him. He could be alive, he could be dead. I don’t even know what his name is. I’ve never asked.’

  I twist my hands together, knotting my fingers around each other. ‘Disey and Shad were always going to leave home the second they turned eighteen – get a flat together somewhere, work things out from there, live their lives, you know . . . everything. But they didn’t want to leave me alone with Mum.’

  ‘And so . . .?’

  ‘Then Mum died.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Car crash. Wet road. Late at night. Ploughed into a tree. Dead on impact.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t remember her well,’ I say. ‘But Disey and Shad . . . she was nuts, but she was all they had.’

  ‘Except you.’

  ‘Except me,’ I repeat. ‘Me, four years old. They were twenty-one. And they had to look after me.’

  I ruined their lives.

  ‘They’ve been so good to me,’ I say, biting my lip. ‘They’ve never treated me like I was a burden. They’ve raised me and loved me and – and it must have been so hard and they must have – if it were me, I would – I’m sure I would – I’d resent it, but they’ve never – they’ve – they’ve –’

  I bite my lip and draw in a ragged breath.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ he says softly, drawing me to him even tighter. ‘It’s all right. It’s okay.’

  ‘They’ve never fought like this before,’ I say.

  ‘I’m sure – God, Pearl, I’m sorry, I’m no good at this – I’m sure it’ll all be all right somehow,’ he says helplessly.

  ‘Things are different now,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s been bad –’ I sniff, ‘– ever since I got sick.’

  He goes very still, like a rock, or a statue. ‘It’s because of me,’ he says.

  ‘No, Finn!’ I say, pulling out of his embrace and turning round to face him. ‘I won’t let you think that.’

  ‘If I hadn’t dragged you into this stupid crazy mess, none of this would have happened,’ he persists relentlessly. ‘If I hadn’t been what I am, you never would have gone into that coma and nothing would have been . . . they’d have never come after you, and –’

  ‘Finn,’ I say, ‘don’t apologise for who you are.’

  ‘Pearl, not only am I some kind of – some kind of –’

  ‘– fairy –’

  ‘– I’m really bad at it.’

  I sit up and cross my legs. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I have no idea what the hell I’m doing!’ he explodes. ‘They’re coming after you and I could probably make it all go away if I knew how, but I’m stupid and useless and I’m letting you risk your life for me and I can’t even save Holly-Anne, let alone you and me and the world and whatever else I’m supposed to be saving –’

  ‘You’re not stupid.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Then why did it take you about four seconds to work out what I was when I’ve been like this my whole life?’

  ‘Do you remember being in Year Four?’ I ask abr
uptly.

  He blinks. ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘Remember how you pulled that thing with the clock? Mr Jeffrey went out of the room for five seconds, and you changed the clock so we could all go home half an hour sooner.’

  ‘And you caught me the next day and lectured me.’

  ‘That bit’s irrelevant,’ I say quickly. ‘I am well aware I might have been the most annoying kid in the history of the world. But – that prank, Finn, you were, what, nine, ten? And you had it timed so well. And you even managed to get the school bell to go off at two thirty instead of three. I never worked out how you did that.’

  ‘Cam was on bell duty that week,’ he says. ‘He went out to the toilet at two twenty-five, and –’

  ‘See what I mean?’ I say. ‘It was totally ingenious, the whole thing.’

  He is silent.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re not clever,’ I say. ‘Clever isn’t all English and maths and school and stuff – or being good with Google or whatever –’

  ‘Pearl, don’t try and tell me you’re not smart. You’re the smartest person I know.’

  ‘I know I’m smart,’ I say. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’re not smart as well.’

  ‘It still doesn’t mean I’m any good at this,’ he says, spreading his hands. ‘I’m totally selfish and maybe I could just get this whole thing off your shoulders right now by walking out and yelling, “Hey, guess what, here I am, spoilers, I’m the Valentine!” but no, I won’t do it, because I’m scared, so I let you take the whole brunt of it and now your whole life is screwed up and it’s all because I –’

  ‘– don’t want to die?’ I say bluntly.

  He won’t look at me. ‘I even turn your breakdown sessions round to me,’ he says under his breath.

  ‘We can both come out of this alive,’ I say firmly, ‘and that’s what we’re going to do.’

  ‘What kind of wuss am I,’ he mutters, ‘letting someone else cover for me?’

  ‘Finn, if I thought it would do any good, I would march out there right now and yell to the world that it was you,’ I say. ‘But I’m as much of a marked man as you are now. Even though I’m not their Valentine, there’s no way they’re going to leave me alone, not now. They find out it’s not me, and I’m dead. The only shot we have of us both making it is working together. Working this out. You doing some suicide mission isn’t going to help anything. It’ll only get us both killed.’