by Sara Foster
Georgia is embarrassed but Danny just laughs, then grabs one of the packets and bursts it open. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘I’ll get going and leave you to it. I know I’m interrupting. I can catch you another time, yeah?’ He smiles at Bethany this time, and Georgia feels the first twinges of jealousy as Danny gets up and swings his bag over his shoulder. ‘I can let myself out,’ he says. ‘I brought my bike – it’s a bit too soon for me to walk down Vicarage Road again.’
Once they hear the front door close, Bethany sits down with a bounce on the bed. ‘You okay?’
‘I think so.’
‘Danny’s a good guy.’ Bethany is shovelling crisps into her mouth by the handful. ‘I know some of his friends are dicks, but he won’t hurt you, Georgia. I should warn you, though, his taste in movies and music is shocking. And he takes all my money playing cards.’
Any jealousy that was brewing in Georgia is once again quashed by Bethany’s easy nature. But she doesn’t get to relax for long. ‘So,’ Bethany continues, ‘you seemed like you were going to tell me something juicy. You know, Sophia’s been worried about you for ages. Says you don’t want to hang out with her any more, that you only want to go running.’
They have been talking about her. Georgia imagines them speculating behind her back, but there’s too much concern in Bethany’s voice for her to take offence. However, before she can reply, the doorbell rings again.
‘For god’s sake, he must have forgotten something.’ Bethany hauls herself up. A short time later there are two sets of footsteps coming back towards the room again, but to Georgia’s surprise it’s her father who appears, with Bethany behind him.
‘You weren’t picking up your mobile.’ She scans his voice for irritation, but he just sounds worried.
‘I didn’t hear it ring.’ Georgia pulls her phone from her pocket to check it. ‘Oh, sorry, the battery died. I didn’t realise.’
‘It’s okay. But you won’t have seen anyone’s messages then? Sophia’s awake.’
‘Oh my god, that’s fantastic!’ Bethany cries, breaking into a big smile and bouncing across to give Georgia a hug. When she pulls away, Georgia is crying.
Her dad comes over and puts a soothing hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay, love. It’s really good news. She’s still pretty groggy tonight, but hopefully she’ll be a lot better tomorrow. Now, I’ve just finished a stint at the rescue centre, so I thought I’d come and give you a lift home. Your mum’ll be getting worried. She’s not happy I let you come here in the first place.’
Georgia thinks of home, her mother waiting there for her. I don’t ask her to worry all the time. A wave of claustrophobia carries her energy away. She makes no move to get up.
Her dad frowns. ‘Georgia, come on, love. Have a proper sleep in your own bed and you’ll feel good as new tomorrow. It’s nearly nine. If you’re planning on running, you want to be rested for the race, don’t you?’ He reads the look on her face with unnerving accuracy. ‘I know you think your mum will pressure you not to run. Tell you what, I promise I’ll help keep her at bay for the next twenty-four hours, until after the race. Deal?’
Reluctantly, Georgia nods. She gets up and collects her coat. ‘Maybe see you tomorrow?’ she says to Bethany.
‘Sure,’ Bethany agrees. ‘I’ll try to get up in time to cheer you and Danny on.’
As Bethany sees them both out, a car pulls up on the drive and Bethany’s mother waves before heading inside. Georgia tries to imagine what it would be like if her own mother never got home until after dark. She feels giddy at the thought of so much freedom.
She had been so close to confessing to Bethany. She thought it might have helped her to focus if she could have unburdened herself before the race. Now there’s no longer any choice – it will all have to wait.
For the second time today, the doubts come creeping back. Should she be running at all? She shakes her head to clear them. She wants the sponsorship so badly – she’s dreamed of travelling the country next year with the Addison’s logo on her chest. It’s time to dispel these disquieting thoughts once and for all. Although her arm is sore, she’s physically as fit as she was two days ago, and running has always cleared her head. What had Danny said? I think you’re amazing for running tomorrow. And that’s exactly what she needs to be for the race: amazing. Because everyone will be watching.
She feels the adrenalin kick in. She imagines herself crossing the finish line a champion, all the congratulations and celebrations. There is only one person she wants to share that with, only one person who can help her analyse it all later.
‘Dad,’ she says as they get into the car. ‘If Sophia’s up to it, can we go and see her after the race?’
‘I’m sure we can, honey. I’ll drive you over there.’
‘Thank you.’ She leans back in her seat and tries to relax. Only twenty-four hours and all these plans will be memories. Sophia is awake. Georgia is glad now that she didn’t confide in Bethany, because she can’t wait to talk to her cousin. Sophia is her best friend, after all.
23
ZAC
Zac sits on the sofa, absentmindedly tearing at his nails. In front of him, his mother paces repeatedly across to the window and away again. Each time he catches sight of her frightened expression he feels winded. He’s close enough to look out across the darkened garden, but he keeps his eyes averted. He has watched too many horror films; he can envisage a face appearing without warning at close quarters, distorted and menacing. He wishes they could just close the curtains, but he doesn’t dare move.
‘Should we phone the police?’ he suggests hesitantly.
She stops, puts her hands on her hips, regarding him sternly. ‘Why didn’t you stay at Cooper’s?’
He is surprised at the censure. ‘You dropped the phone mid-conversation, Mum. I heard you talking to someone. You sounded scared. What did you think I would do? I needed to know you were okay.’
He had raced back from Cooper’s in a panic that sent his bike into intermittent wobbles. He had imagined his mother passed out on the floor, injured or worse. He had been so relieved to find she was all right. This implication of wrongdoing seems entirely unfair.
He sees her soften. She comes towards him and hugs him. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be giving you a hard time. I just had a fright. I was so glad you weren’t here when I got home and found that woman waiting – I was so relieved you were safe.’
‘So, who was she?’ he asks again. ‘Why aren’t we phoning the police?’
His mother sits down wearily in front of him, leans back on the sofa. ‘I don’t know who she was, but I want to talk to your dad first of all.’ She grabs her phone and taps quickly on the screen.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘Your father.’ She holds the phone to her ear and sighs. ‘It’s his voicemail again,’ she says. Then she turns her attention back to the phone. ‘Callum, please call me back, and let me know that you have Georgia with you.’ Her words are terse. ‘We need you to come home right now.’
He watches her end the call before he speaks again. ‘So how did that woman get into our house?’
‘Through the unlocked back door. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?’
Zac’s mind rifles through memories and pounces on one in which he let Arthur in and out. He doesn’t recall relocking the door afterwards. He reddens, wondering if he is expected to confess. His mother gives him a long, assessing look, but before he can open his mouth she speaks first.
‘Zac, do you know what’s going on with Georgia?’
In his mind’s eye he sees a gun moving towards him, the safety uncocked. It brings him to full alert. He tries to arrange his face into a neutral expression while he considers the answer she might accept, the one that will buy him time. Is she referring to the hit-and-run, or has she discovered Georgia’s secret for herself?
‘What do you mean?’ he asks. He’s so tempted to divulge what he knows, but such a stand will mean taking sides. He isn�
�t ready to give Georgia up, although he’s not sure which of their skins he is trying to save.
He isn’t off the hook. His mother’s eyes have narrowed, scrutinising him, searching for any nervous tic that might betray weakness. Right now she is a bloodhound, sniffing for the scent of a lie. Any sign of it and she’ll attack.
He ignores the temptation to cower and forces himself to relax.
‘I’m asking whether you know if Georgia is in any trouble.’
‘Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Don’t worry, I will. But I’m not sure she’ll talk to me.’
Does she realise he had avoided answering the question?
Before they can say any more to one another, there are lights on the driveway, stealing into the lounge. Anya goes to the window. ‘It’s Dad – and Georgia too.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Don’t mention anything about what just happened here to Georgia until I’ve talked to Dad. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
She marches through to the hallway. Zac follows. There are footsteps, shadowy figures beyond the glass pane at the front door. His mother waits just behind it, as taut as a tiger ready to pounce.
His dad walks through first. ‘Hello,’ he says, seeming bemused at seeing them both standing there. ‘Not often we get a welcome committee, is it, Georgia?’
‘Nope.’ Georgia doesn’t look at any of them, just unloops her scarf from around her neck and hangs it on a hook, then begins to unbutton her coat.
‘How was Bethany’s?’
Georgia stares at her mother. ‘Fine.’
‘So,’ his dad says as he swaps his shoes for slippers. ‘What’s been going on here, then?’
As he asks the question, he looks at Zac, who realises that if he is to say anything it will have to be a lie. He can’t bear it. ‘I’m going to my room,’ he announces, backing away before anyone can object, anger overtaking him on his run up the stairs.
Why is he being drawn into everyone else’s crappy games? He shuts the door and throws himself onto his bed. All their secrets are manipulating him, as surely as Jacinta’s knowing glances had forced him from his own bedroom a few hours ago, when he’d had to leave Maddie and her friend to gossip behind his back, while sitting on his bed, among his belongings. He had tried to wait it out, but every time the conversation took a turn towards something he could join in with, Jacinta seemed to distort it into an in-joke, leaving the girls doubled over with laughter. At first he had tried to smile, but since he had no idea what they were talking about, that made him look just as strange as the poker face he ended up with.
He expected little more from Jacinta, but what a disappointment Maddie had been. The only time she had spoken to him was to ask him if he would go downstairs and get them drinks. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t her butler, but he had a feeling that whatever he said or did would result in eye-rolling and more laughter. He had made them tea in the kitchen, and let a little bit of spittle fall into the cup decorated with barn owls, intending to hand it to Jacinta. He’d imagined the satisfaction he’d get from watching her drink it. But upstairs Maddie took them from him before he could hand them out, and he had left the room as Maddie raised the owl cup to her mouth.
Downstairs he’d had schoolwork to do, but he couldn’t focus. He’d switched on the TV and ended up watching a program about the behaviour of lemmings for a good half-hour before he decided to trawl the internet instead. Only then had he realised with a shock that he had left his phone upstairs.
How could he have been so careless, he’d thought, charging up the stairs two at a time, worry giving him the courage to enter his own room without knocking. The girls had been lying on the bed, transfixed by the phone in Maddie’s hand, and for a second his worst fears had come true. But then he’d spotted his own phone on the table where he’d left it, and he had snatched it up and walked out again. Neither of the girls had bothered to acknowledge his presence.
Once in the lounge room he had turned the phone over in his hands for a while, thinking through his options. Then he brought up Georgia’s secret photo and pressed the delete button as quickly as he could, relieved to see it swallowed by the screen. That thing was dynamite – best kept as far away as possible, or you were asking for trouble.
After a while his dad had come in. ‘Your mum’s just called, she needs a lift,’ he’d said. ‘Will you be all right here?’
‘I might go to Cooper’s for a while.’
‘Okay.’ Was he making it up, or did his dad seem sympathetic? ‘The girls still upstairs, are they?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’ll go and have a word.’
A short time later he’d heard feet on the stairwell. He wasn’t planning to get up, but Maddie appeared in the doorway, with Jacinta close behind.
‘We’re going to Jax’s house for a while,’ she’d said to him.
‘Right.’ He had kept his eyes fixed on the telly.
Maddie had paused, then he saw her moving away out of the corner of his eye.
‘See you later, Romeo,’ came Jacinta’s voice from the doorway.
He had heard Maddie hiss ‘Jax,’ and the high cackle of Jacinta’s laughter. He had a feeling she knew about the kiss in the forest. He also suspected that it had not been described to her in the way he’d experienced it. He wondered if Maddie had been kind or cruel. Asking himself the question made him realise how far apart he and Maddie had grown. He no longer felt good about that kiss.
At Cooper’s house he had tried to distract himself from the trauma of the afternoon, but it hadn’t worked. Cooper had been determined to keep his music loud enough to annoy the rest of his family, and Zac could barely think, let alone talk. They’d sat side by side for hours in Cooper’s room, staring at the same screen, two wired pilots on a relentless succession of search-and-destroy missions. Music and adrenalin made him dizzy and more dangerous. He tried to lose himself in the action of the game, honing his reflexes, his fingers and thumbs dancing against the plastic controls while he counted his kills. He usually spared the women, but today if they were tall and beautiful he immediately took them down.
When his phone had vibrated in his pocket he had struggled out of his delirium, but he could tell from his mum’s text that something was wrong. He had switched the music down and held the phone to his ear as he returned the call. As he waited he watched the screen, saw Cooper’s crew swarming towards his men, the splatters of blood as they were swiftly despatched without mercy.
He had been relieved to get out of there, but now he wishes he could skulk away again. He can’t make out the words downstairs but the fretful tones are clear enough. Moments later his mother yells, ‘Georgia, come back here!’ and Georgia shouts back ‘Just stay out of my life!’ accompanied by the sound of angry footsteps on the stairs, after which her door is slammed hard enough to make his posters shudder.
He puts his headphones on and thinks about which game he might play. He’s not sure any of them will distract him, but it has to be worth a try.
His phone buzzes. It’s a text from Maddie. I’m so sorry, Zac.
He frowns. Does she mean the kiss? Her attitude after it? Or has she realised that she turns into a bitch when she’s with Jacinta?
What do you mean? he keys in.
You haven’t seen Facebook?
No.
You better look. It was Jacinta. I didn’t realise she would share it. I’m truly sorry.
He has a terrible feeling he knows what has happened. He logs in to his Facebook page, scans through the news items, desperately hoping that he is wrong. He has spent all day trying to protect his sister, despite his horror at what that photo might mean. But if his fears are realised, he has just let her down in the worst way possible.
As the screen flashes in front of him, downstairs his mother and father begin to fire volleys of anger at one another. Each phrase is a burst of fireworks – the grand finale of a day he will never forget. Their voices get louder, there’s explosion after explosion as he s
crolls down the screen.
And there it is. Georgia’s picture, shared for the world to see. With comment after comment already.
Georgia’s secret life exposed. Potentially in ruins.
And everyone is laughing.
24
GEORGIA
The omens are there when she wakes up: the fog, the drizzle, the dark grey light masquerading as day. It’s been a miserable, restless night – she has struggled to sleep but hasn’t dared to leave her room in case her mother accosted her again.
And now her phone is ringing.
She grabs it, the screen showing that it isn’t yet seven. Sophia’s name is glowing, and those familiar smooth white letters make her nervous. Yet she doesn’t hesitate to pick up.
‘Georgia, it’s me!’
The timbre of her cousin’s voice is an instant comfort. Sophia sounds so like Sophia that for a moment Georgia imagines her friend ringing from home, sitting up at the breakfast bar, the fingers of her free hand playing with an earring while her parents rush around each other in the kitchen, doing the usual morning do-si-do.
‘Sophia, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?’
‘Well, my head hurts like hell,’ Sophia replies. ‘I felt sick as a dog when I came round yesterday, but they gave me an injection and that helped a lot. My leg looks like a tree trunk, and I think I’ll go insane if I have to lie like this for as long as they’re suggesting – but that’s not why I’m calling.’
For the first time Georgia catches an urgency in Sophia’s tone that causes her to grip the phone a little harder.
‘What is it?’
‘Dad showed me a photo, taken in the hospital. Then he and Mum had a belter of a row, but that’s another story. Anyway, this woman was snooping around here, the night after the accident, and he thinks it might be the person who drove into us.’ There’s a pause. ‘I’m worried he could be right, but first I have to tell you something.’