by Non Pratt
There’s nothing I can think to say that will convince him to choose me over Moz. I get up and start pulling on the clothes I should never have taken off.
Sleep has become so elusive I’ve barely been able to catch it at all and when I do, my brain can’t seem to hold on to it, waking minutes after I’m down, my eyes drawn to check for light beyond my curtains, swinging to the red glare of my alarm clock...
Sunday. All I’ve done is run through the things I think we might be doing today, only it seems the more I try to stretch my imagination, the more limited it becomes. Whenever I try to talk to Seren and Rich about it, all I get is a lecture on standing up for myself and saying no, but they don’t know Kam. To them he’s just a boy who went to our school – they don’t understand that the Kam they knew isn’t the one I’m desperate to help.
At breakfast I’m so clumsy that I can barely coordinate pouring my own cornflakes, let alone adding milk.
“What on earth’s wrong with you?” Mum tuts as she mops up the mess rather than risk me making things worse.
“Nothing.”
I don’t need to look up to know she’s exchanging a glance with Dad over the breakfast bar.
“Ready to drive up to the Recreare in fifteen?” he asks, eyeing my pyjamas.
“Sure…” I slurp up some cornflakes and earn a reproving glare from Mum. “You don’t mind me going out later, do you?”
“Where and why?” Mum asks.
“The guys from Film Club want to try getting some night shots of the water. By the river.”
If my parents ever string together the weird things I’ve said we’ve done at Film Club, they’re going to wonder what kind of film we’re making. Something avant-garde with no plot and lots of style that I would never actually watch, I reckon.
“So long as you promise to dedicate at least some of this half-term to schoolwork…” Mum warns.
“Cross my heart.”
Mum reaches over to take my empty bowl and gives Dad a careless kiss on the shiny skin on the top of his head. There’s a tenderness in the gesture that I’ve not seen around the house for a very long time and I think of how fun last night was, laughing with Dad at Mum’s embarrassment over a sparkler-laden tiramisu and a chorus of “Happy Birthday” from the other diners.
Maybe after tonight I should give a little less of myself to the Malik family and give a little more to my own.
The day is bright and warm and when I get to the Rec, the nurse on duty in the Bueller Wing suggests that she wheel Kam out onto the terrace. It bites into the time I’m supposed to read, finding a good spot where the shadows of the trees won’t interfere with the heat of the sun.
And there we sit, me next to him, graphic novel propped open against my knees as my feet rest on the low wall of the terrace. It is a perfect and beautiful hour. The lawns are vast and quiet and in the still of a Sunday morning I can hear birdcall and the faintest rustle of a breeze in the trees. In the cool of the air I lean in closer to Kam, sharing his heat and his company.
When the nurse returns to help me bring him in, Kam stops her.
“Claire.” He nods his head to where I’m already standing behind him. “Push me.”
I’m intensely glad that he can’t see how hard I’m trying not to cry.
Later, once I have transformed into Truth Girl and the sky is mellowing into dusk, I hurry down my road to find Sef waiting in the layby. When he sees me approach, he winds the window down and leans across from the driver’s seat.
“Hey, pretty lady, you need a ride?” The curve of his lips and the mischief in his eyes tugs at my heart and the irritation I’ve felt these last few weeks dissipates, resurfacing sharply when Sef pulls out into the road where there isn’t a gap and a horn blares.
“Could we stay alive long enough to actually do the dare, do you think?”
Sef glances over, scowl replaced with a wolfish grin. “How many times do I have to tell you to trust me?”
I want to tell him that it doesn’t matter how many times he tells me, it doesn’t mean I can do it. Not when he’s driving like this.
“Where’s Moz?”
“Meeting us there.”
“You’re not going to tell me where ‘there’ is, are you?”
Sef answers with a mirthful, “What do you think?”
We turn into the industrial estate and Sef reaches over to squeeze my hand, the warmth of his skin anchoring my rising anxiety. Sef might get risky with himself, but he wouldn’t do that for someone he cares about.
Finally, right on the edge of the estate, where there’s as much wasteland as there are warehouses, Sef drives onto a track of land, kills the engine and checks his phone.
“Moz’ll be here in five.” His leg is jiggling now it’s no longer occupied with the accelerator. “Let’s get set up.”
“What do you mean? Set up where?”
But Sef’s already out of his seat and walking round, setting up my camera on the back seat before positioning sandbags on the dashboard and squinting through the viewfinder of the GoPro strapped on top, pointing forward to film out of the windscreen.
“Are we filming in the car?” An unnecessary question, if ever there was one.
“Chill, will you?”
I wasn’t aware that I was heating up, but I do as I’m told, sitting in my seat as he looks through the viewfinder of the camera set up in the back, before clipping my phone (“Moz’ll call mine – don’t want to interrupt filming”) into the holder, angling and flipping the view so the screen shows him sitting in the driver’s side.
“Very professional,” I mutter.
“You’re not the only one who knows how to watch a tutorial…” Sef kisses my cheek. “Now, put your mask on and let’s do a little filming.”
“Where’s Moz? Are we racing him?”
“Yeah…” Sef kisses my head. “Put your mask on, please, Truth Girl.”
Once the cameras are on, Sef claps to sync the sound and turns to look at me.
“Hey hey, Truth Girl.”
“Dare Boy.” His mood is infectious and I feel my mouth twitching up into a smile. It has always been impossible to resist the way he makes me feel, his emotions so all-encompassing that they swallow up my own.
“Ready for your surprise?”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“Not even really good ones?”
“Define good?”
“Exciting.”
“You and I have different definitions of exciting. Why don’t you tell everyone where we are and why?”
Sef obliges, turning the engine on and revving it, pretending that he’s the sort of person who finds the noise a turn-on, when I know full well that the only thing he really cares about is whether there’s petrol in the tank.
His phone buzzes and he flips the speaker phone on for Moz.
“Meep morp, Mozzy here. You chickens ready to hatch?”
I pull a face at Sef, but he doesn’t see.
“Egg timer’s on for one minute.” And then he hangs up and flips the little egg timer that’s sitting in the cupholder.
“What?” None of this is making any sense. “How can we race Moz when he isn’t here?”
“He will be.” Sef’s fingers beat a drum roll on the wheel.
The egg timer’s half empty.
“Tell me what we’re doing,” I say, frightened now. This is not how races start.
“You’ll see.”
“I don’t want to!” The words burst out of me in a panic. “Tell me what we’re doing!”
It’s as if my whole body has pins and needles, my hands going numb so that they don’t seem to behave as I reach for the door. There’s a clunk.
“What are you doing?” Sef yells at me as I yank at the handle and I realize that he’s locked the doors. “Calm the fuck down, will you?”
“I can’t!” There’s a balloon swelling inside me, squashing the air from my lungs.
“Well…” Sef glances at the egg timer, the last few grains of
sand sliding from the top to the bottom. “Goddammit, you have to.”
And then he turns from me to the windscreen, drawing my attention with it, to see a pair of headlights flare up and flash once, twice, three times at the other end of the track.
This is not a race…
Sef revs the engine once more before leaning over – so fast I don’t have time to move – and kissing me.
“We’ll be fine, I promise,” he whispers into my mouth.
And then he’s gone, his reassurance an echo on my lips, an alarm bell in my mind. Sef slams his foot to the floor, the engine roaring out as loud and terrifying as a dragon, as Mrs Bennet leaps forward, gravel clattering on the car as it snakes to the side.
“SEF!” I yell, no longer caring about the cameras, pressing myself hard back against my seat, my legs braced in the footwell, all my weight pressing down on a pair of imaginary brakes, because we’re heading straight for Moz’s car.
And Moz’s car is heading for ours.
But Sef isn’t listening – he’s shouting out his own battle-cry, mouth open wide in a smile I don’t recognize that makes me hate him and fear for him…
“Stop! Please!” I beg. “This isn’t funny!”
My throat hurts, my lungs hurt, my body hurts from bracing itself. The lights ahead are so bright I can’t think and I yank on the door handle again even though we’re going too fast for me to jump and I’ve got my belt on. And I’m hopeless and helpless and I lash out at the boy in the driver’s seat, thumping his arm with everything I’ve got.
“Ow! Get off.”
“We’re going to die! Please!” I’m sobbing and begging and he’s still driving and my heart is breaking and we’re going to die and it’s going to hurt…
I squeeze my eyes shut.
There’s my mum kissing my dad’s head this morning, Seren correcting my French accent and the squashed and crumpled present Rich gave me for my birthday that turned out to be a pair of socks with tapirs’ faces on the toes … and there is Sef, heart-breaking and half-broken, running his hands across my scalp … and there is Kam typing on his new keyboard to tell me I could hug him.
My life is wonderful and I don’t want to die.
The scream that feels like it’s ruptured my lungs is as much anger as it is fear.
PART TWO: SEF MALIK
When death stares you in the face, you confess.
You’re not going to like any of it.
I don’t.
AUGUST
CHAPTER 1
Claire might believe I first saw her in the car park of the Rec, but like everyone else, the first time I noticed Claire Casey was because of her tits.
Matty was too busy sniggering into his phone to see Finn walk up behind him and shoot him in the head.
“Aw, mate – we’re meant to be on the same team!”
“Pay attention, then.” Finn’s always taken gaming seriously.
Matty leaned forward off the sofa to show us the clip he’d been watching – some shoddy footage of a bunch of vaguely recognizable people from school messing around in the park.
“And we’re watching this because…?” I said, wanting to get back to the game.
“Wait for it.” Matty’s whole-body grin kept me watching, until one of the girls stood upright and…
“Nip slip!” Matty yelled with the same glee that had gone into editing the video as the action slowed to zoom in on a generous pair of breasts.
Finn shook his head and told Matty not to be such a dick before getting up to fetch another can of pop from the kitchen.
“Give it here.” I reached out for Matty’s phone and played the whole thing again. “Do we know who she is?”
“She’ll be Milk Tits from now on,” Matty said, referring to the title of the video.
“Gross.”
“Imagine getting your hands on them.”
But she was all flesh and curves and skin that reminded me of raw fish. “I’d rather not.”
Matty laughed at the face I was pulling. “How much would I have to pay you to go there?”
“Couldn’t afford it, mate.”
Matty was still trying to goad me into hooking up with “Milk Tits” when Finn returned.
“Tell me you’re not still watching that stupid video.”
“Oh, but we are!” Matty crowed.
“You haven’t shared it, have you?” Finn was looking at Matty, brows lowered in disapproval, assuming that because it was Matty’s phone, he was the one who needed warning. But as Matty widened his eyes in genuine innocence, I was the one hitting share on the link.
All’s fair in love and lolz.
That happened before the accident, when I’d no idea what it was like to walk down the corridor, sympathy creasing people’s lips as I passed, silent stares gobbed onto the side of my face, pity haunting every conversation.
The girl in the car park knew what it was like to be famous for something you hate.
One little lie. No big deal.
CHAPTER 2
Kam got his results the week before I got mine and Mum went on the offensive, calling every family member, every friend, shouting “He got in!” down the phone at them. She told the woman who knocked on the door asking to read the gas meter. She told the man who always walks his dog past our house. She told the cat.
Kam drew the line when she tried to tell the wait staff at lunch.
“No one cares, Mum.”
“I care.” She patted and squeezed his hand and beamed around the table at her brood. “Cambridge!”
Uncle Danish hid his amusement behind his menu. Lunch was his treat and he’d taken us to the gourmet diner where the burgers are named after American presidents because he knew it was one of Kam’s favourites. Not that this stopped Dad from grumbling at the price of asking for extra cheese on his Nixon.
Afterwards, we split up – Dad had a job on and Uncle D a medical exam for the contract he’d accepted, and Mum wanted to spend her afternoon off uniform shopping with Amir, leaving me to hitch a lift home with the man of the hour.
“Seventeen days till I get behind the wheel…” I patted Mrs Bennet’s dashboard and shot Kam a sly look.
“If you get so much as a scratch on her, I’ll kill you. Put your belt on.”
“You won’t know. Too busy making posh friends at your posh college, spending your free money on liquefied caviar and champagne lollies.”
“Think I’ll be spending my bursary on things like rent and Sainsbury’s Basics, actually.”
But it was my way of congratulating him and he knew it.
Pulling out onto the main road, we joined the queue of traffic over the bridge. Sunlight glittered off the surface of the river, so low that the banks had turned a dusty brown.
The drop from the viaduct didn’t look so bad from the road bridge, but I knew how much worse it looked from up high, feet planted on the wall ready to jump. Tombstoning off there after I finished my exams was the biggest rush I’d ever had.
“You going out later?” I asked, still looking out the window.
“Going to hang with the lads.”
“You really know how to celebrate.”
“Some of us can celebrate without trying to shove our tongue down the throat of every girl in a five-mile radius.”
“I’ll limit myself to one when Laila gets back.”
Kam grinned, lopsided, knowing. “Sure…”
It annoyed me.
“So how are you going to celebrate? Paint the town red and watch as it dries?”
He nodded out of the window. “Because getting trashed and leaping off the viaduct is so much cooler.”
“I am cooler. Face it.”
“Stupider.”
“Braver.”
Kam dropped me home and went round Danny’s, leaving me to bum around on the PlayStation without Amir’s back-seat commentary. All through the afternoon and on into the evening, Kam messaged me pictures of what he was up to – Hamish hanging upside down from th
e branch of a tree, his T-shirt slipped down to expose a body hairier than Uncle D’s and Danny eating a hot dog suggestively. The same sorts of pictures I’d send him if I was out with Finn and Matty.
The last was a selfie of all three of them squashed together under an almost-blue sky shot through with the rose-gold veins of a perfect summer sunset.
I replied with a photo of me and Amir slobbed on the sofa.
You’re the one missing out. Taken’s on in half an hour.
Mum and Dad were clattering about in the kitchen when my phone went off at the other end of the sofa.
“Pass it over.” I nudged Amir, but the sulky little tit never does what I tell him. By the time I’d clambered across him, angling my knees and elbows to squash the softest parts of his body, my phone had rung out. Frowning down at the screen I saw it was Danny and assumed it was a mistake. Until it rang again.
“Hello?” I answered, slapping Amir on the arm so he’d mute the telly.
“Sef?” There was loads of noise in the background and I smacked Amir harder when he turned the TV up instead of down. “Are you with your parents?”
“Er … mate, why are you calling my phone and asking for my folks?”
“Shit! I haven’t – just – are you with them?”
Which is when I heard the siren.
Hospitals are one of the most confusing places on the planet. Like Ikea, but without the meatballs. I never knew how many ways there are to be sick, every sign pointing to a different “-ology”/“-opathy”/“-otomy” department, wards and units and wings.
Kam was in intensive care: full-on wires and tubes and wash-your-eyeballs-before-you-even-look-at-a-patient scary. I’d sit next to my brother’s bed, the wash of whispered conversations flowing in and around the beeps and whirs and whooshes of the machines. Found it impossible to say anything myself – not like Amir, who’d shuffle as close as he could and talk as if Kam lying there with a hole in his head was no different to Kam sitting across the dinner table.
Mum’s work gave her leave so she spent mornings at Kam’s bedside. Afternoons, Dad would take over Kam duty while Mum went home and read everything the internet had to offer on traumatic brain injuries, gathering lists of questions. Dad took night jobs where he could and slept in the mornings and Uncle Danish left his caravan and came to live on our sofa, ferrying me and Amir over to the hospital whenever we asked.