My Best Friend Is a Goddess

by Tara Eglington

  The weird thing was, I felt like crap doing it. Sure, this little part of me burned with triumph, but the rest of me felt disgusted with myself, that I’d let someone like her turn me into an actual physical bully.

  ‘She hit me!’ Tatiana screamed.

  ‘Why?’ I screamed back. My throat was filling with salty tears. ‘Why do you keep torturing her? What has she ever done to you? What kind of person tries to destroy someone who’s grieving? A monster. You’re a monster, Tatiana.’

  ‘Well, at least I’m not trailer trash!’ Tatiana screamed back. ‘You’re disgusting, Emily. No guy will ever want you. Your own dad didn’t even want you.’

  All I remember then is launching at her, trying to hit her with my actual fists, wanting to be the one who inflicted the blows this time.

  7

  EMILY

  The last fifteen minutes of science class are agonising to sit through. I’m desperate to catch up with Adriana. Part of me is worried she might have high-tailed it out of school, especially after being made to see Call Me Sam. That’s like forcing her to take a time-travel machine back to all the horrible stuff she went through before she left.

  I have to admit, I hold Call Me Sam partly responsible for Ade leaving. If the school had hired a decent school counsellor, instead of someone whose goal is to be Mr Popularity, Tatiana would have been kept at a tolerable level.

  When the bell rings, I sweep everything straight off the desk into my backpack, hoping for maximum time to touch base with Ade and ask Ms Collins why I’ve been removed from her class. As I run down the path to the arts block, I try to call Ade. It goes straight to message. She probably still has her phone switched off after Mr Blacklock’s class.

  I catch Ms Collins as she’s about to enter the art room. My old art room.

  ‘Emily!’ She turns around, all smiles. ‘How was your break?’

  I don’t have time for small talk. ‘Ms Collins, the office told me I’m not in your class any more. Is this because I talk too much? Cause I can be quieter. I know I’ve said that before and not followed through, but this time it would be different, I promise.’

  She looks upset. ‘Emily, putting you in Mr Morrison’s class isn’t a punishment. Mr Morrison is an expert in oil painting, which is why the school has brought him in to run the second stream of art classes for Years Ten, Eleven and Twelve. We want to make sure you get the best out of your classes with your final exams coming up.’

  ‘But I do feel like I get the best out of your classes.’

  I love Ms Collins, she’s far and away my favourite teacher.

  ‘You have real talent,’ she replies, ‘and it’s not only me who recognises it. When Mr Morrison came to view the school exhibition last term, he named you as the first student he wanted in his class. His class is only for the most advanced students, and by Mr Morrison’s own selection.’

  ‘But what about Ade?’ I protest. ‘Just because she wasn’t in the exhibition doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be in the advanced class.’

  Ms Collins nods at me. ‘I agree, and that’s why I showed Mr Morrison her work from before she left. He thinks she’s not quite ready —’

  ‘But he doesn’t know if she’s progressed since then.’

  ‘Which is why we’ve decided he’ll review Ade’s work at the end of the year, and if it’s promising he’ll move her into his class for Year Eleven.’

  ‘But Ade is talented,’ I say. ‘Couldn’t you go on good faith?’

  ‘I’d like to see what Ade can produce on her own. When the two of you are together, you tend to be the one driving the ideas.’

  Great, my bossiness has effectively broken me and Ade up.

  Ms Collins puts her hand on my arm. ‘It’s time for you to be challenged further. I can’t wait to see what you produce this term.’

  She nods at me to move on to the next art room and I begrudgingly cooperate. I can’t very well be mad at her for giving me the opportunity to improve my work. I take a seat in the back row, and pull out my pencils and sketchbook. I’m trying not to feel depressed that Ade won’t be taking the spot next to me. You’d think I’d be used to not having her there after eighteen months of separation, but I’ve spent the last two weeks visualising us together again, so to be without her is a blow.

  As I stare miserably at my desk, I notice that the corner of one of the artworks I’ve stuck onto my sketchbook is peeling away. I grab my glue and carefully stick the square of paper down. It’s a Rodin sculpture, one of my all-time favourite artworks. I grab one of my lead pencils and start a small sketch of it inside the cover of my maths book. I love getting lost in the strokes of a pencil on paper. I imagine it’s like the feeling people describe when they meditate successfully. The thoughts stop, and it’s just you, etching out line after line, working and reworking the image. Hours can go by and I won’t realise it, until my stomach starts growling with hunger or my neck is stiff from staring down at the paper.

  I don’t bother looking up when someone sits down next to me. If it’s not Ade, or Mr Morrison starting the class, I’d rather keep drawing. It’s funny — I can never get the figures right on this one. Maybe it’s because it’s all about —

  ‘The Kiss,’ someone says, finishing my thought.

  It’s a male voice. Cue the stupid jokes. Ade wonders why I’ve written off all the guys in our year, but honestly, they’re like snickering ten-year-olds to me. Take last term for example: I barely heard Ms Collins’s lecture on Michelangelo’s David because of all the wisecracks about David’s manhood. High-school boys are unable to appreciate art. And here I am, trapped next to one who’s sitting in what should be Ade’s spot. I don’t bother to reply, or even look up. Hopefully he’ll choose a different seat next time.

  ‘You know you can walk right round it?’

  The voice is closer to me now. My non-reply has obviously been taken as encouragement for a further crack at a crude punchline. In a minute he’ll be jabbing his finger at my sketch and shouting something disgusting to his friends. I’m forming my features into my best withering look, but the next sentence wipes the expression away.

  ‘The sculpture, I mean — you can walk right round it. Rodin designed it to be viewed from three hundred and sixty degrees. I tested it when I was at the Musée Rodin. From every angle it’s perfect.’

  Obviously Mr Morrison has come over to introduce himself. Maybe Ms Collins has warned him I’m resistant to changing classes and he’s hoping to get off to a good start.

  ‘The name’s interesting, huh?’

  I stop drawing, curious to see what Mr Morrison looks like. He doesn’t sound like he’s over thirty. I’m hoping he isn’t another ‘Call Me Sam’. But as I turn my head to the right, I see it’s not a teacher sitting next to me. A teacher wouldn’t be sitting in his chair backwards, his head resting on his palms, leaning so far forward that two chair legs are off the floor. And he wouldn’t have a backpack and pencil case on the desk.

  This is a student. A student who looks like one of Rodin’s sculptures. Sitting next to me is some hybrid of Henry Cavill and Four, all broad shoulders and intense eyes. The colour of his eyes is my favourite blue — the exact dark, velvety shade of the Delft Derwent pencil sitting in my pencil case, the colour of the sea when a storm is rolling in. His cheekbones are a joke. His nose and jawline would have made Rodin weep. He is exactly the type of uber-perfect male specimen that normally repels me, and here I am staring at one feature after another like I’m examining every inch of a canvas at a gallery. His face is art.

  My thoughts are all clichés. I half-expect a whimper to come out of my mouth.

  Nothing renders me speechless. But this is different. Besides the fact that here in front of me is the hottest guy I have ever seen in real life, what’s getting to me is that this is the exact fantasy I relayed to Ade, the one I’ve played over in my mind for the last six months. The art class. The sketching. The stranger sitting next to me. The insightful comment.

  This is n
ot how my art classes go. This is not how high school goes for me. This making-of-a-myth situation that I find myself in is not an Emily-like circumstance.

  ‘Don’t you think?’

  Henry Cavill/Four is waiting for my answer. Instead I’m peering at the Delft Blue deliciousness of his irises.

  ‘The name?’ he prompts.

  Words. I can do this. He’s talking about art. If I take away the flawlessness in front of me and focus on the conversation, I can be a part of it.

  I am always part of it in my fantasy. Lamely, my meet-a-hot-guy-in-art-class dream has never featured anything my classmates would consider par for the course — i.e. kissing. No, my fantasy is all about me talking to art-guy about everything I can’t discuss with anyone my own age. The type of nerdy stuff that would make any sixteen-year-old guy at Jefferson back away from me, but which hot-guy-in-art-class will go crazy for. He’ll ask me questions about art. Look at me like … Like Henry Cavill/Four is looking at me right now, like he’s dying to hear what I have to say.

  Holy god. I can’t think properly when he looks at me like that. I’d look like a freak if I shut my eyes and blocked him out, wouldn’t I?

  ‘The Kiss,’ he says again.

  Seeing his preposterously perfect mouth forming the word ‘kiss’ only thirty centimetres from me makes me feel like I’ve had laughing gas at the dentist.

  ‘As they’re not really kissing,’ Henry Cavill/Four continues. ‘They look all-consumed, but their lips don’t actually touch. I never realised that until I was standing right in front of the sculpture.’

  ‘Apparently Rodin wanted to show that they were interrupted.’ I might be in the midst of massive brain fail, but I’m still Emily. I still know about art. Even if the good stuff is buried right down at the bottom of my current brain soup, I can still pull up something reasonable. ‘The sculpture’s based on a story from Dante’s Inferno — a noblewoman named Francesca falls in love with her husband’s brother, Paulo, while they’re reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere together. Apparently Francesca’s husband walks in on them during that first kiss, and kills them both in a rage. They wind up in hell, where Dante meets them.’

  ‘Have you read The Inferno?’ Henry Cavill/Four is leaning forward, hanging off my every word.

  No flesh-and-blood boy has ever hung off my every word, let alone my words about art. During any presentation I’ve ever given in art class, the boys always slump in their seats, like I’m reading them a lullaby. Even though I’ve often vividly imagined art-boy being completely focused on me, to experience it is really weird. This time I’m determined not to leave some long gap before I reply. I’ll die if he thinks I’m a bimbo. I will not be a Tatiana. I’d never want a guy who wanted a Tatiana.

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘it’s on my to-be-read list, but I haven’t got to it yet. I know about this particular piece because we have a print of it at home. My mum told me the Francesca and Paulo story when I was about six.’

  ‘That’s intense for a six-year-old.’ Henry Cavill/Four’s eyebrows crease together.

  ‘Mum’s never held back when it comes to art education. She’s a painter and a sculptor herself.’

  ‘That is so cool. She must have been to the Musée Rodin. I’m surprised she hasn’t told you about it.’

  ‘I doubt she’s been there.’

  I don’t think Mum’s ever been to Europe. She certainly couldn’t have afforded it when she was younger. Henry Cavill/Four’s family are obviously well off.

  ‘She’ll have to go one day,’ he says. ‘So will you. I loved it as much as the Louvre, and that’s saying something.’

  Whenever someone talks about Europe, it’s like I hurt inside. For an art nerd, Europe is like Disneyland.

  ‘When did you go?’ I ask.

  ‘My dad took the whole family when I was twelve. I still see the Musée Rodin in my dreams. It’s so beautiful — the estate is set on three hectares and there are lots of sculptures throughout the gardens. It’s funny, I completely missed the link between The Kiss and Dante, though I saw The Gates of Hell at the museum. I must have tuned out while staring at some of the pieces.’

  ‘Tuning out on your European Tour. Spoilt,’ I joke.

  ‘Hey, when you’re up close to those sculptures, they command every scrap of your attention. It’s like when you’re falling for someone, in that intense stage, you know? You feel like you need to take in every infinitesimal detail.’

  The blue eyes go even darker while he’s talking so animatedly. I nearly jump when he taps the top of the desk right next to my hand.

  ‘If I was looking at you in that way, I’d notice the shapes of the freckles on your hand …’

  Oh my god. He’s staring at my hand. My hand that looks like it’s dotted with tiny orange cornflakes. My hand with its chipped magenta nail polish and never perfectly filed nails. Why I can’t make an effort to be better groomed on the first day of term, I do not know.

  He’s turned his gaze to my face. ‘The minute becomes magnified. That’s when you’d see there are flecks of lilac in your irises that make your eyes look more violet than blue.’

  With him looking at me like I’m some kind of beautiful secret and comparing my eyes to violets (which makes me think of the violet woods from I Capture the Castle and Henry Cavill again), I could drop dead right now and the person delivering the eulogy could say I died in utter happiness.

  ‘When you look at something that way, the more you want to keep looking, studying every minuscule detail.’ It’s like someone’s stripped something from me when he drops his eyes. His cheeks go red, and when he looks up I can tell he’s embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I get caught up in my monologues sometimes. You’re probably contemplating changing desks to escape the weirdo who’s plonked his equipment next to you.’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  I want to say, Stare at me all you want. I’m not this girl. I need someone to sense-slap me.

  ‘Anyway, that’s how I get when I love a piece. Fixated.’ He shakes his head. ‘I haven’t introduced myself and I’ve already subjected you to intense staring and a lecture on art appreciation. I’m Theo.’

  He’s a Four lookalike and his name is Theo? If there is a God of Fate, he’s virtually peeing his pants laughing at me right now.

  ‘Theo Darling.’ He makes a face. ‘Yes, that’s my real name. I’m well aware I sound like a character from an English novel.’ He puts on a posh English accent. ‘Blame two literary-minded parents for that one.’

  ‘Do people call you Darling?’ My mouth is holding back the ‘Can I call you darling?’ question that’s dancing on my lips.

  ‘Only when I’m in trouble. Teachers, Mum, Dad …’ He grins. ‘Never from a girl during an all-consuming The Kiss-like embrace.’

  I nearly lose my mind over that image. ‘Now you’re sounding like an English novel.’

  He laughs. ‘The lady with the quick wit is …?’

  ‘I’m Emily Wood.’

  He stands and bows. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Emily.’

  Secret Thoughts of Adriana Andersson

  Emily says I’m scared of too many things. Sometimes when she’s really frustrated with me, she calls me Eeyore — you know, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh, who always expects the worst to happen? Meanwhile she’s Tigger, springing right over any thoughts like ‘what if?’ or ‘it’s impossible’. Em’s living for tomorrow, and I’m digging my heels in, not wanting it to arrive.

  Sometimes I want to say to her, You don’t know how quickly things can change.

  Like when Mum died. I thought it was going to be a normal weekend. On Saturday I was meant to see a movie with Emily. Instead, Dad and I spent the day in the intensive care unit, curled up in the hard chairs on either side of Mum’s bed. Hoping for the best. Praying for the best. Twisting the doctors’ words into what we wanted them to be — anything that was the opposite of what was starkly apparent. Mum was never coming home with us.

>   And so when we were forced to face the truth, it hurt ten thousand times more. It was like I’d been watching a tsunami swallow up everything in the distance, but believing it would wind up as a little fizzle of foam at my feet. Of course, when it finally loomed up, more colossal than any tsunami that ever existed in my imagination, it totalled everything. Every part of me obliterated upon impact.

  I don’t know. Maybe I figured it out earlier than everyone else. Horrible things happen in life. To pretend anything different is fooling yourself.

  I wouldn’t say that to Em though, even if she drives me crazy sometimes with her ‘Ade’s in her gloomy place’ routine. I don’t want bad stuff to happen to her, and it feels like talking about it only makes it loom closer.

  When it comes to Em’s future — her next week, or next year — I can cross my fingers and pretend to hope for all-out awesome. But when it comes to my life, I need to expect the worst. I need to see the next tsunami coming. It’ll still obliterate me, but at least this time I’ll say my goodbyes first.

  8

  ADRIANA

  There’s a graveyard on the corner across from Jefferson High. When I started at the school, I hated it.

  Back in Year Three, one of the girls in our class had a slumber party and all the other girls wanted to tell ghost stories. One of them, Violet, whispered to us that her mum had told her you should always hold your breath when you go past a graveyard, so evil spirits can’t possess you. From then on, any time Mum’s or Dad’s car approached a cemetery, I’d make sure I took a huge breath. Thankfully there are only two cemeteries in Jefferson, and one is way out beyond where Emily lives, so I only had to worry about the other, which was near the high school. We didn’t pass by that spot very often, only when we went to the doctor. Because there were traffic lights there for the school crossing, sometimes I’d be seeing stars by the time the light went green.