My Best Friend Is a Goddess

by Tara Eglington

  As I give it to him, I think of how I usually read in bed, and how it’s going to feel to have his messages lighting up my phone late at night.

  My phone buzzes with a text: Ready to meet me at the gates of hell?

  ‘I’m not sure I should have given you my number,’ I say. Though I’m joking, there’s a big dash of truth in there. ‘You do realise how uber-creepy that text message is, right?’

  Theo laughs and my phone buzzes again: I promise I’ll hold your hand if things get scary.

  Something in my stomach backflips.

  ‘Feel better?’ He gives me a cheeky look.

  I try to frown at him. ‘I don’t think Dante would have approved of you taking this so lightly.’

  Theo suppresses his smile, although the corners of his mouth are still turned up. ‘Okay, serious face is on.’

  ‘Not good enough.’ I make my expression super-solemn. ‘You know what’s written above the gates, right? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. I can still sense hope radiating from you.’

  ‘I think half the time that’s my problem.’ Theo pauses. I can tell he’s weighing up whether to say something, and then it all comes out in a rush. ‘You know I still have moments when I imagine my dad coming home? That’s delusional, right?’

  I look at him, amazed at how good he is at putting on a brave face so much of the time when the wound is obviously fresh.

  ‘No. He’s your dad, you love him, of course you want to believe he would do the right thing.’ I make my voice lighter. ‘I never even knew my dad and I’m guilty of the exact same thing.’

  I’ve been holding that in so long that when I exhale the words I’m amazed the air isn’t stale, like we’re exhuming an ancient tomb. But I’m not game enough to tell Theo about the Facebook message. I still haven’t heard anything back.

  Theo’s brows are creased together, like he’s sad and angry and concerned all at once. As I look at him, I realise he’s angry for me. He really cares.

  ‘Your dad has no clue what he’s missing out on by not getting to know you,’ he says.

  I want to believe him, but …

  Theo gives me an ‘I know what you’re thinking’ look. ‘Em, I can tell you think I’m just saying that because it’s the right thing to say, but you are such a special person. Your dad is the loser in this situation, not you.’

  This conversation is way too intimate for a public library.

  Theo turns his body towards me and his knee bumps mine ever so gently. ‘I know you’re thinking — what, this guy thinks he’s an authority on me and we only met at the start of term — but honestly, I feel like I’ve known you way longer than a few weeks.’

  For once I don’t know what to say. Thankfully I’m saved from looking like a mute idiot because Theo’s bump knocks the book onto me and it closes.

  I clear my throat and say, ‘That’s the spirit of Dante telling us to get back to work.’ I reopen the book to the Chart of Hell and read what’s written next to the illustration. ‘So, Dante and his guide, Virgil, pass through the gates of hell and make their way down through each circle, deeper into the earth …’

  Theo touches his finger to the page, just near mine. ‘They travel through eight circles or something? I played the video game at my cousin’s when I was younger, but I don’t remember much except that Dante had a huge scythe and a big white cross. Like any game, you were trying to kill ninety per cent of what he encountered.’

  I laugh. ‘Dante as a lean, mean killing machine might be creative licence. But you’re almost right about the circles — they travel through nine. Each circle represents a particular sin, and as you get closer to the centre, where Satan is,’ I run my finger through the funnel to its base, ‘the sin becomes more serious. So in circle one, which is limbo, you have people who were unbaptised, so the punishment isn’t that bad. Circle three on the other hand is for the gluttonous, who have to endure an eternal rain of filth and excrement.’

  Theo lets out a huge laugh, which makes me start giggling. Other people in the library turn to stare.

  ‘Eternal raining poop?’ he says. ‘I reckon Dante had a laugh writing that one.’

  ‘Circle seven isn’t much fun either,’ I say, reading the description. ‘Anyone who committed violence or murder on earth winds up boiling in the Phlegethon, which is a river of blood.’

  Theo lets out a low whistle. ‘I’m scared to ask about circle nine. If circle seven is for murderers, what’s a worse sin than that?’

  ‘Treachery,’ I read. ‘Circle nine is for those who have knowingly betrayed others.’

  ‘And what’s the punishment?’

  ‘Ice. Betrayers are buried in ice to different levels depending on how bad the betrayal was. The ice is so strong that even if a mountain fell on it, it wouldn’t crack.’

  I shiver. Maybe it’s because the library is so quiet, or it’s now dark outside, but this stuff seems eerie to talk about.

  ‘Interesting, considering we usually picture hell as a burning furnace,’ Theo says.

  ‘I wonder why he chose ice as the punishment?’ I flip through the book for more information.

  ‘It makes sense,’ Theo says, ‘if Dante’s theme is that the punishment fits the crime. I mean, there’s a burning river for those who were violent — what do people say when they’re angry? “My blood is boiling.” When you get really angry, you do something in the heat of the moment — like me wrecking Dad’s golf clubs.’ He gives me a look. ‘Please don’t think I’m some golf-club-wielding maniac.’

  I giggle. ‘You said it, I didn’t.’

  ‘But when one person betrays another, there’s that knowingness. The betrayer deliberately decides to do something that will hurt someone they love, so in that sense —’

  ‘It’s cold, hard calculation,’ I say, finishing his train of thought. ‘So being encased in ice is the appropriate punishment.’

  ‘I guess in betraying someone, you’re choosing to destroy the bond between you.’ Theo’s face is serious. ‘Think of how much you care about a family member, or a friend, or a partner — and the will it would take to push all of that aside to go after something that helps you and hurts them.’

  I know he’s thinking of his father, but I don’t say anything. I understand that he doesn’t want to acknowledge that his mind has travelled to the ninth level of hell. I wouldn’t either, although I’m guilty of having wished things on my father that are infinitely ugly.

  ‘So if that’s the final ninth circle, what’s at the heart?’ Theo says.

  His head is so close to mine as we look at the book that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my skin. The feelings in my chest make me think of how being so attracted to him is betraying Ade, and so I straighten up, leaving him to read the caption aloud.

  ‘At the centre is towering, three-headed Lucifer, waist-deep in ice. His left and right heads chew on Brutus and Cassius …’

  I think of studying Julius Caesar earlier this year, and remember the line Caesar says to Brutus, ‘Et tu, Brute? You too, Brutus?’ — as he realises his former best friend has stabbed him in the back.

  You know he’s her crush. You haven’t betrayed her because you’re not acting on it. There’s a difference between feeling something, and actually doing it. You’d never do anything to hurt her that way.

  I trust in that, in my desire to protect Ade, to make her happy — it’s what I’ve always done, since the day we met. One guy can’t overthrow that.

  I shiver again, like I can feel the ice Dante is talking about creeping in around me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Theo says. ‘You look upset.’

  ‘I’m sensing this will be far from a light read,’ I joke.

  ‘You’re not regretting this assignment, are you?’ His face is serious.

  ‘Of course not.’

  I look at him like he’s crazy, except the real truth is, I’m the crazy one — thinking spending more time with someone I shouldn’t have feelings for is the right thing to
do.

  Secret Thoughts of Adriana Andersson

  Only two people in the world know about my panic attacks. One is the therapist Dad forced me to see after Mum died. The other is Dylan.

  The first time it happened was two or so months after we’d buried Mum. I was lying in bed, in a weird state between awake and asleep. I’d been thinking about the garden, about my hands in the dirt, and for some reason an image of worms wriggling in the earth came into my mind. Like the start of a sick PowerPoint presentation, the next thing that flashed up was this memory from some movie where they opened up a grave and the body wasn’t still, it was moving. It was moving because, as I know from gardening, there are creatures in the earth that break things down.

  And then I saw it. I saw Mum’s body, maggots and worms threading through her skin, feasting on her kidneys and heart and brain. The thought was so disgusting I wanted to be sick.

  I was horrified at myself for thinking that way, but even though I tried to blank it out, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was terrified I wouldn’t ever be able to stop, that my whole mind had been taken over.

  My heart started pounding out a rhythm that had no synchronicity, and I was sweating, like I do during the nightmares. The walls were pressing in, and I knew, like I’d never known anything before, that the ceiling was about to collapse on me. I told myself, Adriana, that’s impossible, but my mind screamed, Why would it be impossible? Look at what happened to her. No-one would have believed that would happen, but she’s dead, and you will be too. I saw the ceiling caving in and all the pieces crushing my body.

  But it didn’t, and somehow that was even more scary, because I felt this sense of doom so strongly, even though nothing was wrong.

  I’m losing my mind — and everyone’s going to find out, and they’ll say, ‘I knew that would happen to her — all the signs were there.’

  And then it was over, and I was trying to catch my breath. I could taste bile at the back of my throat. I got out of bed, because that felt like a mad person’s place, and I sat on the floor, running my hands over the carpet again and again.

  What the hell was that?

  I was so scared I told the therapist, Jenny, in our session the following day. I hated that Dad made me go to her because sometimes I felt worse after the visits than I did before, but today I was grateful for the usual Wednesday afternoon appointment. When I told her what happened — not the worms bit, because I never wanted to share that with anyone — but about that moment when I was convinced I was going to die, she told me it was called a panic attack.

  She began to talk about anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and I tuned out. I didn’t want to hear how this or that was wrong with me — I had enough things wrong with me already. I was mad that she had no easy solution for the problem. Wasn’t that why Dad was paying her oodles of money?

  ‘Are you getting enough sleep?’ she asked.

  I nodded, even though it wasn’t true. I hated going to sleep because of the nightmares, but I didn’t want to go into that. I’d started to keep spare sheets in my room so I could take off the sweat-soaked ones without walking to the linen cupboard and waking Dad. I didn’t want to add one more thing to his ‘deal with this!’ list. Sometimes when I looked at him, I thought of a hunchback, because there were times I’d been past his study and he hadn’t shut the door properly and I saw him bent forward over the desk like he was folded in half, his shoulders shaking. He was trying to hold it together for me, so I wasn’t going to add to the pressure and watch him crumple completely.

  I didn’t want him to know about the panic attack either, so I didn’t say a word. Every night I headed up to bed like it wasn’t something I was terrified of, and when I closed my door I did all I could to hold off the monster. I kept my TV on so there were voices instead of silence. I looked through the texts that Emily sent me every day and the funny photos of cats wearing shower caps or riding remote-controlled vacuum cleaners, or videos of husky dogs that didn’t want to take a bath. I told myself that maybe it was a freak incident; that just because I’d had one didn’t mean I’d have another.

  It happened again, but I kept up the pretence that two didn’t mean three, or three didn’t mean four.

  They only ever happened at night, either when I was drifting off, or on the tail end of a dream. It wasn’t about worms any more. It could be something that didn’t make sense; some slightly off-kilter thought that pulled the trigger anyway.

  I told Jenny about one or two further attacks, but then she told me that if they kept happening she’d prescribe me some pills.

  No, I’m normal. I don’t need pills.

  Taking those pills would mean I was crazy, that only medicine could keep my mind sane. So I pretended that the attacks had stopped, because hey, they only happened at night, and sometimes they seemed like something that was happening to another person, not me.

  They never happened at school, thank god, or maybe I would have asked her for the medicine.

  And then it happened one day at Dylan’s. This time it wasn’t something big that set it off, it was the tiniest thing. A piece of popcorn got stuck in my throat while I was swallowing. Even though I knew I wasn’t choking, in my mind I could see the kernel blocking my airway, my lungs stopping, my heart winding down to a halt, and all the while I knew I was dying and couldn’t do a thing to stop it. It was so real that the movie, Dylan, everything around me melted away, and pure terror was the only thing that existed.

  Before I could stop myself I was hyperventilating, trying to gulp in air while my brain was screaming, I don’t want to die even if that means seeing Mum again! I hated myself, because if that was the case then obviously I didn’t love her enough.

  ‘Ade, are you choking?’ Dylan’s eyes were panicked, and in a second he’d pulled me off the couch and his hand was raised like he was going to thump me on the back.

  ‘No,’ I gasped. ‘I just …’ I gasped again. ‘I … can’t breathe right.’ Tears streamed down my face as I struggled to get the words out.

  Dylan ran from the room, and I knew it was because he’d figured out I was crazy. I might do anything — throw something at him, hurt myself, hurt him — everything I was terrified of doing when I’d lost my mind. I slid off the couch and onto the floor. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear that he knew, because I was in love with him.

  I’d known it this whole time, ever since we’d given that presentation together last year and he’d stood up the front smiling at me, when everyone else looked at him like Poor Dylan, hanging out with Puke-a-rama — but I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it because I knew he’d never like me like that. Now he probably wouldn’t want to ever see me again.

  And then he was running back into the room, although I only saw him as a blur. He put something over my nose and mouth and held it in place.

  ‘Here, breathe into the paper bag. Slowly. In, out. You’re not going crazy.’

  I felt him stroking my back and I started to sink back into my body again.

  ‘It’s a panic attack,’ he said. ‘It’ll pass.’

  The fact that his voice was so normal, and he knew what was going on, snapped me back to reality. I started breathing properly, the paper bag crumpling in and out in front of my face.

  Finally I pulled it away. ‘How do you know that it’s … it’s …’

  ‘A panic attack?’ Dylan was sitting on the floor next to me, holding my shoulders. ‘I’ve had a few myself.’

  ‘You?’ He seemed as happy-go-lucky as his dog, Oscar. Why would he —

  ‘Why would I have panic attacks?’ Dylan finished the question I hadn’t asked out loud. ‘I don’t know — the doctor said it was probably stress. When I was eleven, my mum got diagnosed with breast cancer. It had got into the lymph nodes around her neck too. I knew that even though Dad and Mum were saying everything was okay, it might not be. My mum is everything to me, so …’ He paused, clearing his throat. ‘So I was terrified that the cancer might win
. I didn’t want Mum to worry about how I was feeling, so I hid it, but one day when we were hanging out with her in the chemotherapy ward, I went to get us some lunch and felt like I was going to pass out. I managed to get onto a visitor’s chair so I didn’t fall on the floor, but I honestly thought —’

  ‘You might die?’

  ‘Yeah. I couldn’t move for about twenty minutes, and my dad came looking for me. He took me to see a counsellor the next day and she helped me tackle them. I only had two more, and I haven’t had them in years. My mum’s five years cancer-free now, so that helps.’ He crossed his fingers. ‘Are you seeing someone?’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t feel like it’s helping. She tells me that when I feel them coming on I need to breathe.’

  Dylan laughed. ‘Like you haven’t tried that already.’

  I managed to laugh too.

  ‘I know a good trick,’ he said. ‘My counsellor made me wear a rubber band, and whenever I started to get overwhelmed I snapped it — you know, as a reminder to “snap out of it”? I found it reminded me of what was real, that my thoughts were usually worst-case-scenario stuff.’ He helped me back onto the couch, then said, ‘Wait a minute,’ and darted out of the room. He was back in under a minute, holding a pink beaded bracelet. ‘It’s Gemma’s — she’s got about thirty of them, so she won’t miss it. It’s a much nicer idea than a rubber band, and it won’t hurt as much.’ He gently slipped it over my wrist. ‘So next time you feel like you’re getting super-anxious, or you’re starting to lose control, pull it so it snaps back against your skin.’ He hesitated, still holding the elastic. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, so maybe you should do it yourself?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, show me.’

  He pulled the bracelet away from my wrist and let go. As the band hit my skin and I flinched, he winced, like what hurt me also hurt him, and this funny feeling raced through me.

  My wrist stung, but he was right: instead of being lost in my thoughts, I was fully in my body.