Martin sipped his granita. He let my hand remain on his wrist. “It’s not for me to tell, Ruby. If that guy cared about you, he would have told you himself.”
I snorted a laugh. This was ridiculous. Who else knew? Mrs. Patfield? Eustace the cat? The hot-spot girls?
Thanks, Byron. I feel so important now.
A car horn blared and I watched as a young couple scampered across the street, arm in arm, laughing about the way they’d stopped traffic. It reminded me of my last night with Byron and how we’d kissed in the rain, in the middle of the highway.
“You’ll be happy to know that he left Donny Vale, then.”
Martin cleared his throat and slipped his shades over his eyes, veiling his thoughts.
“That’s probably a good thing,” he said after a while.
I shrugged, unable to find anything good about Byron leaving.
“He was only around a few weeks, Ruby. Surely you couldn’t have gotten to know the guy so well in so little time,” Martin said, his voice softer now.
There was no way I was telling Martin that I’d shared the best night of my life with Byron, and my virginity, so I kept quiet and watched the traffic and the people strolling happily along the cappuccino strip, wishing I was them.
“I just wish I knew why he left, that’s all. It’s not a crime.”
“Look, this is all I’ll say and I’m only saying it because you’re my best friend and you deserve to know something. Remember how Maddie escaped some mysterious past before she came to Donny Vale?”
I nodded, frowning, wondering where this was going.
“Well, she knows what that guy is going through. She’s been there. That’s all I’m saying.”
For several minutes I meditated on Martin’s clue, but got nowhere with it.
“Is that all? It doesn’t really tell me anything.”
Martin shrugged and sighed.
“Can we go home?” I asked. “I think all that driving’s finally got to me.” I scratched my head. “Actually…if you don’t mind, I might not stay the night.”
“Whatever.” Martin sucked up the remainder of his granita and then skolled his short black coffee. “At least drink your coffee. You can’t leave your coffee untouched around here.” He waggled his sunglasses at me. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
I picked up the tiny cup and tipped the coffee down my throat. It tasted bitter. I should have put two sugars in it as Martin had suggested when we’d ordered.
“Thanks for the ‘coffee experience,’” I said, feeling a little guilty for being sarcastic. But I wished he would have told me Byron’s secret. I was starting to feel like I would die if I didn’t find out soon. Just drop dead from not knowing.
We walked home side by side, the afternoon sun beaming down on our backs, but we may as well have been in two different universes. It was only when we reached the driveway that Martin broke the silence.
“Just stay, Ruby, please.” He stood blocking the way to the house. “I don’t want you to leave just yet.”
“There’s no point in me staying, really.”
I pushed passed him and started up the veranda steps.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
I paused on the welcome mat and leant my forehead against the wooden door.
“Why don’t you just tell me what Byron’s big secret is? You’re supposed to be, you know, my best friend.”
He took so long to answer that I honestly thought he’d walked away.
“Because maybe…” His voice came out brittle and choked. “I’m a horrible, selfish prick who doesn’t want anybody else to have you but me.”
I turned around, slowly, my pulse whooshing in panic.
No. Not again.
“Martin, you’re starting to sound like the Neanderthal Man.” I sighed in frustration. “God, and you know I hate that sort of talk.”
He put his face in his hands and groaned. “I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t.”
The house smelt of fried sausages when I stormed in, and by the time I haphazardly packed my things and stormed back out, it smelt like burnt sausages.
“Thanks for having me over, Mrs. Burrow,” I called over my shoulder but she was too engrossed in a book called The Bites of Wrath to take any notice of me, let alone the poor sausages.
Martin stood by and watched while I threw my things into the car. The last bag, in my haste, split open, spreading underwear and clothes onto the driveway. A bra hung on my window winder and I quickly yanked it off before Martin came running to help me.
“Here,” he said after scooping up a bundle of undies and socks—ridiculously too many for a two day stay.
“Rubes,” he said, his voice cracking, his face stony behind his sunglasses. A lone tear dripped down his smooth, tanned cheek. “Don’t leave. Please. I’m saying this as your friend. Forget all the stuff I just said. Your friendship is way more important.”
I sucked in a deep breath and cast my eyes to the floor, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip to deflect the crushing pain in my chest. “Martin,” I said, my voice cracking, “I love you, but I don’t have—”
“Don’t say it.” He wiped at his face with the back of his hand and leant against the bonnet of my car, avoiding my eyes. “You don’t have to say it. I know. It’s all right. I’d rather have you in my life as my friend than not at all.”
I swallowed away the huge lump in my throat and glanced at him sideways. “You are the perfect guy, seriously, you are, Martin.”
“Right, so perfect the one girl I want doesn’t want me.” He smiled and raised both palms. “But I’m cool with it.”
I fiddled with the car keys in my hand.
“Madeline looks terrible. I saw her. I really think you broke her heart leaving.”
He sighed and moved away from the car. “Madeline would have driven me crazy if I’d stayed.” He reached over and checked the mail box and came up with a bundle of junk mail.
“I’d better go, Martin. Dad will go off his tree if I drive home in the dark.”
Martin shook his head and tucked his sunglasses in the front pocket of his shirt. His eyes were red, but thankfully dry. My heart would literally split at the seams if he cried again.
“If you leave now, you’ll end up driving at least an hour and a half in the dark. You may as well stay.” He shrugged. “We’ve spilt our guts now, so there’s nothing left to spill.”
I tossed the keys from one hand to the other. Martin was right. Everything was out on the table now and our friendship had survived it.
“We can have a movie marathon. I’ll make caramel popcorn,” he said, grinning.
“Do I get to choose the movies?”
He groaned as if he was in pain, but then his face broke into one of his famously sunny grins.
“Deal.”
***
I didn’t cry when Martin and I parted ways. We were both laughing too much. His aunt had made us watch three vampire movies in a row with her and we’d spent most of the night giggling beneath blankets on the couch while various actors slobbered over each other’s necks.
By nine a.m. I left Rosemary Street and headed for home, but an hour into my journey, I pulled up at a petrol station in a suburb called Spearwood. The tank was nearly empty and I needed to last the entire way home without stopping, so I filled it to the brim.
I added paracetamol to the bill, for my now pounding head from all that laughter and lack of sleep last night, and a packet of red frogs to chew on the way home.
But as I walked out of the store, a flyer on the window caught my eye.
It was a picture of a missing person.
The red frogs and the box of tablets fell to the ground when I saw who that missing person was. There was no mistaking a face like that.
Byron Black
Needs medical attention—urgently!
The plea was followed by a local phone number.
Chapter 17
With shaking
fingers, I snatched the flyer and took it with me to my car. People queuing to fuel up behind me beeped their horns but I was too stunned to do anything other than read the flyer over and over again. Finally I pulled out of the station and pulled up further down, on the side of the road.
Needs medical attention?
I punched the digits from the flyer into my phone and waited, with a churning stomach, while it rang.
“Hello?” said the voice of a middle aged woman.
I swallowed. My heart rattled against my chest at a million miles per hour.
“Hello. I’m calling about Byron.”
After a long pause she said, “He’s just having a lie-down. Who should I say is calling?”
“Byron’s there with you? He’s home?”
“Yes. This is his mother. Who’s speaking?”
Hadn’t he said his parents were the ones who’d hurt him?
“My name’s Ruby. I’m—”
“Ruby?”
The phone made a funny sound, like Byron’s mother had put her hand over the receiver and then I heard her muffled voice saying, “It’s Ruby,” to whoever was with her, before she got back on. “Byron’s told us all about you. You must come and visit. It’ll be a nice surprise for him.”
Byron was home with his parents? After what they’d done to him? It didn’t make sense. I glanced down at the flyer again and wondered what the term ‘medical treatment’ meant. Was he physically ill? Or was he mentally ill? Had he gone off on a bender after not taking his pills? Had he lied about his parents? Had he lied to me all along?
I jotted down their address onto the back of the fuel receipt, my writing all crappy and illegible to anybody else but me because I couldn’t control the adrenaline zipping through me.
I’d finally found Byron. It was too mind-blowing to fully believe. And as I navigated the streets, on my way towards his house, I kept gripping the steering wheel in disbelief and excitement.
When I arrived at his big, beautiful home, which had balconies facing the nearby sea, I waited for at least five minutes, pacing back and forth at the front door, before finally finding the courage to knock.
A tall, thin lady with dark hair and hazel eyes greeted me at the door.
“Ruby, sweetheart,” the woman said, as though she knew me intimately. “Call me Sue.” She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
“Is Byron all right?” I asked, shifting my weight between my feet. I was itching to see him.
“He’s okay.” She swallowed thickly and sniffed. “I’m so glad you called because now I have an opportunity to thank you. John and I are eternally grateful. If it wasn’t for you, Byron would never have agreed to the surgery and the treatment.”
I shook my head, not knowing what she meant.
“Treatment?”
“For his cancer.” Sue’s eyes shone with tears. “Before Byron ran away, the doctors told him that he’d die within a month, weeks even, if he didn’t at least try one more round of surgery and chemo.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “He wanted to die without treatment. To live out his last days…” She shook her head and sucked in a deep breath. “Just making people happy with his music.” She closed her eyes and squeezed my hand. “But after he met you, he came back. And now he’s willing to do anything to get more time.”
I wanted to ask her to slow down and back up. Byron was ill? Terminally ill?
“Can I see him?”
“Yes.” She opened the door and drew me into the house by my hand, her delicate golden bracelets tinkling as she moved. “Byron doesn’t know you’re here, so it’s a bit of a surprise for him. A good surprise I think,” she added, frowning slightly, as if she wasn’t quite certain how good a surprise it would be.
My stomach swirled sickly and I suddenly didn’t trust my legs to carry me. Luckily there was a sturdy wall nearby.
What if he didn’t want to see me?
He didn’t say goodbye, remember…at least not to you.
But Sue was already knocking on her son’s bedroom door.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said before disappearing down the hall.
“Come in,” said a more tired and weaker version of Byron’s melodic voice.
After sucking in a deep breath, I pushed the door open a crack, bracing myself for what I was about to find.
“Mum?”
“No…Byron, it’s me.” I stepped into the room, a little sob escaping my lips when I laid eyes on him.
“Ruby?” He eased himself into sitting, his hands flying to cover up his hair or what was left of it.
Tears burned behind my eyes but I willed them to go away.
“No. Don’t do that,” I managed to squeeze out of my crushed throat. “It suits you better than the fauxhawk.”
His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners and his lips quivered into a very weak smile. “Don’t knock the fauxhawk. I plan on growing it back.”
He ran a hand over his patchy scalp. His skin was a pale, olive-grey colour. He was thinner, his jaw more prominent, and his bony eye orbits hollow.
I stood awkwardly by his bed, inhaling the pungent scent of chemicals and medicine that obliterated Byron’s natural boyish scent.
“I’m not pretty to look at, Ruby,” he said with a sigh, his eyes wide and full of sorrow, shredding my heart to pieces.
The bed creaked beneath my weight as I sat down beside him.
“You can only ever be beautiful, Byron, now stop fishing for compliments,” I said, my throat so thick it hurt to talk. I pressed my palms into my eyes and kept them there to stem the tears. “I wish you’d told me.”
Byron gently tugged my hands away from my face.
“Why? So that you could pity me and cry for me like this?”
The pain in his eyes and on his face was so raw that fresh tears beaded down my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away, but it was too late, he’d seen them.
He let go of my hands and rolled over to face an open window. The late afternoon sun was streaming in. Bees buzzed around pale pink blossoms that grew on a shrub nearby. I could hear the clunk and roll of skateboarders on the street as they navigated the bend.
“Around here, this suburb where I’ve lived all my life, I’m not Byron. I’m just the kid who’s always had cancer.” He swallowed loudly. “You know, you’re the first girl who’s ever wanted to touch me, who’s ever wanted to be near me.”
“I still want to touch you,” I said with a sniff, my throat choking on the painful lump there that wouldn’t leave. “That’s if you still want me to.” I placed a trembling hand on his shoulder. “Knowing you have cancer hasn’t changed the way I feel about you.”
His back rose and fell with his heavy breaths.
“What about all that stuff you said about people who give up on life, about how selfish they are.”
Shit. I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“I was talking about suicide, about my mum choosing to leave us. This is completely different. This isn’t your fault.”
He rolled back over and eased himself into a sitting position.
“How is it different? Before I came to Donny Vale, my parents threatened to take legal action against me because I decided not to continue with the doctor’s suggested surgery and treatment. I’d had enough. I gave up.”
“But you’ve change your mind now,” I said warily, because truly I didn’t want to know that I was in any way responsible for Byron lying here, in pain, with patchy hair and a skeletal body.
“Meeting you changed me,” he said. “Even if I only get a few more months.” He gestured to his frail body. “This will all be worth it if I can have more time with you, Ruby.” He sighed and reached for my hand. “I sort of wanted to surprise you though, when I was better, so that you wouldn’t have to see me like this.”
I closed both my hands over his cold one and squeezed him gently.
“Is there a chance…at a full recovery?” I asked, not sure I was ready for the answer.
/>
He wove his fingers through mine. “Medical miracles still do occur. Magic happens, as they say, but I might be beyond that now.”
Nodding my head, I crushed my tongue against the roof of my mouth for a few seconds before asking, “Can I lay here with you for a bit?”
A long silence stretched between us.
“You’re a fast mover, I’ll give you that.” Byron grinned weakly and shifted aside so that I could get in. We lay side by side, staring at each other’s faces for ages without saying a word.
“I think I love you, Byron,” I suddenly blurted out, my heart pounding with the ferocity of my feelings for him.
Byron smiled and touched my hair. “I love you too.” He sighed. “That was on my bucket list, telling a girl that I loved her.”
“So you’re just saying it so you can cross it off the list?”
Byron laughed weakly. “You know it.” He blushed then, deep red and his eyes widened. “No. I really do love you, Ruby.”
My heart contracted and I squeezed Byron’s hand.
“So we’re in this together now.”
“We are,” Byron said, hesitantly, “But, and don’t get offended by this, I want to continue treatment on my own. You need to go back home. Today.”
I raised myself onto one elbow. “No. I’ll call my dad, he’ll understand. He’ll let me stay with you.”
“Ruby, when we’re together I want it to be just you and me, and not cancer as the third wheel.” His face was now flushed with anger.
“No. I’m not leaving—”
“Just let me talk. After I finish this round, and when I’ve built my strength, I’ll come see you in Donny Vale. And we can pick up where we left off.”
“Byron,” I paused, trying to control the tremor in my voice. “But what if that doesn’t happen? What if now is all we have?”
Byron shook his head and fell back against the pillow. “See, the cancer’s already changing things. You see me as a patient now and I don’t want that. That’s why I can’t have you here while I’m going through this.”
I stared up at the ceiling. “So you just want me to get up and walk away and drive home knowing that you’re here, alone and in pain, and just pretend like it’s nothing?”
Push Me, Pull Me Page 16