"Hell yeah it is," he said unabashedly. "As far as I'm concerned, it pretty much sorts out the whole meaning of life issue."
"You don't need to take the piss." Annoyed that he wasn't answering me seriously, I went to move away again, but his arms tightened, holding me in place.
"I'm not," he insisted and, when I stayed stiff in his arms, he brushed my hair over my shoulder and murmured, "Come on, babe, go with me on this."
Still suspicious that he was mocking me, I nevertheless offered him a jerky nod to show that I was listening and that seemed to satisfy him as his grip on me loosened slightly.
"The way I see it, it's like this," he began, "there's days when I go out on my board and it's flat as, nothing going, you just have to sit there and wait for a swell. When you're out there on your own, with this huge nothing all around you, it does something to you, gets to you in some way..." he faded, but I found I had gone with him and knew what he meant without him explaining.
As a teenager I'd done a lot of unsanctioned midnight wanderings, escaping the oppressive sights and smells of a house that was slowly turning into a hospice. Early on after we'd moved to the Bay, a few of those wanderings had ended with me on the beach, staring numbly out over the ocean. There was something about knowing that there was all this emptiness ahead of you, emptiness that was simultaneously full of life seething beneath the surface that... Well, that made me uncomfortable enough that my walks soon became strictly urban in setting.
"So, how could you not want to know how the hell it all works?" Fletch went on. "And then grade 6 science comes along and tells you it's the eco-system; that everything's connected and evolved in a certain way for a reason. The ocean's salty, fish move in schools, seaweed cleans the water, it all has a point, it's made itself work."
He'd started to rub his thumb against the skin on my hip as he'd talked, a sensation I did my best to ignore as he continued. "Gotta tell you, when you're a kid watching your parents self-destruct and your mate-" he stopped suddenly, probably feeling me tense as Donny was mentioned. “Anyway," he finished carefully, "it was reassuring knowing that life has a way of sorting itself out. Ecology's just about watching it all go down."
Merry knew, she had to have known, that Fletch could come out with a response so full of God-damn meaning when asked about his course. It was a trap and I'd walked right into it.
"I want to consult on coastal development," he went on, apparently unaware of my internal bitching towards Merry. "You know, be the guy that people call in to check what the impact will be if they build a hotel, or a fishing jetty or whatever. It's pretty competitive in the industry, though, so," I felt him shrug, "we'll see."
I didn't know how he did that, stayed so calm and all 'we'll cross that bridge' at the prospect of not reaching his goal. I spent every second of every day holding it together, controlling the world I'd created for myself and knowing that if it went awry there was a very real possibility I'd just pack it all in. The dealing with people, the 'doing good', it didn't come naturally to me, not like it did with Fletch who seemed to have been born with the natural talent for fronting up when needed, and backing off when not. Except when it came to me, apparently. No, when it came to me, Fletch didn't seem to have the first clue when to back off.
As if to emphasise the point, he suddenly asked, "While I've caught you in a sharing mood, what about you?"
"Me?" I asked, making it abundantly clear with my tone that any sharing was going to be solely on his part.
"You're studying PR, marketing and all that, right?" Fletch was clearly choosing to ignore my repressive attitude as he pushed, "In pursuit of...?"
"World domination," I said brusquely.
"Fair enough," was his mild response.
"Oh, seriously?" I pushed his arm off me and sat up, twisting to look back at him crossly. "What's wrong with you today? I didn't realise having sex with you was going to turn you into such a bloody pushover."
He reclined back against my pillows, not looking at all fazed by my assessment. "Funny," he said, and there was no denying that he did look like he found something amusing, "because I had a pretty good idea what it'd do to you."
"Yeah?" I bristled. "Go on then, what's it done to me?"
He hitched himself up on his elbows, holding my gaze steady as he said slowly, "Freaked you the hell out."
I stared back at him for one long moment and then looked away and snapped, "OK, now I'm kicking you out."
He laughed, but obligingly pushed himself upright and reached for his dacks. It was as he stood, pulling his pants up over his strong thighs, that we both heard it; a faint rustle and a smothered giggle, right outside my door. They were familiar noises to me, and no cause for concern, but Fletch went rigid, all traces of his good humour instantly erased.
"Is that what I think it is?" He asked tensely and I shrugged.
"I guess that depends on what you think it is," I replied, stretching my arms up above my head in a show of unconcern as I enjoyed our sudden role reversals.
"You've got to be kidding me!" His jaw had started doing that clenching thing, I belatedly realised. He'd clearly become quite angry, quite fast. I guess it was a case of 'be careful what you wish for'; I'd wanted cranky Fletcher back and it looked like I'd got him.
"Fletch..." I began slowly, warningly, not wanting him to make a scene. Typically, however, he ignored me, taking the couple of strides over to the door and wrenching it open.
Knowing what was going to be revealed on the other side; I relaxed back down into the rumpled sheets, twisting my body provocatively so that long, bare expanses of my skin were exposed. It must have made quite a tableau to behold; Fletch in the foreground all tan and muscle in nothing but his boxer-briefs, and me, the very picture of debauchery in my blood-red bra, on the bed. The slut scrawlers, because that was obviously who had been making the noise outside, didn't seem to know where to look.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Fletch demanded as the two girls, arms still raised to write on my whiteboard, goggled at him.
"We were just-" one of them started to say, but Fletch cut her off.
"Well don't. Give me those." He snatched the textas out of their hands before they had time to protest and then stared up at where they'd written 'sl' in curlicue writing on my whiteboard. His eyes narrowed to slits and he slammed a hand against the door, making them jump, before he said, very menacingly, "Clean. It. Off."
It didn't even seem to occur to them to protest, and their hands smacked into each other's as they both hurriedly reached up to smear the letters out of existence.
"That's Lara, by the way." Fletch jerked his head over at me and, when the girls turned their wide eyes to me, I waggled the tips of my fingers in greeting. "You got something to say to her, you say it to her face and cop what you get in return. I hear you, or anyone else, has pulled this 'slut' crap on her door again and I'm coming after you. Got it?"
They nodded in unison.
"Great, now rack off." Fletch slammed the door in their faces and I rolled onto my side watching him as he threw the textas in his hand angrily down onto my dressing table.
"Wow," I drawled after a couple of seconds as he remained stiff, staring unseeingly into the mirror above the table, "dramatic much?"
Ignoring my comment, he demanded, "Why did I have to do that?"
I raised my eyebrows. "I don't know," I answered honestly, "some stupid hero complex you have?"
"No, I mean why haven't you dealt with it?" He growled. "It's hardly beyond you, you've got half this campus living in fear of you, so why do you let these girls get away with it?"
Well, that was easy to answer. "Because, apparently, I don't seem to care as much you do."
His lips pulled tight in disapproval and I felt a hard knot start to form in my stomach.
"You think you deserve it, is that it?" He asked, finally turning away from the mirror and looking right at me with an expression that I read as a cross-breed of anger and pity.
"Jesus," he swore and the nonchalance slipped through my fingers as I full out glared at him.
"What?" I asked impatiently. "As insults go, I've heard a lot worse than 'slut'. I'm not even convinced slut is an insult. From where I'm sitting, the one with the greater number of notches on the bedpost is the one who's had the most fun."
Snatching up his shorts, Fletch began to drag them on, but his eyes were still steady on me. "It's not what they're saying, it's that they think they have any right to say it," he snapped. "You've given them carte blanche to treat you like crap."
"Oh good, we're back to you making bullshit generalised statements about my life," I said acerbically. "I'd so missed that."
He disregarded my bitching, as he was wont to do, and asked directly, "Is it still to do with Salida?"
Caught off guard, I was unable to stop a picture of his stunning ex-girlfriend slamming to the forefront of my mind. She with her exotic colouring, impossibly thick black hair, and honeyed voice. She with her ready smile and open manner, the shoulder of choice for anyone who needed a good cry.
Her and Fletch had looked amazingly right together when they'd turned up, hand in hand, at school a few months after I'd hooked up with Brock Baines. They were so suited to each other, in fact, that I really should’ve seen it coming. I hadn't, however, and seeing the two of them that first day had felt like a carthorse had kicked me in the stomach.
It was this bruised feeling that had prompted my flirting into overdrive. Fletch had been mine, everyone had known that. Yes, we'd never been technically together, and yes, I'd slept with Brock, but that didn't mean Salida could just waltz in and take what belonged to me. As soon as I'd seen the two of them together I'd started doing everything in my power to tempt Fletch back to me. I'd finally succeeded, as everyone knew, at the party the night Donny had died. So the answer was that, of course, it was still to do with Salida. It all came back to her and that night.
I didn't say this, naturally, but I hadn't schooled my expression as carefully as I should have when Salida was mentioned, and Fletch read it all over my face.
He stared at me for a moment, a furious sort of disappointment etched into every line of his face and then muttered, "Screw this," and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Not sure what direction he'd headed off in now, I watched him carefully while he cycled through his contacts and then pressed the connect button. He switched his phone to speaker mode and sank down next to me on the edge of the bed as it rang.
"What-?" I started to ask, but he held up a hand to silence me and I was so furious at his gall that I was rendered momentarily speechless.
By the time I'd recovered and went to let him know exactly what I thought of his repressive move, there was a click and then a horribly familiar voice said, "Hello?"
Panic surged through me and I made an involuntary grab for the phone, wanting to shut down the unwanted connection with the past immediately. Fletch had perhaps pre-empted my reaction, though, and swiftly lifted his mobile out of my reach as he asked, his voice sounding as unsteady as I felt, "Salida?"
There was a pause and then, higher now, the reply came, "Fletcher?"
"Yeah, been a while," he said, his mouth twisting, presumably at the banality of the statement. "Look, I've got Lara here-"
There was a little noise of dark amusement and then Salida said, "Of course you do."
"-and I just want to clear something up," Fletch finished, as if he hadn't heard her interjection. "This is going to sound weird, but...Lara and I, we didn't ruin your life, did we?"
There was another heavy moment of silence and then a distinctive snort of laughter erupted from the speaker.
"What?" Salida asked, her tone disbelieving. "Are you seriously calling me up after three years to ask...?" She trailed off and then came back with sudden bite, "Is that what she thinks?" There was another punch of laughter. "What am I saying? Of course it is, special Lara Montgomery no doubt still thinks she's the most important person in everyone's lives."
I felt myself curl up into a ball; knees jerking up to my chest, arms wrapping around my body defensively. I hated Fletch in that moment, hated him. Calling up Salida, knowing the effect her words from so long ago had had and making me listen to fresh accusations, was just sadistic.
Fletch's free arm did a weird sort of jerk as I rolled up, as if he'd gone to put it around me, but then thought better of it. I told myself I was glad that he'd kept his hands to himself, but furious as I was at him, I wasn't able to totally convince myself that his steadying arm wouldn't have helped.
Through the phone there was a sound of a door opening and a female voice murmured in the background, too low for us to hear what was being said. Salida's reply was also muffled, as if she'd lowered the phone to talk to the other person, but I was able to make out her saying, "Thanks, hon, I'll be out in a sec."
There was the distinctive sound of a phone being lifted back to the ear and then Salida started to talk to us at normal volume again. "Right, I'm on my way out so I'll make this quick. Yes, the pair of you humiliated me and made the last few months of high school pretty miserable. I thought we were a serious thing, Fletch, and I trusted that you'd treat me better than you did." She rattled that last sentence out, clearly a truth she wasn't happy admitting. Once it was out, however, her voice steadied and she continued more calmly.
"But then I got out of the Bay and, you know what? No-one cares about Fletch and Lara out here. I've gone years without having anyone tell me that I should've known better than to get between you two, or informing me that they'd always known Lara was a boyfriend-stealing slut."
Fletch's expression hardened at this last bit, but I was slowly unfurling, sitting forward and staring at the phone as if it was the little black rectangle itself that was detailing my insignificance out of the Bay.
"In fact," Salida went on, "I haven't thought about either of you for months. So, no, you didn't ruin my life, please don't give yourselves anything like that level of credit."
It seemed like the perfect place for her to hang up; it definitely would've been where I would've terminated the call. There was a small hesitation, however, and then she added softly, "Look, Fletch, let's be honest, I didn't handle that night the best way, either. I'm not proud of what I said to Lara, I hope she doesn't still think-"
She was cut off as the voice from before called out, "Sal, come on!"
"OK, I've really got to go," she said quickly. "And, hey, I'm glad you two are actually together now, at the very least it makes the world a little bit safer for everyone else." And, without another word, the line was disconnected.
Fletch held the phone still between us for another moment, and then re-pocketed it, his look grimly triumphant.
As for me, it was going to take me a while longer to sort out how I felt about what Salida had said. So much of my life had been based on that night, to hear that one of the major players had just moved on was…disconcerting. Relief was probably the emotion I was supposed to be infused with, and it was definitely there, it was just that something else seemed to be taking prominence...
"Why've you still got Salida's number?" I snapped and Fletch slowly turned incredulous eyes to me.
"That's what you took from that?"
Maybe he was within his rights to sound bemused, but I couldn't help it. A strange, hot sensation pulsed in my cheeks as I considered that he still had access to the gentle beauty that was his ex-girlfriend. "Like she said, it's been three years," I said pointedly and he raised his eyebrows in further bewilderment.
"It's not like I deliberately looked her up, Lara. I've just not changed my sim card, I had no idea if she'd still have the same number-" he stopped as if he just couldn't be bothered justifying himself anymore and rubbed his face tiredly. "Christ, it might be safer for everyone
else that we're together," he muttered, "but I can't say it does my sanity much good."
I jerked ramrod straight in an instant, warning bells clamouring louder than they had even when Salida had been speaking.
"We're not together," I pointed out sharply and he looked round in apparent surprise at the brittleness of my tone.
"Semantics, babe," he said coolly, "don't look at me like that. I'm not trying to trick you into making this something it isn't."
I relaxed, but only slightly. He may not have been trying to make us into something we weren't, but it was starting to seem like he was the only one.
----------
As was so often the way with him and Lara, the situation was, once again, balanced on a knife edge.
It'd been a long day and he needed no further prompting from her to get dressed and get out. There'd been a wildness in Lara's eyes that suggested she'd been pushed so far that evening, but would go no further. Fair enough too, although it'd been on the tip of his tongue to point out that she'd been the one to ask him about his course, effectively taking them somewhere they'd never been before.
Letting himself out of her room, Fletch briefly considered seeing if Jai was home, as he lived on the floor below Lara's, but then thought better of it. All he wanted to do was go home, have a hot shower, and space out in front of the TV. He wasn't up for much more.
Thinking of Jai, however, reminded him that, knackered as he was, he had to make another stop before going back to his and Daz's flat. The previous day, Jai's sister, Padma, had mentioned to him that she'd seen Saskia working at a store in town and he'd been meaning to check in on his sister ever since. Because, seriously, his bratty little sister with a job? Since when?
The need to find out what the hell it was all about had intensified tenfold since he'd seen the bright pink label on Lara's skirt earlier in the day and heard her say 'this skirt's a Za-Za's original'. He had a horrible feeling that'd been the shop Padma had mentioned and, while it could just have been a coincidence, he knew it would bug him until he looked into it. So, shelving fond thoughts of a blur out session, he reluctantly turned the car towards his old family home.
The Do-Gooder Page 18