Mirror Me

by Rachel Sanderson

  I wonder if there was more to the story of what happened between them than what Dave told me? I wonder what Becky’s version of events would have been? But now’s not the time to ask.

  Tina turns and looks at me and her face contorts for a second, then she turns away again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘Geez don’t be sorry. You can’t help how you look. It’s just so fricking weird,’ she says.

  I see a series of small photos on the wall. They’re the kind you get from a photo booth in a shopping mall. Two girls, grinning hugely, one blonde, one brunette. Becky and Christina.

  ‘How come you changed your name?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m a different person now,’ she says. ‘Whether I want to be or not. Chrissy was happy. Chrissy thought people were good and life was going to be awesome. Chrissy died the same night Becky and her parents did. So. Tell me about your dream.’ She finally plonks herself down on the ground across from me, cross-legged.

  I’ve tried to prepare myself for this but it’s still hard to know how to start.

  ‘I’ve been having the same dream most nights since…. well since I found out about Becky. I’m in a corridor. There’s a lot of blood. Someone is coming up behind me. Something is scratching on the door ahead of me…’

  I stop. Tina looks pale and she’s started picking at a scab on her arm.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.’

  She looks at me directly. ‘If you hadn’t come here today, I wouldn’t have magically been okay. If you stop talking right now and walk out of here and I never see you again, I still won’t be okay. I don’t know how to be okay anymore. So you may as well tell me whatever you want to tell me. I don’t see how it can make things any worse. Alright?’

  I nod.

  ‘So?’ she says.

  ‘There’s more. After we moved here, we got a rescue dog. We couldn’t have one in Sydney and my brother begged my mum until she agreed. We’ve had her a few weeks now. I just found out over the weekend. It’s Becky’s dog. Zelda.’

  Tina opens her mouth like she’s going to say something then closes it again.

  I keep going. ‘Zelda took me to their house. I… I went inside. And the corridor I’d been seeing in my nightmare – it’s the same. I’ve been dreaming about the place where Becky died.’

  As I say the words the reality hits me, as if for the first time. I feel myself starting to shake. I keep talking. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t know why these things are happening to me. But I feel like I can’t escape it. Everywhere I turn, I see Becky O’Reilley.’

  Chapter thirty-five

  Tina lights up another cigarette. She gets up from the floor and starts walking around, moving thing from one pile to another, squatting down and rifling through a collection of CDs. I hear a siren wailing in the distance and shiver.

  I wonder if I should leave.

  ‘Some of these were Becky’s,’ she says. ‘Ariane Grande. Becky loved her. She’d brought the CD over to my place a while back so I ended up with it.’ She picks it up and turns it over, looks at the back, then throws it back onto the pile. ‘I was at her house,’ she says, without turning to look at me.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The day she died. I was at her house all day. She had, like, a big-screen TV in her bedroom and the weather was crappy, it was raining all day, so we’d been binge-watching the Walking Dead. My mum wouldn’t let me watch it but her parents didn’t care. I was meant to stay over, but I got my period. I get really bad pain and I’m a bleeder. I was scared I’d mess up the sheets or something so I decided to go home instead. Fucking irony, hey?’

  For a second the image from my dream flashes into my mind – the blood, everywhere, so much blood… I pull myself back to the present.

  ‘And did you notice anything while you were there?’

  ‘I went over all that with the cops. Like, over and over and over. Do you think you’re going to find something that they missed?’

  ‘No, but I –’ I take a breath.

  ‘I didn’t see Damien at all. I don’t know where he was and I didn’t ask. Becky was just, you know, Becky. Happy, fun. She wanted me to stay. I had no idea. Everything just seemed totally normal. I had no idea at all…’

  It’s not enough. I want to know more. I wish I could grab Tina and shake her: shake loose all the secrets and memories and stories that are in her head. Shake Becky out of her.

  ‘You know the cops think it was over drugs, right?’ she says.

  That brings me back. ‘Drugs?’

  ‘There was a hydroponics set-up in the loft. Becky took me up to show me once. She thought it was hilarious. Big lights, a bunch of plants, dripper system, everything. Damo was only small-time though, as far as I know. He sold a bit, but mostly just enough to support his comic book and take-away noodle habit. And their parents can’t have cared all that much otherwise it wouldn’t have been there in the first place, right? It’s not like you can just secretly build a huge hydroponics system and nobody in the house would notice. I mean the power bills must have been insane.’

  ‘But couldn’t it have been someone else that killed them then? Like another dealer or a buyer or something?’

  Tina sighs and looks at me. ‘Abbie, the thing you have to understand about Damien... He wasn’t well. He hadn’t been well for a long time. And Derrington’s small, that shit gets noticed. You’d see him walking around town with no shoes on and long greasy hair. Becky said he was cultivating his Jesus-look. He’d be talking to himself, to people who weren’t there. Once he broke into the newsagent in the middle of the night and set the alarm off and when the cops picked him up he was sitting in the middle of the floor naked drawing occult symbols all over himself with fucking permanent markers. He was off his face half the time, took whatever he could get his hands on. Magic mushrooms that he found in the forest, meds that he stole from his Dad’s surgery. He was a walking disaster. So, after it happened, after they died, everybody thought it was him, before the police even announced he’d been charged.’

  ‘What did you think?’ I ask.

  Tina frowns. ‘Damien wasn’t well but I never saw him hurt anything or anybody. He’d go out of his way not to squash an ant. If we found a spider, he always put it in a glass and put it out onto the balcony. And he was always kind to Becky. I know he embarrassed her but she was protective of him too. He had his problems but he did his best by people. As best he could. I just… I don’t know.’

  I think about what Duncan’s dad had said about Damien, which had been almost the same thing.

  ‘And there wasn’t anybody else you can think of?’ I ask. ‘Someone who had something against Dr O’Reilley, maybe? My mum’s a GP too and she gets some crazy patients. She had a guy stalk her for a while when I was little. We had to change our phone number and she got a restraining order but he kept on for months. It couldn’t have been something like that?’

  Tina shrugs. ‘No fricking idea. But whatever happened that night, Becky’s gone and she’s not coming back.’ Then she looks at me for a second and the look makes me shiver.

  ‘Your nose is wrong,’ she says after a beat. ‘Becky’s nose was straighter.’

  We exchange contact details and I give her Leah’s mobile number too, for when she arrives in Sydney. Tina’s so small and seems so fragile, even though she’s trying to be tough. I think of the scars, red slashes on her forearms. I feel like the city might eat her alive. At least she could meet up with Leah for a coffee or something, have someone who can help her orientate herself. I’m sure Leah won’t mind.

  I’m about to leave when Tina says ‘Here,’ and throws something at me. I catch instinctively before I even know what it is. I look at it. I’m holding a fluffy white teddy-bear.

  ‘Becky won it in one of those machines with the claw. I told her it was totally impossible to get anything out of them, that the whole thing was rigged and it was a waste of money but she tried anyway. And – bingo. She always said she was
lucky.’

  ‘You don’t want to keep it?’ I say, awkwardly.

  ‘I’ve got so much of her shit. You have no idea. You have it. I don’t know what’s going on with you and her, but there’s some kind of connection, isn’t there?’

  Chapter thirty-six

  I had my phone on silent when I was at Tina’s house but now I check it and there are so many missed calls it makes my head hurt. And then at the end of them all a text: Call me Abbie. From Zeke.

  Zeke. I’ve barely thought of him all afternoon, which is crazy, right?

  I start back up Farrier Street, away from the flats, past the garage and the pool supplies store, past a storage place that looks like some secret high-security facility. I keep scanning my surroundings, it’s getting to be an automatic reflex now, but I don’t see any people, just buildings and concrete and light bouncing off everything, blaring, hurting my eyes. I dial Zeke.

  ‘Hi,’ I say when he answers.

  ‘Abbie, are you okay? Where are you?’ he says.

  I feel a rush of warmth at the sound of his voice. ‘I’m on Farrier street, heading back to the school,’ I say.

  ‘I’m coming to get you,’ he says. ‘Wait for me when you get to the main street. I’ll be there in five.’

  I don’t argue. I’m feeling light-headed and shaky and my hand has started to throb again. And my head is racing with everything Tina told me. About Damien. About the drugs. About Becky and Dave being friends. And then there was Dave’s confession. I feel a headache starting to flicker in my temples like distant lightning that you see even though you can’t hear the thunder yet. I clutch the teddy Tina gave me like it’s the only solid thing, but it doesn’t help. It just makes me self-conscious. I remember when Andy walked in on me holding the rainbow teddy with sparkly cowboy hat and I imagine seeing him again right now and him thinking I must make a habit of it. Abbie can’t leave the house without a stuffed toy. It almost makes me laugh, but if I had, it would have been off-pitch hysterical laughter. That’s how I feel. My balance is all askew.

  Zeke must have rung me from his car, because it seems like no time at all passes before I see him. He slows and parks at the kerb then reaches across and unlatches the passenger door and I collapse into the front seat.

  ‘Where’s Dave?’ He sounds like he’s ready to punch him and Zeke never sounds like that.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Helena said –’

  ‘Yeah Dave helped me to find Christina Trick. He didn’t stick around though. I just finished talking to her.’

  Zeke doesn’t say anything at all for a moment, just looks straight ahead with an unreadable expression.

  Then he turns to me, and it’s the Zeke I know – his concern is transparent. He doesn’t hide a thing. ‘Abbie, I’m worried about you,’ he says. ‘All this stuff about Becky O’Reilley. Yes, it’s weird you look like her. Yes, it’s also weird you have her dog. Excessively weird coincidences. But I think you need to figure out how to let it go. You’re you. And she’s dead. And what’s that?’ He spots the teddy.

  ‘Ahhh, it’s a teddy bear. Christina gave it to me.’

  He closes his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me. It was Becky’s, right?’

  I don’t want to go back to school and I don’t want to go home. Zeke reluctantly agrees that we can just drive around for a while. It’s the best way I can think of to not be anywhere in particular. He puts the radio on and we head out of town and onto the highway. We pass a big sign that tells us it’s 578 kilometres to Sydney and for a second I imagine we could just keep driving. We could keep driving and not stop. Zeke could take me home.

  ‘Can this car even do the speed limit?’ I ask as he guns it and the engine splutters and strains, struggling to reach seventy.

  ‘Respect your elders,’ he says. ‘This car was past it’s prime before you were even born and it’s still going strong.’

  ‘Strong maybe. Fast, not so much.’

  I turn the radio on but the sound of the engine is so loud that it’s hard to make anything out. I flick around channels – hard rock, eighties power ballad, country and western. I find something that has a clear signal and leave it there.

  ‘How’s Chrissy doing?’ Zeke asks finally.

  ‘She calls herself Tina now. She’s living in a hell-hole and is about to move to Sydney alone. I think what happened to Becky has been pretty tough on her.’

  ‘Yeah, those two were inseparable.’

  I look out the window at the wide empty field, the golden curve of the hillside only broken by the white lumps of sheep grazing and a scattering of big grey boulders. I think of Tina, of how restless and agitated she was, how she couldn’t even sit still for five minutes. Those long scars on her arms. I feel dizzy for a moment.

  Then a song comes on the radio that I used to listen to with Leah in Sydney and I’m hit with a rush of nostalgia. I turn it up and close my eyes.

  I miss my old life. I miss Leah. I miss my house. I even miss school, though I never particularly thought I liked it. I miss my neighbourhood. Most of all I miss feeling safe, like the world makes sense, like I know who I am and where I fit in. I miss feeling like me. Here, anytime anybody looks at me I feel like they’re seeing someone else. They’re seeing Becky. And she’s dead. I’m her ghost.

  I close my eyes and listen to the music. The thing I hate most of all is how selfish I feel. I miss my friends and my house and my neighbourhood, but geez, I’m alive, aren’t I? I feel sad about Becky mostly because of how it affects me. And that gives me a sick feeling in my stomach when I admit it to myself.

  The song ends. I’m looking out the window, hardly even seeing the view, when I hear a radio announcer start talking. ‘In breaking news, a body has been found on the outskirts of Derrington in central New South Wales. Police are on the scene and few details have been released, except to say that they are treating the death as suspicious. More news to come…’

  ‘Stop!’ I say to Zeke, turning it up, but it goes straight back to music. ‘Did you hear that? Shit Zeke, did you hear that?’

  Zeke looks at me for a second then looks back at the road. I can see the tension working in his jaw.

  ‘They’ve found a body. Someone’s dead. What if it’s Tina? She was so stressed and I’m sure I made it worse by turning up there. And she’d been cutting herself. She had scars all over her arms. What if she’s done something bad?’ My heart is racing and I’m gasping for air. I feel terrified. It’s like the world is closing in around me, like I’m seeing through a tunnel that’s getting smaller and smaller and outside is only darkness and chaos. There’s a squeezing sensation in my chest. My head is full of noise.

  ‘Abbie are you okay?’

  I can’t speak. I put a hand to my chest and try to take a breath. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe I can’t breathe – I’m going to die. I feel certain I’m going to die. Everything is rushing around me, and I can’t make sense of it. I vaguely sense Zeke pulling the car over, putting an arm around me. Holding me close.

  ‘I’m taking you to the surgery. Just take it easy Abbie. Everything’s going to be okay.’ His voice comes from far away. I’m alone and just trying to hold on to each breath.

  ‘Here, hold this. Hold onto it tight. We’ll get you to your Mum in no time.’

  I sense something being pushed into my grasp and it’s the teddy, Becky’s teddy. I pick it up and hug it close and close my eyes and try to breathe.

  Chapter thirty-seven

  The metal is cold against my bare skin.

  ‘Take a breath,’ Mum says, ‘and out.’ I inhale and exhale awkwardly. I hate breathing when someone is listening to me. I grip the arm of the chair with my unhurt hand and look at the far wall, trying to keep my gaze steady, trying just to do what I’m told.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Zeke asks. He’s pulled another chair up and is sitting beside me.

  Mum shines a light into my eyes, one then the other. She takes my temperature. She takes my blood pressure.
r />   I sit there, silent. I’m shivering and my mouth tastes of metal. Some of the fear has subsided now I’m here, but the residue clings to me like dust, whispers in my ear. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

  ‘She’ll be okay. But I’d like to take some blood samples, rule a few things out. Is that okay Abbie?’

  ‘You’re the doctor,’ I manage to say, though my voice comes out shaky and thin.

  ‘What would be great, Zeke, is if you could duck down to the shop and get her some apple juice. Are you up to eating anything, Abs? A sausage roll or something?’

  I want to shake my head but I know she’s probably right. Having something in my stomach might help. ‘I’ll try,’ I say. ‘Thanks Zeke.’

  I’m vaguely aware of money changing hands and then he heads out and Mum closes the door behind him.

  ‘So, as I said I want to run some more tests. It might take a little while to get the results. But I wanted to let you know, the symptoms you’ve experienced are consistent with a serious panic attack.’

  I wince. ‘You think I’m imagining it? I thought I was going to die…’

  ‘I absolutely don’t think you’re imagining it. What you felt was real. Your heartbeat is very fast and your blood pressure is high. I’m not trying to discount what you experienced for a second Abbie. But I’m telling you what I’m thinking. And given the pressure you’ve been under –’

  ‘You think I’m going crazy?’ I say and sudden tears fill my eyes.

  Mum hugs me tight. ‘If you’re experiencing anxiety, there are lots of things we can do about it. Panic attacks are awful, but they can be managed. Anxiety is more common than you’d think. But we don’t need to talk about that now. Right now, I want you to try to rest, and know that you’re looked after. I’ve got your back Abbie, right? Always. And Zeke does too.’

  I nod and brush the tears away.

  ‘They found a body,’ I say and Mum frowns. ‘That’s what triggered it. I heard it on the news. They found a body. The police are investigating. I’m scared it’s connected to Becky somehow – to me.’