“Why are you being so persistent?”
He rolls his eyes. “Gee, I can’t say anything anymore without you questioning it.”
“Whatever. Will you leave me alone now?”
His answer is to lean forwards, grab my arm and tug. I try to snatch my arm and dignity back, but he is too strong. In the end I fall off of the bed completely, landing on the carpeted floor with a stifled thud.
He grins down at me triumphantly. “Now will you come with me?”
I glower, rubbing my sore arm angrily. Unfortunately I know that if I refuse he will more or less drag me out of the room anyway. I sigh in defeat. “Oh...fine.”
“Smart answer.”
Its five long minutes later that I grudgingly find myself standing outside with my feet together like a penguin on the edge of the curb, mummified in one of Jenny’s large coats. Ash soon joins me, the smug idiot. He is wearing a burgundy leather jacket, buttoned to the collar. Faded jeans stretch out from underneath it, accumulating in two puddles of dull blue at his boots.
“It’s cold,” I gripe.
“It’s just you,” he says. He begins to walk in the direction that leads to the meadow and Cleadon Creek. Apparently, I’m expected to follow. I stare after him, weighing my chances. Stand here looking like an eskimo, or follow him and risk my pride and dignity. But then again, how dignified would I look standing out here on my own? People with dignity are at least pretentious enough to make it seem like they have friends. I sigh and hurry to catch up with him.
He strides ahead of me with an air of confidence and superiority while I lag behind, taking the time to glance briefly at the drooping flowers that litter the meadow we are wading through. Above us, the envious clouds have taken the sun hostage and have stashed it behind their blank, grey walls. The world below mourns this loss, the wild rabbits hiding in their burrows while the flourishing dandelions bow their pretty heads in respect and for once, the crickets fall into an ominous silence.
It is too quiet. I pull my coat tighter around my body and walk faster.
What was the point in this walk again? I decide that there must be some urgent, pressing reason and do not question him.
Soon the dreary shrubs and clumps of drooping trees part, allowing me full view of Cleadon Creek. It is as magnificent as it had been the day I had first been introduced to it, the water rippling gently like silk. My eyes are drawn to the island in the middle. We’d never managed to get there in the end. The gnarled trees still hang over the edge, supported by layers of water weed and dilapidated duck nests. There is only one tree on the island which retains a few of its leaves.
Ash, already at the water’s edge, calls out to me impatiently. “Hey! What’s taking so long? Come on!”
‘Remember: urgent, pressing reason’ I remind myself half-heartedly as it gradually becomes more and more obvious that this urgent, pressing reason is non-existent. “What was so important that you had to bring me all the way here?” I ask.
He points out across the lake. “We’re going to get to the island this time,” he declares.
“Is that the only reason you forced me out here?”
“At least try and enjoy it.” He rolls his eyes, but my lack of enthusiasm doesn’t seem to dampen his mood at all. Instead, it seems to improve it. Sadist.
“Do I look like I’m enjoying this?” I wave a hand at my blatantly disgruntled expression.
“Would you prefer to go hide in a dark room for the rest of the day and sulk?”
“Yes please.”
He finally seems to become exasperated, running a hand through his knotty hair. “Honestly, are you a vampire or just intent on being miserable?”
“You can’t choose to be miserable.”
“You can try not to be. Stop being so difficult and just have fun.”
I scowl freely. “Easy for you to say.”
“Are you going to try again or not?”
“I’d prefer not.”
“Too bad, it wasn’t an option.” Then he springs up majestically to leap onto the first stepping stone. “See? It’s easy,” he grins cockily and jumps the next stone. “Anyone could do it. Oh, sorry, apart from you that is.”
I level him with a glare but give in, mostly to defend my pride. I push off from the bank as hard as I can. I feel the wind whip through my hair for a millisecond before it is all over and I’m crouched on the first stone.
“Wasn’t that bad, was it?” he questions with a knowing smirk, once I’ve straightened up again.
“I’m not athletic at all,” I whine, each of us now balancing on our own stone. “I can’t jump! Never have, probably never will.”
He waves off my complaints. “Anyone with a brain and legs can do this. You’ve got pretty long legs, you don’t even have to try that hard.”
“And how would you know how long my legs are?”
Check mate.
Just as expected, the meaning of my words sinks in and after a moment, he blushes slightly. I resist the urge to let out a chuckle. He scowls when he notices my amused expression. “It’s not like there’s anything there worth checking out anyway,” he says in an indignant voice, before turning around and jumping to the next stone with his normal precision.
The next stone is the third stepping stone. It is further away than the others and last time my lack of judgement had been my downfall, literally. This time, I’m not going to let that happen. The very little pride I have left is at stake. So, determined, I size up the distance to jump. A small jolt of anticipation worms its way through my body. I leap. One second my hair is obscuring my view, and the next I’m standing shakily on the third stone and I’m sure there’s an irrationally smug look on my face. I’ve done it, on the second time around. That deserves respect.
I’m on a roll. With newly-rekindled determination and more experience I fly through the air and make it across the remaining two stones, albeit a little clumsily, but I don’t fall in. And then I’m on the last stone. I’m approximately two metres away from the island and I can feel the adrenaline coursing through me. On the bank of the island, Ash is watching me intently.
“If you mess up now, you’ll never live it down,” he more or less threatens.
“Thanks for the encouragement.” This time though I feel high. Not the sort of high you get when you’re on drugs, the power-crazy kind. I unceremoniously fling myself at the bank. I land on plain, dull ground and scrabble desperately to make it up the small slope. When I manage it, breathing heavily with my clothes covered in dirt, I cannot help the small smile that slips onto my face. Success. I like that word a lot.
“Hah, made it.” I attempt to dust myself down as I peer up at him with a victorious grin.
“I never said you wouldn’t,” he points out. He holds out his hand. “But good job, anyway.” For a moment I’m wary, and then I reach out and shake his hand.
“Thanks, by the way, for making me try again.”
He smiles. “Your welcome. We wouldn’t have made it here otherwise.”
“I know. We actually achieved something, without killing each other first.” Having finished dusting myself down, I take the time to look around. The island is just what it had seemed. It’s very small and the trees hang out over the bank, shadowing the water and their own decaying roots. The majority of the ground is just barren soil.
“I told you there was nothing here,” he says, looking bored. “It’s a dead island.”
I bend down and run a grubby hand over the earth. It is hard and rough, like reptile skin. “What happened to it?”
“Nobody really knows. This island’s quite a mystery.”
“Most mysteries are easier to solve than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“They leave behind clues, which you can pick up if you look hard enough.”
I straighten up to see him staring at me with an unfathomable expression on his face. It’s disconcerting. “It’s ironic of you to say something like that,” he says.
<
br /> I don’t answer, in an effort to avoid either another argument or an interrogation. Instead I walk over to the horribly gnarled tree and place a hand on its dying trunk. Some paper-thin flakes of bark float to the ground when I remove it. I can hear the sound of gentle waves sloshing against the bank.
“I don’t know why you were so intrigued by this place,” he yawns from somewhere behind me, previous seriousness suddenly forgotten. “Honestly, it’s more depressing than a graveyard.”
“You were the one who wanted to come.”
He snorts. “I just wanted to see you fall in the lake again, it was funny last time.”
I cleverly decide to stay silent, not in the mood to pick a fight. Instead, I look past the tree trunk, down the sloped bank and into the shallow waters where the island and lake meet. It is a maze of rotting roots and debris, lost in dark and murky waters. I test the dry ground with one foot and then manoeuvre myself until my feet are rooted half way down the slope and I’m clinging to the tree trunk to stay upright.
“What are you doing?” comes Ash’s patronising voice as he watches me try to regain my footing. I don’t answer, trying to pull myself back up. My foot slips. Suddenly, I hear a flutter of wings from below and a strangled ‘cluck’ sound before I see a distressed moorhen taking off into the water to escape.
And then, the moorhen having abandoned her nest, I see the eggs. There’s five of them, grouped neatly in a mediocre nest made of twigs and rotting leaves. They are pure and innocent and they are diamonds in a coal mine. It’s hard to comprehend that inside each of those porcelain white shells is a living thing that will one day become an adult moorhen. I motion silently to Ash and he moves closer, following my gaze. Slowly, a small smile spreads across his face, and somehow I know that he too is marvelling at life and its ability to survive no matter what the odds.
“Great,” he says. “You’ve found lunch.”
“Ash.” I hit his arm. How stupid I was , assuming he was deep enough to think through something other than his stomach.
“Ow,” he cries. “What was that for?”
“You. Are. An. Idiot.”
“But eggs are nice, and they’re full of protein!”
“That’s not the point.”
He sighs. “Fine, then what is the point?”
“Even on a completely dead island, life is still there,” I say. “It carries on, even though it’s got the world against it.”
“How egg-celent,” he grins, laughing at his own pun. Seeing that I’m about to hit him again, he quickly sobers and takes on a more serious expression. “Okay, fine, I guess you’re right.”
“Much better.”
It’s quiet then, a peaceful silence. The mother moorhen will return once we’re gone, I know it. And one day those eggs will hatch. It’s the cycle of life, and birth is just as much a part of it as death is. Seeing these eggs reminds me that despite death being such a big part of my life, it still isn’t everything. I pull myself up onto the main part of the island.
“Ash,” I say. “What do you think comes after death?”
He clambers up beside me, shrugging. “Life, I suppose.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, it’s just one endless cycle, isn’t it? Death comes after life, so it’s only logical that life comes after death.”
“I thought you were incapable of being deep.”
“I have my moments.”
What he says makes sense, in a very shrewd and illogical way. It’s nicer to think about it that way, at least, than my own beliefs. I believe that after death there is nothing. It’s just an endless sleep that no one ever wakes up from. There’s no heaven or hell, just…nothing. It’s just empty. Like me.
I never voice my own opinion on death, but on the way back wading through the meadow, I cannot help but wish I could think like him. I wish that I could believe that there’s more after death than just darkness, that they’re still up there somewhere and not just gone. It’s a failed effort though, because you can’t make yourself believe in something. It just happens.
*****
That evening, I eat dinner in front of the TV with Ash and Jenny. I’m in clean clothes, my hair is washed and the food is delicious, but it still feels wrong. The last time I ate dinner in front of the TV was seven years ago, when TV programmes still meant something to me, no matter how pointless they were.
I feel like the outsider. Ash and Jenny are one single unit, kept safe behind their invisible walls while I’m staring in from the outside, wondering when mine came crumbling down. They are a family connected by blood and I’m just the stranger banging on their doors pretending that I’m part of it too, when it’s obvious to everyone that I’m not. I should learn to stop being so pretentious.
After that I try to think less, if that’s possible. I retire to my temporary room quickly, although not before Jenny manages to catch me in hallway. She asks me how I am, how I’m settling in, if I need anything. Stop caring so much, I want to tell her, it’s contagious. In the end I shrug off her concerns with a smile and a nod, then make a beeline for my room. There, with the door shut and locked, the curtains drawn and the lights off, I let one single tear leak out.
I don’t know why I’m crying, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s because I’m an outsider and I’m tired of being alone, maybe it’s because I want to believe in something I know I never will, or maybe it’s because life moves on even though I can’t.
In the end, I still come to the same conclusion. If no one can see you, then it’s not being weak. So I let more tears escape and they stream down my face in this wonderfully tragic way; little crystalline drops being swallowed up by the night. I allow myself to break because no one’s here to watch, but only when it’s dark.
Chapter 7: Tobi the ‘good’ potted cactus
I get up early to call Dawn again, more out of obligation than because I actually want to. It takes five rings for her to pick up.
“Dawn?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” she mutters, not sounding thrilled to be woken up again.
“I take it you were expecting my call,” I say. “Sorry for it being so early, by the way.”
“Don’t worry about it, I was already up anyway.”
“Why? It’s only seven.”
She stifles a yawn on the other end. “Summer job. You should have known that, I get them every year.”
“Meh, sorry,” I say offhandedly. “What’s it this year?”
“Just cashier, not experienced enough for anything better.”
“I see.”
“So, how are you?”
I sigh. Here it comes: the pleasantries where I’ll reply ‘fine’ and then feel obligated to ask how she is as well, to which she’ll also reply ‘fine’ even though we’re both lying. “Stop skirting the issue Dawn,” I say, trying to keep the aggravation out of my voice.
“Fine,” she complies. “So are you staying there or what?”
“For the holidays,” I tell her. “Have you told the others yet?”
“Yeah. I told them earlier this morning.”
“What did they say?” I’m almost afraid to hear her answer. What if they told the police, or social services? What if they’re coming right now to take me back?
For a few moments Dawn is silent. Then when she answers, her voice is tight. “Well...they were angry at first. They said that you were too young and that you don’t have enough experience to know who to trust. But in the end, I managed to convince them to let you stay and they agreed not to tell anyone about it. They weren’t happy, but they still agreed.”
“That’s better than I expected,” I admit. “Thanks, Dawn, for doing this.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“No, I’m not sure, but it’s better than the alternative.”
“Oh.” I feel a small prickle of guilt at the underlying hurt in her tone. But it’s wrong. I shouldn’t feel guilty. They have hurt me for so long, isn’t it only fair tha
t I get my chance to return the favour?
“I’m sorry,” I say emotionlessly. “About how unexpected all of this is. It’s not too much of a problem, is it?”
“No, its fine,” she says, her tone betraying her completely. “It’s just, well…”
“What?”
She sighs. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
I consider pressing for a moment, but decide against it. Things are confusing enough as it is. “Fine. Make sure Faith doesn’t do anything drastic, ‘kay?”
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