Life in Outer Space

by Melissa Keil

  She looks sideways at me. And then she giggles. ‘Okay, Sam. Relax. If you’re worried I’ve been hiding some secret thing for you all these years, please don’t. It wasn’t like that. I mean –’ She gives me a sheepish smile. ‘I’d be lying if I said I’ve never thought about it. You’re … cute, and you’re not gay, and you’re not, well, Adrian. I’ve never felt … invisible around you. But I’m not sure you’re really my type. Although I’m not sure I know my type. I guess … I don’t really know what I’m doing either.’

  I grin. ‘Yeah. I’m hearing that a lot lately.’

  She sinks back into the couch cushions and looks at me curiously. I don’t know why, but her face seems different to how I remember it. Less soft around the edges. Like someone has adjusted the focus.

  ‘Hey, Allison?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Will you still go to the dance with me?’

  She shrugs. ‘Well, at this point it’s you or Alessandro. So sure.’

  ‘Cool. I think it’ll be fun.’

  She raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Okay, so I think it will probably be the equivalent of a colonoscopy with a rusty garden implement, but hey – I hear there will be cake.’

  ‘Cake is important. I think the committee might be having some dramas, though. I detected panic after Camilla missed their meeting today.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘I thought you would’ve spoken to her? She was home sick today as well.’

  ‘Camilla is sick?’

  ‘Yeah. She has the flu. She sounded pretty bad on the phone. Not that I spoke to her for long. She’s been … busy this week.’ She grimaces.

  I stand up. ‘Allison – are we all right?’

  She gives me her familiar lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, Sam. I think we’ll be fine.’ She glances at her watch. ‘I should go, though. Nate and I are going to see Ju-on at the Westgarth. Have you seen it?’

  ‘I’ve seen the remake. I didn’t love it.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re the movie guy and you haven’t seen the Japanese version.’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t think there is enough time in the universe to catalogue the stuff I haven’t seen, Allison.’

  Allison seems to consider this. ‘Do you … want to come?’

  ‘Well, I can’t tonight. But – another time?’

  She smiles. ‘Sure. That sounds good, Sam.’

  Allison walks me to the door. Her arm brushes mine a couple of times, but strangely, it doesn’t feel all that weird or uncomfortable.

  I step into the evening light and spin around to face her.

  Allison leans against her doorframe. ‘Hey, Sam? You know, you’re a really good kisser. I mean, like, really good. Like you’ve been practising or something.’

  ‘I … am? Thanks. I guess?’ My face starts to burn.

  She nods. ‘Not that I have anything to compare it to, but it wasn’t as gross as I expected. Not at all.’

  It takes me a few seconds to figure out that she is teasing. ‘Thank you, Allison. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.’

  She waves at me. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  I leave her house feeling a million years older and a billion times more tired than I have ever felt in my life. I feel the pull of my dark bedroom, my movies and my screenplays and my bed. I can all but hear them calling me home.

  But I turn around, and I walk the other way.

  The Miyagi epiphany

  I hear her shuffling on the other side of the door. I also hear a couple of rapid sneezes before the door is flung open.

  She’s draped in a thick woollen blanket. She’s wearing Snoopy pyjamas and mismatched socks. Her hair is bunched behind her head in a messy bun-thing, and her cheeks are pink and flushed. But Camilla is beautiful. Even feverish and Snoopy-clad, with a big toe sticking out of a hole in one of her socks, she still looks so beautiful. My stomach seems to fold in half.

  ‘Sam? What are you doing here?’ she croaks.

  ‘You look awful,’ I reply.

  She sniffles. ‘Thanks. That’s great. Did you come here just to tell me that? Or would you like to punch me in the face as well?’

  ‘Not really. I came to see if you were okay.’

  She shuffles backwards into her lounge and flops onto the leather couch. A bin overflowing with tissues is on the floor in front of her. She’s paused whatever she was watching; a guy standing up in a boat is frozen on her TV.

  ‘Where’s your dad?’

  ‘Gone,’ she says from somewhere under the blanket. ‘Brisbane till Tuesday.’

  ‘You’re here alone? Do you have medicine? Have you eaten?’

  An arm flies out from under the blanket. She points to a bag of caramel popcorn on the floor. Then she sits up and wraps the blanket tightly around her. And she starts to cry. She buries her face in a handful of tissues, and my chest feels like it’s being squashed in a woodwork vice.

  ‘Jesus, don’t cry.’ Suddenly I’m sitting on the couch beside her. ‘Camilla, hey …’

  She shakes her head, her face obscured by tissues. ‘I’m sorry! I’m such a sook when I’m sick and … it’s horrible being alone, and I’m so tired of it, and I’m almost out of tissues … and I don’t even like caramel popcorn … and you’re mad with me, and Mike’s mad with you, and Adrian won’t say anything about his face, and I don’t know what’s going on, and –’

  She buries her face in her blanket. My arms, seemingly without any connection to my brain, find their way around her. ‘Camilla, it’s okay. Please don’t cry.’

  I have no idea what to do, so I rub her back a little bit, like Mum used to do when I was five. Camilla’s arms wiggle their way out and loop around my middle in a tangle of pyjamas and blanket. She’s warm and clammy, and I know I should probably be thinking about germs and getting her a hot water bottle and aspirin, but all I can think is that never in my almost-seventeen years have I wanted someone so badly that their sneeziness and feverishness and tears aren’t even a small deterrent. The sneeziness was sort of my last hope.

  I rest my chin on her shoulder. The soft skin of her neck is suddenly inches from my lips. She’s hugging me back tightly; I can feel her hands on my back, my T-shirt bunched in her fingers. And she smells like Camilla. I squeeze my eyes shut. The intestine-shredding thing does another lap through my insides.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ she mumbles. ‘I know I’m being an idiot. I just feel like crap. And I hate not knowing what I’ve done to make you mad.’

  ‘Camilla, I’m not mad,’ I manage to say. ‘Why would you think that?’

  She shakes her head. ‘We haven’t spoken all week. I thought I must have done something –’

  ‘Camilla, I am not, and have never been, mad with you. I swear. I’ve just had stuff going on … in my head.’

  ‘With Allison?’

  ‘Yes – noooo. Sort of. I mean – it’s all been so messy.’

  She untangles herself from me a little bit and wipes her face with a wad of tissues. ‘You know, Sam, Allie is really great. I don’t think it’s weird that you would hook up. I meant it when I said that you’d be good together.’

  I ignore the abject misery-punch that statement delivers to my stomach. She may not be at all concerned who my lips are attached to, but I still need her to know the truth.

  ‘Camilla, it wasn’t like that at all. It was just a temporary, insane lapse or something. I think I had a fever … I may have been delirious. I don’t even know how it happened but it didn’t mean anything. I don’t want to mess up stuff between anyone. I mean, I don’t want it to change anything. Things are great just as they are. Or at least, they were. You know what I mean. I just … don’t want anything to change.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  She’s kind of leaning against me a little, her arms against my rib cage. If I move my hand just the tiniest bit from the place where it is resting on her shoulder, I could touch her tear-stained cheek. My throat closes up. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want anyt
hing to change.’

  Camilla tugs her blanket tightly around her. She nods. And then she takes a giant breath. ‘Sam, you … you guys are the best friends I’ve ever had. I don’t want anything to change that either. I’m so tired of everything changing around me all the time.’

  ‘Camilla, I’m going to fix everything. I promise. At least, I’m going to try.’

  She wipes her face again with rapidly disintegrating tissues. ‘You know, Sam … I’ve never been anywhere that’s felt so … solid. I don’t think I realised how much I wanted that till I moved here. Out of all the places I’ve lived, this is the one that’s felt the most like home. I just wanted you to know that.’

  I have no idea what to say to her. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to speak to her again without my hands and knees feeling lost and weak. I hand her a bunch of tissues instead.

  ‘I’m really glad you moved here too.’ It seems like the only reasonable thing to say.

  She smiles tiredly. ‘And sorry for being such a sook. I become a horrible whimpering five-year-old when I’m sick.’

  I grab her phone from the coffee table. ‘Noted.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You can’t stay here. You’re coming home with me. Mum’ll freak if she knows you’re alone when you’re sick.’

  ‘I … are you sure?’

  I stare at her. She grins through her tears. ‘I should get changed then.’

  ‘Bollocks. Keep your pyjamas on. Mum’s going to make you go straight to bed anyway. Just go grab whatever else you need.’

  I stand up and help her to her feet. She unwraps her blanket and drops it onto the couch, and she takes a step towards me. She leans forward. And then she sniffs at my T-shirt.

  ‘You smell like cigarettes and … fajitas?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve had a weird day.’

  ‘Really? Wanna tell me about it?’

  I laugh. I think it might sound slightly strangled. ‘Camilla – not even a little bit.’

  •

  I change out of my feral depression-clothes. I shower and brush my teeth, put on clean trackpants and an old T-shirt, and then I stare at my face in the bathroom mirror until Mum taps on the door and asks if I’ve drowned.

  I knock on the door of the spare bedroom and stick my head inside.

  Camilla is buried in a pile of pillows, her loose hair spilling over them in a shiny waterfall. Her face glows in the dim light from the bedside lamp. She waves me in.

  ‘Hey. You were right about your mum. I think she might have been a M*A*S*H nurse in a previous life.’ Her voice is still croaky, but her cheeks are less clammy-looking now.

  I close the door behind me. ‘Well, I think Mum pretty much wants to adopt you. Are you feeling better?’

  She smiles. ‘Yeah. Less feverish. Embarrassed for being such a baby. Julie is the best.’

  ‘Cool. Um … I brought this for you.’ I slink over to the bed with my laptop in hand. ‘I rescued it from your DVD player while you were grabbing your stuff. The Karate Kid?’

  She takes the disc from me with a sheepish grin. ‘You know I have a sad fetish for 80s movies when I’m blue. When I was little, The Karate Kid was always my go-to flu movie.’

  ‘I might have seen it. I don’t really remember it, though.’

  ‘Sammy – shameful!’ She pats the bed beside her. ‘I think I’m past the contagious stage, anyway.’

  Considering my current Camilla-situation, sharing the same bed as her is probably as smart as swimming with a live toaster. I should leave her alone to rest.

  So, of course, I haul myself on top of the blankets. I stick on the DVD and balance the laptop between us. The opening credits roll.

  Camilla snuggles into the pillows. ‘This movie is unquestionably brilliant,’ she whispers. ‘You just need to get past the bad soundtrack. And the dodgy 80s hair.’

  I sink beside her and stare at the laptop in silence. I’m not really aware of much that’s happening on screen. For the first time in my life, I feel like losing myself in a movie is impossible. I feel a thousand light years away from the place I started out this morning. I feel warped, and tilted, and so completely tired of the chaos in my head.

  ‘Hey, Camilla?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Do you think you’ll stay here after you finish school?’

  She tugs the blankets up to her chin. ‘Assuming Dad lasts that long? I don’t know. I might go back to London. Or maybe I’ll go someplace new. Argentina sounds nice.’

  Of course. It’s inevitable that, sooner or later, she’ll go away again. She’s spent most of her life in cool places. BLS is just a pit stop. The thought makes me feel unbelievably sad.

  ‘You’ll apply for that music course somewhere, I guess?’

  ‘Well, if I can figure out a way past the whole debilitating stage-fright thing. There are some great courses in London. Maybe I’ll go back to New York. Or Berlin would be cool.’

  ‘Berlin …’ I echo.

  ‘Maybe. I might move there and adopt that dachshund I’ve always wanted. I’ll call him Ben. He’ll wear a bandana around his neck and sleep in my guitar case.’

  ‘You’ve given that way too much thought.’

  She chuckles. ‘Probably.’ She is silent for a long time. ‘The Sydney Conservatorium has a really amazing music composition course,’ she says eventually.

  ‘Sydney?’

  She looks at me through sleepy eyes. ‘I think I might like Sydney,’ she says quietly. ‘I might like Amsterdam as well. I don’t know yet … Why, Sam?’

  I shrug. I don’t trust myself to say anything.

  She closes her eyes. On my laptop, the weedy guy is getting his arse kicked at the beach as he tries to impress the blonde cheerleader chick. This movie really does have the worst soundtrack ever. I keep my eyes resolutely on the screen. I think I can feel her heartbeat.

  ‘Sam?’ she says eventually.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I please read your screenplays?’

  ‘Okay. Tomorrow. But I’m warning you – they really, seriously, suck.’

  ‘Sammy – I really, seriously, doubt that.’

  I don’t look at her. I can’t. But I hear the rhythm of her breathing become steady and slow.

  I watch the rest of the movie while she sleeps. I watch the frankly implausible scene where the geriatric Japanese guy takes on the gang of karate bullies and kicks all their arses. I watch the weedy guy slowly evolve into a karate champion with nothing more than some house painting and a sunset training montage. I watch the final scene where he fights his way through a series of identical-looking bad guys to win the championship and the blonde girl, as the evil Cobra Kai instructor-guy scowls in the background. Guess the evil Cobra Kai instructor-guy has never seen a Hollywood movie; bad guys in black uniforms never, ever win.

  The movie ends. The credits roll. I stare at the screen.

  I am an idiot.

  I am a complete and total arse-faced moron.

  How did I not think of this sooner?

  I click through the DVD scene selection and I watch the ending again. The eyes of the Cobra Kai instructor-guy seem to bore into me from the laptop.

  I switch off the movie. I pull my computer closer and open up a chat window. I type a message:

  ‘Hey. Need to talk. Meet me at the park tomorrow before school?’

  I wait for thirty-four seconds. The message comes back more clipped than I was expecting. Though I don’t know why I expected anything else.

  ‘Okay. Sure. Tomorrow.’

  I close the chat window and shut my laptop, a plan worming its way into my brain. In the midst of all this mess, maybe there is one thing I can get to the bottom of. I think I know what I need to do.

  And I think I know something else as well. I think maybe Camilla Carter was only ever supposed to be part of my life for a passing moment. Maybe that moment is passing now.

  But I’ve been kidding myself that this thing I feel for her is just a crush
. No matter what I’d heard or read or seen in a movie – no-one ever said it was supposed to suck so badly.

  There is a solution, though. I think I’ve known it all along.

  I will let Camilla fade from my life. I will shelve this insanity and store away the memory of her in the hope that one day it’ll be distant enough to be useful for a screenplay. Maybe one about a cyborg or something. Everything is useful. I think someone told me that once.

  I will not lie here and watch her sleep. It is, objectively, not helpful.

  I will not stay here and look at her lips. I will not think torturous things that make my chest deflate like someone is sucking the air out of my lungs.

  I will not stare at her face. Not for too much longer anyway.

  Why kicking people in the shins is sometimes the best solution

  I get to the park early, but Adrian is already waiting. He leaps off the swings when he sees me, and he crosses his arms and scowls. It’s Radley’s attempt at looking hard-arsed. The effect is sort of diminished by the orange Mario Bros T-shirt clinging to the belly protruding over the top of his cargo pants. He looks like a mango with a head of curly hair on top. As always, I’m torn between wanting to scowl back and sort of wanting to hug him, and also wanting to punch him in the face again. I drop my sports bag onto the ground.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. I glance at his eye. It’s less Avatar blue and more C3PO yellow now. Guilt does yet another lap through my insides.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. His eyes are focused on the ground.

  I clear my throat. ‘Adrian, look, man – I wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. I was having an … insane day. But I’m really, really sorry.’

  He glances up at me. ‘You were so angry. I’ve never seen you that pissed before.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. As I said, insane day.’

  ‘You going to tell me why? Cos I still don’t know what I did –’

  ‘Can I not? Can I just say that I’m dealing with it, and that it won’t happen again, and that I give you one free shot at punching me in the face? I can put it in writing if you want. A punch-in-the-face IOU. I’ll duck down and everything.’