Girl Saves Boy

by Steph Bowe

  ‘God, don’t cry,’ I said. I snatched my hand out of his and shifted away.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Jewel,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t talk about it before. I wish I had told you earlier. I wish it wasn’t happening at all.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, my voice coming out all funny. I held my head in my hands.

  ‘Why what, Jewel?’

  ‘Please stop saying my name so much.’

  He reached over and tried to grasp my hand again. I shifted further away.

  He sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Jewel. It’s out of my control.’

  ‘What happens next?’ I asked, talking into my hands.

  He swallowed. ‘I’m going into hospital after my birthday. I’ll be starting chemo.’

  ‘So you’ll live through it?’ I said. I looked over at him now. ‘You’ll fight it and get better.’

  ‘We caught it too late,’ Sacha murmured. ‘It’s already spread. They think I have until the end of the year. Longer if the treatment works. I’m going to do whatever I can…’ He muffled a sob by biting on his hand. He was shaking now. Not looking directly at me. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Stop saying that! It means nothing!’ I snapped. I rubbed my eyes, tried to force the tears away. I wanted to move closer to him again, hold his hand. But I couldn’t. I felt angry, betrayed. I shook.

  ‘Well…I didn’t…you weren’t…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I couldn’t. I’m sorry it’s happening at all.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry,’ I said. I choked the words out; they hurt my throat. ‘You’re going to be dead.’

  ‘Oh Jewel,’ said Sacha, his voice shaky. ‘Stop being such a child.’ He swallowed nervously.

  ‘Maybe I am a child, okay?’ I said, in a low, harsh tone.

  ‘Let’s just forget about this, for now.’ His voice was calmer. ‘It’s my birthday next week. Let’s not think about the future. Let’s be happy. Let’s just have hope.’

  ‘See, that’s the thing,’ I said, pushing my hair out of my face and looking at him. ‘You’re going to die. There’s no future for you to think about. I actually do have a future.’

  ‘Not much of a future,’ said Sacha. ‘What are you going to do? Draw?’

  I glared at him, and his expression instantly changed. ‘Oh, God, Jewel, you know I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’—his voice cracked— ‘I’m just upset.’

  I stood, and started to walk off. Sacha jumped up too. ‘Please just stop for a sec,’ he said. It hurt me to hear the pain in his voice. I stopped and turned.

  He pushed hair out of his face. His T-shirt was wrinkled, his hair a mess. With the knowledge I had now—that he was sick—I looked at him and noticed the things I should have noticed before. How thin and tired he looked.

  ‘What?’ There was hostility in my voice. It was unintended, but it was still there. He cringed at my tone.

  ‘I don’t know how to fix this,’ he said. ‘I want to, but I really don’t know how.’

  ‘I’m not sure it can be fixed, Sacha,’ I managed to say. ‘I…I don’t think…I don’t think I can handle it. I can’t. It’s too much for me. It’s all way, way too much.’

  He tried to step closer, and I stepped back. Then he stopped. And he nodded. And a tear slipped down his face and he turned his head and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I’m leaving. Don’t follow me. Go home, Sacha.’ The words felt strangled as I uttered them.

  I walked the rest of the way across the oval, through the park past more people who were up way too early, then down the street to my house. Sacha had not followed me.

  I went into the bathroom, crying, and dabbed wet cotton wool balls around my eyes and splashed my face with water. In my bedroom, I put on pyjamas. Then I walked into the living room and peeked out the Venetian blinds. Sacha was sitting facing away from me on the curb at the end of the drive.

  I shut the blinds and went back into my room and burrowed into bed, and wondered if you could disappear if you wanted it badly enough.

  SACHA

  It was Monday and I had to go to school.

  Well, I didn’t exactly have to, but the alternatives were much worse.

  When I stumbled home, there was no Dad, for once. I stuck my head under the shower for five seconds then tugged my unwashed uniform on.

  I took a handful of coins from the change jar and weighed down my bag with five cent pieces to count out in the lunch line at school. I wasn’t that interested in pissing off everyone in the canteen, but, without getting money out of my bank account, I had nothing. And our cupboards stocked only strange grains, dried fruit and nuts.

  I locked the front door behind me and caught the bus with seconds to spare.

  I sat three rows from the front with my head against the window, and wished I’d stayed home. But that would only have given me more time to think about things, think about how badly I’d fucked up.

  When I got to school, instead of heading for my first class of the day (Psychology Unit 3 with Mr Preston in Room 4B), I wandered around the basketball courts and into C-block, the Science labs.

  Little Al was exactly where he always was. Where would he go and what would happen to his routine when he finished school? He was in one of the labs, talking to Mrs Ford and scribbling notes that would give me a headache if I had to look at them.

  I rapped my knuckles against the open door and leant against the frame, managing a polite smile.

  ‘All right if I have a word with Al, Mrs Ford?’

  Al turned towards me, and ten different emotions flickered through his eyes before he smiled.

  ‘Certainly, Sacha,’ said Mrs Ford. ‘You’ve got another ten minutes before school starts.’

  Al grabbed his notes and his schoolbag and followed me outside. I walked down the hall and out into the chilly morning. I wished I had remembered some gloves.

  I sat on the steps and Al hopped down and cleared them all, then sat two steps lower so we were closer to eye level.

  ‘You look a mess.’ he said.

  ‘I feel a mess,’ I gritted my teeth and stared towards the sky. I wasn’t going to cry. Not at school. Not in front of Al.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ I said, my eyes on the pavement.

  ‘What?’ There was concern in his voice.

  ‘Should we walk?’ I asked.

  Al nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, sure.’

  We got up and walked out of the school, down the road past the shops, and towards the park. I didn’t speak and Al didn’t speak. He just followed me, slowing his pace so he didn’t stride ahead.

  In the park, there’s this bit, near the lake, that’s shrouded and always quiet.

  We sat on the boulders that jutted out of the grass, and looked across the park. From here, we couldn’t see everything, but I knew where the playground was, where the pedal boat hire was, where the lake was.

  After minutes and minutes of silence, Al finally said, ‘I guess we’re wagging school then.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered. I felt far away, but I forced myself to pay attention.

  Al inhaled sharply. ‘Okay, enough emotional bottling. What is it?’

  Two more minutes of silence.

  ‘Duck?’ Al’s voice was urgent now. Where we sat, a slice of bright morning sunlight slipped through the trees. In this light, he looked a bit like Silas from The Da Vinci Code, not a good look but he wore it well.

  ‘Okay, okay…’ I swallowed, and spoke slowly. ‘You remember how I told you I had leukaemia back when I was younger?’

  Al nodded. ‘Yeah. But you got over that. What’s wrong now?’

  I wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel his eyes on my face.

  ‘I’m not in remission any more, Al.’

  ‘What are you saying? Why are you so upset? What’s going on? ’ Al asked, forehead crinkled.

  ‘The leukaemia is back. I’ve been given a terminal diagnosis. They think I have until the end of the year.’ My voice wavered as I spoke, no
matter how level and composed I tried to keep it. I looked at him now.

  Al stared at me. He blinked, and he blinked again.

  ‘What?’ He looked back at me, disbelieving. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going into hospital next week,’ I said. ‘My body is shutting down.’ ‘Shutting’ down sounded awfully inadequate for the circumstances. Like turning off a computer: simple, easy, one click.

  I paused, and Al breathed unevenly. Oh God. There I was, announcing my own demise again. It didn’t get any easier.

  ‘Some people,’ I began, ‘well, I guess some people aren’t meant to live. I wanted it to end the other night. And then, yeah, well, I’m still here. Like I said, they gave me the rest of the year. Treatment might extend that. I’m not well, Al. I never have been.’

  Al looked as if he was fighting back tears.

  I stood up and tried to touch his shoulder. He jerked away, so I stepped back and sat down where I had been. Tried to stop myself from shaking or crying. I’d already done that earlier.

  ‘Next year you’re going to university, Al. And I would have gone wherever I would have gone. You know we wouldn’t have stayed friends. Our lives are going in different directions. It doesn’t make much difference that mine will end.’

  ‘Bullshit. So this is a friendship of convenience is what you’re basically saying?’ he spat, his eyes red.

  I shook my head. ‘No. I’m just dying, Al. I’m going to fight it, but the odds aren’t good. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up—I’m going to try, okay?’

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  ‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘Let’s just talk about this, all right? Relax.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ he said. ‘This is a sick joke.’ Tears dripped down his face and he snorted a short, unfunny laugh.

  I shook my head. I’d hardly ever seen Al cry.

  We sat there in silence for about half an hour. I scrawled pointless sums in my Maths for Living textbook. When there is nothing to do and no future to plan, time is both achingly slow and speed-of-light fast.

  ‘Have you told True?’ Al finally asked. ‘Have you told Jewel?’

  ‘True, no. Jewel, yes.’

  ‘How did she take it?’ Al asked.

  I looked at the ground then up again. ‘Like you. Only then she stormed off.’

  Al nodded but didn’t look at me. ‘You know me, and you know I’ll be there for you, but you don’t know her that well, so you don’t know what’s going to happen.’

  I nodded, sighed, rubbed my eyes. ‘I’m an idiot.’

  Al took off his school tie and stuffed it into his bag. ‘I don’t know how to help you, Duck. I don’t know how to help myself. I don’t think me talking to Jewel would be the wisest move, either. I wish I could. I wish you weren’t dying. In a parallel universe, maybe I’d have red hair and you wouldn’t be sick and True would like me.’ He grinned for a second, but it was forced. ‘Maybe things would be okay and we’d plan Schoolies—go away to Surfers Paradise for a week or two and party and get plastered and sleep on the beach.’

  ‘We wouldn’t go to Schoolies, not even in an altered reality. That’s just not our style.’

  Al nodded. ‘You’re right. We’re party poopers.’

  I rubbed my eyes again. ‘In this alternate reality, my mum would still be around.’ I said it like a wish, and I regretted it immediately.

  ‘I don’t want to sound corny or clichéd or anything,’ Al said, his voice slow, pausing between words as if he had to pronounce exactly the right ones, ‘but maybe she’s waiting for you. You must have wondered at some point, about that.’

  I nodded. ‘I wish I knew what was on the other side,’ I said.

  ‘“The other side.” You sound like that guy who can speak to the dead. You know, he walks around a room full of people, says, “I can feel a Bob over here.” And then one of fifty people leaps up and says, “I have a third cousin called Bob who died!” It’s obviously a load of crap. No basis in science.’ Al shook his head. Then he exhaled sharply. ‘Sorry, I’m being stupid. It’s all a bit much.’

  I nodded. ‘You reckon there’s a heaven?’

  He shrugged. ‘There could be. It isn’t the most logical thing in the world, but, as George Michael said, you gotta have faith. Maybe it’s not too late to take the Jehovah’s Witnesses up on their offer of everlasting salvation.’

  I smiled. ‘I think there’s a limit. One hundred and something thousand maximum membership, but they’re still convinced that if they rally hard enough there’ll be spots left. Maybe people get kicked out. Maybe God auditions everyone for heaven. I don’t know if I’d make the cut.’

  ‘You’re a good person.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if I am. And even if I am, whether that’s enough.’

  ‘You should start learning tap. God might like it if you danced for him. Or made some cocktails…’

  ‘Somehow I don’t see that working.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Al shrugged. ‘Maybe you’ll get reincarnated as an antelope or something.’

  ‘You believe in that?’

  ‘I’m believing in anything and everything right now, Sacha,’ Al said. ‘The walls are falling down around me. It’ll be all right for you, when you’re gone. Maybe the time in between won’t be the greatest, but it doesn’t just end for us. For your dad, for True, for me. Even Jewel.’

  ‘She hates me.’

  Al laughed. ‘Sounds like somebody I know.’ The joke fell flat, and we were swallowed by silence again.

  ‘The time between now and then is going to be horrible, you know,’ I said. ‘Everyone will be feeling sorry for you and True and Dad. I just get the sense that when people have a terminal disease everyone starts grieving even before they’re gone.’

  ‘I reckon it’d be cool to go to your own funeral,’ said Al. ‘Watch everyone crying for you. See who really cares.’

  ‘Who’s the emo now?’ I said it in a joking tone, but neither of us laughed or even cracked a smile.

  ‘This is shit, Duck,’ said Al. He rubbed his forehead with his hands. When he looked at me again, he wasn’t crying, but his eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

  ‘You think I don’t already know that?’ I replied. ‘It would’ve been better if she hadn’t found me that night. A few more minutes, and it would have been done with.’

  ‘What? Your life?’ Al snorted again. ‘Do you think your dad, or anyone, could have lived with themselves? There’s nothing admirable in suicide.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’ The second time I said it, my voice faltered.

  The best things about autumn

  The promise of first term ending and two weeks of nothing

  but school-free bliss

  That single day when all the trees are filled with gold and

  orange and yellow leaves yet to fall

  Running through piles of leaves that have been laboriously

  raked, and tossing them everywhere in a matter of moments

  On Monday evening, there was a knock at the door and I heard Dad answer. I guessed it was Mr Carr, dropping by to visit Dad, so I was surprised when True appeared in the doorway of my room.

  I was sitting in bed. The TV was on with the sound blaring but I wasn’t watching it. True walked in and turned off the TV in the middle of a noisy ad for a car dealership.

  She sat on the end of my bed and looked down at her hands in her lap.

  ‘I spoke to your dad,’ she said.

  ‘I told him not to tell you,’ I said. My throat felt dry. ‘I was going to. I was working up to it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, shaking her head.

  She tipped her chin upwards and blinked repeatedly, as if she was trying to stop herself from crying.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sacha,’ she said. ‘Bad things shouldn’t happen to good people.’

  ‘Shit, don’t cry.’ I laughed weakly.

  ‘I should have known.’ She
looked over at me, her mouth a grim line.

  ‘You can hypnotise people,’ I joked. ‘But being psychic is a totally separate thing.’

  She smiled, her eyes shiny with tears. ‘You know I’m going to be there for you, right? Right till the end.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ I bit down hard on my lip to hold back the tears.

  True reached over and grasped my hand. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan and forced a smile.

  ‘I need some space,’ I said. ‘Sorry, that’s such a lame expression, I know. It’s not that I’m not glad you’re here, but it’s all a bit overwhelming right now. I’m sorry.’

  True nodded and let go of my hand. ‘Stop saying sorry; it isn’t your fault. I understand. Take care of yourself, Sacha.’

  Then she left.

  This is what I thought about late on Monday night, when my dad didn’t question my disappearance on Sunday evening, when I hadn’t seen Jewel all day, when Al and I had sat by the lake and he’d made me promise just to wait, in case Death decided to pass me by. (He didn’t understand that the waiting was probably worse than the dying, and I’d rather get it over and done with, but I promised just the same.)

  I thought of lying next to Jewel and kissing her, and the million other things I’d ruined, that I couldn’t have again.

  I thought of Little Al, child prodigy, and his frailty that I’d never seen before.

  I thought of True Grisham kissing a boy, and the look on Al’s face.

  The unexpected things.

  I thought of death—my mother’s, Jewel’s brother’s, True’s father’s, my own—and I wondered, again, about the possibility of an afterlife, about what insect I’d be reincarnated as, why everyone always thinks they were Cleopatra or Julius Caesar or Hitler or Napoleon in a past life, not accepting that they’re ordinary now, and they were almost definitely ordinary then and will be in an afterlife.

  I thought of my dad and I thought of Mr Carr, and I thought of the futility of continuing to go to school, and I let myself wonder for a split-second about the possibility of survival.