Girl Saves Boy

by Steph Bowe

  I thought about Jewel again. I thought about what I wanted to do before I died and I drew a blank. I stared at the same spot on the ceiling for seven hours, and, sometime around five in the morning, I fell asleep.

  Jewel

  I spent all of Monday curled up in my room, drawing harsh sketches of my lamp, my jewellery box, my own reflection, in unforgiving charcoal. By the end of the day, my fingers were black and I had smudges all over my face from rubbing at my eyes. I fell asleep with my sketchbook still in my hands, a blunt line of black across a fresh page that, when I woke up, stared at me with more indignation than a line should.

  On Tuesday morning Rachel met me in the kitchen with an empty bottle of wine in her hand and pushed a plate of burnt toast across the bench towards me. Neither of us spoke, and I only raised my eyes to meet hers once or twice. I couldn’t eat, so I stood up and grabbed my schoolbag.

  ‘I’ll be late,’ I muttered.

  Not that either of us ever cared about that.

  I started off with good intentions: I caught the bus and stared out the window and pretended I didn’t hear when people tried to speak to me. I walked towards my homeroom, but two minutes before class began, I walked out of the hall and hid in the last stall in the girls’ toilets and tried to push everything out of my mind. I rolled down my socks and plaited my hair and read every engraving on the walls of the stall—phone numbers and pledges of undying love and profanity. According to past girls’ visits to this stall, Mrs Ford was a dyke, Lucy was a slut and Skye, who’d been long gone (‘1998’ was scrawled beside that message), was allegedly something even I wouldn’t say out loud.

  I spent two hours sitting in that stall (I even scrawled my own ironic message in the back of the door: ‘Magic Happens’). After the cleaners came in at lunch and I nearly choked to death on the stench of bleach, I escaped outside. I took in as much oxygen as I could, nonchalantly slipping through the crowd, and made my way towards the portables where True worked on the school newspaper at lunchtime.

  The Venetian blinds were closed and the door was locked. The portable where the Audio-Visual team met was open, and a small and draughty office connected it to the newspaper portable. The AV nerds blushed with surprise when I knocked on the door.

  ‘I need to see True Grisham,’ I explained. ‘To do with the newspaper.’

  A freckled boy smiled. ‘Sure. She’s right through there.’

  I smiled back and opened the door to the adjoining office.

  In the other classroom, True and Al were talking. But instead of stepping inside, I stood in the office, frozen, and listened. I felt like Nancy Drew or some kind of Peeping Tom. Al being there had caught me off guard.

  True was sitting on a desk, clicking through something on her laptop, her hair cast over one shoulder and her back to me. Little Al sat on a wheelie chair, watching her. Neither of them had noticed me hovering just inside the doorway to the connecting room. If Al looked a little to the left, he’d see me.

  ‘You know, on Saturday, at the fair,’ murmured Little Al. ‘Who was that guy you were with?’

  ‘What guy?’ asked True. I could hear her fingers clicking across the keyboard.

  ‘I saw you kissing him,’ Little Al said. ‘I just want to know who he his.’

  The typing stopped abruptly. ‘He’s just someone I know. I have friends other than Sacha, Michael.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to go out with anyone,’ said Little Al. ‘I thought you were focusing on your career and everything, and that relationships would come later.’

  ‘It’s my life,’ snapped True. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t we be a bit more concerned about Sacha?’

  My breathing was noisy. I didn’t know whether to shuffle back into the other classroom, or step in and talk to them. I stood paralysed with indecision.

  ‘Our concern isn’t going to do anything, True,’ said Little Al. ‘He’s dying. What can we do about it?’

  ‘You’re the fucking science genius; go and cure cancer,’ spat True, pushing her hair back from her face.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ murmured Little Al, taking a deep breath.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve never heard you swear before.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how to deal with this.’

  ‘You were with him when he was sick the first time…’

  ‘I was a kid. We were both kids. When you’re ten years old, you don’t really understand the magnitude of it. And besides, childhood leukaemia has high survival rates.’

  ‘If it’s got such high survival rates, then why is he going to die?’

  ‘Some have to die. Otherwise they’d be perfect survival rates.’ True turned away from her computer screen and looked at Al.

  ‘I’m going to miss him,’ said Al. He reached over and grasped True’s hand, staring at it instead of her.

  ‘We’re all going to,’ True murmured in response, and removed her hand from his. ‘But think: he could’ve been gone last Saturday. We got to keep him a little longer.’

  Little Al gave a stifled laugh and looked up at the ceiling, possibly trying to hold back tears. ‘Thanks to Jewel.’

  ‘He really stuffed that one up, didn’t he?’ said True.

  ‘He’ll win her back,’ said Little Al.

  ‘Are you sure you’re talking about Sacha?’ asked True. ‘He’s a bit too passive to win a girl back. The most he’s ever won was the Grade 3 colouring-in championships. He got to regionals.’

  Little Al laughed again.

  Neither of them spoke for a while, and I tried to stop breathing, at least for another ten minutes. I agonised over what to do. Keep eavesdropping? Leave? What if they noticed me?

  ‘So, who was that guy?’

  ‘Michael, don’t,’ sighed True.

  ‘Please, tell me.’

  ‘I’m not going out with him.’

  ‘So it’s just a friends-with-benefits type thing?’

  ‘Michael!’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  True took a deep breath. ‘He wants to become a journalist, too. I met him at a university open day.’

  ‘But you aren’t, um, pursuing a relationship with him?’

  ‘He’s so pretentious.’ She sighed again. ‘Private-school boy.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Why is it so important to you?’

  ‘You know I’ve loved you since I was twelve,’ said Al.

  ‘You’re a boy. You love every member of the female species who has a pulse.’

  ‘No, I don’t. You were meant to say: “Why?” And I’d reply: “Because you’re beautiful and smart and funny and fierce and serious all at once.” Because that’s what the suave, Don Juan part of me would say.’

  ‘If that was meant to knock me off my feet, it didn’t.’

  Al laughed. ‘What’s so bad about me, True? What’s so utterly repulsive? Do you think, maybe, ever, we could just try to get along? Maybe we could go and see B-grade zombie movies and kiss in the back row?’

  True laughed. ‘You’re pushing it.’

  Then Al put his hand against True’s cheek and kissed her. (And I have to tell you I was now feeling extremely voyeuristic.)

  The most surprising thing of all was that True kissed back. Both her hands gripped Al’s shoulders, and for an indeterminable amount of time they kissed. It felt like a century to me, the creepy girl in the shadows, holding her breath.

  Then Al’s other hand crept along her knee. She pushed it back and they broke apart and True murmured in a very breathy voice, so softly I could barely make it out, ‘Let’s not make a bigger deal out of this than it is.’

  They didn’t kiss again, but they were still close to each other. True fiddled with Al’s school tie, and there was suddenly a sort of intimacy between them that might have only been a light in Al’s eyes, but might have been True as well.

  ‘I don’t want to lead you on,’ she said. ‘This is not the best time for either of us to get involved in a relationship—with school and
Sacha and planning for our futures and everything.’

  ‘You’ll get in to whatever uni you pick,’ said Al. ‘You don’t need to worry about school all the time.’

  ‘It’s just been a stressful week,’ said True. ‘Maybe we can put this on hold until the end of the year.’

  ‘Like a lay-by? Or a phone call you’re going to pick up later on?’ Al smiled and leant forward, trying to kiss True’s cheek. She tilted her head away and let go of his tie.

  And then a stack of Shakespeare’s plays piled precariously next to the door decided it was time to collapse and slide across the floor, my attempts to keep it upright only causing it to make more noise. A particularly heavy tome (it may have been Shakespeare’s Complete Works) fell onto my foot, and I swore out loud.

  True and Al turned towards me. The synchronicity was almost comical. And their eyes gave away their emotions: confusion, fear, shock.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ choked True, as soon as she recognised me. She pushed Al away, snapped her laptop shut and shoved it under her arm, then grabbed her bag and swept through the door leading out of the portable.

  The door slammed behind her.

  Little Al stood across the room from me, a tight smile across his face, cheeks flushed, and his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  ‘How long were you standing there?’ he asked.

  ‘I was standing there since…since you asked who “that guy” was,’ I muttered. ‘I’m sorry. I came down to speak to True. I’m sorry.’

  Al tipped his head back and took a deep breath. ‘It’s okay. You could make it up to me by making up with Sacha. I’d rather he didn’t go to the grave thinking you hate him. Do you hate him?’

  ‘No. But I feel betrayed.’

  ‘Yeah. And you probably should.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t fix his problems for him, as much as I wish I could. I’ve got enough of my own. Anyway, did you enjoy watching me royally fuck up?’

  I bit my lip. ‘You didn’t. If I hadn’t been here it would’ve worked out fine.’

  ‘No.’ Al sank back into his wheelie chair again. ‘She doesn’t like me. She never has and I don’t think she ever will.’

  ‘She kissed you back. Why don’t you go after her?’

  ‘She wouldn’t like that. Me standing outside the girls’ bathroom and calling to her would only draw attention to the both of us.’

  ‘I can go and talk to her.’

  ‘You should. And don’t forget about Sacha.’

  ‘How could I?’ I said. ‘Where is he today?’

  ‘Doctor’s.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Tears stung my eyes.

  ‘Come give me a hug,’ Al said, holding out his arms.

  ‘What?’ I made a weak attempt at laughter. ‘Why?’

  I moved towards him and we stood in the middle of the dark portable and hugged, and we cried.

  ‘We’re right screw-ups, we are,’ whispered Al.

  I stepped away.

  ‘Go and talk to True,’ he said. ‘I’ll try some voodoo magic, see if that’ll convince her to love me.’

  ‘I will. Hope the voodoo works out for you.’

  I turned to leave through the Audio-Visual room.

  ‘Wait,’ said Al.

  I turned back.

  ‘It’s in your best interests to make up with Sacha, you know.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He might put in a good word for you upstairs. Get you a nice spot in heaven, when it’s your time.’ He winked at me.

  I laughed, in spite of how wrong it all was. Sometimes, laughing is the only thing you can do. ‘I don’t know why True hasn’t fallen for you already.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Al. ‘I’m a modern-day Errol Flynn.’

  True was sitting in the same stall I had been in earlier (the stall door was open, and she was facing me, as if she had expected me to come after her), with a handkerchief in her hand.

  Though she was tall and dainty, and held herself with much more confidence than my mum ever did, that morning I couldn’t help but see my mother when I looked at True. A certain sort of frailty was in both of them—my mother’s cloaked by sadness, True’s hidden by a fierce smile.

  ‘You missed your meeting with my mum the other night,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I’ll drop by this afternoon and have a chat with her.’

  True smiled. ‘Isn’t it bizarre?’

  ‘What’s bizarre?’

  ‘Everything. Coincidence. Six degrees of separation. Death. I don’t know. It’s a weird day. It’s a weird year.’

  ‘I wrote that,’ I said, and pointed to ‘Magic Happens’.

  ‘Does magic really happen?’ asked True.

  ‘Only if you want it to,’ I said.

  True wiped her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief—she was probably the only person I knew who carried one.

  At the sound of the bell signalling the end of lunch, she swallowed and stood up.

  She paused in front of the mirror, dug out her make-up bag and powdered her nose. ‘I feel like an idiot.’

  ‘You aren’t. So what is so terrible about Little Al? Is it foot odour, because I detected a whiff of something and I’m not sure whether it was him or the AV guys…?’

  She laughed.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Let me put some make-up on you.’

  ‘Maybe magic really does happen,’ I said, smiling.

  SACHA

  So this is what happened the day before my eighteenth birthday:

  It was a Friday, but school was cancelled because the teachers had gone on strike. (Mr Carr had told Dad that he’d probably be coming over to see us. Which I was utterly delighted about.)

  I was not only bored, but numb. I’d stayed in bed for the previous two days, lethargic and depressed, dividing my time between watching crappy midday TV and staring at the ceiling, telling myself what an idiot I was. Dad didn’t say anything, just painted in his studio and offered me something to eat every now and then. I’d be in hospital by Monday, anyway.

  I was in bed at ten in the morning on a Friday, with a headache and a whole bunch of guilt in my lower abdomen. I felt like shit. There had to be some way to redeem myself and make myself feel better.

  I stared at my shelf laden with garden gnomes. They gazed down at me, or over my head at the beige wall behind me, with disinterest. I decided, Hey, here’s my good deed. I’m going to give back these garden gnomes I stole over the past year.

  Who knows what had made me obsessed with garden gnomes, stealing them from people’s front yards and placing them on the shelf of my room to gather dust? It’d started after the death of my mother, and True’s mum would say in psychiatrist-speak that it was a coping mechanism. I’d done Psychology in Year 10, and I knew as much.

  But damn, it was a pretty freaking weird coping mechanism.

  Little Al thought it had something to do with the fact that I was short myself. When he said stuff like that, I usually threw the nearest heavy object at him. Which was, more often than not, a garden gnome.

  So that morning, at around ten, when I should’ve been in Maths for Living (something I clearly wouldn’t be needing), I was struck down with a bout of garden gnome remorse. Out of the blue, I felt incredibly bad for taking those gnomes and not letting their owners ever find out what happened to them.

  I got up and pulled on a hoodie over my pyjamas. After choking down my medication with a glass of water, I grabbed a black garbage bag from the kitchen and chucked all the garden gnomes in.

  Chucked is obviously the wrong word, because what I really did was place each one gently inside the bag, with old T-shirts in between to stop them from clacking against each other. I was frantic they’d break or chip, more than they already had; some of them had been pretty weathered in people’s front yards before I’d nicked them

  I walked out of my room and put the bag of gnomes by the front door.

  Dad heard me moving around and yelled from his studio, like the wonderful parent that he is:
‘Hey, you know it’s a school day, right?’

  I walked into the studio.

  ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘I accept the fact that you’re gay, and I also accept your relationship with Jason, and I don’t blame you any more for Mum’s death.’

  ‘Did you read a self-help book overnight or something?’ Dad asked, placing his paintbrush on the ledge of the easel and turning to face me. ‘Is this Step Number Five: Forgiveness?’

  ‘No, Dad,’ I said. ‘I’m dying.’

  Dad sighed. ‘A bit of hope wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘You know what the doctor said. My body is shutting down. I’ve resigned myself to it.’

  ‘I thought you had a bit more fight in you, Sacha,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t you realise you’re all I’ve got left? What do you think your mum would want?’

  ‘You’ve got Jason, Dad,’ I said, ‘and sometimes some people are meant to die. It’s going to happen regardless of what Mum wants.’

  ‘Oh, Sacha,’ he said, heading towards the couch near the window. ‘Please don’t be like this. Come and sit down and we’ll talk. We’ll sort this out.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be sorted,’ I said.

  Dad turned to me and sighed again.

  ‘I’m going out for a little bit,’ I said. ‘Be back soon.’ I walked out of the studio.

  ‘I’m having Jason over,’ Dad called after me. ‘I know you accept it and all, but please be nice to him when you come back.’ I had the front door half open when he appeared in the hall.

  ‘I love you, Sacha,’ he said.

  ‘I love you too, Dad.’

  ‘Sacha, what’s in the bag?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  Dad smiled, then came over and took the garbage bag out of my hand. He opened it and looked inside.

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘The drugs are inside the garden gnomes,’ I explained.

  He handed the bag back to me and leant against the doorframe. ‘Do you want to talk? I don’t want you to feel as if I’m not here for you, Sacha. Just… I’m having trouble too.’

  I held on to my bag of ostensibly drug-filled garden gnomes and was quiet for a bit. ‘It’s okay, Dad. I’ll, um, we’ll talk soon. I’ve got stuff to do.’ I lifted the bag to show him. The gnomes clunked inside.