by A. M. Hudson
“Come on, Mike?”
“Sorry. I shouldn’ta said that. Okay, well, I’m still working on my entrance into the Tactical Response Group. I’ve got one more interview to go and I’m pretty much in.”
“You’re kidding me? Mike, that’s so awesome. I can’t believe you’ve finally done it.”
“Well, don’t jinx it? I haven’t made it yet.”
“Yeah right. You’re like, super fit and super smart. You were in when you were born and you know it.”
“Yeah. I know. Hey, listen, I was thinking…once I make it in I’ve got a few weeks before training begins. Can I come over and see you?” he asked delicately.
“Are you kidding?” I stood up, practically squealing. “Of course you can. I would love that. There’s so much I wanna show you, and I really want to talk to you about this guy, and—” I paused. Oops. I hadn’t planned to talk to him about that, yet.
“What guy?” Mike’s voice trailed up. I pictured his face, the way the corners of his lips would turn up under his rough, sandy-brown stubble.
“Well, I really need your advice, actually?” I slumped back down in my chair.
“Sure, I’m good for it. What’s the deal, kid?”
“Well, his name’s David.”
“The one who showed you around today?”
Does he not miss anything? I barely even mentioned David. “Yeah, except I left everything out. He didn’t just show me around, Mike, he like, I don’t know, he stayed with me all day, and he didn’t really make a secret of the fact that he likes me.” My brow rose. “He’s, um, well, he’s. I really like him.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
“After one day?” I looked out at the corner of the school’s front car park, just visible from my window. Thinking about everything that went on today, a long sigh escaped my lips. “Is that normal?”
“How long did it take you to fall completely in love with Leopold?” he asked, referring to my favourite movie.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because Leopold’s not real. David is, and I’m not some character in a love story.”
“Ara?” Mike paused. “You’ve always been like this.”
“What?” I asked, defensive.
“Whenever—” he cleared his throat, “—whenever a guy likes you, shows the tiniest bit of interest in you, you run the other way. They’re not all bad, they’re not all going to break your heart or suddenly wake up one morning and realise that you’re not that special.”
Hu! I gasped silently. Mike hit the nail right on the head. That’s exactly how I feel—I just didn’t realise it. How can he be so damn switched on? “You know me better than I thought,” I whispered with my eyes closed.
“I know I do, Ara. I’m your best bud. Now stop worrying about this David guy being a creep and just let him like you—if that’s what he wants to do. I mean, you like him too, right?” He sounds so mature, so unlike my Mike—my fun-loving and carefree Mike.
“Yeah? I like him, but—”
“But what? Are you telling me you don’t want to be close to him, to hold his hand or kiss him?” he spoke in a mock girl’s voice on the last bit.
“Well, yeah? I do, kind of.” I shrugged, scraping at the wood grain on my desk again.
“So, what if you actually did that? Would it be creepy to follow through on the things you truly want to do, Ara? If you feel this way, then there’s a damn good chance this David guy does, too. And, do you think he’s creepy?”
“Mike, you make too much sense.” I sighed.
“I know,” he said with a laugh, “but you do the same to me when I’m having a girl crisis—so we’re even.”
“Yeah, how are things on that front, anyway?”
He groaned loudly. “Don’t even ask. I am never dating again, Ara. They’re all the same.”
“Hypocrite.”
“Yeah, I know.” The smile on his lips came through with his voice.
After a moment of light laughter the happiness fizzled out quickly. I sighed and leaned on my hand, looking at my stack of homework. “I should go, Mike.”
“Okay, kid. Well, keep ya chin up. I’ll come see you in a few weeks, okay?”
“Yeah, that’ll be great.”
“Okay. Talk to you later.”
“Bye.” I hung up the phone and pouted. The room feels empty now, almost like I just caught the first vortex back to reality—a reality where I’m alone. Always alone.
Dad waited for me at the bottom of the stairs as I glided down in response to the dinner summons. “Ara, there you are. I’ve been calling you. What took you so long?”
“Sorry, Dad. I was reading the compulsory books for English class—I had my earphones in.”
“Any good ones?” Dad smiled, dropping his concern.
“Eh.” I nodded and rolled my shoulder forward.
As I sat down at my usual spot beside Dad, I smiled at Sam and hugged my cardigan over my shoulders. I had to put it back on as the sun started to drop behind the house, casting cold shadows across my bedroom floor.
Sam pushed his vegetables around his plate with his fork and for the first time ever, didn’t smile back at me. Poor Sam. I wonder how he feels about suddenly having a permanent sister after fourteen years of being an only child. If it’s bothered him, he hasn’t acted out or anything. I’m grateful for that—but something seems to be bothering him tonight.
Dad reached over the table, grabbed Sam’s cap by the front and hurled it on to the ground without saying a word. Sam quickly ruffled his sandy coloured hair back into place and shrugged, holding out his hands, but abandoned protest quickly and went back to pushing his food around on his plate. Weird.
“So, Ara met a boy today.” Vicki looked at Dad as she stood beside me and served a pile of peas onto my plate.
Dad winked at me, and I smiled. “He knows,” I said, “he already interrogated him.”
“I did not interrogate him. Whatever gave you that impression?” Dad asked.
“I saw you talking to him—in class.”
“Oh, um.” Dad scratched his brow. “Yes, that. Well, I might’ve threatened to kill him. A little.” Dad grabbed the salt and sprinkled it all over his dinner.
Vicki glowered at him. “You didn’t? Greg, how’s the poor girl supposed to make a life for herself here if you scare off all the kids that look at her sideways?”
“That was more than a sideways glance, Vicki.” Dad chuckled. “I used to be a boy myself, remember.”
Vicki shook her head and sat back down, snatching the salt from Dad’s hand and gently slamming it on the table. Dad reached for it again, and without so much as looking at him, Vicki moved the salt away. Dad pouted like a little kid that just lost his lollypop.
“It’s okay, Vi—er—Mum,” I said. “His grilling didn’t work, anyway. David still walked everywhere with me.” I grinned at Dad, who pressed his lips together and nodded.
“David? As in…David Knight?” Sam sat up in his chair and grinned.
“Yeah. So?” I shrugged.
“Well, he’s a nice kid.” Dad nodded, focusing on his plate. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard sultanas about David.”
“Sultanas?” My forehead twitched as one brow involuntarily rose. “Dad, is that some kind of weird teacher lingo?”
Sam stifled a giggle.
“Actually—” Dad grinned, “It is. Sultanas are bad gossip on the grapevine, and grapes are good gossip.”
“So, where do sour grapes come in to it?” I said.
Four long lines formed across the top of Dad’s brow. “You know what? We don’t have one for sour grapes. I’m going to bring that one up in the lunchroom tomorrow.” He nodded, spooning casserole into his mouth.
“So, no sultanas about David, then? That’s good?” Vicki said, “Must be rare?”
“Oh, yeah, it is. We teachers scamper about the halls, unnoticed—the underdogs in the society of mutually disagreeable ty
rants. We get some good gossip and believe me—” Dad turned his head to the side and glared at Sam, “I hear it all.”
Sam shuffled in his seat and Dad looked away, chuckling to himself. Vicki and I exchanged glances. “Okay. What have you done, Samuel?” Vicki asked—sounding kind of bored. She folded her napkin and placed it on the table, while her gaze flicked between Sam and Dad.
Dad shook his head, laughing still.
“Nothing.” Sam looked her right in the eye; she focused intently on him for a moment, then looked down at her plate. Sam sighed with obvious relief.
“You might as well tell me, Sam.” She looked up at him again and an eerie calm swept over her. “I will find out—one way or the other.”
Sam’s relief froze into fear. “Why do I have to be the only kid in school with a human lie-detector for a mother?”
“Spill it. Now.” Vicki poked the table with her finger.
“I got a lunch-time detention today.” Sam looked down.
“Why?” Vicki asked.
Sam stayed quiet. Dad looked at him with one eye narrowed slightly, then picked up the salt again.
“Sam!” Vicki took the salt off Dad, her eyes never leaving Sam’s face. “Whatever it is, I will find out. So you might as well tell me now.”
Dad laughed into his plate as Sam stewed in his own nerves. “I got caught sneaking into the girls’ locker room,” Sam muttered into his chest.
Dad, unable to hold back any longer, burst into a loud, burly laugh and had to cover his mouth to stop the food from falling out. I looked at Vicki, unsure if I should laugh or not, but a smile crept across my lips. Vicki stared coldly at Sam, who didn’t look up at her. “Greg, I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me?” Dad’s infectious laughter spread over the whole table. I laughed, then Vicki started, too. “What on Earth were you going in there for?” she asked Sam.
“It wasn’t like you think.” Sam’s cheeks went bright red.
“Oh, sure. No. A fourteen-year-old boy goes into the girls’ locker room to buy a sandwich,” Dad joked.
Sam’s teeth clenched. I feel a little sorry for him. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. Vicki should be able to see that. I’m sure she thinks she’s just making light of the situation, but I feel a sudden urge to protect—something I’ve never felt for Sam before. “So, Dad?” I said. “You know my friend from Australia—Mike? He said he might come over in a few weeks. Can he stay here?”
“Here? You want a boy to stay here?” Vicki jumped in, her eyes wide.
“He’s not a boy,” I corrected, “he’s a man.”
“A man? Oh, well, that makes it okay, then,” Vicki joked. “How old is Mike now, anyway?”
“He’s twenty,” I said, unthreatened. Sam mouthed the words thank you to me and went back to pushing his food around on his plate.
“Twenty? Ara, you’re not even eighteen yet. It’s against the law.” Vicki frowned.
“Vicki?” I raised my voice, disgusted that she said that, especially in front of Sam. “Mike and I have never been like that with each other. God, we used to take baths together when we were babies.” I shook my head and looked at Dad, silently pleading with him to intervene.
Dad sighed. “Vicki, Ara and Mike have a long history. You know that. I don’t see a problem if he wants to come and stay.”
“Thank you,” I said to Dad, then looked at Vicki.
She closed her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry, Ara-Rose. I’m just not used to having a daughter. I—” she looked at Dad and breathed out, “—I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Mum,” I said with a mouthful of carrot, “but you don’t have to worry about Mike. There’s like, this invisible barrier around him that repulses me from loving him that way.”
She nodded. “Well, all right. But when does he want to come?”
“As soon as he gets his acceptance into Tactical—in a few weeks,” I beamed.
“What, the SWAT unit?” Dad asked, holding his fork near his mouth.
Sam sat up, his eyes filled with excitement. “Cool. Guns.”
“Yeah—that’s not what they call it over there, though. But he’s got one interview left, then he gets a few weeks off before the training course begins.”
“Well, that’s great, Ara.” Dad smiled. “It’s what he always wanted, isn’t it?”
I nodded, swallowing my food. You should know. You talk to him more than I do, now. “Yep, he’s doing well for himself.”
“Shame you don’t like him then,” Vicki added.
“Nah, he lives in Australia, anyway.” I shrugged. “Could be a bit tricky.”
“At least you couldn’t get pregnant,” Dad said with a completely straight face.
My eyes widened and I stopped chewing. Sam coughed and spat a carrot out onto his plate, but Dad just sat there, eating and sipping his wine as if nothing had been said. I lowered my gaze and concentrated on my fork—trying to hold in a laugh. That’s enough talk for tonight.
Chapter Five
Sinking peacefully into the soft quilt on my bed, I drifted, floating in that blissful moment between sleep and awake, where you can see your dream and feel the reality of life, then magically allow them to merge.
As my breathing slowly became deeper, everything in the now disappeared. Here, in this place—my halfway world—I can be with David in any form imaginable. Tonight, I’m his girlfriend.
I drew a deep breath and settled into the fantasy.
The golden warmth of the summer sun kissed my skin and lit everything around me with a yellow glow.
“Hey there, beautiful.” David landed beside me on the grass.
“Hey.” I smiled and, with each petal I pulled from the daisy, whispered, “He loves me, he loves me not.”
David wrapped his hand over my fingers, crushing the flower slightly. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t say he loves me not.” When he smiled at me, the sun seemed to become brighter—warming my toes and my legs until the heat spread right through my entire body and burned my cheeks.
God, he intoxicates me. I don’t understand it—he’s just a boy. But I know what I feel—and I feel him. I want him.
A shrill screeching ripped me from my daydream like a slap with a cold fish. I sat bolt upright in my bed—my hair a tangled mess, ruffled around with the sleeplessness of lustful thoughts.
The phone continued to ring across my room. Nope. No way. Shaking my head, I flopped back down as it rang out. I want to stay in this world, where it’s just David and I—together.
The sunlight of my fantasy wrapped its warm beams around me again as I stood beside the tree in the field. “David?” I called.
He’s gone. Where did he go? You can’t just disappear from a fantasy.
“Ara-Rose?”
I turned slightly and looked behind me. “Mum?” With narrowed eyes, squinting against the glare, I walked toward her. “Mum, is that really you?”
“What happened to you, Ara-Rose?” She stared at me, her brown eyes liquid with confusion.
“What do you mean? I—I’m fine.”
She touched her hand to her cheek and suddenly, the searing burn of my scars trickled across my jaw-line. I lowered my face and covered the silvery dots with my hands. “I—I did it to myself. I didn’t know it would go so wrong, Mum.” I stepped toward her as she backed away. “I’m sorry. I know you’re disappointed in me, but I—”
“No.” She shook her head. “You’re not my daughter. My daughter was beautiful. You—” She looked away, “You’re something else.”
“No. Mum.” I launched toward her again, reaching. “Mum, it’s me—it’s Amara. Please? Ah!” I closed my eyes and covered my ears when a pin-like shriek split the silence of the day. What is that noise? It’s awful! “Mum!” I cried, forcing my eyes to open. She’s gone. Where did she go? “Mum?”
“Ara!” A deep voice snapped my mind back li
ke an elastic band on a wrist; my eyes flung open.
“Dad?”
“Ara, your phone’s been ringing every few minutes for the last twenty. Will you please answer it?”
I rolled over and wiped the groggy haze from my eyes while the pin-like screech turned into the annoying ring-tone of… “The phone?”
“Yes,” Dad said and closed my door, leaving me in darkness.
“Hello?” I spoke breathlessly into the receiver.
“Hey baby, did I wake you?”
“Mike?”
“Yeah, how you doin’?” he asked, then took a quick breath. “Oh, yeah, the time thing. Sorry, Ara. I’ll go.”
“No, wait.”
“Yeah?” he said softly.
I sat down on my desk chair. “I…I was dreaming about her, Mike.”
He went silent. “Your mum?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I keep thinking she’s gonna come pick me up and I’ll go back home again, and—” my voice broke.
“Aw, Ara, please don’t cry, it—you’ll break my heart, baby. I can’t be there to make you feel better.”
“I still need you, Mike. I’m sorry I didn’t take your calls.” I wiped the mess of warm, salty tears from my cheeks. “I just—it’s been so hard without you and I was afraid if I heard your voice it’d make it all real.”
“Hey, it’s okay. You know me, Ara. I’m here for you—always. Okay?”
I sniffled. “Mm-hm.”
“Have you talked to your dad, yet—about what you told me? Have you told anyone?”
My head rocked from side to side.
“Ara, I can’t hear you when you shake your head.” He chuckled.
My sudden burst of laughter forced static down the phone line. “You always know how to make me laugh.”
“Look, you need to talk to someone.” His voice took on the serious note he seemed to have adopted over the past two months. “It’s not healthy for you to keep all of this inside, baby girl. You said you made friends today? Why don’t you have a girlie night and do one of those big deep-and-meaningful things?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t know them well enough, Mike. I’m just not ready to share that part of my life with anyone.”