Graffiti Heaven

by Marita A. Hansen

  “Calm down, Ash, it’s okay. The doctor believes I fainted, and you were right, I was sick, so you didn’t lie. And, why’s Hunter got a police record?”

  “You know what he does for a living.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “He’s a drug dealer,” Ash whispered. “He’s been caught once, but managed to get off the charge somehow. Though, he’s been in a psyche ward, but that’s got nuthin’ to do with drugs.”

  “I forgot; my head’s distracting me.”

  Ash looked pained again. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

  “I know, and why’d Hunter get put in a psyche ward for?”

  “He went through a really bad time ‘bout nine years ago. He lost his parents in a car crash, then his girlfriend died.”

  “Oh, poor Hunter.”

  Ash scratched his head. “Yeah, but don’t let on you know. He hates people knowing ‘bout it.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.” She wiped her nose then stopped, the slight smell of marijuana on her fingers taking her attention. “Oh God, I smell like that joint. The doctor will report me.”

  Ash leaned towards her and sniffed. “Barely, and only cos I know.” He bolted upright as the curtain was pulled back.

  The same nurse stopped next to Ash, and held out a box for Tiana to take. “Here’s the test, and if you need—”

  Tiana didn’t hear the rest, her attention instantly going to Ash as he focused on the box.

  His face dropped. “A pregnancy test?”

  Tiana snatched the box off the nurse. “It doesn’t mean I’m pregnant, the doctor just wants to check every possible reason for why I’m feeling sick.”

  The nurse said something else, but Tiana kept her gaze fixed on Ash. He looked like he was ready to throw up, his face going pale like it had back at Hunter’s place. Tiana barely registered the clop of the nurse’s shoes as the woman left.

  “You said you took the morning-after pill,” Ash finally said, his voice harsh.

  Tiana didn’t answer, his tone scaring her.

  He glared at her. “Well? Didja take it or didja lie to me like everyone else?”

  “I didn’t lie,” she said, upset that he would think that. “The doctor said it might not have worked cos I threw up.”

  Ash rubbed his chest.

  “I might not be pregnant,” she added.

  “With my luck, I doubt it.” He hit his chest, making her flinch. “Shit! Then take the bloody test already, I hafta know.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, barely able to get the words out without crying. She swung her legs around, wincing at her throbbing head.

  His harsh expression disappeared. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” He wrapped his arms around her, and helped her to stand. She went stiff, surprised by the contact.

  “You alright to stand alone?” he said, his tone now gentle.

  She leaned into him, enjoying the hug. “My head hurts, not my legs,” she replied without thinking, then regretted it instantly as he pulled away.

  Feeling like the biggest idiot in the world, she walked past him. The place was busy with patients chatting to doctors or nurses. A few beds up, a teenage girl was coughing, while the doctor who had been with Tiana was now attending to an elderly woman. Off to Tiana’s left, behind the nurses’ station, a television played in a glass room where a large woman nursed a tiny baby.

  Tiana stopped to ask a nurse where the toilets were, then headed down a short corridor that the lady had indicated to. “Wait here,” she said to Ash. She opened the door and locked it behind her. A toilet with a safety rail was positioned next to a shower cubicle, while a small basin stuck out from the wall near the entrance.

  She opened the box, grimacing as she read the instructions telling her to pee on the stick. Nervous, she quickly completed the test, then held up the stick to see how many lines showed. One line indicating that she wasn’t pregnant appeared pretty quick, the relief making her release a gush of air. She almost laughed, but instead froze as a second faint line started to emerge, getting darker by the second. Tiana breathed in sharply, her lungs feeling like they were about to explode. She was pregnant; there was no denying it now. Her hand began to shake. Ash, her dad, Levi, oh God … what would her mother say? Her mother’s angry expression came to mind, the one Tiana got after Monika had blurted out about the blowjob.

  Tonga.

  Her mother was bound to send her there now. She would never see Ash again … but then again, he probably wouldn’t want her anyway, the thought upsetting her more. Knocking snapped her out of her misery.

  Ash called out, “Are you alright?”

  Tiana pulled the toilet lid down and sat on it, her hands trembling even more.

  “Tiana, you’re taking ages.”

  Breathing in, she got up and unlocked the door. Ash entered, closing it behind him. She sat back on the toilet seat and stared at the test.

  “Well?” he said. “Are ya pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  Swearing, he kicked the rubbish bin then turned towards the door, placing his hands on his head as though she was holding a gun to his back. After what seemed like ages he turned around.

  She covered her face, too ashamed to look at him as well as being scared of his reaction.

  “Don’t cry,” Ash said.

  She uncovered her face, surprised that he wasn’t yelling at her.

  He lowered himself to one knee. “I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m just shocked.”

  “What do I do?” she asked, her tension not letting up. “My mum will … she’ll send me to Tonga.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She said she would if I got pregnant.”

  “That’s not fair, she can’t make you.”

  Her gaze lowered to the pregnancy test. “It’ll be easier for you.”

  A hand tucked under her chin. “Nuthin’s easy for me, and I don’t want cha to leave.”

  “But you didn’t want me round before.”

  He let go of her chin. “Things are different now.”

  “Cos I’m pregnant?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But, that’s exactly why you should be running from me.”

  “I’m freaked out, yeah, but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna piss off and leave you to deal with it alone.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  She smiled and reached out to touch his hair. He jerked his head away. Hurt, Tiana dropped her hand, her smile gone in an instant. The memory of what Levi had said about touching Ash came back. But he’d touched her more than once, so why couldn’t she touch him? “Why didja do that for?”

  “Sorry.” He glanced up at her, his expression ashamed. “Chaz used to stroke my hair.”

  “Oh…” Tiana didn’t expect that. “What else did he do to you?”

  Ash grimaced. “I thought you knew.”

  “I don’t know how a guy can be raped.”

  He appeared shocked for a second, then lowered his head. “I can’t...”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I keep saying everything wrong today. I should just shut up.”

  His shoulders started shaking. He covered his face with a hand.

  She went to touch him, but stopped herself. “I won’t do anything, but you can hug me. You did it before.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and rested his head underneath her chin.

  “I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” she said, her voice wavering as she tried not to start crying again.

  He remained silent, but the shaking slowed. Tentatively, she lifted one hand and placed it on his back, hoping that he didn’t jerk away. Instead, he squeezed her tighter, making her drop the pregnancy test. He slackened his grip and raised his head. His dark eyes were shiny, but his cheeks were tear-free, like he’d fought to contain them. He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her lips, stealing away her breath. After a few seconds he pulled back, his expression surpri
sed. He let go of her almost self-consciously, then stood.

  “I’ll be there for you no matter what,” he said, his eyes everywhere but on her.

  “You can’t if my mum sends me away.”

  “Your sixteen, she can’t make you. You can live with me and Hunter.”

  “Live with you?”

  His face hardened. “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Um, but what about Hunter? He doesn’t like me.”

  “You’re pregnant with my baby, so he has to say yes. And he’d be a hypocrite if he complained, cos he got his girlfriend pregnant when he wuz sixteen.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Ash shook his head. “He wuz living with my family at the time, cos his parents had died in a car crash.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah, he wuz messed up for a while, but totally spun out after his girlfriend died. Sumpthin’ went wrong during the birth. Hunter ended up having a breakdown and wuz sent to a psyche ward, so my parents adopted his babies.”

  “Poor Hunter.” She frowned, just realising what he’d said. “Babies? The twins are his kids?”

  Ash’s face dropped. “Um… Yeah, I didn’t meana say that. Don’t tell anyone, cos Sledge and Juliet don’t know, and for some reason Hunter doesn’t want them to either. They’re staying with my grandparents cos he said I’m more than enough to handle at the moment.”

  “Wow, no wonder they look like him.”

  A slight smile broke through Ash’s sombre expression. “Yeah, they lost out gettin’ his bull-faced looks.”

  She laughed, forgetting for a few seconds about being pregnant. “I always wondered why they didn’t look like you and Dante.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I still think of them as my brother and sister. Always will. I even tried to make us a proper family by gettin’ Hunter and my mum together after she split from my father. They laughed at me when Dante told them what I wuz up to, but I wanted Hunter to be my dad.”

  “But, what about your real dad?”

  Ash sneered. “I don’t think of that cunt as my dad, he’s just a father. A dad cares ‘bout their kids, a father is only connected by biology.” He turned towards the door. “We should get back.”

  Tiana picked up the test and followed him out. She stopped as they rounded the nurses’ station, surprised to see Levi sitting on her bed. Her brother was talking on a mobile phone that Tiana hadn’t seen before. She went to say his name, but before she could speak Ash launched himself at Levi.

  43

  Ash

  Rage overtook Ash when he saw Levi. He’d told the bastard things that he hadn’t told anyone else, poured his guts out, because Levi had led him to believe he could be trusted, the guy’s tone sympathetic and friendly, coaxing out some of what Ash had tried to hide. But he should’ve known better, because no matter what, people betrayed him, pretending to be friendly and then when he wasn’t expecting it they sucker-punched his mind. And for once he was returning that sucker-punch—just with a fist.

  Levi hollered as Ash struck him in the face. Ash grabbed Levi by his shoulders and flung him to the floor. Tiana screamed, but there was no way Ash was stopping for her or anyone. He raised a boot and brought it down into Levi’s stomach. Levi hollered again and curled up into a ball, covering his head with his arms.

  Tiana flung herself at Ash, trapping him between her bed and its neighbour. Ash climbed over her mattress and came around the other side, ready to kick Levi again. The pounding of shoes filled the room, accompanied by shouts of “Stop!” Ash raised his boot again, but got shoved to the floor. He let out a shout as the hard surface met his body, his left shoulder and elbow taking most of the impact. Biting back the pain, he went to get up, but got pinned to the floor by Hunter, his cousin’s large body looming over him. Confusion quickly changed into panic. “Get offa me!” Ash shouted, hitting out.

  Hunter got up and took a step back as Ash scrambled to his feet. “Take it easy, Ash.”

  Ash’s gaze darted around Hunter, looking for Levi. He spotted Tiana and a nurse helping the bastard onto Tiana’s bed. Aching to punish Levi, he went to move around Hunter, but got pushed back again.

  “Stoppit, Ash.”

  “Get outta my way!”

  Hunter pushed harder, knocking him onto his arse. Ash screamed in frustration, furious that Hunter was defending Levi. He jumped up and jerked a hand towards Levi. “That two-faced bastard told Tiana about Chaz raping me!”

  People stopped talking, only coughing and the sound of monitors remaining. Realising what he’d said, Ash looked around the room as people stared back, from the patients in the beds, the nurses and doctors, to Tiana and Levi. He started to shake. He couldn’t help it, every time he got upset he said the first thing that came to mind, and now twice he’d let people know what had happened. Why? Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut, not react to people, not care about what they thought? But he couldn’t. And now they probably all thought he was a used piece of gay trash. But he wasn’t! He was just an idiot who couldn’t see how two-faced people were. He didn’t bullshit, didn’t hide what he felt, so he couldn’t understand why others did—and why they were nasty to him.

  “I didn’t want to,” Levi broke the silence, his voice muffled by his hand. “Joel said he’d bash Hunter with a bat if I didn’t tell him.”

  Ash blinked, trying to take in Levi’s words. Everything that had happened was too much, an overload on his senses. A few seconds later the name “Joel” clicked, smashing through Ash’s consciousness like a sledgehammer, hurting him worse than finding out about Tiana knowing. Joel, his best mate since he was little, couldn’t stand fags, and constantly made jokes about them as well as poking fun at people who took it up the arse. There was no way that Joel would want to hang around him now. He’d lost his mate, and probably the others too, because Joel would tell them. And that bastard Ant would probably gloat, saying he was right about Ash, even though the fag hater wasn’t.

  Ash raised his hands to his head. “No, no, no…”

  Hunter held out a hand. “C’mere.”

  Ash shook his head and backed up. He couldn’t take this anymore. All he wanted was his mother alive, Tiana not pregnant and his old life. He couldn’t handle his dreams anymore or people knowing what had happened to him, or worse, remembering what had happened. With each new day he remembered something different, like the way Chaz used to be in his room when he woke, putting stuff away in his drawers. Had Chaz been watching him back then, touching him while he’d slept? And the memory of the pain he’d felt that night, before his face was pushed into the pillow. Ash pulled at his hair. He wanted for everything to stop, to wake up one day and not remember anything—or not to wake up at all. He banged into the wall and slid down it, wanting to curl up into a ball like Levi had done, because it felt like he was continually getting kicked every day since Hunter had told him he’d been raped.

  Hunter squatted in front of him. “C’mere, Son.”

  Unsure if he heard right, Ash looked up. Hunter smiled at him, the expression a mixture of pain and something else Ash couldn’t decipher.

  “I always wanted to call you that,” Hunter said, “but wuz afraid to, cos of what your father did. Still, I consider you more of a son than I do Sledge, which is why I offered to take you in and not the twins. I know I should want them, but all I see when I’m around Sledge and Juliet is what I’ve lost: their mother. I know you don’t remember Joanna that well, but she wuz a lot like you, too trusting. She trusted me and I got her pregnant. You also trusted me all those months back and I put you in danger when you-know-who pulled a gun on you. I never bugged you to help me with work afterwards, cos I wuz ashamed that I’d risked the most important person in my life. You mean more to me than anyone else. You’re my kid just as much as the twins are, even more so.”

  Taken aback, Ash remained silent.

  “I’m sorry I wuzn’t there to protect you and your mother,” Hunter continued, “but I promise I’ll d
o the best I can from now on. If you need to leave school, I will support you.”

  Someone started coughing loudly. Remembering that they were being watched, Ash went to look around Hunter, but got his face pulled back.

  “Look at me,” Hunter said. “Forget about what everyone else thinks, they don’t understand. They can’t, but I can. I know what it’s like to lose loved ones and to have control taken away from me, not in the same way as you, but with the psyche ward. They weren’t bad people like Chaz, but they still restrained me, cos I went nuts at everyone. And what scares me is that I can see you’re heading down the same self-destructive path, and I need ja to stoppit, cos I couldn’t cope with losing you too.”

  Speechless, Ash stared at Hunter. He knew his cousin cared about him, but not to this extent.

  Hunter let go of Ash’s jaw and pulled back a sleeve. A long scar ran from Hunter’s wrist to the middle of his forearm. Since Hunter always wore long-sleeved shirts or a bandana wrapped around the wrist, Ash had never seen the scar before. In the past, Ash had teased Hunter about being a fashion victim, but he hadn’t suspected that his cousin was almost a suicide victim. “I’m ashamed of doin’ this, which is why I hide it, but regardless I will do it again if anything happened to you.” Hunter pulled the sleeve back over the scar and looked into Ash’s eyes. “But I will live for you.”

  Ash’s thoughts of running across the road returned. He hadn’t cared about getting hit, and at the back of his mind he’d even wished for it, yet if he had succeeded Hunter would’ve committed suicide. The thought terrified him.

  “Don’t put that shit on me,” Ash snapped.

  Hunter flinched. “What?”

  “You said you’d commit suicide if I died. I don’t want that on my head. You needa be there for the twins and Dante, not me. So if I wanna jump off the Auckland fuckin’ Habour Bridge, then I will do what I bloody like; that’s my choice, not yours. Or if I get run over by accident, so be it, but it doesn’t mean you should kill yourself, I’m not that important.”

  “Yes, you are, and stop talking like that, you’re scaring me.”