“Thank you.” I accepted thin air and appraised it. “Good job.”
She giggled and skipped off just as the basketball came bouncing my way, landing on the seat beside me.
“Connor!” Ellie called out. “Chuck it here.” Her hands were splayed in a catch position, her eyes wide and victorious.
I knew what she was doing, and I wasn’t going to be coerced. In the years we’d known each other she’d managed to help me see life from various colourful angles, and I loved her dearly for it, but when it came to playing basketball, she was trying to fix something that wasn’t broken, something that just … was.
Picking up the ball from the seat, I rolled it back to her—lawn bowls style—watching with gritted teeth as it stopped at her feet. She stared at it for a second then bent down and picked it up, her fingers white from her intense grip. Ellie’s eyes found mine, mint cold and piercing like shards of ice. I felt their sting and nearly shivered as she wrenched her arm back and launched the ball directly at my head.
My reflexes kicked in right before impact, and I caught it, leather burning the palms of my hands, a sensation foreign and yet familiar.
“Take the shot,” she hissed.
Her snake-like demeanour shocked the shit out of me. It was so unlike her, and all I could do was blink.
“It’s time, Connor,” she added, her shoulders slumping. “Just take the shot. Please. It will be good for you. I know it will.”
I threw it back to her. “No.”
“JUST TAKE THE SHOT!” she screamed, hurling it back.
Again, my grip on the leather when I caught it was almost painful, so I closed my eyes for a second and tried desperately to calm down, the hammering of my pulse a sure sign I was a ticking time bomb on the verge of exploding and, Ellie, the fuse that would just not extinguish no matter how hard I blew.
“Why won’t you take it?” she pleaded. “What are you scared of? It’s just a ball and a hoop.”
My fingers tensed.
“Aaron’s gone, Connor. He’s been gone for over five years. Please just let this last piece of him go. You’ll be so much better off if you do.”
Locking my eyes with hers, I stepped forward, stopping less than a couple of feet away. “The last time I took a shot, it rebounded and hit Aaron in the head. He collapsed, and the next thing I knew he was dying. So, no,” I said, pushing the ball into her chest. “I will never take another shot.”
Chapter Fourteen
Connor
I left Ellie in her driveway despite her pleas for me to ‘come back’. I’d had enough of her button-pushing bullshit. I didn’t want to hear it anymore. What she didn’t realise was that reactions have reasons, and mine are my own. I don’t have to explain or justify every single one of them for her. I wasn’t broken or bent where Aaron was concerned, and I didn’t need fixing. The indentations my best friend left on my life would always be there, and I would smooth them out when and how I saw fit. Ellie would have to deal with it. There was no alternative.
Lining up a lone rock on the footpath as I made my way home, I kicked it with force and nearly stumbled when a familiar voice came out of nowhere.
“Damn! What did that rock do to you?”
I snapped my head in the direction of the voice and found Lilah’s legs dangling from an ancient branch of a chestnut tree, the centrepiece of her front yard.
“What are you doing up there?” I asked, ducking under the branch.
“Spendin’ time with me, myself, and I. Wanna join?”
Her offer wasn’t all that tempting due to my foul mood and the fact I could only take Lilah in small doses, but I didn’t have a decent excuse at the ready so reached up and hoisted myself into the tree.
“Cool little hide-out you have here.”
“Thanks. Trees are good company.” She rubbed her cheek against the trunk. “And they smell good too.”
I chuckled quietly, but I wasn’t really in the mood for playful chitchat.
“So what was that all about?”
“What?”
“The rock abuse.”
I shrugged. “It got in my way.”
“Right. Do you do that to everyone and everything that gets in your way?”
“If I have to.”
Lilah raised her leg, exposing a bunch of small cut-like scars on her upper thigh through the frayed rips and holes of her jeans. She caught me gawking and covered them with the palm of her hand.
“What happened?” I asked, nodding toward her thigh.
She rubbed the area as if to try and rub them away. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
Sighing, she moved her hand and reached for her rich brown ponytail, twirling it repeatedly with her fingers. “I guess my doctor’s response would be something along the lines of ‘anger redirected’, but I … I haven’t quite figured out what or why yet. I’m still working on it.”
Her response was sincere and one I could relate to because not all questions had answers, especially ones so raw and personal. But I couldn’t help but wonder if she still felt whatever it was that made her cut herself in the first place.
“Have you stopped?” I asked, nodding to her thigh again.
She nodded back, her dangling leg swinging back and forth.
“That’s good.”
Lilah scoffed. “Why do you even care?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I mean nothing to you.”
“What? I wouldn’t say that. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“I guess so.”
“Then you do mean something.”
This was a side of Lilah I’d never seen: an unsure, self-conscious, sad side. A side she hid behind her heavy makeup and gothic clothing.
“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I’ve stopped cutting. I stopped after we moved here.” She picked at the frayed denim. “Actually, I stopped before we moved here.”
“So why did you move here? What happened at your old school?”
“Ah … so you have heard the rumours then.” A proud glint appeared in her chocolate eyes followed by a devilish smile, but it didn’t stay there long, her face still, her stare fixed to the ground.
“I have heard a rumour or two, yes, but that’s all I ever assumed they were … rumours.”
“Go on then, fess up. What have you heard?”
“That you flashed your teacher.”
“And do you believe it?” She glanced up, waiting for my answer.
“I don’t know enough to believe it or not.”
“Well, you should believe it because it’s true; I did flash my science teacher.”
I scratched my head. “Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
“To show him my perfect tits, why else?” Lilah proudly cupped them in her hands and winked.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “You were thirteen so, no, your reasons weren’t that obvious to me. It could’ve been an accident or a distraction or—”
“Wow!” she said, her eyes wide, her mouth even wider. “You’re the first person to say that. Not even Mum or Tristan thought it was anything but a deliberate act of whoredom.”
“Well …” I picked at a piece of dead bark, “not everything is as it seems.”
“True, but sorry to burst your polite bubble because it was deliberate, except … not for the reasons everyone thought.” Lilah looked to the ground again.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me the real reason.”
“I know, but you might as well be the first to know the truth.” She pulled her leg back up to her chest and rested her chin on her knee. “Mr Rochford caught me cutting myself in his classroom during lunchtime. He told me I had to tell someone, like Mum or a doctor, or the school welfare coordinator. I didn’t want to. Mum wasn’t strong enough to deal with a teenage daughter with daddy issues, and I wasn’t ready to stop cutting. It was a release; a pain that helped with a different k
ind of pain. So … I panicked. I told him to keep his mouth shut or I’d lie and tell the principal he’d come on to me. And then, as if it were perfect timing, the principal entered the classroom, so I did the first stupid thing that came to mind and lifted my t-shirt.”
“Bloody hell!”
She waggled her eyebrows. “Tristan is not the only one in the family who can act, you know.”
“Did Mr Rochford tell the truth?”
“No. He obviously thought my threat wasn’t an empty one. Plus, he’s married with kids, so he couldn’t risk it.”
“That’s pretty fucked up, Lilah. You were willing to ruin a man’s career and life simply because he was looking out for you.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t willing to, but he didn’t know that, so it worked out in the end. I was expelled, I had to see a counsellor—who inevitably helped me with my cutting—and no one but me got hurt. Problem solved.”
I let out a long breath. “But now you have a student record and a false reputation.”
She shrugged. “It’s not exactly false. I still flashed my boobs. Big deal.”
Her story was batshit crazy. Lilah was batshit crazy, and yet I kinda understood her, so much so that I shook my head and laughed. A deep belly laugh.
A big smile crept across her face. “Why are you laughing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just need to laugh.”
“By the looks of how you booted that rock before, I’d have to agree with you.”
“The rock was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I dismissed, composing myself.
“Poor rock.”
“Yeah, maybe next time I’ll just flash my boobs at it instead.”
Lilah snorted and covered her eyes. “Please don’t.”
“Hey! There is nothing wrong with my boobs.”
She peeked through her fingers. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Feigning insult, I pouted my lips and grabbed at my chest.
“So … why were you angry? Did it have anything to do with Ellie yelling at you?”
My pretending ceased. “You heard that?”
“I think the whole neighbourhood heard it, Connor.”
I let out a long breath, still angry with Ellie. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, cut it short. Nobody likes long stories, especially boring ones.”
Hesitating for a moment I decided to give her a brief rundown of Aaron. She’d opened up to me so it was only fair I did the same. Plus, talking to Lilah was easy, almost as easy as talking to Ellie. “Okay. My best friend and I were promising basketballers. He died. I stopped playing. Ellie wants me to play again. It’s not gonna happen.”
“So tell her that.”
“I have, but … Ellie’s stubborn.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, sorry for your loss. And sorry she won’t respect your wishes.”
“It’s all good. We’ll kiss and make up in a couple of days. We always do.”
She gave me a half nod.
“Anyway, I better go,” I said, jumping down from the branch and nearly landing on Tristan. He was leaning up against the tree, arms crossed over his chest, one foot propped against the trunk.
“Shit! Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“No sweat. I’m easy to miss.”
Something in his tone and body language pulled at my uncertainty. I wanted to respond with ‘I wish that were the case’, but I didn’t. I just nodded and wished them both a happy Easter before walking home. Alone.
Ellie and I didn’t kiss and make up after a couple of days like we usually did. Two weeks passed—the entire Easter school holiday period—and she hadn’t once tried to contact me and apologise for being out of line. I also hadn’t written her a note like I normally would. Fuck that. Not this time. I wasn’t the one in the wrong. She’d pushed me, sworn at me, and been a bitch for no reason other than to be a bitch, and if she did have a reason, she’d hadn’t even tried to explain it.
It was now the first day of term two, and as I stepped onto the bus, the first thing I noticed was Ellie sitting next to Tristan. In our seat.
Clenching my fists by my sides, I wanted to grab the intrusive arsehole by the scruff of the neck and toss him out the window. And despite Ellie being the most stubborn girl to walk the planet, I wanted to tell her I missed her and then take her hand and trace a heart on her wrist to let her know my love for her was always tattooed above and below the surface. Instead, I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled, my eyes meeting hers for the briefest of seconds before I relaxed my hands and sat in the only spare seat left on the bus, next to Lilah.
Ellie and I didn’t talk for another two weeks after that, until Chris showed up at my school, a menacing look on his face as he waited by my locker.
“Hey,” I said in passing, en route to the bus. “Here to see your dad?”
“Nope. Thought I’d offer you a ride home before football practice starts.”
I looked around for Ellie. “Where’s ya sister?”
“On the bus. She’s still refusing to get in the car when I drive.”
I scoffed. “Stubborn, little, pain in the arse.”
“Exactly, which is why you need to apologise to her and play happy families again.”
“Me?” I placed my books in my locker and grabbed my backpack. “Na, not this time.”
“What do you mean ‘not this time’? You’re a dude. That means every time, so suck it up.”
“That’s a crock of shit and you know it. Na, I’m just gonna wait it out and give her time to snap out of her Ellie-is-always-right bullshit.”
“As her brother, I can respect that. But as her brother who happens to think her boyfriend is all right, I suggest you rethink that.” He twirled his keys around his finger and began walking toward the car park.
I followed him. “Why?”
“Because while you sulk over your balls disappearing, our friendly neighbourhood twin is flaunting his.”
“What are you talking about?”
Chris unlocked the door to his blue, XF Ford Falcon and told me to get in. I did but was more interested in the answer to my question. “Well?” I asked, moving the seat back for extra legroom.
“The past few weeks, I’ve seen Tristan’s mug more than I’ve seen yours.” He turned the key and revved the engine. “It’s a handsome mug, don’t ya think?”
“No, I don’t think.” I grimaced at a pair of fluffy dice dangling from his rearview mirror. “But what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means. You’ve been absent, he’s been there.”
I snapped my head in his direction as he took a sharp turn. “What do you mean he’s been there?”
“Exactly what I said. He’s been there, a lot. Helping her out with homework, helping her out with netball practice, helping her out with boredom.”
My fingers gripped his sheepskin seat covers. “So he’s been making a move?”
“Looks that way.”
“Why wouldn’t Ellie, or even Lilah, have told me?”
“Depends whether you’ve been helping twin number two out with ‘boredom’ as well?”
“Of course I fucking haven’t. Ellie is my girl. Always has, always will be.”
“Not sure she knows that right now.”
“Of course she does. I’ve never given her reason not to know that.”
We drove in silence for a bit until I noticed he pulled into his street—the opposite direction of my house.
“Thought you were takin’ me home.”
“I am. To my home. You need to pull your head in and talk to my sister.”
“Yeah? Well, she’s got some explainin’ to do as well.” I counted down the house numbers in my head as we neared number six.
“She cries every night, man. I’m sick of hearing her cry.”
“What?” My stomach twisted. “Then why hasn’t she just bloody talked to me? She started this.”
Hearing that Ellie had been as distraught a
s I had, pissed me off. If she wasn’t so bloody stubborn and had just come to me or written me a note for once, spending a month without one another wouldn’t have happened. All she’d had to do was talk to me. Fuck, she was the one good with words, not me.
My heart ached for missing her like crazy, and I could almost smell, taste and feel her as we pulled into their driveway, my yearning and remorse lodging in my throat when I spotted her with Tristan.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Keep calm, Bourke. They’re just shooting hoops.”
The dickhead was standing behind her, guiding her arm to hold the ball, ready to take a shot. His technique was shit; he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing … or maybe he did.
“Does that look like ‘just shooting hoops’ to you?”
Chris cricked his neck and twitched his eye.
“Exactly. Stop the car!”
Before he could pull on the handbrake and cut the engine, I wrenched the door open and climbed out, my eyes glazed with red. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER,” I shouted.
Ellie spun around and stepped back, the ball dropping from her grip. “Connor, what are—”
“What am I doing here? I’ve come to be the bigger person and talk shit out with my girlfriend. Seems that may have been a waste of time.”
She stepped forward. “Oh, so now you want to talk? That’s new.”
“Cut the bullshit, Ellie.”
Tristan placed himself between Ellie and me and had the gall to rest his hand on my chest. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
My nostrils flared, and I breathed in long and hard. “Take. Your. Fucking. Hand. Off me.”
“Tristan, it’s okay,” Ellie said, calmly placing a hand on his arm. “Really, it’s fine. Maybe you should go.”
The bastard smirked but kept his eyes on me. “Sure. But you know where I am if you need me.”
“She doesn’t fucking need you. She has me.”
He scoffed. “She hasn’t had or needed you in weeks.”
I shoved him. “What’d you say?”
He bounced back, bumping his chest into mine. “You heard me.”
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