All I Ever Wanted (15 page)

But he's urgent now, running in a different direction. His kisses are hard and my neck hurts. He doesn't notice that I'm still. He's all over me, heavy and hot and hard.

‘Stop,' I say, but he won't.

This is that point, the point where a girl changes her mind, but the guy and the police and the courts hear that just one minute before, she said yes. I was willing, I wanted it. I wanted him.

‘Please, I don't want to do this.'

‘That's not how it works,' he says, his voice thick and mean.

I put my hands on his chest and push.

‘No! Jordan, stop!'

He keeps moving, his hands grabby and rough. My legs clamp together but he pulls them apart. I punch the back of his head, as hard as I can, two-fisted, kicking out with my legs. The quilt slides to the floor, limp. His elbow catches my cheekbone and I feel it sting and throb. There's blood in my mouth that tastes like a decaying tooth. The inside of my cheek is mush.

Our silent, grappling battle goes on until I feel myself getting weaker, like I've run a race. He's all writhing muscle like a bag of pissed-off snakes and every limb I wedge between us, he finds a way around it. I should scream, but there's no one to hear.
This
is how it's going to happen.

Then, a click, barely audible, but it may as well have been a gunshot. The door swings open.

Jordan freezes.

Oh, beautiful Kate.

‘Jesus, Kate. Can't you fuckin knock? Get out!'

She stands there, shock, embarrassment and betrayal on her face, as forever as ink. ‘Sorry,' she says, and slips away, closing the door.

That look hits me harder than my almost-rape. Is that what it was? Almost rape, disguised as a rite of passage? I clap my hands over my mouth—I'm not sure if I'll vomit, or throw a Dodd tantrum—but I don't want to do either. The moment calls for silence from me, and some kind of acknowledgment from him.

He stands and runs his fingers through his hair. He picks up my clothes and throws them at me, facing away. ‘You can't do that to a guy and just expect him to turn it off.'

He speaks like it wasn't him doing what he was doing. Like he had an out-of-body experience. I touch my cheek and realise how close I came to being changed forever.

‘So why did you stop?'

‘It wasn't how I thought it would be,' I say.

‘No, why did you stop sending the cards?'

The
cards
? He wants to know why I stopped sending the
cards
? I'm sitting on the edge of his bed with my dreams and my dignity in a heap, and he wants to know why his secret admirer stopped sending him cards.

‘You're unbelievable,' I say.

‘I want to know.'

I think for a moment. I may as well be honest. ‘Because you never looked at me. You didn't even know I existed, you didn't
see
me. It seemed stupid.'

He smiles, and it helps when I realise that he looks like a wolf.

‘I tried to find out who sent them. I staked out the letterbox once, but that was the year you never came. I thought, for sure, you'd come back to see my face when I opened them.'

I think of my original, perfect dream. The one about the naughty boy and the letterbox bomb. And how that dream just doesn't fit any more.

He pulls his shirt on and zips his fly. ‘Can I see you again?'

In his face I can see a sliver of a future and a whole world of hurt.

‘What's the point? Didn't we just start in the middle? We never even had a beginning.'

‘We could try.' He squats in front of me and touches my red cheek.

Mum told me once that payback could set you free. The first step is hard.

‘Nah,' I say. ‘We don't fit.'

Still, he tries. ‘We could go out. See how things go.'

The next step is easier. ‘I don't think so. I had you all wrong, that's for sure.'

He doesn't look at me or say anything.

Kate's door stays closed. My hand hovers to knock, but I can't face her. Not right now. I run out of there for the second time, but this time I leave a piece of myself behind.

I walk home in a daze, lie on my bed and fall asleep. When I wake, I don't move for a while. I just lie there with my eyes closed, feeling stiff and sore. It's stifling. My lips still feel kissed.

Instinctively, I know it's night, but the insides of my eyelids are glowing red like I've fallen asleep in the sun. When I open them, the ghost stain in the corner of my room is red too. Fiery shadows dance on the wall. I turn over.

After years of sitting there, broken, the lava lamp is working. Maybe Kate is wiser than she thinks. Maybe you have to shake things up so the pieces can fall into place. I smile and reach out a finger. Warmth seeps through the glass and the fluid blobs float around each other like jellyfish.

Pushing.

Moving.

Finally.

EIGHTEEN

In the morning, the lava lamp is broken again. The wax lies in a blob, cold and congealed. There are faint blueish bruises on my inner thighs and my cheek is throbbing with its own pulse.

I sit up in bed and open the slats. The air is still and the birds are quiet. An armageddon sky hangs low, almost close enough to touch. Unease runs laps in my belly.

‘You up yet? You've been in bed for over fourteen hours,' Mum pokes her head around the door.

‘Soon,' I groan.

‘What happened to my bread and milk yesterday?'

Shit!
‘I got sidetracked.'

‘Typical. Anyway, I'm going out. Can you clean that shed for me? Get that box and stick it under my bed?'

‘What box?' I ask, before the realisation hits me. One more day. Just until tomorrow, that's all I need. If Feeney doesn't come through, I'll have to do something myself. Whatever else happens, at least I'll be able to hand the package over when she asks for it. ‘Oh, that. Can I do it tomorrow? It's like an oven in there.'

‘Yeah, tomorrow,' she says, resigned. ‘And I'm expecting someone to drop off some forms. Can you hang around until they get here?'

‘What forms?'

‘Just legal stuff.'

‘Since when do you do anything legal?'

She rolls her eyes.

‘Fine. I've got nothing better to do,' I mumble.

I put the pillow over my head. My mattress feels like a torture device. I'm intensely aware of every painful spot and no matter which way I turn, I can't get comfortable.

After a shower and breakfast I sit on the back step and strip peeling polish from my toes. I paint them Candy Pink but they look wrong—too pale and innocent—so I start over with Punk Purple. Much better. My phone beeps.

I hope it's from Tahnee, but the number is unfamiliar.

Thought about u all nite. Jordan.

My first text message from Jordan Mullen. As relationships go a first text message is a good opener. I try to dredge up an emotion other than regret but there isn't one. Shame, maybe. We went straight to the complicated stuff, we never had the kind of beginning I wanted— everything is tainted with shame.

I clean out the inbox on my phone. There have been no trains this morning, none that I've noticed. It's eerily quiet and I feel so alone. I need Tahnee, even if it's just to let her yell at me some more. I compose a heartfelt message in my mind but half an hour later I'm still sitting there with an empty screen. Stuff it. What do I have to lose that I haven't already lost?

Once I start, it's easier.

I'm sorry. I miss you. I haven't been honest lately and I have
so much to tell you. Pls come over. M. PS You are my best friend
and I love you.
Send.

Next, I send a message to Kate.

I'm so sorry you had to see that and I know what you're
thinking. You're wrong, about some of it anyway. Pls give me
a chance to tell you the truth. Home all day if you want to come
over. Mim.
Send.

To Lola:

Hey night creature. Hanging out at home today. Come over
if sunlight doesn't kill you. Your other half.
Send.

There. One more, to Jordan Mullen.

Tell Welles I have the stuff. Tell him to meet me tomorrow at
2 at the lake. Then I'll get out of your life.

My heart skips when I press send because there's no going back from here.

For over an hour, my phone is quiet. I hate it, this silent, unblinking, unresponsive piece of metal. I shake it and check the signal. I charge it, even though the battery indicator is nearly full. I mean, I like my own company, but this is ridiculous.

I listen to Kate's music but it only makes me feel more miserable. How can one ordinary person mess up every meaningful relationship in her life in one week? Even the ones that were fresh and unmarked by history, they're ruined. Maybe forever. It has to be a record, even for me.

I'm pathetically grateful when my phone beeps an hour later. I stare at the yellow envelope, the proof that I am not alone.

Who says I want you out of my life?

It's funny, but of all the messages I hoped for, his wasn't one of them. I don't reply. I can only hope he'll confirm the meeting with Welles.

A few raindrops hit the hot concrete and disappear. Far away, a wave of thunder crashes and the last of the white, puffy clouds scatter like they're being chased by a schoolyard bully. The air is leaden and sticky.

I step out onto the back lawn. ‘Come on,
rain
!' I yell at the sky.

‘I hate storms,' says Lola, leaning on the fence. She climbs over, catching her skirt on a jagged corner.

‘Watch out, it's asbestos,' I warn. ‘You'll breathe it in and get that disease, asbestosis, or whatever.'

‘Mesothelioma,' she says. ‘How's your back?'

I feel the spot where her knife caught my skin. ‘It's okay. You were right, it was nothing.'

‘I'm really sorry I stabbed you. It was just a reflex.'

‘You're supposed to attack your enemies, not your friends,' I say but I forgive her. ‘Has he been back?'

She shakes her head. ‘I reckon you scared the crap out of him. And I put a rat trap outside my window. If we can chase him off he can't be all that dangerous.'

‘
We
chased him off? As I recall you did a runner and left me on the porch.'

Lola puts her face up to the window slats and peers in. ‘That's your room?'

‘Yes.'

‘Fuck. Are you a kleptomaniac or something?'

‘What, did you eat a dictionary for breakfast?'

She laughs. ‘Hey, did anything happen with your guy?'

I touch my lips, where a fullness still lingers. ‘Nothing. Everything.'

She nods like I'm making sense. There's something uncomplicated about Lola that makes me think she's puddle-deep, but then she surprises me with six-syllable words and an empathy that makes me well up.

I turn away so she can't see.

‘Like I said, on a good day and a bad day,' she says. She sits cross-legged on the grass, looking just like her Buddha. She lights a cigarette and puffs out of the corner of her mouth, slit-eyed against the smoke. ‘You have a visitor.'

I turn, not sure who to expect. Kate closes the side gate carefully behind her, takes a step and stands there, thumbs hooked into her back pockets. She gives Lola a quick, shy smile. Lola gives Kate the peace sign and pats the grass next to her.

I settle for, ‘Hey.'

‘Hi, Mim,' Kate says, not meeting my gaze.

‘I'm sorry,' I say, getting to the point.

‘Don't be. Jordan has that effect on girls.' She says it airily, like there are girls in his bed all the time, and there probably are. It stings.

‘Well, it's never going to happen again.'

‘Never say never,' she says, still in that light, floaty voice. She sits next to Lola and starts shredding blades of grass.

‘Look, I know what you're thinking. And maybe it started out that way, but I…'

‘You're too good for him,' she states and looks at me with her glass-shard eyes that remind me of him. ‘He's my brother and I love him but he's like a little kid—he'll play with his new toy for a while but then he gets bored and he throws it away.' She gives me an apologetic smile. ‘And you could have told me. I would have been your friend anyway.'

Lola nods her agreement—with which part I don't know—and launches herself upright. ‘Party time!' she shrieks and claps her hands, making us jump. She hurdles the fence and comes back with packets of chips, a box of doughnuts and a six-pack of Cruisers.

We sit and stuff our faces and finish the vodka. Kate knocks back a couple of bottles like she's been doing it all her life and by now I'm so grateful for the company, so brimful of bonhomie, I want to throw my arms around the pair of them.

So I do. And that's when Tahnee walks in.

Her expression is painful to see.

‘The front door was locked,' she accuses. Her eyes are puffy and she looks like she's pulled an all-nighter. She gets out her phone and scrolls. ‘I'm sorry, I miss you, please come over,' she reads. ‘Yeah, it really looks like you miss me.' Her mouth twists and she looks at Kate. ‘Hey, aren't you the one that does kinky things with your flute?'

‘It's a clarinet.' Kate rolls her eyes.

‘Stop it,' I say. ‘I'm glad you're here, but just stop.'

Tahnee turns to me and I'm pretty sure she's not going to stop anything.

‘I think it's time for Truth,' says Lola, clapping her hands again.

‘What's that?

‘Like Truth or Dare, except there are no dares.'

‘So that leaves, like, no choice. You have to tell the truth,' Tahnee whines.

‘That's why it's called Truth,' Lola says patiently. ‘This way, you get to say what you feel, and there are no arguments. You make one statement and it stands alone, no rebuttals allowed. It's like war in peace. You go first,' she nods at me.