Everything Left Unsaid (12 page)
Read Everything Left Unsaid Online
Authors: Jessica Davidson
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic
Even Juliet seems happier lately. Really, if it wasn’t for the tumour, life would be great. It’s pretty good in spite of it, I guess; the surgery helped a bit. Not as much as I thought it would, which would probably freak me out if I let myself think about it too much, but I try to just steer my mind back to the fact that right now, life is okay. I show up to school on the last day of term – only because I want to break into Juliet’s locker, hiding a rose in there with a note attached.
Come with me to the formal?
She finds me outside English and tackles me into a hug so fierce my bag hits the ground. ‘You’re awesome, Tai.’
• • •
One day, we’re hanging out in my room, listening to music through our headphones, when my phone beeps with a text. When I finish replying, I look up to see Juliet watching me curiously from behind an energy drink that’s almost half the size of her head.
‘Sam,’ I inform her. ‘He asked if I wanted to go fishing or something. We might go tomorrow.’
‘I hate fishing.’ She shudders. ‘There’s the worm thing, and then there’s the dead fish thing. I don’t know how you can—’
She’s interrupted by another beep, and when I start laughing Juliet reaches over, wrenches the phone out of my hands, reads it aloud.
Yeah, tomorrow’s good. Have a good one mate
– hope you get blown
. She looks at me, confused. ‘Is that like a fishing thing –
blown
, like, blow them all out of the water or something?’
I try not to laugh at her. ‘Nah, blown like a blow job. Sam’s got a new girlfriend: he’s obsessed.’
‘Oh.’ There’s a pause as this sinks in, then she asks, ‘Does he think we . . . do you guys talk about that?’
‘I bet I talk to my mates about it as much as you talk to the girls about it. But I don’t tell them details. Well, I wouldn’t, if there was anything to tell.’ It’s a diplomatic answer, and I feel kind of pleased.
Good one, Tai
.
‘Well, yeah. I wouldn’t either.’ Juliet takes a sip of her drink and stares at some invisible spot on the wall before looking at me again. ‘Do you want me to?’
Hell, yeah. Let me just rip my pants off
. I shrug. ‘Only if you want to. I don’t want you to if you think you have to or something like that.’
‘I wouldn’t know what to do.’
‘You and Mick . . . you two were together for ages. You never . . . ?’ I stop. It’s hurting my head – or maybe my ego, I’m not sure which – to think about Juliet doing
that
to Mick, rhymes with Dick, which is how he acted most of the time.
She shakes her head,
no we didn’t,
and then kisses me.
‘Tai? I want to.’ It’s kind of quietly spoken, as she peeks out from beneath her hair. It’s a Juliet move, that.
She stands up and comes over to me, kisses me on the mouth and reaches for my boardies.
‘Maybe we should lock the door,’ I mumble, so she does.
When Juliet pulls open my boardies the rip of the Velcro sounds so loud I’m sure my olds will be at the bedroom door in about two seconds flat, and I grab Juliet by the shoulders.
Wait
. There’s no knock, though, no parent asking what we’re doing and why do we need the door locked to do it, but I say, ‘Maybe we should plug one of our iPods into the speakers, get some music on.’ I lean over and do that while a small giggle bursts out of Juliet.
‘Sorry. I can’t help it that you’ve got loud pants.’
‘Give me some warning next time,’ I say, ‘and I’ll wear quieter ones.’
Afterwards, we lie on the bed together, and I wrap my arms around her. ‘I love you, Juliet.’ I can feel her smiling.
‘I love you too, Tai.’
• • •
The plan was to drive up the coast a bit to a beach that’s good for fishing, but as I’m getting ready that morning my phone beeps.
We have a transport problem
, Sam’s written.
Got done for speeding last night and my olds took my car keys off me
.
Shit. How fast were you going?
120 in a 100 zone. The fine is a couple hundred bucks.
Ouch. Guess we’re not driving anywhere, then.
Nah. Want to meet at the local?
Yeah, okay.
The local is a muddy riverbank with more mosquitos than fish, the kind of place where you have a higher chance of getting malaria or seeing an old guy’s bum crack than actually catching anything. But despite that, I end up at the river, wrapping my fingers around a bit of fish, hooking it onto the end of my line to use as bait. We’re probably not going to catch anything, we both know that, but it’s fun all the same. Sam baits his hook too, throws the line in the water, and watches it hopefully.
‘So I took Nikki to the movies last night,’ he says.
‘Yeah? What did you see?’
‘I’m still not sure – some girl one. You know, where you walk out afterwards and they hate you because you’re not romantic like that?’
‘Yeah, I know the ones.’ It’s a common guy experience. Take girl to movies. Let her pick the movie even though you’d rather take out your own eyeballs with a stick than watch
that
. Buy her popcorn. Watch the movie. And then listen to her complaining that you don’t bring her flowers in the rain or buy her jewellery or whatever Mr Cutie-Pie in the movie did.
‘What did you get up to last night?’ he asks.
‘Not much. Juliet came over and we hung out for a while. Listened to music and stuff.’
‘I don’t know how you guys do it,’ Sam says, staring at his fishing line. ‘Don’t your olds drive you crazy with all that leave-the-door-open-and-keep-a-metre-away-from-each-other stuff?’
‘They don’t really do it anymore,’ I admit. ‘Juliet’s mum does; that’s why she usually comes to my place. My olds don’t care if I shut the door, as long as I don’t die.’
‘Lucky bastard,’ Sam mutters, and then there’s a silence that’s almost awkward. ‘Shit. Sorry, Tai. I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘It’s okay. I know what you meant.’ I reach up and touch the back of my hat, where the tumour is, before realising what I’m doing. I quickly grab the fishing line, hoping Sam didn’t notice.
‘So they really let you shut the door, hey?’
‘Yeah. Last night we even had it locked for a while.’ I grin at the look on his face while he tries to come up with a reply to
that
piece of information, before settling on, ‘That’s not fair. That’s so not fair.’
I keep grinning.
You don’t know half of it, Sam
.
I’m brought back to earth by Sam whacking me on the back, hard.
‘Sorry, mate. Mosquito.’
‘Yeah, sure. Any excuse, huh?’
He holds out his hand, palm up, to show me the squished bug, the blood.
‘Anyway, I bet I can catch more fish than you.’
‘You’re on.’
• • •
When I get home I go into the backyard to hose down my fishing gear. Mum’s there, standing on a ladder, yelling instructions to Hendrix and River, whose arms are full of fairy lights.
‘Save me, Tai!’ Hendrix yells. ‘Mum’s been making us do work all day for
your party
and it’s the
weekend
.’
‘Yeah, save us, Tai!’ River adds, throwing his arms up dramatically and almost losing his armful of lights.
‘You were the ones that spent all your pocket money and then asked for more,’ Mum says, ignoring their theatrics. ‘You want more pocket money; I want help setting up. Everybody wins.’
Hendrix looks at River and twirls his finger around near his temple. River bursts into a flood of giggles and drops his lights.
‘You have to pay me for every one you break, River,’ Mum says, and he scoops them up while I head inside.
Gen and I spend Sunday afternoon lying on her bed, listening to music.
‘I am so burning my textbooks when school finishes,’ she says.
‘Nah. Sell them. You’d get far more joy from the money.’
‘Money can’t buy happiness, Juliet.’ She wags a finger at me.
‘I dunno – I’d be willing to get really, ridiculously rich and test that theory.’
‘Pretty sure you have to be a poor uni student first.’
‘I can handle that. I like two-minute noodles.’
‘Plus those little sachets of dried veggies have to count for something, right?’
‘For sure. Plenty of nutrition in dehydrated peas. I can’t believe we’ve nearly finished school.’
‘Finally. Not looking forward to the exams, though. I so can’t wait for schoolies.’
‘Yeah, me either.’
‘Have you told Tai yet?’
‘Nah, I’ve actually managed to keep it a secret.’
Gen raises her eyebrows. ‘Impressive.’
‘I know, right? Hey, are you ready for the formal?’
‘I guess. I’ve still got to get a necklace. I can’t believe Tai’s parents are paying for a whole stretch limo.’
I shrug. ‘I guess they figure they won’t have to buy him a car or pay for uni. A limo is kind of cheap in comparison.’
‘You always do that.’ Irritation flashes in her eyes.
‘Do what?’
‘No matter what we’re talking about, you always make it about how Tai’s dying.’
‘Well, sorry. But he is, and it’s kind of huge and messing with me.’
‘I know.’ Gen reaches over, grabs me by the hand. ‘I’m not trying to be a bitch. It’s just hard to think about all the time, you know?’
‘Yeah. I know.’
October
On the night of the formal I shower, dress in the suit that I picked out on the weekend, and fumble with the tie. Mum flaps around me, fussing, before sending Dad in to fix it. River and Hendrix are racing around madly, and when I go into the bathroom to put some cologne on and brush my teeth, they follow.
Hendrix wrinkles his nose. ‘I don’t think you’re meant to use the whole lot, Tai, you don’t smell that bad.’
‘Thanks, Hendrix.’ I look in the mirror, wondering if it’s even worth putting some gel in my hair, before deciding it’s not since I’m wearing a hat to cover the weird patches that haven’t grown back properly yet. I can’t quite face cutting all my hair off. And besides, I’ve kind of got used to the hat.
There’s a knock at the front door. River squeals with excitement and leaps off the edge of the bath, where he’s been sitting watching me. A minute later he’s back, dragging Sam by the hand.
‘Hey,’ Sam says.
‘Hey. You scrub up pretty good.’
‘Yeah, you too.’
‘You’ve got matching hats,’ River says. He reaches up to steal mine and perch it on his own head. Sam’s cool; he doesn’t stare like everyone else, and just smiles at me easily before removing his own top hat and inspecting the damage it has done to his carefully sculpted, sandy-blond spikes. I let River wear mine until there’s another knock at the door and then I snatch it back. ‘My turn.’
River’s having too much fun answering the door to put up a fight. Alex comes in next, then Rae, and Lina and Tom about two minutes later.
‘Hey, Gen,’ I ask, ‘where’s Juliet? I thought she’d be the first one here, not the last.’
Gen shrugs. ‘Probably doing her hair.’
Before I can pace around too much, there’s another knock. I go to answer, but River pushes me out of the way. ‘I’ll do it, Tai – it’s my job.’
He opens the door, and in steps Juliet. Her dress is black and silky, with these sparkly bits, and her hair hangs down her back in perfect, shiny curls.
‘Wow, Juliet,’ River says. ‘You look really beautiful.’
‘Hey.’ I elbow him. ‘That’s my job.’
She smiles at me shyly, and I’m willing my mouth to open and say something to her when Gen and Lina squeal in unison. The limo has just pulled up outside. ‘That. Is. So. Cool.’
Everyone takes off for the door – everyone apart from Juliet. We’re finally about to get a second to talk to each other when Mum appears beside me. ‘Oh, Juliet. You look gorgeous, sweetheart.’
Juliet smiles, looking both self-conscious and pleased with herself. ‘Thank you.’
‘Your corsage is in the fridge,’ I say.
Mum laughs. ‘You mean corsages.’ She looks at me and grins with delight. ‘Tell her, Tai.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Tell me what?’ Juliet’s smiling, confused, and I slink off to the kitchen.
‘Don’t mind him,’ I hear Mum whisper. ‘He didn’t know what a corsage was, so he went to the florist and ordered three.’
I wait in the kitchen until they stop laughing, before going back out and tying one on Juliet’s wrist. ‘You ready?’
‘Hang on,’ Mum orders. ‘Photos. I need photos.’
She goes mad with the camera, and doesn’t stop until I protest, ‘Mum, no more – everyone’s waiting.’
Once she’s lined us all up in front of the limo and taken a dozen more photos, we’re finally allowed to go. The ride is almost too short. I’ve barely had time to realise how happy I am before we’re there.
As soon as we enter our teachers come up, wanting to know how I am. I answer politely, but as soon as we escape Juliet drags me onto the dance floor. The music changes from a fast song to a slow one, and I know there’s no getting out of this. I so can’t dance. And if I stand on her toes I’ll probably break them. But Juliet looks at me so hopefully I can’t help hugging her, pulling her in.
She rests her head on my shoulder while we sway. ‘You’re really beautiful,’ I whisper.
‘Tai?’ She lifts her head, eyes on mine. ‘You make me really happy.’
She closes her eyes again and snuggles in. I wish I could do the same. Not being able to dance is bad enough anyway, without the tumour making me clumsy as well. To distract myself from the fear of breaking Juliet’s feet, I look around the room. We’re in this function centre that’s been filled with navy and white balloons, the school colours, and I bet Juliet will have something cynical to say about that later. There are white tablecloths underneath places set for our chicken-or-fish meal, our names printed in navy on place cards. The teachers’ table is at the front of the room and, not surprisingly, none of them are dancing. Some of the teachers are outside, taking their turn to patrol the balcony and make sure we’re ‘behaving’. Unlike in here, where everything is so lit-up, out there is darker. And where I’d rather be. I’m too pale in here, too slow and shaky, too
different
. I want to be out where everything is shadowy. Where I don’t look like I’m dying.
Once the dance is over I take her hand, pull her behind me onto the balcony. There’s a teacher pacing out there, making sure no-one is throwing stuff off or getting up to anything they shouldn’t. When she sees us she smiles and paces in the other direction.
Thank you, universe
.
‘Are you having a good time?’ I ask, but instead of answering Juliet throws her arms around me and holds on tight.
‘I want to remember this forever,’ she says.
