One True Thing (2 page)

‘Don't be late!' Luke calls out to me after I drop him at Parkham Primary School, where he's in Year 4.

The rain has eased to barely a drizzle but the gunmetal-grey clouds above suggest it will return soon enough. I heft my guitar strap over my shoulder, adjusting it for comfort. I mostly play electric for the band, to give it that meatier sound we've been experimenting with, so today I have my Yamaha Pacifica.

I duck my head against the chilly morning air and start walking, picking up my pace before the rain clouds break again. I'm relieved it's a casual clothes day. My College Park High uniform isn't anywhere near as warm as the faded jeans, grey hoodie and denim jacket I'm wearing.

I'm about to cross the street, my guitar banging against my hip as I jog to make the lights when, from out of nowhere, I see a blur of brown and gold followed by a sudden flash of light. The next thing I know I'm falling forward, landing hard on the wet bitumen, my guitar, thankfully, slamming against my back and not the ground. It happens so fast that it takes a second to notice I'm actually in the middle of the street. I glance up at the traffic lights, which are now changing, and panic surges through me.

Before I can react, a hand yanks me back onto my feet and I'm hustled onto the footpath. I look up at the person whose hand is now cupping my elbow, about to say thank you, when I realise the sweatshirt he's wearing is the same brown and gold I saw on the person who took me out. And he has a camera hanging around his neck – out of its case, and looking a lot like it might be the source of the flash I saw in the seconds before impact. He's tall and well-built, which explains how he so neatly knocked me down in one hit.

‘What the …?' I hear Harry's voice in my head, reminding me to behave in public, and stop myself from swearing. But Harry never said anything about shooting daggers. ‘Look where you're going, will you!'

The man – no, boy, I decide – seems pretty unconcerned by my anger. In fact, he looks almost ready to laugh, which infuriates me more.

‘What? You can't say sorry?'

The boy grins openly. ‘You're right. Sorry.'

I scowl as I straighten my guitar and brush myself down. My jeans are trashed, the left knee damp and torn, and the right one muddied all the way down to my shin. ‘Well, you've ruined my jeans,' I say, hating the whiny edge in my voice.

‘Sorry. Again.' He pauses, seeming to wait for something.

‘What?'

‘You know I saved you from oncoming traffic, right?'

I stand taller and glare at him. ‘You knocked me over in the first place!'

He lets out a short, sharp laugh.

‘This is funny to you?' I snap.

He's laughing properly now, his whole body shaking, and it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to understand that, yes, he does think this is funny.

I'm just about to cut him down with a brilliant, witty line – or I would if I could come up with one – when a man, well into his thirties with a greying red beard and looking nothing like the handsome teenager in front of me, stops and asks me if I'm okay.

‘Sorry about before,' he says. His brown hoodie with gold trim is a perfect match to the one the boy is wearing. ‘I didn't see you.'

It registers that both of them are wearing Hawthorn colours and it's finals time. The Hawks are playing this
week, so there are people wearing brown and gold stripes pretty much everywhere you turn right now.

I look from the boy to the stranger and then back to the boy. He's no longer laughing. Actually, he seems to feel sorry for me, which is so much worse.

‘It's fine,' I mutter.

‘You sure?' the man asks again, already turning to leave.

‘Yeah. I'm fine.' I look down, hiding my burning cheeks.

I watch the older man disappear into the crowd, taking the extra seconds to come up with the right words. I know I need to apologise to this guy – thank him, even. And I want to. I do. So why are the words sticking in my throat?

‘You're welcome,' he says, as though reading my mind.

I look up to see if he's being a smart-arse, but he's smiling gently now, and it's possible he's just being nice. Plus, he has a dimple. Two dimples. Two unbelievably perfectly proportioned dimples that do something sharp but not unpleasant to me when they appear.

‘I'm sorry,' I say quickly. ‘I thought it was you.' I have to force myself to look at him, determined to finish what I started. ‘And thanks for … you know.'

‘Saving your life?' he offers helpfully. His eyes are a startling green and his skin is a rich Mediterranean olive.

I laugh. ‘It wasn't that serious.'

He cocks his head and runs a hand through his hair. Dark curls, long but not too long, loose and wild, like he might have pulled a comb through them this morning, but also maybe not. It takes all my willpower not to brush his fringe from where it's fallen over his left eye.

As though reading my mind, he pushes the rogue curl away.

‘School,' I blurt with the snappy brilliance sometimes seen in zombies.

‘Does that belong to a sentence?'

I nod, then shake my head. Then nod again.
Jesus
. I force a laugh, trying to play it cool. ‘Maybe he shook my brain loose,' I offer, hoping to recover even a tiny bit of composure.

‘Sounds painful.'

‘You don't know the half of it,' I say.

We both fall silent for a moment, and then it's a long moment and it starts to feel awkward.

‘I have to go,' I say. ‘You know … school.' I smile and head off before I can embarrass myself further, careful not to look back.

The corridors are thick with people and noise, which means I'm later than I thought. I've missed my song-writing session with Kessie. This is a problem because:

‘Hey, Your Highness! Your Honour! Your Majesty!'

The monolith that is Travis Matthews is shouting across the heads of the entire senior school. He should be in Year 11, but went overseas when he was little and fell
behind. That's his excuse, anyway. My theory is he's still in Year 10 because he's a complete and total idiot.

‘How's the Yummy Mummy?' he asks, smacking his lips together.

That's what the media started calling Mum back when she was all gung-ho about apologising to the forced-adoption kids. It's got worse ever since she took over as Premier. The previous Premier, Evan Sandry, retired early ‘to spend more time with his family', and as Deputy, Mum was his obvious successor. The Party voted her in unopposed almost exactly ten months before the election. And now it's almost here. Everyone is predicting a landslide, which annoys Mum. She says it makes her look cocky, even though she's not the one saying it.

For whatever reason, Travis Matthews has an unhealthy preoccupation with my mum, and with me, which is more than a little disturbing. He always has – even when we were kids, though he was much nicer then. Shy and gentle, funny and, well,
normal
. Almost another person, really, compared to what I see before me today. Apart from being obnoxious and ignorant, he's also built like a Russian weightlifter. Thick-chested with an unusually large head, and breath that smells like dead people, he's half a metre taller than the other boys and he's got the temper of a rabid dog. His mates call him Butcher. Everyone else calls him Meathead.

But not to his face.

‘Still jonesing for my junk?' he croons, smirking.

Every kid in the corridor has stopped to watch, probably reaching for their phones in case I'm about to provide them with a YouTube-worthy clip.

Twenty different insults fly through my brain, screaming for release. Fortunately, my mouth doesn't respond and they stay locked inside my skull, where my parents – and Harry – would like them to stay.

I turn away, hoping to draw some strength from the Lollapalooza poster lining the inside of my locker door, Eddie Vedder's earnest face front and centre. But the lock gives me grief as usual, refusing to open, and I'm forced to deal with the moment unarmed. I turn back to stare Travis down and am just about to surrender to the demon in my head, ready to drag up an R-rated insult in my defence, when I hear a familiar voice cut through like no one else's can.

‘Hey, small-dick! How's that impotency problem coming? All better now?'

The corridor explodes with laughter and Travis's face turns to stone. It isn't the funniest line she's ever handed Travis Matthews, but when Kessie Blythedale takes aim at the school bully, it holds a special power. Plus, she can say whatever she wants. Her mum isn't the Victorian Premier.

‘Nice one, Blythedale,' Travis says, recovering. He swings around wildly, searching for a comeback while
avoiding Kessie's mocking gaze. ‘Fucking lesbian,' he mutters under his breath.

‘Why, thank you,' she calls back. ‘Kind of you to notice.'

And everyone around her laughs on cue, just like she knew they would.

Kessie's beside my locker, grinning wickedly. I take a second to enjoy the view of Travis Matthews huffing out of there like a deflated whoopee cushion before I turn to face my best friend. She might have come to my rescue, but she won't let me off that easily.

‘What the hell is going on?' she hisses when the coast is clear. ‘You'd freak out if I didn't show up for a session. And what's with the phone silence? A whole weekend of freaking voicemail. Did you drop your phone down the loo again? Because anything less than that, and you can consider me seriously pissed off.'

Kessie has my back – she always has, ever since the shelter shed incident back in Year 2 – but that doesn't mean I don't have to work for it.

‘I know. I'm sorry,' I say, finally opening my locker and finding Eddie Vedder right where he's meant to be. Though, once again, the Eddie Solution has fallen short. I force myself to look squarely at Kessie, mentally bracing for the onslaught.

‘You didn't call back,' she says. ‘Not once.' She slides her sunglasses on top of her head, aiming her trademark glare at me. Kessie is stunning – drop-dead, catwalk-quality
gorgeous. (Without the eating disorder or the vacant, glassy stare.) Rich, auburn wavy hair, eyes more violet than blue, framed by the kinds of lashes you see on antique dolls – thick, black, brush-like – except Kessie's are real and don't need mascara. Even her teeth are naturally perfect, white and even, without the years of braces that I've only recently escaped. Kessie is smart and funny and fiercely loyal, which has won her lots of friends and probably even more enemies. Plus, she cares about everything. I mean EVERYTHING: the refugees, women's rights, global warming, public transport, clean water – even how they collect the bloody rubbish! (Apparently a lot of our recycling ends up in landfill. Who knew?) She's wearing her favourite faded denim jacket which features a cluster of badges proclaiming these concerns. She rotates the pins depending on her mood. Today, a hot-pink ‘Justice for Pussy Riot!' badge is front and centre. Tomorrow, it could be ‘Recyclers Do It Twice'.

Mum says Kessie's a crusader looking for a cause – which Mum loves. I say she's a loudmouth who stupidly thinks she can change the world one street march at a time. Kessie says she's just a concerned citizen. I guess on some level we're all right.

Oh, and Kessie is also a lesbian, which seems to confuse almost everyone. Girls don't know whether to be jealous of her or adore her, while boys can't seem to give up hope that she might one day turn straight
if only she'd drop the
political bollocks.
Anyone with a brain knows
that's
never gonna happen. (The former or the latter.)

Kessie Blythedale is my best friend in the whole world, but for the past couple of weeks I've barely spoken to her outside of school, apart from shouting chords at each other at band practice and trading notes on school assignments. This past weekend we didn't talk once, which must be a record. But while this weekend was my fault – some media stuff Mum wanted Luke and me to do – it's not all me. Kessie's been as distant as I have. Between her endless marching against – or for – whatever, she's almost certainly dating someone and, weirdly, she refuses to talk about it.

So while I'm feeling bad about being late and not catching up this weekend, I'm also a little pissy that she's not making more of an effort herself.

Then she shows up when Travis is being a knob. I can hardly bag her now. ‘I'm sorry,' I say again. And I mean it because – honestly? – I've missed her. I step back to show her my ruined jeans. ‘I tripped over,' I say, deciding not to mention the rest. ‘That's why I'm late.'

Her face instantly falls. ‘Ouch. Are you all right?'

‘Yeah, except my jeans are ruined.'

We both look down at the pathetic little tear, the damp patch on my shin.

‘I love those jeans,' she says.

‘Me too.'

She offers me a sympathetic sigh. ‘You're forgiven.'

‘Lunch then?'

‘Can't,' she says, not really looking at me. ‘I've got plans.'

There it is again. I try not to be miffed. ‘So, after school rehearsal then?'

A slow smile creeps across her face. ‘Sure, but …'

‘What?'

She touches my hair, pushing it over my shoulder, then steps back to study me from head to toe.

‘Seriously, what?'

‘Nothing,' she says. ‘Just … There's someone I want you to meet.'

‘Your lunch date, huh?'

‘Yep.'

And here it is. Finally, she's fessing up. Whoever she is will be gorgeous and vacuous and all light and laughter, and for a few weeks she'll be all Kessie will talk about, all she'll think about. Then Kessie will get bored and I'll be back on speed dial until she starts drooling over someone else. It annoys me that she bails whenever someone hot shows up but at least it won't last long. These girls never last long.

‘Great, it's about time you came clean.' I wag a finger in front of her. ‘Just don't be late. You know how I hate that.'

Kessie rolls her eyes, then kisses me goodbye and says, ‘I wouldn't dare.'