23
I WAKE UP with a feeling I can’t quite pinpoint. Like there’s a vital part of me missing. I throw off my doona and watch the morning light catch the tiny, sparkling dust particles in the air. It’s a full five minutes before I realise what I might be feeling: lonely.
Charlie’s gone, and he’ll be gone for literally infinity. Lockie is like a mirage, something that was never really there to begin with. Rach thinks I’m a ‘complete bitch’, for very good reasons—as if I wasn’t dreading going back to school this year enough. Ben thinks I’m a ‘bad idea’, because I am. Jacinta thinks having a dead brother makes me crap friend material, which it clearly does. And I’ll probably never know what ends up happening with Ninja, whether she survives and is released into the wild or not.
It was different before, when I never felt like I needed many friends. And I didn’t want to hang out with anyone after Charlie. But then Jacinta, and Ben, who reached into my chest cavity and pulled out a girl who felt a tiny bit normal, maybe even happy one or two times. Or at least made me feel understood, like Rach used to. But now whatever’s wrong with me has stolen all that away. And it’s terrifying, because where does that slippery slope end? How bad could this get? And does it even matter? Why should I try to be happy when happiness is just a chemical circulating in my body and brain anyway? That feels like a genuine question to me in a way it never has before, a question that makes me scared of my own thoughts but also weirdly detached from them, and if I keep sliding down this steep hill I probably will become depressed.
I spend most of the day comfort-eating heavily buttered toast and drinking lemonade with the bubbles stirred out. I know I’m not sick but I let Mum fuss anyway because it reminds me of being a kid, back when the worst heartache I faced was a cancelled trip to Luna Park thanks to chicken pox. I half listen to the news Dad’s got on. Some twelve-year-old has beaten the world record for solving a Rubik’s Cube. A twenty-something-year-old plumber has been crushed to death by a dodgy retaining wall. I get that feeling again, as if life is translucent. Too thin. Like there’s barely any space between all the possible things that can happen. Like there’s no point in planning or hoping or trying because the idea that you have any real control over things is an illusion anyway.
I pull out my phone. No message from Ben. No message from Jacinta. I scroll until the numb, unconscious feeling comes over me.
·
In the late afternoon my parents drag me back to the waking world by recruiting me to film another video for them, this time an informational one about what to look for in a first home. I want to say no, but it will be easier to just get it over and done with. Dad’s in his nicest pinstripe shirt, the one he wore to Charlie’s funeral, and he’s grinning his most manic grin yet, all jittery from too much coffee and not enough sleep. Mum’s in her red suit jacket, and the gentle afternoon light has a photoshop effect on her zombie eyes, which this morning were the same colour as her jacket and puffy. When she noticed me notice she blamed her allergies in a half-hearted way that made me wonder if she’s finally getting tired of pretending to be even remotely okay around me, until—
‘All black, Luce? Again?’ She looks at me with an expression that says, Why can’t you at least try? I look at her with a face I hope says, Give me one good reason why I should. Clearly we’re both in a mood.
‘Are we filming or not?’ I ask, waving my phone and trying to hurry this thing up.
They sit on the couch, close together, and speak to the camera lens like those parents in press conferences calling for information about their missing child. They look like a unit. A team. It’s very good acting.
That night I’m lying on my bedroom floor scrolling my phone, just for something different, and thinking about Jacinta. Because thinking about losing Rach hurts way too much and thinking about the fight with Ben makes me nauseous. It’s been just over twenty-four hours of not talking to Jacinta but because of how close we’ve been it feels like a week. It’s hard for me to admit, but I need her.
I want to message her, or turn up at her house like she did at mine that day, because I get the feeling this time she’s not going to be the one to force me to sort my stuff out. That this time she’s waiting for me. Or, she isn’t. Because then I remember that Jacinta doesn’t want to be friends with someone who’s messed up.
I push my phone aside and roll onto my stomach, sighing into my crossed arms. But as I stare into the reddish black of the back of my eyelids, going over and over what Jacinta said to me, I realise something that should have been obvious: she isn’t Lockie. Jacinta never actually said she needed me to be happy . She’s not pissed at me for being sad. She just doesn’t want a crap friend who tries to force her to get tattoos and ignores her when she’s trying to tell them something important.
I groan. It’s kind of a low bar. Come on, Lucy. You can give her that much, can’t you?