Chapter 66
Issy arrived back at her Point Piper apartment to find a note from Hugh on the kitchen bench. Issy, I’m staying with Marshall for a few days. Let’s talk when you’re back in town. I want to work things out. H x
She stared at the words. How strange life was.
Just days ago, Hugh was ripping a page from a notepad, writing these words to her.
Now he was gone. She hadn’t cried yet. Not about Hugh, anyway.
It was Anna she’d cried for on the drive home.
A young girl, sexually assaulted by her employer’s son and paid to have an abortion.
She’d barely been able to look at her mother once she’d told them the truth.
Issy crumpled the note into a ball in her fist and put it down on the bench.
Her apartment felt foreign and unfamiliar.
As she looked around the open space, her eye was drawn to a stack of her old Beecham Ladies College yearbooks on the tall bookshelves at the far side of the room. She reached for one.
It fell open on the page with Issy’s own year twelve photo.
Her pretty face beamed off the page, head tipped coyly to one side, high blonde ponytail tied with a white satin ribbon.
Beneath her photo was Stella Austin, fresh-faced, eyes sparkling, just as Issy remembered her.
She touched the image, as though somehow it would bridge the years between them, the chasm that had formed that summer night, the day she’d finished her last HSC exam.
For the first time in twelve years, she let her mind travel back there, but the memories were vague, fragmented, a series of vignettes that unfurled from the deep recess in her mind where they’d been lying dormant all this time.
The steep bush track that led them towards giddy voices and a bass beat, the last traces of daylight lingering in the luminous blue sky overhead.
The pop of a Champagne cork, bubbles spilling onto the dirt beneath their feet.
A shot of something that tasted of licorice.
Dancing. Sweaty bodies. Another shot. And another.
Distant lightning flashing like a strobe light.
The low rumble of thunder. Slow, fat raindrops gathering pace until it was hammering rain.
Squeals of laughter as the crowd dispersed, running towards the dark path.
Issy and Stella hand in hand, barely able to see the ground beneath their feet.
Then a sudden jolt on Issy’s arm as Stella slipped off the side of the path. Her friend’s face wincing in pain through gritted teeth, hands clutching her fat ankle. The distant voices of the others. The struggle to hold Stella, torrential rain still hammering down.
The car park was deserted except for Issy’s silver BMW, an early eighteenth birthday present, sparkling new in the rain under a lone streetlight.
A cold white glow on Stella’s face as they sat in the car, sheltering from the storm, her cheeks wet with rain and tears.
The recorded message of the cab company, over and over.
Issy closed her eyes and forced herself to face what happened next.
Headlights glistening on asphalt, the air impossibly clear after the storm had passed.
A Pink song on the radio. Then Stella’s face distorted as the car spun into a skid.
Terror on the face of a taxi driver coming the other way, swerving to miss them.
The sickening crunch of metal as they hit a brick wall.
An airbag hitting Issy’s face like a punch.
Then everything stopped.
Silent. Still.
‘Stella?’
Nothing.
A siren pierced the silence.
Then everything went black.
Deep shame settled over Issy now like a heavy blanket.
She’d known she was too drunk to drive, but when her parents picked her up from the hospital, there was no mention of it.
And now she knew that they’d managed things so that it was like it had never happened.
Her parents had paid the Austins to make a lawsuit go away, just as they’d paid Anna to abort her baby.
She looked back at the photo of Stella. Why had she abandoned her friend so easily? She tried to recall those holidays before uni started, but it was a blur. An endless stream of parties and party drugs, one night blending into the next.
She felt sick in her stomach now, the nauseous churn of self-hatred. She thought of the Peloton. A sweat session was her usual cure for feelings like this. Instead, she opened her laptop.
Stella Austin she typed in the search bar on Facebook.
There she was. Tears prickled Issy’s eyes as she studied the photo of her friend, holding a chubby baby, a shiny scar stretching from her temple to her chin.
She clicked on Message and started to type.