Chapter 2
Luna
There is an annoying beeping sound in my head. I just want it to stop but it doesn’t. It comes and goes like waves.
Sometimes, it is close to my ear.
Sometimes, it drifts far away, like it belongs in another room.
Beep.
Pause.
Beep.
I try to open my eyes, but they feel so heavy, as though someone has placed warm stones over them. My mouth tastes like a hangover. I need water.
Something presses against the back of my hand. Then, there is a sharp pain, and someone saying, “That’s it, love. It’s over now. You did well.”
It feels like I am back at the hospital. But … why?
The thought floats up slowly and then slips away into the darkness.
Voices begin to filter through the cracks in the darkness.
“… pulse regular …”
A man’s voice. A really nice, manly-man voice.
“…possible contusion …”
A different voice breaks in. Another manly-man voice, but I should know this one.
“Why isn’t she waking up? What is wrong…”
I hear a sob … Men don’t cry…
“Luna. Luna, can you hear me?”
I know that voice.
But my thoughts scatter like birds. The words float around me like bubbles.
Wake up.
I try. I really do, but this cloud is so soft… I don’t wanna get up. Let me sleep for a bit.
The darkness is like an inky whirlpool, sucking in all my thoughts.
A baby cries somewhere, her mewls thin and desperate. I don’t know how, but I know it’s a girl. There is a burning pain in my chest. I don’t understand.
A name floats by. Amelie. But that is also sucked into the darkness before it reforms slowly.
My baby.
I try to move, but my body doesn’t want to. My hands feel miles away from me. I can’t feel my legs.
“Shh … It’s okay, baby.”
Another voice I know, warm and wobbling a little.
“She just wants her mum.” Someone sobs.
Footsteps move away. The crying fades, and blessed silence returns.
Hands move around me, and cold air brushes my face.
“GCS eight … Pupils sluggish.”
“Let’s logroll her onto the stretcher.”
The words float past me without meaning.
“1, 2, 3, roll … 1, 2, 3, slide.”
Something lifts beneath my body.
The world tilts.
A baby cries again somewhere nearby, followed by a shushing sound.
My chest feels like an elephant is sitting on it. I don’t want the quiet anymore. I don’t want to leave her.
Amelie.
Then, blackness crashes back down.
***
A siren wails. It rises and falls like a strange, distant song.
A warm hand is holding mine. Someone is praying.
A thumb keeps brushing over my fingers.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
“Stay with me, Luna,” a voice murmurs. “Don’t leave me … Love, don’t leave me.”
I know that voice.
Isaac.
But that doesn’t make sense.
He isn’t supposed to be here.
He’s somewhere else.
Far away.
Dreaming about—
I turn away as the pain in my chest returns, obliterating everything.
The siren grows louder.
Then softer.
And softer.
Until everything disappears.
***
A Memory
My fingers smell like engine grease. I love the scent because it smells like Daddy.
Daddy’s old blue Ford sits in the driveway with its hood open, and I’m standing on a wooden crate beside him so I can see inside.
“Pass me the wrench, Lulu.”
I hand it to him carefully. Daddy likes taking things apart and putting them back together. He does it all day at work, and then comes home and does it all over again.
So do I.
Once, I took the clock in the living room apart, every gear and spring laid out on the carpet. I just wanted to see what was inside.
Mum screamed when she saw it after she got back from shopping.
Grandma had given it to her, she said, and now I had ruined it.
Daddy helped me fix it later, carefully rebuilding it piece by piece while I watched. But Mum said it wasn’t the same.
Every time she looked at it after that, she looked sad. And it made my tummy feel like it was dropping to my feet.
Today, the air is so cold.
Daddy isn’t talking much. He is making dinner and the corners of his mouth are turned down. Tony, my little brother, is sleeping upstairs.
Mum is sitting on the back porch in the garden chair that Daddy made just for her.
When they came back from the hospital, dad let me hold Tony and told me he is my new brother. He is so tiny-his face wrinkled like a little old man.
He cries all the time, and Mum cries with him.
Earlier, I heard Daddy talking to her in the kitchen.
His voice was sad. Mum didn’t say anything.
When I asked Daddy what was wrong, he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Tony’s very sick, Lulu,” he said. “He might have to go back to the hospital.”
“Like the car goes to the garage?” I asked. Dad looked at me and sighed.
Now, Mum sits in the porch chair, just staring out at the sky. She used to ask me to wear a sweater and shoes, but she is not wearing any.
My fingers are cold. I climb onto the chair beside her.
My legs dangle because my feet don’t reach the floor, so I swing them back and forth.
I start talking.
“Mummy … guess what happened at school today.”
She doesn’t look at me.
I swing my legs a little harder so my shoes bump against the chair.
“Graham pulled my hair in PE again,” I say. “Mrs. Carter saw him this time. He had to stand by the wall.”
Mum is still looking at the sky.
I keep going.
“And Lily got in trouble at lunch.”
I glance sidewise at her. Still nothing.
“She wouldn’t finish her food. Mrs. Carter said she had to stay inside during recess.”
Tony makes a small crying sound from the kitchen. Dad must have brought him downstairs.
“Lily said she wasn’t hungry, but Mrs Carter said she was being rude.”
Mum doesn’t say anything.
I lean closer.
“Mummy?”
Nothing.
“So, Lily had to sit in the classroom while we went outside,” I continue, talking faster now. “And Graham said it was unfair because he had to stand by the wall and Lily got to sit down.”
My feet keep swinging.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“Mummy,” I try again.
Tony starts crying properly now. I think he might have a poopy diaper.
“Tony is crying, Mummy,” I say.
She doesn’t look at me.
And suddenly—
I’m scared.
***
The beeps are back. Voices begin filtering through the darkness again. The fog lifts a little.
“… three days now.”
A soft woman’s voice.
Mum is speaking to me again, my confused mind tells me.
“She’ll wake up,” someone says quietly.
Another voice I know and used to love. Manon is here—Isaac’s mum.
“I should have noticed,” Mum whispers. “Why didn’t she say anything?”
“I should have seen she wasn’t well. I was there every day,” Manon sighs. It’s a sad sound.
“You couldn’t have known,” my mother murmurs.
“I should have,” Manon says again, the guilt heavy in every word. “I am a nurse, for god’s sake. She had changed so much, and I was so busy pretending everything was fine. How could I have missed it?”
The beeping continues.
Beep.
Pause.
Beep.
***
The hospital beeping fades.
The scent of antiseptic becomes the smell of soap and warm water.
Metal sinks and sky-high piles of dishes.
My sleeves are rolled up, and my hands are in a sink full of bubbles.
Colin stands beside me, drying plates with a tea towel.
We are both wearing the blue overalls from the aircraft maintenance course.
The sleeves are pulled down because he is always cold, and his hair is sticking up like he’s run his hands through it too many times.
We started our course together and have been best friends since.
He just split up from his boyfriend of two years a week ago but seems to be coping.
He’s distracted today. That’s unusual because Colin can never stop running his mouth.
Colin is the first person to talk to a stranger. The first to help someone lift something heavy. The first to lend you a tenner when you realize you forgot your purse.
Today, it’s his turn to dry the plates.
I flick a bit of soap at him.
“Careful,” I say. “Your hair gel is dripping onto the plates.”
He snorts.
“You’re the one washing them and blaming my hair gel for a half-arsed job.”
“I am not the one carrying an oil well on his head.”
He rolls his eyes.
Colin glances at the stack of dishes and sighs like the world is against him.
“You realize,” he says, “that while we’re doing this, actual engineers are designing actual aircraft engines.”
I snort.
“Excuse you. We are almost technicians. Almost being the operative word.”
“We’re trainee grease monkeys,” he agrees.
“Speak for yourself. I am definitely human.”
“Luna,” he says solemnly, “We literally spent three hours today arguing about whether that bolt was metric or imperial.”
“You are such an exaggeration queen. That was you arguing,” I say, “because you can’t read.”
“Oi.”
“Slacker.”
“Loser.”
He bumps my shoulder and almost makes me lose my balance.
“At least I passed electrical systems. You nearly set the simulator on fire.”
“That was one time.”
“Three times.”
I flick soap at him, and he answers with a toothy grin.
“Besides,” he says, “you’ve clearly got other priorities.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Fred.”
“Shut up.”
He leans closer, lowering his voice.
“Oh, Fred,” he says in a terrible imitation of Fred’s deep Essex accent. “Luuuna, pass me the spanner, luv.”
“That is not how he talks.”
“That is exactly how he talks.” He puffs out his chest. “Luuuna, you fancy a ride in my Vauxhall Astra?”
I laugh despite myself.
“You’re such an idiot.”
“You fancy him.” He teases.
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.” He waggles his unibrow. “You want to get him into bed.”
“Colin!”
He bursts out laughing.
“Admit it.”
“Oh, please, I have too much self-respect. Molly said he tries his luck with every female recruit.” I say. “Too bad he doesn’t swing your way. You could have given it a go.”
He clutches his chest like I have offended him with the suggestion.
“Always so bitchy.”
“Hey, you started it.”
“Besides,” he says, tossing the tea towel over his shoulder, “if Fred did swing my way, I’d still have standards.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen the way you look at him. You’re obsessed.”
“With riding my Yamaha maybe?” I toss at him, tired of this ‘Fred’ talk.
“With riding Fred,” he replies, leaning against the counter.
“Just do your bits, so we can get out of here? Slacker,” I mumble as I grimace at the stubborn grease stain on the plate
“Gremlin.”
“Toolbox goblin.”
He grins.
“Dishwashing peasant.”
“Absolute muppet.”
“Knobhead.”
“Bellend.”
“Aircraft maintenance failure.”
“Utter spanner.”
“Professional loser.”
“Certified idiot.”
We’re both laughing now. He grabs my favourite hat from the counter.
“Oi!” I protest.
He lifts it high above my head.
“Too slow, shortie.”
“Give it back!” I hop on my toes to reach it but he is too tall. Dirty dishwater sprays everywhere.
He laughs. “Come on, Luna. Use your engineering brain.”
I jump again.
“Colin!”
He holds it higher, coordinating his jumps with mine.
I grab his arm with both hands and hang on, trying to pull his arm down.
“Give—it—back!”
The tea towel falls to the floor. He’s still laughing.
And then my fingers slide against something rough. A ridge on his skin.
My curious hand slips slightly under his sleeve.
It takes my brain a while to comprehend what I am seeing. Thin lines. Some angry red. Some white, and crisscrossing.
Some old, some newer, running up his arm like a ladder built by an amateur.
I can feel my face change. His smile disappears instantly, and I look up to see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows.
His arm drops. Without looking at me, he turns, silently picks up another plate, and starts drying it slowly and carefully as if nothing just happened.
“Colin,” I say quietly.
Nothing.
“Colin.”
I watch as his jaw clenches.
“Leave it.”
The words come out sharp enough to cut. He wants me to ignore what I have seen and back off like an ostrich with its head in the sand. But ostriches don’t really do that, do they?
I reach for his sleeve.
“Colin—”
“Leave it,” my friend who has never raised his voice to me snaps as he pulls away.
But I grab the front of his shirt and pull.
“Colin.”
“Luna—”
“Colin.”
He tries to turn away, but I don’t let him.
“Just drop it.” His voice wobbles with desperation.
I don’t. I grab him and pull him around, past his resistance.
Then I hug him hard as I try to hold my tears in.
Colin’s arms stay stiff at his sides.
For a moment, he doesn’t move. So, I take his wrists and pull them around me. I have done this to Tony when he got bullied in school. I have hugged Lily the same way when her boyfriend cheated on her.
“Just for a minute. Just hold me for a fucking minute,” I whisper desperately.
Whatever was holding him together seems to let go as he collapses against me like someone has let the air out of him.
His face presses into my neck, and I feel the shudder that runs through him.
And then he starts crying—deep, shaking sobs.
“Luna … I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
My hand keeps moving over his back.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Only after a while do I realise my eyes are not dry either.
It is an awkward hug with our height difference but we make do. Eventually, he pulls away, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, embarrassed at his loss of control.
But I don’t let go of his arms.
I look straight at him.
“We’re going to finish the dishes,” I decide.
He gives me a shaky laugh and a nod.
“And then we’re going to talk about this.”
He opens his mouth.
“No arguing,” I interrupt. “Whatever is going wrong in your life, this isn’t the answer.”
He nods slowly. I want to believe this has brought time. Time to change his path.
The kitchen smells like soap again, and the grimy tiles begins to dissolve as the beeping returns.
Beep.
Pause.
Beep.
Somewhere far away, someone says my name.
“Luna …”