22
I GENTLY EASE open the front door, hoping I can sneak into Charlie’s room without being intercepted by Mum or Dad, but thankfully neither of them is anywhere in sight. I can almost sense the leftover vibration of tense words, the air static with sadness, but I push it away like I’m pushing away thoughts of Ben, Jacinta and Rach.
In my brother’s room I grab his phone and keyring from his desk, then race out. My bedroom floor is strewn with all the tops I’d tried on and discarded before leaving the house today. I pull off my shorts, adding them to the mess, and collapse on my bed with Charlie’s phone. I hesitate before this invasion of privacy, as if I’m actually considering backing out, then I glance at the keyring and tap in the numbers.
The phone unlocks.
The first thing I notice is his home screen background, a photo of Lockie and Charlie squinting into the sun at Gunnamatta Beach with surfboards under their arms. Lockie’s board is a small, pointy-nosed thing with stickers all over it, while Charlie’s is enormous and blue with the letters NSP on the top. I take in my brother’s familiar grin and wonder if seeing a photo of him will ever not make me feel like I’m dying. The second thing I notice is three separate apps on his home screen he used for his borderline-obsessive study notes and I remember how intense he always was around exam time, how hard he tried, how much he pushed himself, as if a high mark could keep something unwanted away, and the palpable relief he gave off when he did well.
I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, and I’m very aware I may see a side of my brother I really wish I hadn’t (read: weird foot fetish), but I open up the YouTube app, go to his profile, then into his viewing history. I scroll through the thumbnails and titles—the top one is dated the day he died—and among the famous YouTubers’ names with their videos of pranks and acts of performative altruism, I see some things that feel kind of illuminating.
Why You were Born to Be a Champion one video reads. The Five Secrets of the Winners Mentality reads another. I cringe at the self-helpy titles, wrinkling my nose in second-hand embarrassment at How to Claim Your Potential . I click on this one and the opening is an ad for some kind of health supplement tablets that remind me of the ones from Charlie’s favourite movie about the pill that makes you limitless. I decide I can’t bring myself to watch any of these, but beneath the awkward discomfort of seeing my brother’s self-consciousness on full display, there’s a very familiar pang in my chest.
I shake it off and force myself to read some other video titles, the ones that appear in groups late at night like evidence of rabbit holes, making me wonder if Charlie was deeper into whatever he was into than I’d realised. Titles like Consciousness, Chaos and Order and The Search for Human Destiny and An Antidote to Nihilism.
Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I don’t want to know about this stuff. Maybe following my brother down this path will make me feel worse , not better.
I shove the phone under my pillow and stare up at the ceiling. I clench and unclench my fists, trying to formulate a useful thought out of what I’ve seen. I feel like I’m so close to understanding something, like it’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t quite find the mind-puzzle piece to make it fall into place.
Then it hits me. Our theory. One transcendent thing.
Did Charlie really think he had to be special in some obvious, impressive, important way in order to matter? Was he genuinely scared of it not being true?
And now I realise: that’s the low hum in my veins, the aching, longing, wanting that follows me around everywhere, the emptiness I feel inside. I’ve been hoping the same thing too. Not that I could actually talk to animals or communicate with the dead, but that there’s something innate and undeniable about me I haven’t discovered yet that makes me matter to the world. And fearing, like slow-motion panic, that there’s not. That something is missing. That it’s just me, how I am, and that’s all . And what if that’s not enough? What if I’m not enough? I squirm as that question digs into me, feeling sick with the truth of it. How is it that I can simultaneously believe that I’m special, that I’m so much more, but also be convinced that I’m nothing? That I’m worthless.
I wonder if everyone feels this way, but some more intensely than others. And maybe some people feel it, but they keep it a secret because it seems so narcissistic, so unlikely, but it’s still there, deep down, thumping away like a second heart. And maybe some people feel the aching, the longing, the wanting inside them, but don’t know that’s what it is. All this hope and fear.
I wait for Charlie to speak to me, to tell me I’ve figured it out, but he doesn’t. Because I haven’t. Not fully. Because the aching, longing, wanting is not the black hole. That’s something different. Something way worse.
But then I do hear Charlie’s voice out of the growing shadows in my room. Amused, as if existence itself is laughable. ‘You know, I didn’t think you’d follow me this far, Lucky. I really didn’t. But you’re finally getting close now.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask the voice in my head, pissed off at my brother for the first time in a long time.
But Charlie doesn’t explain, because he won’t let me have it that easy. ‘Maybe we’re more like each other than I thought. Gross. Now put my phone back, thief.’
I stare at the crack in the ceiling, wishing I knew what it all meant. Wondering if I’ll ever really know. Suddenly I’m bone-achingly exhausted, and this entire mess of a day catches up with me, and so before even a drop more darkness can creep in, I pull out my own phone, start scrolling, and shut the world out.