Chapter 40
Isqueeze my eyes shut, then open them back up to focus on the words. I wonder if they might vanish, but they’re still there. Black ink on yellow paper. The end of the y is smudged, as if he’d written it in haste and rushed to fold it together, sealing in his truth.
I realise that my breath feels uncomfortable and shallow, my lungs thirsty to expand to take in a proper gulp of air.
‘I hate to be the bearer of good news,’ Hennie murmurs. ‘But I think this might be the certainty you’re looking for.’
‘Right,’ I whisper, still staring at the words. At my name in ink.
The memory of Elliot writing his post-it rushes to mind. Him writing something so brief I wondered what it could possibly be.
My name, apparently.
‘Right,’ I repeat uselessly.
Hennie stares at me with concern. I try to say something different.
‘It… almost seems wrong to even have this. To see something this vulnerable to someone.’
‘It is your name,’ she says simply. ‘Doesn’t seem that wrong. I’m the sinner here.’
I hesitate, my eyes moving over the photo again with trepidation.
‘Maybe you could exercise a bit of vulnerability in response,’ she suggests. ‘But that’s your choice.’
I nod silently. Confronting the fact that Elliot has confessed some sort of supposed feelings does not inspire me to take any action, or say anything of value. Or, apparently, anything at all.
‘Well,’ she starts, slapping her knees with finality.
‘I’m freezing my tits off. And from the looks of things, I’ll be needing protection from the elements.
’ She nods up to the sky, the edges of which are turning from a bluish-purple into a deep, angry grey.
The remaining sunlight fighting through gaps in the clouds leaves a strange, soft warmth on my skin.
‘I’ll get our rain stuff, plus a sensible outfit for me which I won’t freeze to death in.’
I sit up straighter, starting to get to my feet. ‘I’ll come, babe.’
‘No, no. I think you should have a few minutes to yourself. You haven’t had a moment of peace or solitude since we got here, and I’m not helping by babbling in your ear.
I’ll be back soon, just… I don’t know, enjoy the lake.
And send the boy a text or something,’ she says, nodding down to my phone as she departs.
Or something, as if that isn’t completely terrifying.
I make myself comfortable, absent-mindedly watching two girls in their teens on the opposite side of the lake throwing pebbles in one-by-one, trying to skim them across the surface with little success.
The fact that this is my first instance of being alone at the festival starts to sink in. Other than snatching moments to shower and brush my teeth, I haven’t had the opportunity at Firecrest to just… be.
I twist my phone between my fingers.
It buzzes several times. My heart thumps, hoping for a certain name to appear even though I have no right to. Owen’s name flashes again and again, and I realise he’s sending batches of photos to our group chat. He finishes with a red heart emoji, and Josh leaves a message below simply reading:
we’re so hot
I wrap my arms tighter around myself and click the first photo. After a minute of buffering, I begin scrolling through all the moments of the weekend that already feel like weeks ago.
There are lots of shots of Hennie and Josh illuminated by a harsh flash, likely taken during their late nights.
I laugh out loud at one that has captured them strutting somewhere I don’t recognise, as if on a catwalk with their hair blowing in the wind.
A shot of Josh holding my tiara on top of Elliot’s head, his face emotionless.
A distant shot of Elliot and I wrestling for control of the stick yesterday, our faces brimming with mirth.
There are a couple of group shots we all posed for at one time or another, but Owen has mostly captured the quieter, sweeter moments.
A picture of Elliot, Hen and I standing in front of the wishing tree, the backs of our heads tilted up to take it in.
Hennie and I dancing arm in arm at Martha Jane’s, our faces alight with unbridled joy.
Josh grinning with splatters of cocktail dribbling down his front, cheekily pointing the straw from his cup directly at the lens.
A selfie of Josh and Owen in sunglasses, frowning down at the camera with a harsh blue sky behind them.
My heart stutters at one of Elliot lounging in a camping chair in front of his tent, fiddling with the sleeve of a shirt I didn’t recognise.
It must have been taken the day before we met.
I resist the urge to save it to my phone.
I scroll to another photo which immediately grabs my attention. It sticks out from the others due to the fact none of us are in it; it looks like a mural running across a fence I hadn’t noticed in the Jungle, crying out through my phone screen:
What would you have done if you’d lived without fear?
I ignore the erratic thumping of my heart until I scroll to the next photo, which makes my heart stop for a second entirely. Good to know that Owen’s photos are apparently prone to cause heart failure. For a moment I wonder if I should seek out the medical tent.
The picture is of Elliot and I; I assume it was taken today as we’re standing close together, but not bound together by the drumstick.
I’m laughing at something off camera, while I pull at a stray lock of hair away from my face, which is decorated with an enormous grin: my very real and unabashed smile.
But it’s Elliot’s expression that I can’t seem to look away from, at the way he’s smiling at me with such a tenderness that it feels like a bit of an intrusion to see.
Does he always look at me like that? No, surely not. I’d have noticed that, wouldn’t I?
Perhaps it’s just a trick of the light? Is that how photography works??
It’s crazy how much you miss when you’re not looking.
I shake my head to dislodge Owen’s words reverberating in my brain. Not now, Owen.
There are no more photos to scroll through after that. He has, it seems, decided to end on a banger.
I wonder if he subtly dropped the Jungle mural in there for my benefit. Then again, I am an over-thinker. Maybe he just likes the sentiment?
Seems odd, though. Given that the rest of the photos just have us in them.
My mind is spinning as I flick back to the photo of me and Elliot.
What I’m looking for in the photo, exactly, I have no idea.
For Elliot to be holding up a tiny sign that I’d somehow missed in the moment?
That perhaps reads: Nora, queen of my heart, be mine or I will be ruined forever, for you are so very perfect and divine and the apple of my eye? ?
Come on, get it together. My name has been written on a post-it note. That is more evidence than I ever thought I could have. This must be what certainty feels like.
There’s no point in analysing a photo of us. The answer to my own question has been answered… now I have to ask myself what I’m going to do about it.
My fingers tap against my phone before stuffing it into my pocket. How long can I possibly make myself wait until I take action? I suppose time will tell, as I do love to suffer.
I massage my temples and wait for clearer thoughts to come. But the question that shouts the loudest over all my jumbled and incoherent thoughts is this, over and over again:
What would you have done if you’d lived without fear?
I fight to not roll my eyes at the question. It’s the beginning of a question, ultimately presenting a vague concept that does not exist. Can never exist.
A life without fear is impossible. The fear is never going to go away.
I know that for sure. The fear I carry isn’t something that I’ve ever been able to negotiate or battle with.
All I can do is manage it and take it day by day.
I’ve worked tirelessly to shift my perspective and practice techniques to use in panic-inducing situations, all the while knowing that the fear isn’t going anywhere.
As long as I exist, the fear will exist.
The fear isn’t going anywhere, I repeat to myself over and over. The words flow and sprawl across my brain like an ink stain spreading.
The distant echo of Nora minutes before seeing Queen Ego chimes within me: I have to do this. For my own sake.
I knew I wanted to see Queen Ego more than anything, so I made it happen. Even though I was scared that the experience would sting me like the last time I tried. Petrified. But the fear didn’t stop me from trying again.
Pride filters deliciously through me that I did make it here and see them perform live, despite everything.
I stepped into the centre of the crowd, the eye of the storm, even though I was terrified it could all go wrong.
Purely because I wanted to try. And when I was watching Queen Ego, it felt like I was really living; like I was doing both my future and past selves a great service.
Not a single part of me would ever regret doing that.
Even if I had panicked and left again, it still would have been worth it.
My fingers fiddle with the edges of my jacket sleeve. Why is Hennie taking so long? I scan around the lake for her silvery-blonde head but find nothing.
My mind churns as it desperately binds threads of doubt and hope together.
When faced with the wishing tree and my own post-it, I remembered that it had not even occurred to me to wish to meet Queen Ego.
My mind went straight to the person I had been attached to all weekend.
His stoic expression and upturned smirk flashes in my mind even now, when I turn my gaze up to the edge of the sun peeking out from behind a cloud.
My rational brain knows this makes sense. Wishing to meet a band that I do not know, hoping that the idea of them might be real and that I might connect with them is valid.