A ribcage is no armour for a heart; it protects nothing. I need something stronger. Something that doesn’t let in the words, the gestures, the looks. My heart is so heavy it’s about to drop out of its useless cage onto the wet cement.
The lights are on in the house. Rose will be in there talking to Dad about me.
I can’t go in and deal with them, especially not after fighting with Tom.
I need comfort. I need a friend.
I glance down the road at Jordan’s house. It’s been a long time. Would it hurt just to take a peek?
The wet has soaked through Tom’s jacket to my skin and I’m starting to shiver. I’m cold standing in the drizzle outside Jordan’s window but at the sight of her, I feel relief, as if I’ve been holding my breath since Tom drove away. She carries herself with surly confidence now, in a loose-hipped, slouchy sort of way, with brown cords and tinsel blond hair. Her legs are so long I resolve to nickname her ‘Pins’.
When Jordan leaves the room I decide to go inside. I may as well take advantage of my invisibleness.
Jordan’s window is a little trickier to sneak in through now I’m fully grown. When I was a kid I could scramble in with feline grace, but right now I’m banging elbows, scraping knees; I should be better at this considering how often I’m forced to do it.
I close the window after me and tiptoe across to her rug. Ooh. It’s so cosy in here. But cac, I’ve left muddy footprints. I scuttle over on my hands and knees and swipe at them with the sleeve of Tom’s jacket. But it’s wet too and they just smear. Damn, it looks worse, and now my hair has started dripping.
I need something dry to wipe it up with; I search around, a towel, a T-shirt—anything would do, but it’s too late, Jordan is standing at the door, her hands wrapped around a wonky school project pottery mug.
Jordan’s brow furrows as she stands there, her silhouette illuminated by the hall light behind her. I leap back against her wardrobe before she trips over me. But she’s more careful than that. She puts down her tea mug and steps cautiously toward the water on the floor, shining slick in the light.
‘Olive?’ she asks tentatively.
I wonder how often she does this. How often she is spooked by everyday phenomena; wondering if it’s me, questioning her sanity. Here is another person I’ve screwed up. If I was a friend I would leave now. I would find the strength to walk out. But Tom is right. I’m cruel to the ones I love.
I don’t say a word, but there is a drip, drip, drip coming off me somewhere. Maybe my hair, more likely Tom’s coat. I move my hands around, searching the clothes for the source of the drip. But Jordan hears it too. She moves toward me, her hands out like we’re playing Blind Man’s Bluff, feeling her way forward.
‘I know you’re here.’
I slide to the left, turning on my best ninja moves as I duck beneath her sweeping arms.
‘Everyone else might think I’m crazy—but I know you’re real.’
My heart dances a little jig of joy in my chest. She knows I’m real! Should I come forward? Tell her she’s right?
‘Where have you been? I thought you’d have a brood of kids in India by now.’
I want to tell her that I never left, that almost every night I’ve dreamed that I could crawl into her bed like we did when we were small; sharing the mattress with hard plastic Barbie dolls and saliva-soaked bears. I think about it as much as I think about climbing into Tom’s sweet man-scented bed. What can I say? She still has my heart.
She laughs and walks to the mirror. ‘Maybe you are crazy,’ she says to her reflection. She spins back around. ‘Am I crazy, Olive?’
I’m just about to step forward, touch her arm and tell her she’s not, when her mother appears at the door. Sandy Withadrew. Almost my second mother at one point. I adored her like one. This family gave me a few years of furious joy in my screwed-up life.
Sandy is carrying a pile of folded laundry. ‘Olive?’ she says, looking nervous. ‘I thought you’d let that go.’
‘I didn’t let it go, she left,’ Jordan says, matter-of-fact.
Sandy’s brain looks like it is squirming with Medusa snakes of worry. She steps into the room. ‘Do you think, maybe, we should talk about you seeing someone about Olive?’
‘Someone? Like who?’
Sandy sighs. ‘Like a doctor, sweetheart.’
Jordan laughs out loud. She glances around the room as if searching for me to laugh with her. I wish I could. ‘See what you’ve done, my mum thinks I’m a nut case,’ Jordan says.
Sandy’s face contorts. ‘Olive … is here, now?’
‘She was.’ Jordan kicks at the floor. Of course my damp tracks have evaporated, the floor is dry again. ‘She was dripping just here.’
I wish I could help her, I really do. But I can’t ‘come out’ to Jordan and Sandy. If too many people know about me I’m bound to be locked up, experimented on. Dad was petrified of that happening to my Ma and me.
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Sandy reaches for Jordan with her spare hand.
Jordan swipes her away. ‘Come on Mum, I’m just messing with you,’ she says, seeing how worried Sandy has become. She’s a good daughter.
Sandy thrusts the pile of clothes at Jordan with an angry huffing sound. ‘Well I don’t appreciate it,’ she says and storms out.
Jordan looks around the room, she puts her hands on her hips. ‘Happy now?’ She is accusing but not seriously, she has her familiar mischievous face on, waiting for me to reply.
I want to. I do.
‘What’s happened to you?’ Jordan asks. ‘You were always such a smart mouth.’
I smile at that.
She pushes back her shoulders, tosses her head. ‘I know you’ve been following me around—not recently—but before. And I’m not afraid of you, whatever you are. I mean I was …’ She bites her lip. ‘But I’m not anymore, even if you are a ghost or whatever.’
A ghost. My heart slumps. I may as well be a ghost.
Her forehead creases with impatience. ‘Well? Are you going to talk? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly grown a conscience and you’re going to leave me alone and spook someone else.’
I slap my hands over my ears but it’s too late, the words are already inside me. I don’t think they’ll ever leave. Jordan doesn’t want me here. She never did.
Tears flood my eyes as I fumble down the hall and out the back door, the rain a welcome relief on my face. I run home feeling close to collapsing. That friendship that Jordan and I had—that friendship I thought was so precious—I remembered it wrong. She never wanted me there. She thought I was haunting her.
I don’t think the world could get worse but then I see it—an iridescent blue ute parked behind a yellow convertible.