Needless to say I wake up alone. That day, and the next three days I insist on waiting there.
I can’t talk about the pain. Lying listless in Tom’s sheets, listening to the soft shifts in the house as the family go about their daily routines. Janelle slamming the door for her morning run, Paul shuffling around making breakfast, calling his daughter on the telephone. The house becoming silent after they leave for work.
Each day I wander around the empty house, making myself tea and toast, taking long showers, mourning over photo albums. Tom was such a cute baby. Maybe I do want to have a baby …
Nights are busier; any one of Tom’s sisters might pop by, kids cry and are comforted as the pots and pans of dinner clash about. Sisters cry and are comforted, washing up the same pots and pans afterwards. Nobody comes into Tom’s room except Janelle with a pile of laundry once. She tuts at the state of the bed, but doesn’t move to make it, thank the gods because I’m still lying in it, covers up to my chin, my eyes following her around the room like one of those spooky paintings which always seem to look at you no matter where you stand.
Tom never comes home. I never hear him mentioned. It’s as if he never existed and was the grand creation of my brain. But I could never take credit for such a boy. He was beyond Adonis. I cry for him again and again; and then again and again. I have to flip the tear-soaked pillow a billion times.
But the crying must stop. Jordan has come for me.
It’s such a shock to see Jordan walk into the room with Janelle, I almost yell out.
Janelle starts rooting around the drawers of Tom’s desk. ‘Sorry love, I can’t see it,’ she says.
Jordan has her arms outstretched and is feeling her way around the room. ‘That’s okay, maybe he took it with him.’ She leans over Tom’s bed where I’m lying and starts patting it down.
It’s too late to move. I’m not sure I want to. She must be here for me. It’s too much of a coincidence.
Suddenly I’m found. ‘I knew it!’ she whispers. She’s tugging on my shirt. ‘Come. Now.’ A direct order.
‘What’s that?’ Janelle asks.
‘Nothing, just checking he wasn’t reading the book in bed. But it’s not here. Don’t worry, I’ll grab it off him later. I’m so sorry to bother you.’ She gives my shirt one last tug and leaves, pushing the door wide open behind her. She wants me to follow.
I’m reluctant to leave Tom’s room. It’s like I’m giving up hope. But Jordan is here. She’s here for me! It’s kind of a miracle. I’ve got to find out what’s going on.
Instead of taking the hallway, I slip out the side door and exit through the courtyard, my heart despairing just a little at still no sign of Bluto, and then I’m over the wall. The sunshine feels good on my face. Jordan is right. It’s time to go.
Jordan is saying farewell to Janelle at the front door and I’m surprised to see Felix in the passenger seat of his mother’s red sedan, which is parked out the front. So Felix planned this rescue mission? His brain is worth more than a right hook.
‘You’re here, Olive?’ Jordan mutters as she reaches the car. Janelle is standing at the door watching and waving.
‘You came for me!’ I wrap my arms around her. ‘You know I’m real!’
I’m so happy I want to jig.
‘Yeah, a real pain-in-the-ass,’ she says, but the corner of her mouth turns up. ‘Get in.’ She holds the door open while I scramble in over the driver’s seat and sit on Felix’s lap. There is a backseat in this car, but he doesn’t complain.
He hugs me. ‘You’re such an idiot.’
I deserve that. ‘And you can get a girl out of trouble,’ I say, elbowing him.
‘This plan was all Jordan,’ he replies.
Jordan starts up the car. ‘You found me,’ she objects.
‘It wasn’t hard, Rose told me where you lived.’
‘So the three of you planned this together?’ I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so loved. I’ve got people! Real people who care.
‘It was fun,’ Felix says. ‘Especially telling Jordan you were real.’
Jordan snorts. ‘I always knew she was real.’
My heart does tumble-turns in my chest. ‘You did?’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I told you the other night. And when Felix told me you’d disappeared over some guy, it was such a drama-queen Olive move, I knew he was telling the truth.’
I’m furious and thrilled at the same time. She always knew!
‘He’s not just some guy,’ I object. ‘He’s a mesmerisingly scrumptious one. Smashing blue eyes, perfect smile, muscles to make your heart corrode. Total dreamboat.’ I sink back against Felix. ‘I feel limp just thinking about him.’
‘Yeah, not a drama queen at all …’ Felix says.
‘Well he might be a dreamboat, but you’re about as helpful as the Titanic,’ Jordan says. ‘Your sister has been so worried—’
Jordan takes a breath to continue but I cut her off with the most genuine apology I can verbally construct because it’s true, I have been a pain and I should have called Rose.
‘I’m so sorry. You are completely right. I am a heartless beast. I deserve to be flayed.’
Jordan snorts and Felix laughs.
‘I’m just a lost soul with a side salad of bitter,’ I lament.
‘I knew my imagination wasn’t good enough to dream you up,’ Jordan says, frowning at the road ahead.
We have to refuel before we return the car, so Felix’s mum doesn’t realise it’s been used. I’m impressed by my friends’ cunning. First tracking each other down, then devising a plan to rescue me from my own misery. It’s classy detective work. No wonder they’re my friends.
The thought tugs at my heart. Finally Jordan and I are real friends, not imaginary ones. It’s the best feeling in the world.
Jordan gets out and slams the door after bemoaning the fact she is the only one who can drive or pump the gas, or do ‘anything at all useful’.
It makes Felix grin. ‘I can see why you two get along.’
‘I seem to bring out the feisty in her.’
‘No, she’s great. She wouldn’t rest until we’d hunted you down,’ Felix says, shifting under me. I’m probably giving him dead-legs.
‘I wonder how long I would have stayed in Tom’s bedroom if you didn’t come.’ I slip onto Jordan’s seat, leaving my feet in his lap. ‘Talk about embarrassing. Sorry to drag you into it.’
‘You didn’t drag me into it, I rescued you—I’m your knight in shining armour.’
‘Thanks Lancelot,’ I scoff.
He laughs and flicks my toes. ‘Anyway, give yourself a break, life hasn’t dealt you the easiest hand.’
‘Life was pretty threadbare before I had Tom,’ I admit. ‘But it’s no excuse. You can’t glue yourself to someone and expect them to make everything better. It’s up to me to make myself happy,’ I say bravely.
‘Ah, independent Olive.’
‘Independence is a bad thing?’
‘If you use it as a defence mechanism …’
‘Don’t give me your psycho-babble.’
‘I’m just saying, it’s okay to be upset about Tom. It’s okay that you were attached to him. He was your first love.’
‘Mmm.’ I shut my eyes and think of Tom. ‘I chose thirty-three days of solitude instead of talking to him. Who does that?’
Felix doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Independent Olive.’
I sigh. ‘Maybe you’re onto something.’
I watch Jordan screwing on the petrol cap. Tom has left me and I can’t even be angry with him because he’s right, our life together would be impossible. I was impossible. I open the door a crack, yelling, ‘Can you get some gum?’ to Jordan as she walks in to pay.
‘You’re loving this aren’t you?’ I say a moment later to Felix. ‘Counselling me, knowing all the right things to say, yada, yada, yada …’
‘I’m saying the right things?’ He is smiling. ‘Great.’
‘You’re not that great. I still don’t know what to do about my irrevocable disposition.’
Jordan opens the door and I wriggle back over the gearbox onto Felix’s lap.
‘Let people in, Olive, let people help,’ he replies.
Jordan chucks me a stick of gum. ‘Yeah and help us back. You can start by handing over ten bucks for the fuel.’