Her head is on my shoulder when she asks me again for a story. I heard her the first time, I’m just light on stuff to say.
Well, the right stuff to say.
‘I’m thinking.’
She smiles. ‘Think faster.’
It’s hard to think fast when she’s close enough to hear my heart thumping in my chest.
‘Alright. Got one.’ I clear my throat. ‘Remember when your mum came to parent–teacher interview night dressed as Wonder Woman?’
Her mouth opens. ‘Do I? How could I forget? She wore Dad’s blue Speedos over her stockings. She had a wedgie … in public.’
I crack up. ‘I remember.’
‘And they were all baggy and saggy from the wash,’ she shakes her head. ‘Oh my God, that’s why we never should’ve dared her to do anything! Shameless. She’d do anything for a laugh.’
‘Sounds like you.’
‘You didn’t see me strutting around Durnan High in budgie-smugglers.’
I tug at the uniform clinging to her body. ‘True. But you’ve got potential. Genetics.’
‘Maybe.’ She smirks. ‘I liked the time she filled your family’s mailbox with chocolates.’
‘Ah, the melted chocolate incident.’
Layla snorts. ‘She didn’t realise you’d all gone away for the weekend! She wanted to surprise you guys.’
‘She did. And they still tasted good.’
‘She knew you loved them.’
I nod, transported back to the day of discovering the soft, squishy bars of chocolate stacked high in our mailbox.
This is the problem with peeling back the lid on old memories — everything spills out in all directions. Because now when I remember our mailbox, I also remember the Montgomery’s mailbox.
They sat side by side. They were matching.
Mum was the first to notice the Montgomerys’ mailbox was heaving over with junk mail. It could’ve been days after the funeral. Maybe weeks. All I know is Dad realised their sedan was missing, too.
The warning signs were wasted on me and Trent — Layla had become a ghost since the funeral. One minute she was stretched out on the strip of grass between our driveways with her friends, flipping through magazines and listening to music on a portable speaker; the next, she’d disappeared into her house and shut the curtains around her and her dad. I rarely saw her come and go any more, and I never saw him. When she stopped showing up at school, I didn’t question it; just figured I’d skip class too if the same thing happened to me.
Everyone thought that.
We never imagined what else might be going down.
Jesus. We had no idea.
I heard Mum and Dad whispering in the dark of the kitchen one night — quiet enough that I couldn’t hear all the details, but loud enough to know something big was up. While their voices rose and fell — Mum’s shook the louder she spoke — I snuck out through the laundry door to check for myself.
My hand pressed against the splintery wood of the fence that separated our backyards as I strained to look through one of the holes. The grass was clipped. The garden was tidy. The treehouse loomed large. There was nothing out of place — a few teachers from Durnan High had been cleaning up the backyard once a week.
I tiptoed along the fence, swearing as my arm scraped against the wood, then eased open the side gate. I sprinted up the steps to Layla’s veranda and, sucking in a breath, peered through the window into their kitchen. It looked normal to me, other than a few cupboard doors were open and there were bowls and plates stacked on the sink.
I didn’t know that it meant something.
When I woke up the next day, Mum and Dad called Trent and me to sit down and they told us: the Montgomerys had left town. They didn’t know why. They didn’t know where they were. They didn’t know if they were coming back.
They were just gone.
But now, with Layla’s head resting on my shoulder again, I don’t tell her any of that. She’s already carrying scars that sit just below the surface.
I stretch out on the back seat and try to ignore the touch of her fingertips on the back of my hand as she whispers that she hasn’t let herself think of all that for years.