That’s what it feels like here: Mars. I have the next two weeks off school, and sit around the house until I’m half-crazy. In a way it’s good. My mind is a silent pool where I don’t have to think.
In the end, when I finally do go back, everything seems strange and unreal. I open the door and wish I had an aqualung. The world feels like it’s underwater.
Joe doesn’t know I’m coming, so I walk on my own. I don’t see him all morning, but Raven sticks by me, picking sulkily at her black nail varnish and shooing people out of my way as if I was on crutches. Finally, at lunchtime, she nudges me. ‘Joe’s coming,’ she says, and sticks her earphones in. My pulse starts to race when he sits down in the chair next to me. I’m more wound up than one of Mum’s old clocks. Joe lays out his lunch – two bags of crisps and a can of Coke – and grins at me.
‘What?’ I say. ‘What could be funny?’
‘This whole thing,’ Joe says, pinching a chip from the greasy, uneaten pile on my plate. ‘My father thinks I’m a hero! I came to the aid of a damsel in distress – very manly of me don’t you think? I’ve come out of all this really well, and now I know you’re all right, it’s quite funny. He thinks I was fighting over you – that you’re my girlfriend!’
I stare at him. ‘Oh really,’ I say. ‘I’m glad it makes you laugh.’
Joe doesn’t seem to care. His face is pale and still displays bruises, which flare across his cheekbone and round his eye like strange flowers. I’m mystified.
‘Why did you do it, Joe?’ I ask him. ‘What was it about really?’
He looks up at me for a long moment, until some lad going out of the door catches his eye. I snap my fingers in front of his nose.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I went there because of him and what he did. It wasn’t right – you know it wasn’t. Someone had to do your thinking for you.’
I glare at him. He’s a fine one to talk about thinking.
‘He didn’t do anything,’ I confess. ‘What I said – I lied, okay? It didn’t happen. It was me; my fault. You went for the wrong person.’
Joe looks at me for a long minute, breathing like he wants to belt me one, but then he just sighs. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Okay. But you need to not go there any more. Ever.’
‘Alec is the one who needs sorting,’ I say. ‘Whatever you told the police, go back and tell them that. Not Banks, Alec.’
Joe grunts. ‘I did. I said he attacked me for no reason. I said he was dangerous, but I didn’t mention Banks. The police know about them anyway. They’re going after Alec.’
‘Are they?’ I say. ‘What for? Do they know something for sure?’
Joe shrugs. ‘I don’t know, Coo, but it’s the best thing. You know it is.’
At the end of the day, I walk Joe home. As we go up the path, he surprises me by taking my hand, but when his dad opens the door, I know why he did it. His dad’s glance drops to where our joined hands are swinging, and he smiles at me for the first time, before going back inside.
‘Bye darling,’ Joe grins, and leans down to kiss my cheek.
‘Liar!’ I hiss.
‘Makes life easier, Coo. If thinking I have a girlfriend means he leaves me alone, then what’s the harm?’
For a moment I want to argue, but then I look at his relaxed smile, and say nothing.
Joe shakes his head. ‘If I was going to have a girlfriend,’ he says, ‘it’d be you.’
‘Honest?’ I say, and he grins and hugs me.
‘Honest. Anyway, girlfriends and boyfriends don’t last. A real friend will.’
‘I used to think so,’ I say. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’
‘A real friend,’ Joe says, ‘not just someone you grab onto.’
There’s an awkward silence and then the window curtains twitch. ‘Your father,’ I say. ‘You can’t let him get away with hitting you.’
He shushes me. ‘Forget it. I can leave home in a year or so. Until then let’s just play a game. Let him think I’m a macho hero; who does it hurt?’
‘It hurts everyone. Because you shouldn’t have to pretend,’ I say, but he just smiles. ‘Can we call it quits and be friends again?’
‘Course,’ I say. ‘I missed you.’
‘You, too. That’s good then.’
As I walk away, the pretence still bothers me, but I don’t have to live his life, do I? It’s just that even the best intended lies have a way of turning out badly. If I’ve learned nothing else, I know that.
I reach town at a point where I could as easily go home or go for a walk on the beach. I know which I should choose, but I don’t. When did I ever?