LUCY
5.53 p.m.
Blisters burn the backs of Lucy’s ankles. She thuds along the footpath parallel to Northbourne Avenue, a veil of sweat decorating her forehead, but she doesn’t bother to wipe it away. Turns out shoes fresh from the box and a school uniform aren’t the best choices for sprinting through the streets of Canberra.
The bus is shuddering by the time she charges into the Jolimont Centre, suitcase rattling on the tiles and vice-captain badge swinging from her uniform collar. She watches, still puffing, as the last of the passengers pile onto the swollen bus. Heart pounding, Lucy squats down on the concrete to unzip the suitcase. Her hoodie and tracksuit pants are folded on top, in half, then in half again; her attempt to be organised before the trip.
Before this afternoon.
Before the spare hours between class ending and arriving at the bus stop had dissolved, thanks to helping her coach pack up the swimming gear after last period and fielding calls about the Year 12 formal every five minutes from the school captain.
Swearing to herself, Lucy tosses the hoodie and tracksuit pants over her left arm and wheels her bag to the back of the bus line.
The driver saunters over. ‘Wagga or Albury?’ he asks, grabbing her suitcase.
‘Melbourne.’
‘In it for the full eight hours, huh?’
‘Yeah. Brave, right?’
‘Brave’s one word for riding the overnighter.’ He chuckles, warming up a little. ‘Alrighty, Eight, onya get, find a seat. Better get this milk-carton-on-wheels movin’ before the roos take over the highway.’
Lucy nods. ‘Is there time for me to run inside to change into my …’ She gestures to her tracksuit, voice trailing off as she spots the driver’s raised eyebrow. ‘Never mind.’
She tugs at her uniform, cringing at the saucer-sized stains radiating from her armpits.
5.56 p.m.
The bus is packed. Lucy squeezes down the aisle, sucking in a breath as she dodges dangling feet and a juicebox-throwing toddler. She strains towards her seat at the back, her imagination whirring as she panics about which brand of awful she’ll be wedged in with. A man obsessed with watching dirty YouTube clips on his iPad without headphones? Or maybe a child who loves nothing more than screeching in people’s ears?
Row after row, Lucy passes the passengers — no signs of anyone clipping their nails onto the floor yet, like her best friend Nate had warned her — although anything seems possible after eight hours trapped together in the dark. Lucy grins when she reaches her seat: there’s not a whisper of another human in the spot next to hers.
6.01 p.m.
The bus rumbles as Lucy dumps out the contents of her bag onto the empty seats.
Buzzzz.
Her phone.
Again.
The twins. Simone, the eldest of Lucy’s family by seventeen minutes, tells her not to worry about packing shampoo ’cause Ana is addicted to collecting the free little bottles from hotels during her work trips. Too late.
It buzzes again.
Nate moaning, ‘The Olivia Bensons miss youuuu, Lucy Maree Faris’ in their group’s chat.
And again.
More from Nate, this time sending selfies with Tamiko from the back seat of his parents’ car on the way to Maya’s farm for Shabbat dinner and a sleepover.
Lucy runs her fingers through her thick ponytail as she fights the twinge in her chest.
It’s band practice for The Olivia Bensons tomorrow, so they’ll be working their way through the Stones, AC/DC and KISS’s back catalogues. Although Lucy wonders whether it’ll even happen without her nagging everyone into position, drumsticks in hand, smashing at the kit until they stop sliding around in their socks in Nate’s garage. Probably not.
If they’re the bricks, then she’s the cement.
6.04 p.m.
The bus driver walks up and down the aisle counting passengers. Yawning, Lucy curls up against the window, using her bunched-up tracksuit as a makeshift pillow, clamps her eyes shut and jams in her earphones to block out the thick, throaty laughter from a woman a few seats ahead. Lucy buries her face further into the material, nose crinkling at the faint waft of chlorine.
A tap on her shoulder.
Her eyelids strain open.
Through twisted lashes, Lucy sees the bus driver beaming, his scrawny arm leaning on the headrest in front of her. ‘Evening, Eight. We’ve got ourselves an incoming.’
Lucy’s gaze follows the driver’s fingers as he points towards the front of the bus. In the aisle, right next to the driver’s seat, stands a tall guy in skinny jeans with a backpack hanging off his shoulder. His hoodie is pulled down low over his forehead and he’s absorbed by his phone so Lucy can’t see his face, only a hint of his profile.
‘Better late than never, I s’pose,’ the driver continues, ‘although a second later and he’d’ve missed the party.’ The unflattering lights sparking a bright-white glow through the bus aren’t helping Lucy get a better look. Pretty cute, Lucy notes, although she thinks all guys look pretty cute in a hoodie and skinny jeans. A bad habit, really.
‘Scoot over, then,’ adds the driver.
‘What?’ Lucy rubs at her eye.
‘I can’t strap the big fella to the top of the bus, can I?’
He squeezes his way back down the aisle, announcing to the passengers with a gruff laugh that it’s almost time for take-off.
Lucy rechecks her ticket.
Aisle seat.
Damn.
As Lucy sweeps her stuff back into her bag, grimacing at her sticky school uniform, she doesn’t know whether to be irritated she has to share her precious spare seat with someone, or panicked that someone is a guy in a hoodie and skinny jeans.
A maybe pretty cute guy.
The pressure.
A passenger with a toenail clipper would be welcomed right now.
She looks up to see the maybe pretty cute guy standing in the aisle next to her. The hoodie’s slipped off and he’s not maybe pretty cute at all. He’s definitely actually cute, but that’s not the problem.
It’s Cameron Webber.
His shoulder-length hair is cropped off, but it’s him.
Cam.
Webby.
The World Wide Web.
BBQ.
BBQ Sauce.
Smoky BBQ Sauce.
Smoky.
The guys in his group had too many nicknames to keep up with. Smoky was always Lucy’s favourite — it matched his eyes — until it felt wrong and she could only think of him as Cameron Webber again.
Lucy’s jaw tightens.
‘Hey,’ Cameron says, breaking into a smile as he readjusts his backpack.
‘Hi.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
She holds her breath as Cameron squeezes past her to the window seat.
He’s said hello, he’s asked how it’s going, but Lucy can’t tell if he’s making small talk with that girl he used to know or if he’s just being friendly to the grubby stranger on the bus. Maybe he doesn’t even remember her. When Cameron is settled into place, earphones in, thumbs drumming against his jeans, Lucy reaches for her phone. Not that it’ll be any use: Maya’s farm has Australia’s worst mobile reception.
But still Lucy’s fingers dance on the keyboard.
SOS, Olivia Bensons, she types, biting her lip. Trapped on a bus with Cameron Webber. Benson #2 down. I repeat: Benson #2 down.
6.19 p.m.
He keeps sniffing.
Long, crackly sniffs that sound like he’s trying to snort something up his nose. Lucy wriggles her earphones in a little further, wondering how deep they can go without busting her eardrums. She sniffs as payback, drawing in a long, loud breath, but it only makes her torso hard from nose to gut and she explodes into a coughing attack, burying her mouth into her soft fist.
Cameron raises an eyebrow — an everything all right? eyebrow — but Lucy forces a small smile, still spluttering into her fingers.
He settles back in his seat. Another sniff. Then more drumming of his thumbs to the beat pounding in his head. Fast, hard drums, the type of song Lucy knows she’d rip up on stage if she and The Olivia Bensons ever got the chance.
She curls her body away from Cameron’s, wiping her hand on her uniform when he’s not looking, then fluffs the tracksuit beneath her head. It slips down from the headrest. Sighing, she flops the other way to try to get comfortable, until she realises she’s now arched in towards him.
He spots her before she has time to shift.
‘You okay?’ he asks, taking out an ear bud. ‘You seem kinda —’
‘What?’ She sits up a little straighter, lips pursed.
His bottom lip twitches. ‘Nothing. So you’re okay?’
‘I’m okay.’
‘Then okay.’
He turns up his music but he still hasn’t said her name. Lucy Faris. It’s not that hard. Four syllables. He has to remember it. You don’t just forget the name of someone you used to know. Although, to be fair, she hasn’t said his either.
Lucy wonders if the sound of his would catch in her throat if she tried to say it out loud.
Oh, how she’d fantasised about spitting it in his face.
Or just spitting in his face.
Now she’s here, centimetres from Cameron’s skin, close enough to smell the peppermint on his breath, and she can’t look past the invisible bubble around him; her skin prickles every time he tries to hold her gaze for more than a second. Frustrated with herself, Lucy’s eyes lower to snoop at the scribbling on his hand. A blue chequerboard on the ruddy flesh below his knuckles. Two red stars on his little finger. And the word ‘tiny’ scrawled up his left thumb in mottled black ink, running into the quick of his chewed nails.
Clearing her throat, Lucy makes a big deal out of retrieving her phone from her bag, hating herself for not handling this better. But Cameron’s said less than twenty words to her and none of them are ‘I’m sorry’.
‘Sure you’re okay?’
‘Yep. Still okay.’
‘Then okay.’
Twenty words.
Still no sorry.
6.54 p.m.
I’m dying, she types to the group. Dying … dying … please send help before I’m dead. Benson #2, over and out.
She frowns at her phone, willing someone to do the impossible and reply.
But no-one answers her SOS.
7.01 p.m.
Still nothing.
It’s just her, Cameron Webber and six hundred kilometres of highway, she thinks, grasp tightening around her phone.
7.03 p.m.
Lucy’s thoughts are so loud she worries the whole bus can hear them. Arms folded across her chest, she glares out the window across the aisle; Cameron’s shut their blind. Not that she would’ve dared peek out past him anyway.
It’s been three years since Cameron showed up at her school in the middle of Term 1 and promptly disappeared a few months later. Plenty of the guys in Year 9 had cold porridge for brains, but he seemed like a different breed with a soft tone that made it sound like he was trying to swallow his words before anyone heard them. Cameron played a ton of sport — the number-one currency in their corner of Canberra — so after a few days of bouncing between groups, word spread about his sprinting and kicking game in PE and it landed him in with the popular guys. The footyheads. The jerks, according to Lucy. According to just about everyone who was brave enough to admit it. Cameron wouldn’t say much when the loudmouths — the Mitches and the Daveys and the Matts — talked rubbish; he’d just nod and tuck his shoulder-length hair behind his ears, cracking jokes that everyone pretended to get.
Lucy would see him at the local pool on mornings before class. Green swimming cap on, he’d power through the water, his enormous feet kicking up and down, propelling him through the fast lane. He would see her, too. One day he complimented her backstroke style, the next day she mentioned his fast tumble turns, and they soon fell into a habit of propping each other up whenever they saw each other.
A smile. A wave. A flattering comment.
Lucy didn’t understand how a nice guy like Cameron could hang with such a group of jerks; Mitch was a walking, talking detention slip with more than one suspension on his record.
Then came Soo-Yin’s fifteenth birthday party. The jerks, the in-betweeners, the drama kids — everyone who wanted in, was in. Cameron had found Lucy by the bonfire with The Olivia Bensons and he’d wedged himself into the conversation, not that Lucy had minded. She’d locked eyes with Nate across the group, hoping this was the night he’d learn to read her mind.
Be my wingman.
It must’ve worked, because one by one, Nate, Maya and Tamiko snaked back inside to fill up their glasses. Lucy and Cameron laughed about sports and movies and Mr Haber’s new toupee until Cameron’s eyes watered. He filled in the edges of a mounting silence by stammering that she had ‘long eyelashes’, which Lucy liked. Before she could reply, he rushed to say that she looked really pretty with her hair pulled back into a long plait, too. It was a fishtail braid, but Lucy wasn’t about to correct him. Instead, she stepped in closer until their warm breath was intertwined and she kissed him, not bothering to say any more words. Not about his lips tasting like peppermint, not that she liked the way his hair fell to his shoulders and he should wear it out more often. Judging by the feel of his lips and tongue softly moving with hers and his hands fumbling on the small of her back, tracing their way to her hips, he didn’t mind one bit.
But day by day, week by week, Cameron stopped showing up to the pool as often. It didn’t take long before Lucy stopped watching the entrance to see if his big, broad figure would come loping in, towel draped around his shoulders.
He was no longer one of hers, he was one of theirs.
Yet when Lucy and Cameron passed in the halls, he’d squeeze out a smile like they’d shared the sweetest secret in the world, but he’d never hold eye contact long enough for them to take anything further. Lucy wore her hair in a fishtail braid after the kiss, but when Cameron started to vanish out of her orbit, she swapped it to a messy knot plopped on top of her head.
7.17 p.m.
Lucy bumps her head on the bus toilet’s ceiling as she attempts to untangle herself out of her school uniform. Arms caught in the pocket holes, she wriggles and hops around until it slips off onto the bathroom tiles. She snatches it up. The edges are wet.
Don’t think about it.
Don’t imagine what might be on the scungy toilet floor.
Lucy drags on her dress — a low-cut number that was packed for tomorrow’s dinner with Ana and Simone but was now hugging her skin since Cameron Webber found his way onto the bus. She catches her reflection in the tiny, cracked mirror and fake-pouts her lips, wishing Nate was crammed into the cubicle to tell her she’s ridiculous for squeezing into the dress. She swears again, realising she’s been fussing with her hair for so long that Cameron probably thinks she has some sort of life-threatening intestinal disorder.
Not that she cares what he thinks.
7.21 p.m.
My life is in the toilet, literally, she texts, cringing at the wet paper towels clogging the drain of the bus bathroom’s sink. It’s Friday night and I’m in a smelly toilet with nothing but a door and a few lousy metres distancing me from that jerk-off. This is not okay, you guys!
She pauses then spritzes perfume onto her wrist and neck.
7.23 p.m.
Lucy drags on her hoodie over her dress, pulling it down to try to hide evidence there was any attempt to look nice for Cameron Webber. She wipes at her wrist with a damp paper towel.
7.27 p.m.
Still avoiding eye contact with Cameron, Lucy slides onto her seat. Her thoughts are drenched in sarcasm as she imagines Mitch and the bros whispering about her, just loud enough so she can catch the echoes of their words. Faris is a six out of ten today, she pictures them saying in muffled tones in the back of Year 9 English. No really, she’s an all right sort, the kind you’d be happy enough to hook up with, even if the lights are on, but you wouldn’t brag about it.
Her skin prickles.
This bus is the time machine from hell, she thinks, glaring at her knuckles as she berates herself for thinking about Mitch’s cruel rating system for the first time in ages.
The categories were brutal.
Hottest Girl.
Best Legs.
Most Improved.
Prawn (‘Smokin’ hot body, throw away the head,’ Mitch’d say, his upper lip quivering into a smirk that made Lucy’s stomach whip with anger on behalf of his latest victim).
Eleven out of Ten.
Negative One Hundred.
And they’re only the ones she can remember.
The system was created by Mitch, who took pleasure in pitting all the Year 9 girls against each other by ranking them based on their looks and personalities, and giving out awards for the ‘winners’ at a party at his place.
It was a process that was months in the making.
It was a process that should’ve been illegal because it felt like a crime was going down every time word spread through the school about the latest batch of unwilling nominees. The Olivia Bensons sat close enough to the jerks that they’d occasionally hear a familiar name thrown out from Mitch or Davey. But it was the screeches of laughter and thigh-slapping that made everyone pray to the high school gods that their name wasn’t mentioned.
One day during English, Lucy heard Mitch mutter Maya’s name to Davey. She told herself it was nothing. That she’d imagined it. But then she heard it again.
Once Mr Burgess turned his back on the class to scribble on the whiteboard, Lucy sucked in a breath and walked to the desks where Mitch and Davey were shaking over their pages, failing to hold back their sniggering.
Mitch’s mouth folded into a thin, crooked sneer when he noticed her standing there. He leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his greasy coffee-coloured quiff. ‘Whaddya want, Faris?’
Lucy’s jaw clenched. ‘Just wanted to borrow something …’
‘Too povvo to have your own stuff?’ Davey said, crossing his thick freckled arms across his chest. ‘Although I guess your dad’s not getting much coin making tabouli, huh?’
Mitch snorted.
Lucy nodded, pretending to turn the idea over in her mind, then snatched the page from Davey’s desk. She tore back towards her spot, eyes dancing over their messy handwriting. Her thigh smacked into the corner of a desk, but she didn’t care until later when she realised a bruise had painted her olive skin purple.
Maya, 8/10 (hot legs, kinda stupid).
Tamiko, 9/10 (bangin’, ice queen but).
Faris, 7/10 (boobs on legs, bit of a bushpig).
Then, next to it, an addition to Lucy’s: +1/2 (loves a lacy bra).
She felt her cheeks roasting, then stormed back to their desks, no longer caring if Mr Burgess noticed.
‘Bushpig?’ Her voice was low. A hiss.
Mitch didn’t blink. ‘It’s creative writing.’ His pink mouth locked into a firm line. ‘This is English class, remember? You speak English, don’t you, Faris?’
‘What did you say to me?’
His lip flickered. ‘Oh, you don’t understand?’ He was fighting laughter. ‘I know your dad was born in Beirut so I’ll talk … slower … next … time.’
‘Grow the hell up, Mitch,’ Lucy said, scrunching up the page and pegging it at the nearest bin. ‘Yeah, I’m half-Lebanese … and you’re a full-freaking-arsehole.’
The kids at the desks nearby laughed under their breath, and a few caught her eye, impressed that someone had finally stood up to him, but Lucy’s heart raced so hard she felt like she was about to explode all over Mr Burgess’s classroom. When the bell rang, she powered towards the door, focusing on nothing except getting to her next class. But she hadn’t even made it to the quadrangle before Mitch called out behind her.
‘Oi, Faris, wait up, got something for ya.’
Rules didn’t seem to apply during these in-between-class moments and there weren’t any teachers monitoring the hallway, so Lucy didn’t slow down.
‘Faris, come on!’ he tried again. ‘I wanna say sorry.’
Lucy paused and turned around, only then realising Mitch had collected a group of mates, who’d slipped out of neighbouring English classrooms. Matt, Davey, Lee and Cameron all dawdled behind him.
A pack.
A mob.
Sheep.
‘What do you want, Mitch?’
‘Sorry about the list, hey. That class gets my imagination running wild, ya know how it is.’
Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever.’
‘Here.’ He passed her a comb. ‘For you.’
Lucy took the comb, confused. ‘This? Why?’
Mitch and Matt cracked up laughing, while Davey snapped a photo of her with it. Cameron and Lee looked at their scuffed school shoes, looked at the canteen sign, looked anywhere that didn’t involve looking at Lucy.
‘It’s for your mo.’
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Excuse me?’
‘It should work on those caterpillars, too,’ Mitch said, pointing at Lucy’s eyebrows. ‘So, like, did your mum do it with a bushpig or was it your dad who —’
Lucy swore as she pegged the comb at him, but he just sniggered, until he realised Lee and Cameron weren’t joining in.
‘Right, boys?’ he said. Still nothing. ‘Whaddya think, Webby? Reckon you’d hook up with a bushpig?’
Cameron cleared his throat. ‘What?’
‘You heard me, bro. Up for an oinker?’
Cam paused, unable to look at Lucy. ‘Ah …’ His cheeks were smeared with a rich burgundy. ‘I dunno.’
‘We’re all friends here,’ Mitch said, stepping in closer. The top of his head barely reached Cameron’s forehead, but he didn’t break eye contact with him. ‘Would ya go there or what?’
Cameron swallowed. ‘Nah … nah,’ he said, voice catching on the middle of his sentence.
Lucy sucked in a breath.
Liar.
Mitch laughed. ‘No way, huh? Come on, bro, don’t be shy. We’ve all got different tastes.’
‘Nah,’ he repeated, as Lucy’s skin crawled at the memory of Cameron’s hands and lips on her. ‘Wouldn’t want to … choke on a hairball.’
Lucy’s chest felt so tight it was like someone had run laces through her ribcage and yanked on them, pulling her in on herself.
‘Friggin’ lethal, Webby!’ Mitch hooted. ‘Check out the quiet assassin, hey, boys. You’re not wrong, though, I wouldn’t either.’
While the boys snorted, Cameron’s eyes found Lucy’s for a second. She could feel her cheeks flush red, and she held her breath to try to stop tears escaping down her cheeks. Undo it, Cam, her mind pleaded, but he just stood there. Silent. While her eyes watered, he stared at the crack that carved through the concrete in between his Vans. His lips flickered a little, like he was building up to say something, but he said nothing.
Coward.
Lucy watched as Cameron kicked at the ground then walked off, stepping in time ahead of Mitch and the rest of the pack as they lumbered out of sight around a corner. Seconds later Davey moonwalked back into view to holler at two Year 10 girls leaning against the drama-room door, which ignited a fresh round of whooping from Mitch and Matt. Jaw tightening, Lucy retrieved the comb and snapped it in half. Animals.
Later that afternoon, in the back aisles of the library, Nate wiped away her tears. ‘Babe, we’re only stuck with them for a few more years —’
‘Jesus, don’t remind me.’
‘But, Luce, then you and your spectacular brows never have to see them again. And they’re stuck with themselves and their teeny-tiny brains forever. Talk about a life sentence.’
Lucy liked that part.
Things didn’t get easier straightaway though.
It’s a cruel fact of life that things often get worse before they get better.
The photo of her with the comb, with the newly added captions of ‘Lucy Hairis’ and ‘Hairball alert’ were shared around the school and online under an anonymous account the next morning. The boys stayed quiet as teachers tore down the posters, but everyone else figured who was behind it. The next day, gossip got back to Lucy that Mitch was spotted storming out of the principal’s office, red-faced, hunched over, spitting on the concrete as his dad thundered alongside him. He didn’t show up for class the next day or the day after that. By the end of the week, word had spread that Mitch’s rap sheet of suspensions over the past three years had added up, and the king of the jerks had been brought down. Mitch was expelled. His reign was over.
In the coming weeks, Lucy lost count of the classmates who bailed her up in the hallways, whispering, ‘Thank you’ as though Mitch’s expulsion was all part of a grand master plan that she’d personally orchestrated.
She only wished she could take credit, because with Mitch gone, the mood around school was lighter. Slower. There wasn’t a need to be on high alert. But then Cameron would lumber past her on his way to the gym and she’d hurry to look in the opposite direction, counting the seconds until he was off in the distance and she could walk the halls without her stomach lurching. Because she couldn’t forget what he’d said. And when Cameron was presented with a state sports award at assembly a few weeks later, she scowled at her lap while everyone else whooped like he was some kind of hero. Like popularity was contagious.
Cameron and his family left Canberra not long after so Lucy didn’t have to speak to him again.
Until today.
7.39 p.m.
Lucy exhales.
Bushpig.
The comb.
Hairball.
She’d almost forgotten.
7.42 p.m.
Anyone out there?
7.55 p.m.
‘Wakey-wakey!’ the driver calls out over the loudspeaker. ‘We’re pulling into Gundagai, folks. I’m making good time so run don’t walk to your suitcases.’
He waddles off the bus and a handful of yawning passengers follow him onto the gravel.
Cameron’s phone starts ringing and, for a second, Lucy wonders if he’s getting picked up at this stop.
But the world’s not that kind.
It’s put her on a bus with Cameron Webber after all.
‘Hey, sorry,’ Cameron begins, snapping her into the moment, ‘can I squeeze out past you for a sec?’
A thousand words bubble on the edge of her tongue. She swallows, trying to think of a comeback — something ruthless — that will make everyone on the bus cheer and carry her on their shoulders down the aisle. Maybe it’ll be so fierce that his cheeks will burn strawberry red, his palms will sweat so much they stain his jeans and his voice will stammer as he apologises to her for everything he did.
‘Sorry,’ he tries again, still holding the buzzing phone, ‘can I get past or …?’
Lucy pauses, chest puffed and tight. ‘Yeah.’
Fudged that, Faris.
Lucy moves her knees to the left, opening up a small gap for him to get through. Her fingers stay intertwined, like she doesn’t dare move them in case they brush the same air as him.
‘Thanks,’ he mumbles, pressing past her body, his thighs scraping past her bare knees. ‘Sorry.’
Once he’s gone, Lucy glares at the spare seat.
Three sorries.
None of them for the right thing.
7.58 p.m.
Her heart races as she remembers there are still six hours to go. Six hours breathing the same stuffy coach air as Cameron Webber. Seriously, I know you can’t read this message, but this is worse than when Tamiko got stuck in the lift with the dude with rank BO, I swear, Lucy types, her stomach feeling as tightly wound as steel wool. Nate, haven’t you sorted out the crappy reception at Maya’s place by now? There’s gotta be a way. She stares at the empty seat, panicking at the thought of Cameron’s return. Please, Nate-boy, I can’t do this.
8.01 p.m.
A few spots have opened up on the bus. The nearest seat is two rows ahead and across the aisle next to an old man who’s snoring with drool trickling down his chin. He’s whistling through his nose, but Lucy decides anything is better than being stuck next to Cameron Webber.
The bus rumbles back to life, which wakes up the old man.
Lucy makes her move. ‘Hi, sir, can I sit here?’
The man’s eyes widen behind his smudged glasses. ‘I hope you can,’ he says, baring his chipped, brown teeth. Lucy grimaces, already wishing for him to get off at the next stop.
‘Er, thanks.’ She rushes back to her seat to collect her stuff before Cameron returns from the bathroom, then slides in next to the old man.
‘Drink?’ he asks, holding up a silver flask.
Jesus.
‘Er, no. No.’
Once the driver turns off the lights, Lucy tries to relax into the seat, no longer needing to worry about the distance between her knee and Cameron Webber’s, or if Cameron Webber could hear her breathing as loud as she could hear him breathing, or if Cameron Webber had noticed she’d changed into a dress since he got on the bus.
8.06 p.m.
She fumbles for her phone.
Free at last.
8.55 p.m.
More people file off the bus at Wagga Wagga. Sadly not the old man, but enough seats open up for Lucy to get a spot by herself a few rows down. As she bundles her luggage into her arms for her third shift of the night, she notices Cameron’s sneakers hanging out over the edge of the seat.
Maybe the driver is right.
Maybe she is brave for getting on the bus.
11.27 p.m.
‘Food stop, my lethargic companions!’ The driver calls out over the loudspeaker. ‘Now I need you all back on the bus in thirty minutes. I’m leaving any dawdlers in Albury to hitchhike across the border.’
Passengers file off, one by one, each trudging under the streetlights into the roadhouse restaurant. Lucy plods through the cold air with the pack, her legs erupting with goosebumps. Once inside, she orders a hot dog and slides into a booth at the far end of the restaurant, swiping at the sauce then sucking it off her fingertip.
‘’Ello again, petal.’
Lucy looks up.
Oh no.
The old man takes a swig at his flask. ‘Eating a hot dog, are you?’
‘Ah … not unless it eats me first.’
‘Funny one, you are.’ He snorts out loud. ‘What’s your name? Got yourself a boyfriend?’
She bites her lip. ‘Ah … yeah, I do,’ she says, ignoring the first question and lying in response to the second one.
‘’Course you do. Girl like you.’
Picking at her hot dog, Lucy spots Cameron waiting to collect his food by the counter, fists stuffed deep into his hoodie. The old man follows her gaze and sees Cameron in line. ‘That fellow?’ He wheezes, breath smelling like it could clean rusty metal. ‘Him?’
She doesn’t reply.
The old man takes another sip and stumbles off, elbowing a shocked Cameron on the way out. ‘Treat her right, buddy,’ he says, pointing at Lucy back at the booth. ‘She’s a funny one, but not a bad looker.’
Cameron waits until the old man has stumbled through the sliding doors, then he heads for Lucy’s booth, half-eaten sausage roll in hand. Wiping tomato sauce from his mouth, he slides in opposite her.
‘Hi.’
She doesn’t reply.
‘Okay, so you do know who I am?’
Lucy swallows. ‘Yeah. Cameron Webber.’
He nods. ‘Full name and everything. When I said hi before it seemed like you didn’t recognise me.’
She pauses. ‘Guess I had a hairball.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Oh, you don’t speak “bushpig” anymore?’
‘What?’
‘Or do you only understand people whose throats you haven’t had your tongue stuck down?’
Cameron shakes his head. ‘Lucy, I —’
‘No,’ she blurts out. ‘You can’t just slide into my booth and start talking to me.’
‘Okay … what’s … what’s up?’
‘Seriously?’ Lucy says, heart racing. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t act nice, like nothing happened that day. When I met you, I thought you were nice, but … but you were nothing more than a Mitch in disguise. You were awful, you all were. You made life hell.’ Her eyes drill into his. ‘Now get out of my booth.’
‘I know you’re upset, but —’
‘I’m not upset.’ She leans forward, her elbows smacking the table. ‘I’m pissed off. There’s a difference.’
‘Then give me a chance to explain.’
‘You cracked the hairball joke, didn’t you?’ Lucy says in mock confusion. ‘And … and I’m speaking English, right?’
‘Ah … yeah? What do you mean?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Just get out of my booth … please.’ Her voice falters. ‘You know what, I’ll go.’
Lucy storms out of the restaurant, leaving behind a stunned Cameron and a cold hot dog on the table.
12.03 a.m.
Her thumbs tremble as she types.
Done.
Told him what I thought.
Slayed.
12.04 a.m.
Kinda thought it’d feel better than this.
12.05 a.m.
Lucy watches as Cameron walks to an empty seat right up the front. His head is down as he types on his phone, hitting the keys hard with the pads of his thumbs. She imagines him texting Mitch: Bushpig’s here, hairball’s imminent, 3/10.
12.06 a.m.
Maybe it takes time for the good vibes to kick in, she types to the group. Like medicine.
12.08 a.m.
Lucy swaps to the opposite side of the bus; far away from the old man, but mainly to avoid seeing Cameron’s fingers tapping on his armrest.
12.09 a.m.
Still waiting.
12.13 a.m.
This is the worst trip. Ever.
12.15 a.m.
Lucy’s phone beeps.
Battery’s nearly done.
Chewing on her inner cheek, she hurries through a new message to The Olivia Bensons — Only biscuits can fix this — but her phone dies before she presses ‘send’. Closing her eyes, Lucy falls asleep to the sound of the couple behind her bickering about whether to spend their honeymoon on Hamilton Island or in Fiji.
CAMERON
1.02 a.m.
The Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ thumps in Cameron’s ears as he nibbles on the jagged edge of his thumbnail.
An overnight coach.
Lucy Faris.
Endless texts and calls.
The bus lurches along the highway as acidic bile burns up his throat, his stomach churning at the taste.
And now motion sickness.
The fun continues, he thinks, replaying the moment Lucy drilled him back at the roadhouse restaurant. Her words were laced with a disgust he’d never seen in her before — like she loathed the taste of their conversation on her lips. Like she wanted to wash her mouth out with a bar of soap after speaking to him.
Like she hated him.
Lucy freaking Faris.
The chances.
Unbelievable.
‘Oi, driver, I think something’s burning back here!’ a deep voice booms through the silence, snapping him to attention. Cameron looks around the back of his seat, feeling everyone’s panic swelling like a tidal wave. The smell hasn’t reached him in the front row, but he watches as passengers unbuckle their seatbelts and cram into the aisle, grabbing bags and arms and shoulders and pillows, and inch forward step by step, like they’ve forgotten that there’s nowhere else to go.
Didn’t he know it.
‘It’s getting hot back here, like an oven!’ a woman in a beanie shouts, as a small boy clings to the back of her jacket.
Cameron spots Lucy in the middle of the bulging line, squashed between a young couple fighting about their hen’s and buck’s parties. He notices as Lucy checks then rechecks over her shoulder at the chaos at the back of the bus, before smirking to herself as the girl shrieks at her fiancé, ‘Stop being such a groomzilla, babe! Mum’s bought the penis straws for the party, and she’s not returning them. They were half-price. I told you that!’
Cameron watches Lucy cover her lips, trying to disguise her amusement as the couple launch into another round.
‘It’s starting to stink!’ The same deep voice shouts again. ‘Pull over or something! There are kids on the bus, man.’
The driver clears his throat into the loudspeaker as the passengers jostle for space in the aisle. ‘Just looking for a spot to pull up here on the left, folks. The old girl’s probably just overheated — please, let’s all remain calm.’ He draws in a sharp breath and exhales, not realising his microphone is still on.
As the bus screeches to a stop on the side of the highway, everyone shoves and pushes to the front of the aisle. Cameron lets in passenger after passenger, biting his tongue when no-one bothers to thank him.
‘Quickly please, everyone, let’s go!’ the driver says, mustering people off the bus. ‘Grab what you can and stick together, please, just wait over there, out of the way. We’re all friends, or at least we’re gonna be after this.’
Cameron steps onto the gravel with a crunch, the icy air burning his nose and cheeks. ‘Where are we?’ he asks the driver, shoving his fists deeper into his hoodie pockets.
‘I can tell you where we ain’t, big fella,’ the driver says, still frantically directing people to stand by the wire fence surrounding endless acres of paddock, ‘and that’s Melbourne, so keep moving so I can get a new bus called out, yeah?’
Cameron nods.
The driver claps in frustration when he sees the group starting to spread like ants along the grass flanking the highway.
‘Miss, did you hear me?’ he barks at a woman shuffling backwards to take a selfie with the bus. ‘No wandering into the dark unless you fancy spending the night alone — although the cows are friendly around these parts. Now move away from the highway and into a group, people! The emergency lights are on for a reason.’ He claps again. ‘Miss, I said into a group! Into a group! It’s as if you all want to be flattened like pancakes.’
Cameron gets lost in the mix of beanies and jumpers and flashing mobile phone lights, but he’s only looking for her.
He spots Lucy on the other side of the huddle; her lips are hardened into a faint line as she stares at the cars whooshing past, lighting up the highway.
She’s not looking for him.
Cameron lets his body get jostled to the edge of the crowd.
1.11 a.m.
Despite the driver’s orders, everyone’s melted into sections.
A nervous pack stands on the gravel, whispering and dissecting every move or word the driver utters as he paces back and forth while speaking on his phone, demanding a new bus is sent out because the old one is overheated and ‘buggered to buggery’. Others sit on the damp grass, relaxed and chatting, while a handful suck on cigarettes by the fence behind them.
Cameron keeps one foot on the grass and another on the gravel — and both eyes on Lucy, who’s staying close to the driver. She’s still bare-legged but has pulled her hoodie sleeves down over her hands and crossed her arms around herself. Shivering and shaking, she steps from side to side to a beat all her own.
Cameron’s phone buzzes in his pocket.
Nan.
First the texts, now the calls.
‘Hey again,’ he answers, wandering away from the group. ‘Everything all right? … Oh, okay. Go back to sleep, Nan, it was just another bad dream. I promise … Promise. Okay, bye, love you … No, it’s after one … Yes, one in the morning, you’ve been asleep so it was just a nightmare. You’re safe … Love you, too … Yes, Nan, it’s me … Tiny. I said, it’s Tiny, Nan … You’ve got my number, it’s saved in your phone, remember? You just rang it so … Love you, too … Yes, it’s Cameron … I said, it’s Cameron.’
She’s hung up.
Sighing, he stuffs his phone back in his jeans pocket.
‘Righto, folks,’ the driver shouts, standing on his tiptoes and rubbing his palms together. ‘I’ve sorted a bus, but it’ll be at least forty-five minutes,’ he shouts. Everyone groans. ‘May I suggest hugging the person closest to you to stay warm? Actually … don’t.’ He chuckles. ‘Everyone, keep your hands where I can see ’em.’
‘Er, sir,’ Lucy asks him in a soft voice, but loud enough for Cameron to hear. ‘Do you have a quick second?’
‘For you, Eight, I’ve got a long second. What’s on your mind?’
‘My trackies. I must’ve dropped them on the way out and … can I go and get them?’
‘From the bus? Nope.’
‘What? Why? You have to let me back on so —’
‘Can’t risk it. You don’t want me to have to tell your parents you were fried like a dim-sim in that lemon, do you, Eight?’ He unbuttons his coat and passes it to her. ‘Here, take this.’
‘But then you’ll be cold.’
‘I’m a tough nut,’ he says with a laugh. ‘On your way. I’ve got a bus with a temperature to curse for busting me good run.’
Lucy’s mouth splits into an enormous grin and Cameron wishes he’d thought of offering her his jacket earlier.
1.20 a.m.
Cameron kicks at a patch of dirt next to the fence, glaring at the moon shimmering white in the sky. The silence creates empty moments to sink into, but he fights being dragged down into them as they smother his mind one by one. Lucy’s penetrating glare across the restaurant table. The way she stormed off back to the bus. When she called him awful. He’s already lost count of how many times he’s replayed the spray from her. With a shake of his head, Cameron gives in to it all at once.
‘When I met you, I thought you were nice … but you were nothing more than a Mitch in disguise.’
Stuff it.
1.22 a.m.
She’s sitting on the grass now, the driver’s jacket wrapped around her legs. Cameron watches from a distance as she shoos away the old man with the flask, no longer bothering to be polite. Her gaze has found Cameron’s a few times through the crowd, piercing into him for a second, maybe two, but then she looks away whenever their eyes meet.
Not that he blames her.
He remembers the day she calls that day.
Mitch’s ratings. Their mob surrounding her. The way her bottom lip shook when she realised he wasn’t going to stand up for her, and the stabbing in his stomach that started the moment he’d spat out those awful words — words he didn’t even mean. Words that came from an ugly, insecure place inside him that he never wanted to tap into again. Because he liked Lucy — he liked the way she plaited her hair to show off her smooth olive skin. And how she laughed when her friends teased her: eyes open, mouth open, hands clutching her stomach as though she might explode. He even liked the way she swam laps at the pool until the same time every day, and how she’d guide overwhelmed Year 7 kids to class when they were running late after their internal compasses had conked out.
He knew all of that, and she knew some of that, but she didn’t know any of what had happened to him before that moment.
How Cameron didn’t have any real mates because his parents were in the army and they moved every year or two, and he couldn’t handle another school where everyone left him to sit alone at recess and lunch. He was always too sporty, not sporty enough, too big, too shy, too cocky on the field, not confident off it. He was never what everyone else wanted.
Just never enough.
Lucy also didn’t know this was the first time that anyone, let alone the popular guys, had welcomed him into their space.
It took less than a day for Cameron to realise Mitch, Matt, Davey and Lee weren’t his kind of mates. Lee was all right when he was away from the others; turned out he didn’t agree with much of what the group did or said, but all their mums were friends and he was happy to be dragged through school with them. Better than being a nobody, he once told Cameron. Mitch and the boys were Cameron’s safety shield. His armour. With them, he felt invisible, protected, strong.
Then Lucy saw him. Really saw him.
And damn, he saw her, too.
At the pool.
In the halls.
That night at the party when she’d cracked jokes until his eyes were wet from laughing then pressed herself against him, fizzing up every part of his body. She also never knew that she was the first girl he’d kissed.
Cameron kicks at the dirt again.
No wonder Lucy never forgave him for that day.
Every scowl from her after that moment stung him all over. He’d barely had the confidence to speak to her when she liked him, let alone when her looks were heavy or sharp, so he didn’t apologise. He couldn’t. That night he’d drafted a text, scribbled a letter, started a Facebook message, but he didn’t follow through with any of them.
She deserved more. He just didn’t know how to give it to her.
Cameron remembered the following day — the day after she calls that day — even better. Revved up on guilt, he’d told Mitch off in front of the other guys, told him to stop being a dickhead, told him to stop taking things too far, told him to rip down the posters. Mitch’s eyebrows had narrowed; he was apparently not used to anyone biting. But then he laughed, a low snigger, and said: ‘Yeah, yeah, I will, it’s all just jokes, bro, yeah?’
Cameron didn’t realise he’d burned any last traces of invisibility.
Mitch’s text message had told him to blow off periods five and six for a cheeky game of backyard cricket at his joint, which was around the corner from school. So he did. Sport was the only space where Cameron felt like he fit; rules were in place so he knew what to say and how to act. He trudged to Mitch’s, tossing a tennis ball that he’d found in the gutter between his palms as the sun belted down on his face. Cameron let himself into Mitch’s backyard through the rusty side gate like he’d seen the other guys do, then, figuring he was early, squatted down on a yellowed patch of lawn alongside a row of withered lemon trees.
He’d only made it easier for Mitch to jump him.
Cameron writhed until he broke free from Mitch’s grip, his school shirt torn open, and sprinted for the gate. But Mitch dived at Cameron’s ankles, fingers wrapping around them, tripping him over. Mitch shouted as he wrestled his way onto Cameron’s flattened back, digging muddy knees and elbows into his shoulders, spine and legs. A thick grunt slipped out as Cameron shoved Mitch off him. ‘What the hell?’ he said, catching his breath. ‘Back off.’
That was when Mitch pulled out an open pocketknife, his blade glinting in the light peeping through the lemon trees.
Cameron swore at the sight of it. He waited for Mitch to crack up laughing, announce it was all a convoluted prank gone wrong, then put the knife away. But Mitch leaned in closer, jaw clenched, knife waving in front of Cameron’s face. ‘Think you’re so freaking tough, don’t ya, sasquatch.’
‘Put it away.’ Cameron edged backwards, chest rising with each huff of breath, nails caked with dirt.
‘Scared or something?’ Mitch continued. ‘Thought ya had balls, bro.’
‘Piss off.’
Mitch’s arm shot forward so fast that Cameron didn’t have time to move away. He sucked in a breath. The knife was now only centimetres from his neck.
‘Don’t mess with me again,’ Mitch said. ‘Don’t even look at me. You’re nobody. And you’ve got nobody.’
Cameron’s dad got the truth out of him later that night after his mum found the dirt-stained clothes stuffed down beside the laundry hamper.
When Mitch was expelled, the teachers promised to keep Cameron’s name out of it to avoid any further trouble, and they did. Rumours spread but nothing stuck. However, Cameron still shrank further into himself because Mitch was right about one thing: he had nobody left at the school.
It was almost enough to relieve the guilt he felt about what he’d done to Lucy.
A month later, Cameron’s dad announced they were moving to Queensland for his new job and, for once, Cameron didn’t fight him on it.
He could be invisible again.
1.38 a.m.
His phone rings again, so he strides along the gravel away from the group.
‘Hey, Nan … No, you rang me … It’s Cam … Yeah, Tiny … Go back to sleep ’cause it’s late and you need … I love you, too … I said, I love you, too, Nan.’
1.43 a.m.
The new bus is still twenty minutes away.
Cameron takes it as a sign, not that he’s ever cared about signs, and strides across the grass to plonk down next to Lucy before he changes his mind.
‘Yeah?’ she asks, twirling an earphone in her hand.
‘Hi. Just … well …’ He hesitates, unsure where to go from here. ‘Whatcha listening to?’
‘Nothing. Phone’s dead.’
‘Oh. That sucks.’
She shrugs.
‘So …’ He tries again, heart racing. ‘I was thinking and … could we talk for a bit? Privately?’
‘We’in the middle of nowhere. Not sure how much more private you want to get, Cameron Webber.’ There was a time when he would’ve loved the sound of his name on her tongue, but not the way she’s grating it out now. Once again she says it like the words are poisonous, like she can’t bear the sensation of them touching the insides of her mouth. ‘Spit it out.’
‘Okay.’ His lips are dry. ‘I guess what I wanna say is …’ Now that he’s here, next to her, he doesn’t know what can fix it. If he can fix it. ‘Lucy,’ he tries again, ‘this is kinda weird for me.’
She scoffs. ‘For you?’
‘God,’ he blurts out, voice hardening. ‘Didn’t you ever do something stupid at school? Something shit? Something you’re not proud of?’
‘I’m still in school.’ Pause. ‘You’re not?’
He shakes his head. ‘Chippy.’
‘What?’
‘Carpentry apprentice. Getting there, anyway,’ he corrects himself, tone softening again. ‘So … so you’ve never gone into survival mode? Where you do something, anything, to get through?’
‘Do something?’
‘Yeah. Or ignore something, maybe something you shouldn’t have ignored.’
‘Maybe. I hope not.’ She shakes her head. ‘What did someone like you have to survive anyway?’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘You dominated every sport, the jerks adopted you, the girls all loved you —’
‘No way.’
‘Don’t fish for compliments.’
Cameron picks at the grass. ‘It might’ve looked like I had stuff sorted, but … nah. Not even.’
She scoffs again. He thought she might. ‘You sat with those guys. Same footy team and everything. And you were with them that day — you made it worse. You’re the reason Davey pretended to cough up hairballs when he’d get me alone in between class.’
‘Shit … I’m sorry,’ he stammers. ‘I am. That’s messed up.’
‘Come on, give yourself credit.’
‘I didn’t even mean it, that’s the thing, I thought you were great.’ Still do.
Lucy cuddles her knees to her chest. ‘Yeah, well … not that it matters anymore, right?’
‘But … I really am sorry. For all of it. And I know it’s not an excuse, but I’m no Mitch.’
She groans. ‘Denial, thy name is Cameron.’
‘Listen, they let me think I was one of them, for a bit, and I was a tool to believe it — to even want it.’
‘Won’t argue with that.’ Lucy purses her lips together.
‘You don’t think people can learn from their stuff-ups?’
‘Do I think Mitch feels sorry for all the bad stuff he did? No way. Look, you’ve said sorry, I accept it, whatever. Now you won’t have to wet yourself if you see me at the ten-year school reunion. Just leave me alone.’ She pulls the jacket tighter around her thighs. ‘You don’t get how hard the rest of us had it back then. That’s all.’ She shrugs. ‘How could you though?’
‘But I could ’cause …’ he begins, palms sweating as he wonders if he can get through it without bolting into the darkness. ‘’Cause, well …’
Lucy narrows her eyebrows until a deep slit appears between them.
‘’Cause Mitch pulled a knife on me.’
‘What?’ Lucy turns to face him. ‘No … wait, what?’
Cameron exhales, yanking at the grass again. So much for telling the truth making people feel lighter.
‘Oh my … Jesus.’ Her eyes are wide. ‘What happened? Are you okay, Cam?’ She called him Cam. To anyone else that might be nothing, but right now it’s everything to him. ‘I mean, I know it was years ago … but … are you okay?’ She pauses. ‘Sorry, silly question.’
She’s talking to him again. ‘I’m okay. Thanks.’
‘Okay. Okay, good.’ Lucy nods. ‘I’m … Mitch is more unhinged than I realised.’
Cameron doesn’t reply so silence fills the air.
Moments pass, maybe a few seconds, maybe a minute, before she asks him for the time. He checks his phone — 1.58 a.m. She mutters a soft thanks, then rests her chin on the top of her knees, slightly rocking her body to keep warm. As Lucy looks to the stars sprinkled across the blackened night, Cameron wonders how this will all feel in the daylight of Saturday. Before he has a chance to work it out, the replacement bus arrives, flicking up gravel before screeching to a halt on the side of the highway.
LUCY
2.07 a.m.
Cameron dumps his backpack on the front seat of the new bus, so Lucy takes the one on the opposite side of the aisle.
‘This all right?’ she asks.
He nods. ‘Sure.’
As he settles into his spot, a lopsided smile escapes out of the corner of his mouth, like he hopes she won’t notice.
She notices.
2.16 a.m.
Their bus rattles along the highway, not loud enough to disguise the sound of Lucy’s stomach growling. She cringes and wraps her arm around her middle, peeping across the aisle at Cameron, who’s nodding along to the music in his earphones while texting on his phone.
Lucy sucks on the inside of her cheek, fingertips prickling at the thought of messaging The Olivia Bensons a blow-by-blow account of the last two hours, and she berates herself for not snatching the charger out of her suitcase before stuffing it under the bus. She smirks at the thought of her friends reading through her roller-coaster of messages when they’re back to reception and decent Wi-Fi in the morning. There’s no way they’ll get anything done at band practice now; they’ll be on the phone to her all day.
Another stomach growl.
Lucy rifles through her backpack for her packet of biscuits, remembering how Cameron’s cheeks had darkened to burgundy when he’d told her the truth. Shame had been imprinted on every centimetre of his face; for the series of events he triggered for her, to the humiliation over what happened between him and Mitch.
But the ‘I hate Cameron Webber’ switch flipped for her three years ago and she can’t change it back in an instant just because their lives overlapped one serendipitous morning between Canberra and Melbourne.
Lucy stuffs a choc-chip cookie in her mouth, licking the crumbs from her bottom lip.
2.22 a.m.
She peeks across the aisle again. This time, he spots her.
Her breath catches, but she fights her natural instinct to look away.
‘Biscuit?’ she whispers, holding out the packet across the aisle. When all else fails, offer food. That was the Faris way.
Cameron’s eyes sparkle. ‘Sure,’ he says, stretching over to pluck one out of the plastic.
‘Take two. If you want.’
He pauses, then grabs another one, sending crumbs all over the bus floor between them. ‘Thanks. Thanks heaps.’
‘Midnight bus picnic, had to be done,’ Lucy says. They salute each other with their biscuits and settle back into their seats without saying another word.
2.31 a.m.
‘Psst, Cam. ’Nother one?’
He doesn’t hear her across the aisle with his earphones in.
‘’Nother one, Cam?’ she tries again.
‘Inside voices please,’ the driver announces, causing Lucy to start in her seat. ‘And, Eight … pass me one of those.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she hisses, trying not to laugh as she hands him a biscuit, then slides in next to Cameron before she chickens out. He looks up, eyes wide. She can’t tell if he’s surprised or terrified. Maybe both. She’s already forgotten why she plopped down next to him.
Guilt.
Boredom.
Loneliness.
Delirium.
‘Er, hey,’ she says, offering him the packet. ‘More sugar?’
‘Sure.’ He takes a biscuit. ‘Thanks.’ He gestures to his phone. ‘Wanna listen? Kill some time?’
‘That’s cool, you’ll be bored without it.’
‘With me, I mean.’
‘Oh. Sure.’
Holding her breath, Lucy wiggles in a little closer, not letting herself close enough for their shoulders or arms to touch, and pops in the earphone. The familiar bass and drums of Queen and Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure’ pulsate in her eardrum.
‘Tune.’ She elbows Cameron in the arm. ‘You’re into Bowie? And Queen? You?’
‘You gonna pay me out for liking old people’s music or something?’
‘No, they’re kings,’ she whispers into the dark. ‘It’s just a surprise.’ A good one.
Cameron’s playlist clicks over to KISS’s Rock And Roll All Nite, which thumps through her body the way it always does at band practice.
‘Love this one,’ he says, right thumb drumming to the beat on his jeans.
Lucy’s feet tap out of sight.
CAMERON
2.54 a.m.
She’s fallen asleep on the edge of Cameron’s shoulder. Her ponytail falls down across his chest, her breaths are long and deep. He hasn’t dared to move. When Lucy sighs in her sleep, he reminds himself to exhale. That it may all be a dream.
LUCY
2.57 a.m.
Cameron’s phone rings in his pocket and Lucy snaps awake and upright, realising she’s nodded off on his shoulder.
‘Oh, sorry … sorry,’ she says, bleary-eyed, opening up the space between them as he fumbles to answer his phone.
‘It’s cool.’ He’s rosy-cheeked. ‘It’s fine. Just gotta get this.’
Lucy sinks into the back of her seat, hoping she didn’t drool on his hoodie.
3.02 a.m.
Lucy watches Cameron sigh as he hangs up the phone and stuffs it back in his pocket.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah, it’s my nan,’ he says. ‘She rings sometimes, especially after I visit.’
‘You’re close, huh?’
‘Yeah. She hates her nursing home. Don’t blame her, really …’ His voice trails off as he rummages in his backpack. ‘Anyway,’ he adds, retrieving a red pen, removing the lid and scribbling loopy swirls down his wrist. ‘The parentals reckon they’ll be in Canberra to be closer to her by the end of the year.’
‘That’s great.’
‘I don’t buy it.’ His voice is harder now. ‘Dad just got a promotion and Mum’s loving Adelaide, so … we’ll see.’
‘Adelaide?’
‘For Dad’s work. They go all over.’ He shrugs. ‘I used to, but my uncle put me up when they left and Melbourne’s good.’ He pauses. ‘Good for now anyway. Stuff trying to predict the future.’
‘If only.’ Lucy nibbles on her biscuit. ‘Well, my sisters live in Melbourne — it’s why I was on that stupid broken bus.’
‘Twins, right? Few years above us?’
He remembers. She’d told him about them on the night of Soo-Yin’s party. ‘Simone and Ana. That’s them.’ Lucy inhales through her nose, unable to hold in the next part any longer. ‘Cam … about you and Mitch.’
‘We’re back to thinking about that?’
‘Sorry, yeah … I never stopped,’ she admits. ‘What I don’t get is, why? I thought you and Mitch were mates.’
‘Nah. Not really.’ He squeezes out a tight smile. ‘Not at all, I guess.’
Lucy tucks one leg under herself and swivels to face him. He doesn’t maintain eye contact. ‘Cam.’
‘It’s nothin’, really, I guess I just finally stepped up about … about stuff.’
‘Stuff?’
‘Yeah. About how he gave it to everyone … gave it to you,’ he adds. ‘He didn’t like that.’
‘Wait … you said something about me? To him?’
He nods.
‘Cam, you shouldn’t —’ She cuts herself off. ‘Look what he did to you! With Mitch, there are no winners. Yeah, I wanted him to stop treating us all like pieces of meat, but I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. I mean, a knife. A knife! He could’ve really hurt you.’
‘Nah. He was showing off.’
‘Don’t play this down.’
‘I’m not.’
He is but he won’t admit it. Lucy hangs her head, letting his words settle between them.
‘Back then, all I wanted was to show that I wasn’t …’ Cameron pauses, nibbling on his nail as he searches for the right words. ‘Stuff it, all I wanted was for you to know I wasn’t one of them, but I’m no good with words. Then my plan to hash it out with Mitch didn’t exactly go to plan.’ He shakes his head. ‘Anyway, after what I did, standing up to him was nothing.’
‘No,’ Lucy says, voice sharp as it slices the air. ‘It was something.’ Cameron’s cheeks flush. ‘It was.’
3.07 a.m.
The driver flicks on the lights and radio.
‘Folks, some good news: we’re now pulling into Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station. Thanks for ya patience and sorry about the interruption earlier. A quick reminder to please check under the seats and in the front seat pocket for any belongings. Hope it’s been an enjoyable ride, and I look forward to seeing ya on our coaches again soon.’
Lucy looks out past Cameron through the window into the terminal. A small crowd of shivering people wrapped in scarves and puffy jackets wait by the side of the bus.
‘So,’ Cameron says, staring through the glass as passengers seated in the rows behind them fuss with their luggage, ‘guess this is it, then.’
Lucy nods.
3.10 a.m.
Their knees rest against each other.
Neither of them budges.
‘We did good,’ Lucy says. ‘Three states, one night. Well, two states and one territory.’
‘It’s gotta be a record.’
‘Can’t say I’m excited about my trip back, though.’ She sighs. ‘My bum’s already killing me.’
Cameron grins. ‘Flying next time, for sure.’
‘Correct.’
‘So, ah … so there might be a next time for you? To Melbourne? I mean, I know your sisters live here so …’ His voice is quiet again despite the loud commotion around them.
‘Oh. Yeah. Well …’ Lucy’s mouth struggles to keep up with the thoughts thrashing around in her mind. ‘Maybe, but the next few months are pretty crammed: exams and training and band practice and eighteenths — and don’t even get me started on how much the school captain delegates when she can’t be arsed to do her share of the workload and …’ Her voice peters out and an embarrassed laugh erupts from her lips.
Cameron spirals his earphones around his fingers. ‘But maybe one day, huh?’
‘Yeah.’ Lucy nods again. ‘Maybe.’