The caretaker swept away Abi’s shrine till all that remained were a couple of paper hearts he’d missed.
Mae pressed a hand to the cold metal locker and thought just how easily Abi lifted out. Not just her, James and Melissa too. Theirs had been easier to understand – that undying love would soon die. Sergeant Walters had been in, found a diary in Melissa’s locker, the pages bursting with poems and drawings of another life, this one eternal. The tragedy was mitigated, they were inseparable till their shared end.
‘Hey.’
Felix wore a black leather jacket, the collar upturned. Two sizes too small, the cuffs ended by his elbows, a white T-shirt hinted at the bony chest beneath.
Most days Mae was grateful for his existence.
‘I don’t know where to begin here,’ Mae said.
‘Candice rented Grease seven times.’
‘And that’s why you’re so greasy?’
Felix fussed with his hair. ‘No gel in the chemist so I had to use olive oil. My mother was pissed off. This shit’s a commodity now. Do you think I need a signature scent to go with this look?’
‘Body odour not working for you?’
He dabbed sweat from his brow. ‘You try wearing pleather in this heat. I’m thinking something woody, possible side note of patchouli, that’ll take her home.’
‘Do you even know what you’re talking about?’
‘The damn trees outside her house,’ he snapped.
‘To keep perverts out.’
‘You can just hide among them. If anything, it makes it easier to prey.’
‘Save me that T-shirt, I’ll wring it into a pan tonight. Stella wants bacon.’
Felix pulled a comb from his pocket. ‘Danny Zuko is the ultimate ladies’ man. Check it, even had my mother stud it.’ He spun.
Mae frowned. ‘Tirds?’
‘T-Birds. The gang in the film.’
‘I think the B has fallen off.’
He swore loudly. ‘That woman can’t stud for shit. I don’t know why the Reverend married her.’ Felix headed towards the toilet, trying to wriggle from the jacket as he went.
Mae was about to follow and laugh when she saw Jeet Patel staring into his locker.
‘I think they pissed on it.’ Jeet held up a sodden copy of Hamlet. ‘I asked them to keep the noise down so I could read.’
‘Who?’
He shrugged. ‘Hugo. Liam. No use crying over spilled … urine,’ he said. Jeet wore a blue shirt, the sleeves rolled back over thin forearms. On each wrist were white sweatbands. ‘My mum says to ignore it, the way they are. Dignified silence, Mae.’ He smiled.
Mae nodded, she got it, knew it was bullshit but got it.
‘I remember when they did it to you,’ Jeet said.
‘Washing detergent.’
‘For the record, I don’t think your clothes smell, Mae.’
She smiled, then walked into class and took a seat at the back.
The kids in front watched a video on their phones.
Chelyabinsk, Russia.
The footage taken from the dashcam of a truck on the motorway. The bolt of light appeared in the sky and began to tail down like a rocket.
It grew larger, brighter than the sun, faster, a speeding hunk of blazing rock.
And then the noise.
And the screams.
A dozen kids had turned and run from the park because there was somewhere to run. And that was a small rock. No bigger than twenty metres.
The speaker cut her from the nightmare.
Morning prayer had been thrust upon them after Saviour 8 failed.
Mae waited for Mr Silver’s smooth voice to lull them with talk of judgement and forgiveness, like the two could ever co-exist.
There’s got to be more to it.
More to what?
Kids looked at each other, then up at the speaker fixed to the ceiling.
This bullshit existence. I do my schoolwork, empty the dishwasher, hit the snooze button through my weekends. I dye my hair because the world order tells me individualism is social suicide.
Miss Holmes was on her feet and ran out into the hallway. Abi’s voice followed from every speaker in the school, chasing the teacher’s frantic footsteps.
We’re told to make a difference in a world where difference isn’t exactly tolerated. Too fat, too skinny. Too poor. Too good or bad at something; if you straddle the margins, you’re doomed.
So what should you do?
You should live life in the empty middle. You should work hard at school so you can work hard at work. You should covet a nine-to-five and a decent pension, and a house and a car and holiday in the sun. And then …
Selena?
The problem is … we crave the extremes, like some fatal flaw.
Everyone stared up, like Abi’s voice was a gateway to a world they couldn’t turn from, a world that was calling out to each of them.
My parents think I’m depressed. Or maybe they just think I’m a teenager, because if you fall into that category then your problems are easier to dismiss, your needs are a fallacy, your beliefs change with the wind. You’re not a living, thinking, hurting person. You’re a whirlwind of unreasonable emotion, of fickle desires they’ll make sure burn out long before you’re deemed worthy of opinion.
Your parents don’t listen to you?
My mother searches my room, maybe for clues as to who I really am. She’s scared I’ll make her mistakes, like she owns them.
Were you ever happy?
Two years ago. I stood on the beach with Mae and we created a new world order and it was so goddam perfect. And now I’m just like them, I’m the nothing that makes Mae something.
You left her behind?
Mae was numb to the sounds around her, to the tears falling from Sally Sweeny’s eyes, the ghostly pallor of Hugo Prince as Abi’s face came back to haunt him. She didn’t notice the caretaker sprinting towards the comms room. All she heard was Abi. Her Abi.
The exact opposite. She moved forward each day, and I did all I could to stand still. Except I was standing in a line of ra-ra perfect prefects, pristine emptiness and whitest lies. I’ve drifted through years that couldn’t matter more. I’ve drunk caramel macchiatos in shopping centres and smiled my way through dressing-room fashion shows. I’ve planned a future I’ll never have and a future I never wanted. I’ve listened to a dozen girls talk so much crap my ears bleed with faux feminism and boys, make-up and boys, asteroids and boys.
Boys.
Boys.
Boys.
But when you were with Mae?
We talked about men.
Mae laughed, so abrupt it caught her by surprise. She felt the eyes of Hunter and Lexi and Candice as they bored into her, but for a moment she was mute to them too, mute to their popularity and pouts, their smokey eyes and thonged arses.
Why are you crying, Abi?
I just … I know things are going to get worse now. And I know I’m not going to make it. I look just like them but I’m not what they see.
Make it?
Wherever you all are heading. I won’t be with you. I can’t now. I have to do something bad. Killing yourself, is it the same as killing someone else? A life is a life, right. If we’re all created equal, does that mean we all die equal, or do some people move ahead while others slip behind? I just need … I need to talk to Mae first. I need to tell her sorry. And that’s such a bullshit word.
What are you sorry for?
I didn’t back her. I stood by and watched, the way people treat her, blame her. She got caught stealing that time, from the shop in town. But they didn’t get it, what she stole. It was food, for her sister, for her grandmother.
Stealing is wrong, no matter the circumstance.
I want to lie on the beach at midnight and spin the world the wrong way. You think we can rewind time like that? I want another perfect, empty night with Mae. I want to talk.
About men?
And music. And art and science and where the two meet.
Where do they meet, Abi?
In the sky above us. Plato said every soul has a companion star that it returns to upon death, so long as a just life is lived.
And how do you live a just life, Abi?
That’s the thing, we finally worked it out. Me and Mae, we worked it all out.
Tell me?
You become a Forever. Only I messed that up too.
And what exactly is a Forever?
Their collective breath held.
Like they were about to be enlightened, after years adrift in the dark.
Mae could feel the excitement, the expectation that thundered around the school, around the five hundred faces trained on the voice from beyond.
And then the speaker died along with the lights and the whirr of the fan as the power was finally cut.