48
It’s me.
This body that’s slumped on the forest floor. This one the camera is focusing on. My face is pressed into the dirt and I’m out of it. I’m wearing Dad’s combat shirt – the same one I had on that night, the same one I got on again now.
Did Ashlee make a video that night? Did she film me? Like this? Is that what’s going on here?
My hand is shaking so much it’s hard to keep the phone steady. I jump big as I hear Ashlee’s voice and I have to grab at the cliff face behind me and force myself not to look around for her – she’s speaking from the phone, on this film.
‘Oh Damo,’ she’s saying. ‘You’re a bit useless now, honeypie . . .’
Useless.
It’s that word again. Is this why I remember it?
The image jolts forwards and back, goes close on my passed-out face. Blurs. When it clears, I see that my mouth is open, my hair is stuck across my cheek. I’m out of it. Fucking out of it!
‘What are we going to do with you now?’ Ashlee’s voice is close to the speaker, singsong.
A smudge of water lands on the camera screen. That could be the rain starting. There’s wind battering against the speaker too, making it hard to hear everything Ashlee is saying.
‘Told you I’d win.’ I hear that. ‘Guess you won’t get my collar tonight after all.’
There’s laughter. The camera moves again, goes steady. That’s when I see the loser that’s me on this screen wake up; my eyes open and I swat out clumsily.
I hear Ashlee laughing louder. ‘Knew you’d wake up. Don’t want to miss the fun, do you?’
I see my mouth open, and I’m talking to her, trying to. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ I sound really pissed off. ‘You shouldn’t have done that with Mack!’
My throat goes dry as I hear this. What had she just told me? Her secret? Something about the Game she played?
The shot is steady on a close-up of me. I see the frown in my forehead, the anger I got.
‘My collar’s all yours if you want it,’ Ashlee’s saying. ‘Just take it like I said.’
Then the image shakes all over the place. I get a close-up of leaves. Darkness. Tree trunks. My face again. Hers.
‘You’ll have to try harder than that,’ she’s saying.
Am I fighting her? Is that why the image is jolty? What’s going on?
‘Can’t believe you’d do that!’ It’s my voice again. ‘Why would you even . . .’
She says something that I don’t hear. Only the words Try it . . . Don’t get mad about it . . . Playing . . . and . . . Game. She’s laughing or crying, I can’t tell which. Then the image freezes on dark branches. There’s no more sound. No more movement. Just her laughter ringing in my ears. Just this sick feeling in my guts. Because I’m starting to remember now, ain’t I? I’m starting to think I know what she told me that night – starting to think I can remember her secret. It’s coming back. I nearly drop the phone into the dark air, my feet have to dig into the boulder to stay firm. Yes – it’s in my head now – this secret. This secret she kept with Mack. I clench my free hand into a fist and slam it into the rock face.
‘I don’t want you to be my girlfriend no more.’ That’s what I’d told her that night. ‘I don’t even know you!’
There’s an empty feeling all through me. That night, had I tried to break up with her? The ache of it gets me hard. She’d been mad about it – I know that.
I close my eyes to feel cold, sharp air against my eyelids. There’s one more film on this phone. It’s the very last thumbnail image in her photo folder. It has to be from that night too – it has to be the last thing she ever filmed. I click to open it. Because I can’t stop now. I got to know how this ends.