An Imperfect Circle (13 page)

“
I got off the bus when I saw him jump out in front of it,” I grin, winking at Bear.

“
Bear!” My mum reprimands with genuine irritation. “You really must be more careful!” This is new. I’ve never seen mum anything other than relaxed with him.

“
I had to save this guy,” Bear holds up his rodent bundle for my mum to see. “We need to get him looked after.”

Mum’s face immediately softens as she coos over the pigeon who I imagine is quietly disgruntled about being wrapped in a jumper.

Cecile and I both wrinkle our noses and move to the kitchen so we can get on with dinner. Bear isn’t really fussy about what he eats but I suspect he’d rather have what we’re having than the raw rabbit food mum’ll be having.

While we cook, they ring around to try and find somebody else who doesn’t mind touching the foul fowl (who they’ve now named Roger). The RSPCA are kind enough to offer Rodger a home if mum and Bear drop him off so I’m left a
lone in the kitchen with Cecile to help prepare dinner.

“
Did you have fun with Becky?” She asks me as we work side by side. “She’s a lovely girl.”

“
She is and we did,” I nod.

Cecile nods back and goes back to chopping her vegetables. We
work in our usual rhythm of comfortable silence. Cecile isn’t particularly talkative but she’s not unfriendly and I appreciate everything she’s done for us by taking us in like she did.

She smiles kindl
y as I glance up at her and run something over in my mind. I can always count on Cecile to say it how it is. She never sugar coats things but she’s always honest. I don’t often come to her for advice but if I do, I know I’m hearing what I need to.

“
Aunt Cecile?” I prompt, focussing on chopping the onions because I like having my hands busy.

“
Hm?” She replies, her own hands working expertly as they cut the carrots into neat little julienne strips.

“
You remember Karl Carter?”

“
There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” she muses. “What about him?”

“
He’s at my school,” I mumble.

She nods, waiting for me to continue.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“
That’s a new one,” she chuckles to herself. “You always know what you want to do, Elise. It’s something I admire about you.”

I look away from my onions for a second to cock my head at her but she doesn’t meet my eye so I let the compliment slide.

“He wants to be friends again.”

“
I see.” She turns and folds her petite body over, pulling two small pans from the cupboard. “And what do you want?”

“
I want him to leave me alone so I can forget I ever knew him,” I grumble, taking one of the pans off her so I can start making the sauce.

She chuckles.
“Elise, you talked about that boy every day nonstop for a while. I don’t think you can forget someone like that.”

I sigh because I know she’s right and I wish she wasn’t.
In my ideal word, Karl and I wouldn’t interact in any way shape or form over the next two years but that’s not going to happen. I need to find a way to make it as painless as possible.

“
I wish he was like he was when we were six,” I sigh wistfully.

“
You’re not the same girl you were then either, Elise,” she frowns and I can’t read her expression. “Bad things have happened to both of you. I don’t know this boy but I know you. You are stronger now than you were then. You have grown into a brave and fair young woman and he might have changed too. I can’t imagine what losing a mother would do to a child that young.”

I nod because I loved Helen Carter and she wasn’t even my mother. Mum waited until a few months into my therapy to tell me because she knew it would upset me and it still hurt like hell. I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt the Carter family.

Things like that change people.

I realise I’m still judging Karl by the person he was before and he might be doing the same to me. That needs to change.

I have a new list. I’m hoping this one will make my life a little easier. Becky and I spent most of Sunday on the phone talking. She told me all about her date with Rob and his sweet kiss
at the end of the night and I listened intently, waiting for Becky Blossom to give any hint that he hadn’t treated her right but it never came.

I have no interest in kissing but it sounds like Rob simply kissed her on the lips and she liked it so I can’t hold the kiss against him. I tried not to remember my first kisses like that. It wouldn’t be right to be jealous of
my best friend.

In return, Becky listened to me tell her all about Bear and
his rescue Rodger mission. She thought it was really sweet.

She would. She’d probably have done the same.

I really can’t wait for the two of them to meet and, since there’s no sign that Bear will be leaving any time soon, I figure they’ll get the chance. I don’t know how Bear does it. He’s sleeping in mum’s room and she has wooden floorboards. I’d have backache from hell if I slept like that.

Before we went to bed last night, I filled Becky in on my
plans for surviving two years with Karl so this morning she took me to see her science teacher.

“
Why on Earth do you want to know that?” The teacher asks distractedly as he shuffles through a stack of test papers. It’s morning break and he looks sort of busy.

Becky glances at me because she doesn’t want to answer on my behalf. I can’t exactly come out and say it without sounding like a weirdo.

“I keep getting static shocks and it’s getting on my nerves.” Because it’s always from the same person and it makes me want to scream.

“
Alright,” the bedraggled teacher sighs. “Atoms are made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons,” he says like he’s given this lecture a million times and – by the look of him – he probably has. “Electrons tend to move around which changes the charge of the atom.”

I resist rolling my eyes because I need him to explain it to me but I could do without the full lecture. I just need to know how to make it stop.

I soldier on and listen to him drone on about conductors and balancing electrons but break’s almost over and, although I now understand why static shocks happen, I’m no closer to understanding how to stop them.

“
That’s really fascinating, sir,” Blossom beams and I think she genuinely means that. “So how would you go about reducing static shocks.”

I shoot her a grateful smile and focus my full attention on the doddering teacher.

“Well, if your skin is dry, that could be causing more friction between your clothes so you could use lots of moisturising cream. Or you could use clothes made only of natural fibres, or you could simply try touching a non-conductor before you touch the surfaces which are giving you static shocks.”

My brain is rapidly jotting down the answers to add to the list I made the night before after some fairly vague internet research about
rubber-soled shoes.

“
Was that helpful?” Becky asks hopefully as we make our way to our next classes.

“
I hope so,” I nod, smiling because I love that she wants to help me. “I need to earth myself. Bear will love that idea.” I laugh to myself. “It doesn’t really explain why I get shocks more often with Karl though.”

“
No,” Becky frowns contemplatively. “Maybe one of you just has a lot more negative charge than the other and you just sort of neutralise one another?”

“
Maybe,” I nod thoughtfully. I don’t like the idea that one of us is negative because I suspect it would be me.

We go our separate ways with our usual plans in place to meet in the common room for lunch
and I spend the last half an hour of my lessons psyching myself up to do what I know I need to. I have my handy static-proofing list at the ready and I’m fairly sure it will be becoming a permanent fixture on my bedroom wall.

I arrive
in the common room early and Karl and Matt are already there because they’ve had a free period.

“
Hey, demongirl!” Matt shouts out as I enter the room.

Normally
, I’d glare at him but he’s just given me the perfect entrance into the conversation I need to have because I can go over there without an excuse now.

“
What was with you and the guy with the crazy hair?” Matt grins cheekily as I make my way over to them.

“
He was saving a pigeon,” I shrug.

“
Why?” Matt scoffs.

I scowl at him because I love Bear.
“It was injured.”

“
It was a pigeon!” Matt points out, nudging Karl who’s watching our back and forth with amusement.

“
So he should have just let it get run over?” I scowl.

“
Yes!” He exclaims exasperatedly.

“
I’ll remember that if you ever break a leg in the middle of the road,” I frown.

“
I’m a person, I don’t shit all over everything!”

“
Being a person doesn’t make you better than a pigeon. I sometimes think a pigeon could outsmart you.”

Matt growls at me and Karl laughs. The growl sounds threatening but I can tell he’s not really bothered because his eyes aren’t burning with anger like they normally are. I actually think he’s enjoying himself.

I’ve seen how people are with Matt and the others. Nobody really gives them any crap. The only people who give Matt any jib are Karl and Ian. Well, and me of course.

“
Do you make a habit of going home with hairy men off the streets?” Karl interrupts before Matt can make a comeback. I’m not sure but I think he looks a little irritated with me and I don’t know why.

“
Bear’s my uncle,” I shrug, glaring at him because if he insults Bear I’m going to relocate his dangly bits and make them internal with a swift kick of my boot.

“
You don’t have an uncle,” he frowns.

I glare at h
im because he’s doing it again; he thinks he knows me. Plonking myself down on the seat next to him I huff and plant my rucksack between my feet. “I do too.”

“
And his name is Bear?” He raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

I nod and unzip my pack.

“Alright,” he frowns. “What’s this?” He eyes the brown paper packet I’ve just handed him suspiciously.

“
Offering of peace,” I shrug as he unwraps the three Wagon Wheels I bundled together.

“
You make peace with Wagon Wheels?” He smirks at me, his starling blue eyes shining with amusement.

“
There’s no better peace offering,” I explain as if it’s the most obvious thing ever. Because it is.

Karl laughs and grabs a little plastic Tupperware tub out of his bag and hands it over to me. Now it’s my turn to look at him sceptically.

“Offering of friendship,” he grins.

“
Karl, this is an apple in a tub,” I raise an unimpressed eyebrow at it.

“
You can hardly complain,” he shrugs. “You gave me Wagon Wheels”

“
Wagon Wheels!” I cry in exasperation. “Have you tasted them!? They’re like a holiday for your taste buds!”

“
If you say so,” he chuckles, leaning back and examining his treat. A treat that I’m contemplating taking back because he obviously doesn’t appreciate the circular wonder for the miracle that it is.

“
No don’t eat it!” He blurts as I go to examine the apple. To be honest, I’m sort of hoping it’s a joke and there’s some sort of chocolate flavoured treat hiding in the apple.

“
Why not?” I frown.

“
You can’t eat it or you’ll ruin it. You have to keep it to remind you of me,” he smirks, a little dimple appearing on his right cheek.

“
What?” I frown. “So let me get this straight,” I shift slightly so I’m facing him and he can see how truly unimpressed I am. “Your idea of an offering of friendship is to give me an apple that I’m not even allowed to eat?”

“
Yup,” he nods happily.

It’s then I realise where this apple has come from. It’s from our tree.
I’m not sure what to make of that

“
You only gave me a Wagon Wheel and you didn’t even offer me friendship, just peace. I kick your ass ten times over at this.”

“
An apple I’m not allowed to eat!” I stress. How is he not getting this? Wagon Wheels are better than any other form of food.

“
They’re not quite ripe yet. Just keep it on your bedside table for a few days,” he grins.

“
You’re not going to try and convince me it’s a magic apple and it’s going to become a beanstalk are you?” I raise an eyebrow at him and try my best not to smile at the ridiculous notion. “If girls normally fall for that then you need to set your sights higher.”

Matt laughs and elbows Karl in the ribs but Karl ignore
s him.

“
Just trust me,” he sighs. “Does this mean we’re friends now?” He turns to face me and his knee brushes mine. The static shock jolts us both and I’m wishing I had some moisturising cream to stop this from happening.

Luckily, we both seem to decide not to mention our weird tendency to electrocute each other.

“No,” I reply adamantly. “I only offered peace. A new beginning.”

“
So?” He prompts. Demanding more of an answer.

“
You can’t just become friends like that. We can try and be friends but I’m not making false promises.”

“
We were friends before, we can be friends again.” His voice seems to have lowered an octave and I get the sense he’s saying more he actually is.

All I’m hearing is that we were friends before and he decided he didn’t want me. I don’t want to go through that again. Maybe he thinks he can handle it now but I’m still broken and he’s going to realise that soon and it’s going to backfire on me.

“Here’s the deal,” I say decisively. “We can be friends on one condition.”

“
What’s the condition?” He smirks, leaning closer and resting one arm on the back of my chair.

“
We start again. You can’t mention anything about me from before this year. As far as this friendship goes, we just met.”

He looks at me contemplatively and it’s like he’s trying to figure out a hidden agenda. His
dark eyebrows are set as his blue eyes meet my green. He’s clearly thinking.

“
Why?” He prompts.

“
You don’t get to ask that. You can accept it or you can leave me alone for the next two years.”

“
Just accept it, mate,” Matt grins. “She’s too much fun to mess with.”

“
You mess with me and I will make you wear your birdhouse,” I warn him.

“
Alright, deal,” Karl laughs and Matt mocks me by pretending to be terrified.

“
You might live to regret that, Elise,” Ian’s cocky voice erupts from behind me and I jump slightly because I didn’t realise he was there.

Now that I’m not looking into those dangerous pools of blue, I’m realising that the common room has filled up. We’re surrounded by the Queen Bee and her working girl drones who hover behind Ian and Rob.

“Why’s that?” I frown at him, cocking my head because I always get the sense that Ian never quite says what he means.

“
Have you seen the way he treats his friends?” Ian grins, locking his arm around Matt’s neck playfully.

I laugh as they
jokingly wrestle and it kind of feels like old times. The Carters were always messing about and pretending to fight each other and it rarely got out of hand.

“
Where’s Becky?” Rob asks me hopefully, much to the frustration of the girls behind him.

“
She’ll be here soon,” I reassure him neutrally. I’m getting closer to being convinced that he’s a good guy but they come around so rarely and it seems too good to be true.

Ian’s watching me as he pulls Annie onto his lap and I know without asking that he’s studying me. It kind of pisses me off but it’s also intriguing. He was inquisitive even as a child but it seems to have gotten much stronger now.

“How did your date go?” Karl grins at Rob, shifting back in his chair so he’s sitting on it properly. He keeps his arm on the back of mine and I see him glance sideways at me and I immediately understand.

We’re playing chicken again.

He’s left his arm there as a silent challenge for me to call him on it. He’s mocking me. He knows I want him to move it but I’m not going to ask so I just sit there and let him have his arm on the back of my chair. If he so much as touches my skin, I’m going to break his fingers.

Friendship be dammed.