Crashing Down (2 page)

He watches her silently.

‘What is it?' He grabs her arms, but his touch is too forceful.

She shakes him off. ‘Nothing,' she says coldly, crossing her arms defiantly across her chest.

‘Sure,' he says.

He's watching her intently. She finds it cloying. The silence stretches. He thrusts his hands in his pockets and takes a step backwards. The distance between them feels like it's growing.

‘Lucy?' he says finally. ‘Do you still love me?'

She can't look at him. She doesn't know the answer. Maybe she does love him. But what if she doesn't? The consequences of either response seem
unfathomable. And anyway, is there even any point in talking to him when he is in this condition?

‘I don't know.'

He puts his hands on her shoulders. She doesn't want to look up. But does.

‘Well, then,' he says and his voice has an edge to it she hasn't heard before, ‘I'll give you time to think about it.'

And then he turns to walk off.

‘Wait, Carl,' she says, suddenly panicked, ‘don't go.'

But he doesn't turn; he just lifts his hand to acknowledge he's heard her and then enters the school hall.

That gesture angers her again. She feels shaken. This wasn't meant to be happening. She sits on a bench, thinks she should cry. Did they just split up? She can't go back inside and face him until she can give him an answer. And she doesn't know what that is. She watches Carl emerge from the hall again, thinks he's coming back to talk to her, but then sees JD behind. They head off to the car park.
Where are they going?
He's supposed to be taking her home.

Lucy remains on the bench for another ten minutes.
She doesn't want to face Lydia and Georgia and tell them what's happened.
What did happen?
She shakes her head. But if she stays out here any longer, they'll come looking for her and then she'll have to explain. And she just can't. So she goes inside, puts a smile on her face and pretends she's having fun.

‘Where's Carl?' Georgia asks after the last song has finished.

‘And JD?' Lydia asks.

Lucy shrugs. ‘Don't know.'

‘You two had a fight?' Georgia asks.

‘Carl's been acting like a bit of a weirdo tonight,' Lydia says. ‘Not his usual charming self. Do you think they've been smoking weed?'

Lucy nods. It'd explain his behaviour.

‘He's meant to be dropping us off,' Lydia frowns. ‘Great. I don't want to walk in these stupid heels.'

‘I'll call my dad,' Lucy says, feeling humiliated.

Lydia and Georgia know not to ask anything more.

It's dark.

The wind moans through the treetops. The rain has eased but has left large puddles along the sides of the road, their surfaces still rippling under the insistent breath of the wind. Boughs have broken off in the torrential downpour, and rivulets of sand have run from the soft edges of the road.

The car has stopped at the top of the hill. Its lights, like yellow eyes, cut through the blackness, reflecting off the glossy tarmac. Inside, Carl slaps the steering wheel hard. ‘Shit!'

JD watches him, worried, and passes him the joint. In the darkness, the lit end glows a brighter red as Carl inhales deeply. The air thickens with the
heavy smoke and sweet smell of weed. They sit in silence, passing the joint backwards and forwards.

‘I can't believe her,' Carl spits furiously.

Instinctively, JD knows not to speak. He watches Carl's hands wringing the plastic steering wheel. He's never, in five years, ever seen Carl so mad. This is Carl the Ultimate Pacifist — the guy who'd risk his own safety to break up a fight. Outside the wind buffets the windows of the car.

‘Turn the music up,' Carl says suddenly.

JD fiddles with the iPod and the sounds of reggae music fill the car. They sit silently, listening to the music and the next phase of the storm building outside. The engine is still running, and Carl's left hand grips the gear stick.

‘Shit.'

‘Lighten up, mate,' JD offers cautiously, as he flicks the butt out of his window. The rain has started up again and spits into the opening.

After a pause, Carl says, ‘Yeah, you're right.'

JD feels an immediate lift in the tension.

‘Hey,' Carl says loudly over the music, ‘I feel the need …'

‘… the need for speed,' JD finishes.

Carl's foot stomps on the accelerator and the V8 roars into life. He revs it hard again. JD's hand automatically feels for his seatbelt clasp. Outside the sound of throbbing engine mixes with the howling wind.

Carl drops the handbrake and the clutch simultaneously and the V8 veers down the road. Rectangles of light from house windows and black silhouettes of trees rush past and then, suddenly, it's the end of the road. Carl pulls the wheel tightly right, but the tyres plane across the filmy surface. The wheels screech. The car spins. Drops from the bitumen into the soft shoulder. Its nose digs in and then it flips. JD automatically reaches for the dashboard as Carl grips the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles popping whitely. Crash! The back end of the car hits the road, the intrusion bars in the doors groaning metallically. JD's head whips forwards. Backwards. The momentum takes them over again. The iPod flies, then snaps back violently. The glove box spews its contents as the car flips again. And again. Finally, it rests on its roof. The wheels spinning.

In the heavy silence that follows, Bob Marley
warbles something about love. JD focuses on random words through his ringing ears: Able … Cards … Table …

Along the street, more windows light up. Doors open. People run towards the yellow car.

JD is hanging upside down, suspended by his belt. He turns his head, but pain sears through his spine and into his ears. Carl is slumped sideways; blood trickles from his nose and ears. Reggae music thuds through the car.

A man shouts to JD through the crumpled and shattered window. ‘Hey, you alright?'

JD tries to turn his head again. Each movement causes him to yelp with pain. ‘I'm okay,' he croaks.

The man reaches through and turns the music off. The silence is loud. Then the rain comes again. Beating relentlessly against the undercarriage of the car.

‘Ring my dad,' JD tries to say, but his throat is choking on sand. He whispers the numbers.

The man punches them into a mobile, while another calls triple zero. A floral breasted woman cries, ‘Get them out. For the love of God, get them out.' But everyone ignores her.

Outside the car, JD hears voices and movement. How many people are there? How long will it take to rescue them? He turns his head again and feels the bones rubbing together, like unoiled cogs. The pain makes him stop. But he glances at Carl out of the corner of his eye. Carl, hanging from his seat, unmoving. The blood has trickled around the edge of his mouth and down the sides of his neck.

‘Carl,' JD manages to whisper through the sand in his throat. ‘Dude.'

Carl doesn't respond.

It feels like they've been hanging there an eternity. JD is aware of the sand down his back. It fills the console of the car, sand everywhere. It's like they've been buried alive. He feels panic rising in his throat. Carl still hasn't moved at all, and JD realises the truth: Carl is dead. And he is buried alive with him. He yanks at the clasp of his seatbelt, but pain electrifies his body. Then he notices the splintered bone poking through his ripped Levis — grotesque, obscene. And he can't feel it, can't feel a thing. He can't breathe and his heart is racing.

The same man from before appears at the
window. ‘They're coming, mate,' he says. ‘I can hear them.'

And JD hears them too, the sound of sirens. The high-pitched ambulance, the long warbling fire truck, the multi-toned police.

Within moments, it seems, they have set up high-powered spotlights around the car. The rain beats down mercilessly. Against the powerful lights, the raindrops glitter like small stars. JD fixes on their straight route to the ground while the car shakes and shrieks as the jaws-of-life slices it open.

A helmeted firefighter sticks his head through the new opening. ‘What's your name?'

‘Douglas,' JD whispers, ‘Tan.'

‘Right, Douglas, we'll have you out in a sec. How's your mate doing?'

‘I don't know.' JD pauses to breathe. ‘He's not moving, hasn't since we crashed. I don't know.'

‘It's okay, mate. We'll have you both out in a jiffy.'

JD is strapped to a board, his neck secured by a brace and another strap. He hears someone shout, ‘Spinal,' and it terrifies him. As they push him hurriedly to the ambulance, he searches out of the
corner of his eye but can't see Carl.

‘My friend?' he asks the ambulance officer, but she shakes her head grimly in the rain.

Then he hears Carl's dad. He's here. His voice is loud. As they push JD into the back of the ambulance JD hears him, his voice breaking. ‘Carl, oh no … Carl … My son.'

Lucy has spent most of the night awake, alternating between sadness and anger. Now, in the yellowing light of morning, she gains perspective on what happened. It was everything suddenly becoming real that had tripped her out. School rushing to an abrupt end. Exams looming larger than life — carrying with them all her fears and insecurities. She'd been a little distracted lately; her Lit teacher had warned her to stay focused, with the mocks only two weeks away. She's worked so hard, has spent her whole life preparing for these exams, and she isn't going to let anything derail her. And her relationship with Carl, which at the beginning had been so easy, now seemed complicated. Okay,
maybe she had been a bit melodramatic last night — a bit freaked out — but all he'd had to do was talk to her. Allay her fears. All she had really wanted was some words of comfort. He'd always been great at talking her out of her anxiety. His whole approach to life was to chill out. She knew he would make her feel okay. Relax and not panic anymore. But he hadn't. He'd embarrassed her in front of his mates and then acted like a Neanderthal, groping her against the wall.

As she showers and dresses for school, she remembers when she'd first noticed that Carl liked her. He'd hung out with the same group of mates for as long as she could remember. Big Al — a flaming redhead who towered above everyone in their year. There was Ben, who always appeared so quiet but had classic wit. And JD — probably Carl's best friend, if guys even thought in those terms. JD was smart and academic. He didn't really fit in with the other guys, who were into their sports and not their studies, but JD and Carl worked together at The Cake Shop. An interest in weed and the FA Cup had bonded them tightly. She'd always thought of them as a group of jocks and stoners, had never really paid
any attention to them, until she'd gone to buy a cake for Georgia's birthday.

She stood at the counter and Carl emerged from the kitchen, wearing an apron covered in flour dust. He looked embarrassed when he saw her.

‘Hey,' he said, ‘how you doing?'

‘Good.' She waved her hand in front of her face. The air-conditioning in the shop was broken. ‘I'm hot.'

He smiled at her and it was the first time she'd ever really looked at him properly. ‘I think you're totally hot,' he said.

She laughed out loud. She'd never expected something so forward from him. After that she always noticed him and realised he was watching her, too. There was a definite tension between them at school. Looks were passed, little comments made, an attraction developed.

Then one day when she was walking past their group, wearing an over-sized flower in her hair, Big Al shouted sarcastically, ‘Hey, that's a nice big flower.'

She didn't pause in her stride, just kept walking,
and threw back over her shoulder, ‘Yeah, I bet that's what people say about you, too.'

The entire group howled with laughter and Big Al went bright red.

Carl found her that afternoon at the bus bay.

‘Want a lift?' he asked, pulling his yellow Ford against the kerb.

And she thought: why not? She jumped in his car and he roared off, leaving a trace of rubber on the road.

‘Calm down, rev-head,' she warned.

And he laughed — he had a great laugh — and when he did his brown eyes sparkled. ‘I blame you,' he said, ‘you get all my engines revving.'

He asked her to the movies that night. She agreed; her own heart was hammering from being around him. He was so hot, and sweet. She'd felt nervous getting ready, but when she opened the door she could see that he liked what he saw. He didn't try and hide it — ever.

‘Cara mia,' he said, ‘you are so beautiful.'

Since then, it had been on.

The two of them don't really socialise at school
— he sits with his mates, and she with hers. But after school and on weekends they always hang out together. He's always so admiring, telling her how beautiful she is, listening intently to her stories. He's taken her places, bought her gifts. The attention was flattering, made her feel like the most desirable girl in the world. But lately she's been noticing more and more how little they have in common, and that attentiveness, once so attractive, has become smothering. She talks of her plans for uni — getting into Law — and travelling; he doesn't know what he wants to do, or where he is heading. In his typical way, he says he'll figure it out as he goes along. And that cavalier nature, once so appealing, has been slightly irritating.

‘Lucy!' Mum calls from downstairs. ‘You're going to be late!'

Lucy realises she's been sitting on the end of the bed, staring at her untied shoes. She gives herself a shake. She needs to take some action.

Last night had gone badly but she knows she needs to get her life back on track. Maybe she'd been a bit emotional. But he'd been such a jerk. Suddenly it's clear. It was the fear of being alone that had
prevented her from saying the truth last night: that she didn't love him. And fear is not reason enough to stay with him.