Fins 4 Ur Sins (3 page)

7

MATH CLASS STARTS out like this: open exercise book, look at
textbook, study textbook,
frown
at textbook. Think textbook
is written by a foreign student learning English.

Glance at Bethany’s pages.
Ah.
Light bulb.
She has already worked out her equations.
I’ve been away too long and haven’t learnt any of this stuff. Heaven help me if
we get a test.

I bite my lip and smile, thanking
my lucky stars for a friend like her.

Mr. Sawly sweats in huge circles
around the armpits of his ironed shirt. Word is he still lives with his mother.
Doesn’t surprise me.
He has slicked back sandy hair,
Coke-bottle glasses, and when he leans down to check your work, you don’t
breathe in for the love of God.

Bethany always pulls out a bottle
of extra strength deodorant before we go into his class and bathes us in a
cloud of chemicals. “This,” she says, “is what gets me through his class.
Otherwise, I’d choke.”

The instant I walked into class,
I mutinously stared ahead at Bethany’s back and then set up my own desk next to
hers, refusing to look around.

Whispers rained around me like
knives, until finally Bethany elbows me in the stomach.

“Hey.” I glare at her and grumble
about
frenemies
. She jerks her head to the side, and
I flick my disinterested gaze over her shoulder toward the door.

A horrible sense of déjà vu
sweeps over me. I exhale and my shoulders droop.

My palms grow warm and sticky, my
stomach flip flops, exploding with tiny butterflies. I squeeze my eyes shut and
then open them again to stare. It’s him—
him
—where have I seen him? I
lean against the desk to steady myself, but my wet palms slip on the surface.
I’m so dizzy. I’ve seen this guy before.
But where?
It
can’t be at this school.
Back in Sydney, maybe?

My skin prickles and burns, heart
beating as if it’s about to start a rock band. He weaves around the desks, his
uniform a crisp, dark blue. He’s the new guy Bethany’s talking about, I’m sure.
I suck in a breath that hurts and straighten.

His dirty blond hair is spiked
up, looking fiendishly hot.
When his eyes crash into mine,
the blue shimmers.
I stare in disbelief.

He smiles at me, and a dimple
forms in his right cheek.

Moonlight.
Stars.
Darkness.

I look down at the textbook and
then turn back to Bethany, mute with astonishment.

Oh yeah
, she wears her
guy-eating, Mona Lisa grin and chuckles as though my face is the funniest thing
she’s seen in weeks.

Mr. Sawly calls out the new guy’s
name. Lakyn, the teacher asks, where’s your late slip?

Such an odd
name.
And I’m so anxious to hear his voice, I hold my breath. Tingles
wash over my skin.

“Here, Mr.
Sawly.”
Lakyn reaches into his pocket for the slip and then strides toward
the teacher.

He has a deep, resonant voice,
one that emerged right behind my left shoulder before he moved toward the front
of the class. I shiver unexpectedly.

“I needed to see the swim coach
during morning tea,” he explains in the silence.

Mr. Sawly reads the note, nods
and then continues on with the class.

I blink back tears, gazing around
me. Wait. Something’s happening and everyone else is missing it. The girls
twitter and boys give him a grin. Of course they do, he’s a hot enigma. I frown
and rub my breastbone, trying to ease the tightness. When the pressure doesn’t
work, I attempt to work on my equation. I’ll need all my brain cells for that.
“Lakyn,” I whisper,
doodling
his name across my
workbook.

Bethany kicks my foot.
Once.
Twice.
I cast
her a
pained look, but she just points across the room,
hiding a thumbs up down by the other side of her hip.

“Can I buy a vowel?” I look up to
where she’s pointing and my heart stops.
Speeds up.
I
push away the white curls from my face.

I’m not sure how long Lakyn’s
been staring at me. From the set of his shoulders and the steadiness of his
piercing gaze, it’s been a while. The posture of his body is even more
puzzling. It’s like a wall has forcibly stopped him in his tracks. His smile
widens, showcasing brilliant white teeth. Not a condescending smile that others
have shown me, but a conspiratorial one. The dimple digs in his tanned cheek,
and his eyes almost light up the room. When he stalks toward me and pulls out
the chair beside mine, my heart squeezes.

“Hi,” he says, easing into the
seat.

Paralysed with overwhelming
sensation, I can’t breathe or look him in the face. If I do, I’ll embarrass
myself further, because once I start, I will not be able to stop. By its own
volition, my gaze slides over to his hands on his desk. He has long, tanned
fingers.

“Hi,” he murmurs again huskily.

I can’t place his accent. It
doesn’t sound Australian. I purse my lips and take the plunge, staring at utter
perfection. He doesn’t gawk at me like the others; instead his blue gaze
considers mine. And I can’t put my finger on why he’s staring at me like that.
My heart pounds like my old rocking horse. I bring up my left hand to my
forehead.

Mouth.
Work.
“Hi,” comes out in a croak. Then I glance down at my
books and clear my throat. No wonder I can’t get a boyfriend, right? I’m
destined to be lonely for my entire high school years. I’m almost shaking in my
shoes.

“Eloise, isn’t it?”

I peer up at him in surprise, but
his gaze strays to my lips and his eyes darken.

“Yes,” I answer with a dry mouth.
My lips tingle and burn. I blink at the sensation, my cheeks heating, but not
smouldering like my mouth.

“I’m Lakyn Ambrose.” The stars at
night wish they shone like this guy’s smile.

I casually press against my lips,
expecting to find blood on my fingertips.
None.
Weird.
“It’s . . . ah . . . nice to meet you.”

8

I CALL MUM on my cell and let her know Bethany’s invited me
back to her place. To my surprise, Mum thinks it’s great. She encourages me to
interact more and go out with my friends. Hopefully, she means more parties and
no curfews. A girl can dream, right?

Bethany phones her mum and says
she’s going to visit Cal at Oyster Point, because he has some research material
she needs.

“You’re so sneaky.” I grin. “I
love it.”

Bethany laughs.
“Great minds.
Anyway, Cal will cover for me, and your mum
might flip out. His family are fishermen. He and his dad were the ones who
found the girl.”

“How many relatives do you have?”
I ask.

“Mum’s one of thirteen kids, and
Cal’s a distant cousin twice removed. Everyone at Oyster Point knows his
family, but we’re close. When I heard what happened to you, I remembered him
saying something about finding a girl on the beach. He sent me the picture ages
ago.”

My stomach rolls at the mention
of Melanie. She’s a real girl to me, even though she’s dead. The bus is packed
full of kids from our private school. Boys throw crap at each other in the
back, but most have earphones on, lost in their playlist.

“Remind me to tell mum to buy
shares in hearing devices,” Bethany says.

I remain quiet but wonder how
we’re going to get from the last point of the bus stop to Cal’s place. In spite
of that, I’m also looking forward to doing something proactive instead of
waiting around for everyone else to tell me what happened the night I leapt off
the cliff.

“We’ll cab it,” Bethany says,
rising from the seat to step off the bus.

“Fine by me.”

The doors swoosh open, and we
step out into the hot sunshine. My lungs squeeze and I stop to breathe in
slowly.

Careful,
Ellie.

It’s a mind game where I have to
override every natural instinct to suck in air as hard and as deep as I can. I
open my mouth to call out to Beth, but I can’t form the words. Bent over, I
reach out, pinching the back of her school blouse.

She spins around and is right up
there against me. Asking, asking, what’s wrong?

My ears roar with static.

She pats my back and then smooths
the hair from my face. Her eyes are dark green with worry.

I point to my throat, my chest
and my hand shakes. Fear drenches me in a cold, cold sweat in the humid heat of
summer. I shiver and wave my arms around in desperation.

She drops her backpack and then whips
out an asthma puffer from her bag. “Breathe it in,” she instructs. “Suck it
deep, El.”

I’ve never used a puffer before,
but I grab it from her hand and then pump the spray into my mouth. And again,
another spray fills my throat and another deep breath in.

Gradually, I discover I’m
breathing again. My lungs are loose once more, but . . . something is terribly
wrong. I can feel it within me. The tearing sensation is all aflutter now. I’m
sure ribs aren’t meant to squeeze this badly. It’s not like a lung crackle with
a normal cough. This is bones moving; splitting.

She rubs my back.
“Easy now.”

I wince at another slash in my
chest, tears streaming from my eyes. Plus, Bethany doesn’t have asthma.
“Where’d you get it from?” I rasp.

She frowns and hesitates with the
phone in her hand. A full thirty seconds pass with nothing but the sounds of
cars driving along the busy road.

“Beth?”

“It’s not important, but I found
it.”

Gross.
I scrunch up my
face. “You gave me someone’s used puffer?”

She sighs. “Don’t look at me like
that. It saved your life, didn’t it? It was new in a box. I sprayed it a few
times for fun,
then
put it back.”

Again the
sounds of traffic.
I have the feeling there’s something she’s not
telling me. I’m jack of that.

“Do you want to go back home?”
she asks. “How do you feel? I’m not putting your life at risk by doing this. If
you can’t breathe—”

“I’m fine. I need to find out
what’s going on. I can’t remember what happened that night. Something’s wrong
with me, Beth.” A high-pitched distress rings in my voice. “I just know it. I
can’t explain why.”

She studies me, and then nods as
though her thoughts crystallise.
“As long as you’re all right
to continue?”

I nod, breathing slowly.

She turns to the safety of the
grassy verge, pushes buttons on the screen of her phone and then holds it up to
her ear. “Hi, we need a cab for two at Abbey Road, next to the bus stop,
heading toward Oyster Point. How long? OK, thanks.” She hangs up.

“How much cash you got?” I reach
into the small pocket of my backpack and then hold out a fifty dollar note.
“Need more?”

“A twenty.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll get Cal to drop us back. Save your money.”

“I’ll pay the way there. I
actually have money for a change.”

She grins. “Cool.”

“Where’d you find the puffer?” I
ask.

Silence.

“Beth,” I prod gently.

She sighs. “Mr. Sawly gave it to
me after maths class. He said it fell out of my bag.” She shrugs. “I never put
it in there in the first place. You know I don’t have asthma. No one else was
around, and I meant to hand it in to the office, but I forgot, what with
thinking of going to see Cal and all.”

“And if you hadn’t had it on
you—”

Bethany fishes out the puffer
again, and her eyes are earnest. “You’re right. Keep it on you. I don’t need
it. Not like you.”

“Thanks.” The silver metal and
blue plastic feels cold in my hand and winks in the sunlight. I’d died, but how
had that changed me? Am I truly alive? Is this what happened to my lungs when I
jumped and drowned?

I hope her cousin has more
answers for me.

9

CAL DRIVES US over to Oyster Point in an old utility truck.
Miles of net that stink of fish guts are piled up in the back tray. The axles
of his Ute toss me from side to side until my ribs grate against my hip bones.
He’s twenty years old, dressed in waders, a thick red and black flannelette
shirt and a black beanie.

Once he stops the Ute, he jumps
out and waits for us to follow, then strolls over to a spot on the sand. He
points in front of his rubber-covered feet. “This is the place. Dad and I were
cruising for baitfish, and something big chased the whiting close to the beach
that day.”

“Shark?”
Bethany stares at the sand.

I can see Melanie now, lying
there, gasping for breath. Or, maybe just so still with sea gulls circling on
the breeze around her. I close my eyes, inhaling the tangy air. But the sea is
dangerous—utterly unforgiving—like everything about life.

It will kill me if I let it. I
cannot be complacent.

“The baits weren’t touched
offshore.” Cal steps back and gazes out at Coochiemudlo Island in the distance.
“She would’ve had bits missing, too, if you know what I mean. There’ve been
heaps of shark attacks off the islands, but this wasn’t one.”

“So, what
then?”
Bethany asks.

“Either she jumped or she was
pushed.” He falls silent and then continues: “When the cops rolled her over,
there wasn’t a mark on her. No signs of a struggle at her house either, except
for some blood on the rocks near the east-facing cliffs.
Never
seen anything like it myself.
They figure she jumped. They couldn’t
prove the parents did anything.”

I shake my head, staring out at
the low, rolling waves and a bitter sickness twists my insides. “They found
blood. The newspaper report back at your place says there was no note.
Nothing to show why she’d do something like that.
What would
be her reasons?”

“Who knows?” Cal’s brown gaze
locks on mine. “What were yours?”

So he believes I jumped
deliberately, too. I rub my forehead, because I’m getting a little tired of
repeating myself. I palm the puffer in my pocket. My breathing slows, ribs
pinch. I have a
toke
from the puffer and suck it in
like
it’s
oxygen. My throat widens and lungs expand.
Air tastes sweet. Bethany has already discussed most of the situation with Cal,
but I guess I need to tell him more.

“I can’t remember everything,” I
croak. “I remember thinking I’d see my dad’s face and hearing music. I woke up
in absolute agony. My mum was crying, and I slept a lot.” My voice is so raspy,
I sound as if I should be back in hospital.

He crouches and swishes his
fingers in the water for a few minutes, his face turned to the islands.
“Music?”
He gives me a quick look over his shoulder.
“Interesting. I’ll ask Dad about that.
Injuries?”

“Dislocated shoulder that they
fixed in hospital, cuts to my hands and feet, which were also fixed there and
my chest . . .” I pause, wondering how to describe the pain without alarming
them. “My lungs are tight. I have trouble breathing.”

“You almost died.” Beth pads
across the sand to hug my shoulders. “We know you jumped, El. But you can’t
remember why, and that’s why we’re here.”

Cal’s eyebrows
quirk,
and his eyes darken. “What about the guy they found, the one on the news this
morning? You heard about that, right?”

“Yes,” I say.

“It’s too coincidental for me,”
Bethany answers. “I’ve got a real funny feeling about all of this.”

Cal chews his bottom lip.
“Yeah.
There were two other guys before him.”

Some people think belief doesn’t
have a lot of worth, but in reality, to have someone believe in you and help,
when you can’t even believe in yourself . . . well, that makes all the
difference. I bite my other thumb nail.

Cal’s looks at me as if he’s
trying to figure me out. Join the queue.

Bethany switches her gaze back to
her cousin. “Got a boat we can borrow for the day?”

≈≈≈

MACKEREL SKY.
CAL says a
change is coming, and he lends me his flannelette. He’s worried about what the
cold air will do to my lungs. To my surprise, the fabric doesn’t smell of fish
guts, but of musk and sunlight. We don’t find evidence of floating clothes,
nets or shoes. I have trouble suppressing my disappointment. The police had
probably done all the searching when they found the dead bodies.

The water is eerily choppy, murky
with hidden depths. I think of how awful it would be to fall into the sea.
Kind of like dying, a blanket of wet nothingness closing over me.

To disappear
forever.
Glug, glug, glug.
Gone.

The sun glows,
mild and pink in the sky, spreading direct fingers through the clouds.
The wind picks up speed, and gusts blow my hair everywhere, freezing the tips
of my ears. When we’re all shivering, Cal frowns over my insistence to stay. He
calls it a night and then motors back home.

He drives us back to Bethany’s
house with old 80’s tunes playing on the radio, and then Bethany and I discuss
what we spotted while cruising up and down the coastline.

I’m sunburnt already.

Cal promises to keep a look out
at his end of the coast, and we can borrow the boat to have a cruise around the
cliffs where I live anytime I want. We say our goodbyes, and then Bethany hugs
me gently, which I appreciate because of my chest. I trudge up the stairs to my
house, drop my backpack on my bed and then head for the shower. I’ll sew up my
skirt later. I have a few spares in my closet that’ll do in the meantime.

When I get out
of the bathroom, the TV’s blaring, and Mum’s home from work.
Wonderful
woman has bought Chinese for dinner. The fragrant scents of chicken and sweet
corn soup, special fried rice and honey chicken waft through the house. What
kind of dreams I’ll have consuming that much MSG, I don’t want to know, but I
set up the table and eagerly devour the steaming soup.

“Hey honey, how was your day?”
Mum asks, eating honey chicken and rice. She swishes around the kitchen in her
pink pyjamas with fluffy kittens all over them. “What did you and Bethany get
up to?”

“Oh, we went to see Cal. He’s one
of her relatives at Oyster Point. She needed some research papers from his
house.” The lie trips easily off my tongue, but Mum nods and eats her dinner. I
feel guilty and defensive at the same time.

“Nice area around there. I think
Carrie mentioned those relatives to me,” Mum says, talking about Bethany’s
mother. “Fishermen, aren’t they?”

“Yes, we had a drive around the
town, too.” There’s no way I’m going to mention the boat ride. Mum might get
angry at the prospect of me being out on the water again.

She smiles into my eyes and sits
down at the table. “That’s OK, honey. It’s wonderful you’re getting out more,
experiencing the good side of life. You can invite your friends over here
anytime you like.”

I nod. “
Thanks,
Mum.” My thoughts go to the asthma puffer in my bedroom. Maybe I should have it
on me? No pockets though, and Mum would notice an odd bulge in my bra.

“Now, I know you’re back at
school, and it’s going to be hard,” Mum says. “But anytime you need anything,
just let me know. If you want to go out with your friends and need money, tell
me how much. I have a good job, and we can afford it.”

“I can get a part-time job,” I
offer.
“A few nights a week.
I’ll write up a resume.”

Her smile is wide and beautiful.
“Of course you can. That’s a great idea. Anywhere you want to start?”

“One of the
shops?
Retail?”

She leans forward, her arms
across the table. “There are community courses in IT going on at the local
library, and I know that they also have one on customer relations.
Or the community college for night courses.
How about we
download a prospectus and check it out? It’ll last for a few weeks or months,
and you’ll meet more people your age. If you do courses, it’ll give you a
chance to recuperate.”

“Sure.” I’d been thinking about
working a few hours at K-Mart to earn some play money. “A course would look
better on my resume.”

She claps her hands and beams.
“You’re great at music, or there’s painting and illustration for comic books.
It’s never too early to think big. Remember you can do anything. Spread your
wings and try things while you still can. I’ll pay for the cab fares to take
you there and back if I’m working.”

A gleaming bubble of hope rises
within me. Looks like Mum meant it when she said she’d let me try new things. I
push away from the table, rinse out my bowl and spoon in the sink and then
stack the utensils in the dishwasher. My appetite isn’t what it used to be.
Fatigue sets in quicker after a long day, and if I’m lying on my bed, I can
relax enough to calm my lungs and breathe slowly. That’s an art form, for sure.

“I’m off to bed.” I kiss her on
the cheek.
“Non-night.”

She wraps an arm around my waist,
squeezes and kisses me back. “Sleep well, honey.”

I pause before I’m about to walk
out the dining room, breathing in the scents of coffee and Chinese food. She
hasn’t said anything at all about the three teenagers who
Dr.
Farrow mentioned before I left the hospital. Maybe the psychiatrist told Mum
not to say a word.

“Mum?” I begin.

“
Mmm
.
. . ?” She grins.
“Yes, darling?”

“Something happened to me. I
didn’t do it. You know I wouldn’t.” Tears heat my eyes.
“Never.”

Her face pales, but I turn to
slip down the hall.