How To Save A Life (11 page)

I'd
thought the lowest I could stoop would be being fired, and then seeing my boyfriend get it on with my good mate.

Little did I know that sneaking stolen booze back to a bar was in my future.

The day drags, and I spend all breaks buried away in the library. Just like they did eighteen months ago, whispers follow me everywhere I go. Stares cause prickles to creep along my neck, and when I turn around to confront them, I’m greeted with averted eyes, heads turned.

Worse than that, though, is the knowledge that somewhere out there, my best friend and my boyfriend are holding hands. Studying together. Kat has Duke.

She has my safe place.

The thought causes something to crack, and I bite my lip to try and stay my tears. I don’t need them anyway. That’s just two less people I care about to leave behind.

As soon as the bell rings for the end of school, I race to the bathroom to change then head for the car park, shouldering my way past bodies dressed in white shirts and forest green pants or skirts. Once I slam the door to my car shut, I fumble with the keys, but the engine turns and finally,
finally,
I’m ready to go to the scout hall and return the stolen goods.

I back the car out of the spot, glancing in the rear-view mirror. And that’s when I see it.

Kat and Duke. Her body is pressed up against his Ute. Their lips are melded so close together they’re almost as one.

Pain shoots through my body like an arrow. It’s quick and jagged, as if a freshly healed wound has been reopened once again. My foot stills on the accelerator and I stare, transfixed, as the two people who had come to mean so much to me live their lives without me. Tears well in my eyes, and I scrub one away with the heel of my hand.
Is it always going to hurt like this?

I keep looking as Kat pulls away from his lips, and her gaze meets mine through the mirror. She pushes at Duke’s shoulders, separating their chests from each other.

“Lia! Wait!” She runs toward me, and it’s the signal I need to jolt me out of my trance and push into action. My foot slams onto the accelerator, and the car jerks back. I change gears just as Kat reaches my window, and she pounds on the glass with her fist, her mouth moving but her words not reaching me over the loud thrumming of my own heart.

I hit the accelerator and the car’s wheels spin, then gain traction and propel the vehicle toward the lot exit. Sand clouds the air behind me, but not so much that I don’t see Duke wrap his arms around Kat’s waist.

Not so much that I don’t see her eyes still fixed on the car, her mouth moving to say those two words.

I’m sorry.

***

I idle the car in the lot outside the hall. Ten other cars are parked there, and I know from seeing the calendar so many times that dance practise is in full swing. Thuds come from the hall, and I'm reminded of the age group. There are no P-platers in this lot. It's full-grown adults, all taking a—in some cases, heavy-footed—leap into ballet.
Fabulous
.

I bite my lip and look over at the bar. A new sign has been put up, and it sits above the door, naming the bar Class. The lights aren't on, but then again, it's not even five, and the sun is screaming its harsh afternoon glow off the clouds above us.

No cars are in the bar’s lot, and I rack my brain to think whether there have been cars there before, but I draw a blank.

After a few seconds of silence, punctuated only by the heavy thuds of less-than-graceful pliés, I decide to get out, investigate.

When I cross over the chain-link fence that separates the bar's lot from ours, guilt slams into me. I'm here to return something I think my mother may have stolen. How the hell do you explain that?

A glance to the left, to the right, and nothing. No movement, no sounds that aren't awkward-dancer related—
nothing.

I'm steps away from the door when I think to look through the window.

Darkness greets me, a stage of shadow with minimal light spotlighting the lead characters—the bottles of booze against the wall, the empty stools tucked neatly underneath the redwood bar-top.

But that's not what grabs my attention.

The feature of the band setup is tucked neatly in the corner, a grand old dame of the music scene. She's probably not as old as her sister in the scout hall, and if she is, she's been better kept, hasn't been raped by the students of yesteryear. Her dark wood gleams on the top, the curves too smooth, too perfect to be just a new piano in a new bar. It's everything I've ever dreamed of playing, and my mouth salivates, my fingers itching out imaginary transitions onto the wood of the door in front of me. It’s a Steinway & Sons, one of the top-of-the-line brands, worth at least $20,000. I've never had the opportunity to touch something as perfect as this. Not since everything changed.

I push against the door, and for some reason, because of everything, or perhaps despite it, I'm surprised that the barrier doesn't loosen under my touch, that it doesn't give way. Because I feel so much like I belong behind this wall that it may as well not exist.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and it's all it takes to bring me out of this moment.

Where are you?

It's hard not to shove the piece of metal back in my jean pocket, and even harder not to just throw it at the window of the place she's already vandalised. Because really? Really, now she wants to act like a mum, not when I was heartbroken on the weekend? Not when I cried, worried about my future? Not when Dad ... when Dad ...

I swallow the stupid damn sob that threatens to breach my throat, and puff up my chest.
Screw him, and screw those stupid thoughts
. I don't have time for them anymore.

What I sadly do need to find time for is to smuggle the remaining four boxes of twelve bottles of red wine my mother has stolen into the bar.

It did occur to me to leave them, absolutely. But knowing that at any moment Mum could be pinned for a crime, sent away to jail, makes me want to protect her. She'll never turn her life around if she's serving time. And I
need
her to turn her life around.

I walk around the building, admiring all the entrances and exits, until I finally come across a delivery room, or what I presume is one. Plastic strips line the doorway, and inside is a small cool area, a garage-sized door in front.

I’ll take the bottles here. It's going to be obvious some bottles are missing, but I don't know that I have another choice. I could ignore it all, but then I'd just be providing Mum with more alcohol, and I don't know that I can do that. I could take the boot full of wine in my car and throw it at the waves, get rid of the evidence and attain the therapeutic high of something so fragile smashing against pure nature, but I don't know that I can do that, either.

And I hate why I can't.

It's because I know the guy who owns this.

And he may not be my friend, may not be someone I'd count as a confidante, but he's someone who once understood me. Even if it was only with a few notes on a throwaway piece of paper.

I pop the boot, then walk to the back of the vehicle and shuffle my hands under a box of wine. It creaks under my grasp as I lift it, twelve bottles in one loose cardboard casing. With a glance to the left and one to the right, I stumble up the causeway and through those flappy plastic strips. Sure enough, a wooden pallet sits in the middle of the room, eight boxes of wine identical to the ones I found at home placed haphazardly on top of it. I shut my eyes for one moment, and wonder what if.

What if I've got this all wrong, and they bought it?

I know we don't have the money, but it's possible Smith does. Maybe I should give my own mother the benefit of the doubt here and cut her some slack. Then I see the marker on the corner of one of the boxes.
1 of 12.

I look at my box. Yep.
7 of 12
.

Guess that answers that then.

I place the box down in front of the door. It's one box, twelve bottles of the original goods, but it's a start, and a start I plan on continuing. On finishing.

Well, minus the minimum six empty bottles I found in my house this morning.

I skip back down the ramp to my car and grab box number two. In this one the bottles are loose—must be the one Mum took her six bottles from—and the glass clings and clangs against itself, a merry symphony that plays in direct contrast to my furtive desires. Once again, I push through the flaps and place it down on the ground, next to box one.

Back at my car again, I lift up the third box, and—

"Lia! So good to see you."

Clunk

The box drops like a deadweight back to the floor of my car and I slam the boot shut before spinning on my heel and pasting what I hope is an angelic smile on my face as I greet the scout hall proprietor, June Longworthy.

"Hi ... Mrs Longworthy."

"It's so nice to see you here. You haven't scheduled in a booking I've forgotten, have you?" She walks over to the car and furrows her brow, her sweet brown eyes mirroring the concern her body language holds.

"No, no." I shake my head. "I just ..."
Have about three seconds to think of a good excuse.
"Sometimes, I like to take a walk by the lake ... and this is an easy place to park."

"It is beautiful at this time of year, isn't it?" Her eyes sparkle, and as the golden beams of light glint off the lake's surface as they shine through the trees, I can't help but agree.

But the thing is, deep down, I know. I know that under that beautiful shiny exterior, the depths of the lake hold secrets. The serene surface belies the sludge on the bottom, and the creatures that lurk in the lake's belly. The sea snakes and the crabs—the sharp edges of oyster shells, whose inhabitants have long since left.

There's death under the lake. A little boy, when I was just a kid. He swung from a rope off the jump tree and hit the bottom with too much force, paralysing him from the waist down and effectively drowning him.

There's a rusted-out old car.

There's my past.

"Lia?"

I blink, and snap my attention back to Mrs Longworthy.

"Sorry, yes. It's really pretty."

"Well, I'll let you go for that walk. Do be careful—some of those rocks are a little slippery near the shore." She squeezes my shoulder fondly and toddles off to her shiny new car, then pulls out of the lot as I meander toward the lake, trying to make my deception real.

A quick glance at my watch, and I see it's near half past five, and that soon the dance class will be over.
Probably for the best I wait here for a bit
.

I park myself on a rock—a non-slippery one, thanks Mrs Longworthy—and wonder how on earth I'm going to get through this. Wonder if I should have just reported my mother for theft.

Wishing there was an easy answer.

As soon as the last car is out of the lot and darkness has cast its shadows long across the lake, I jog over to my car to resume my mission. It's only three days out from the bar's grand opening—the odds of that bar owner being here tonight aren't low, and I need to move quickly if I'm going to get these last two boxes in undetected.

Box three is placed with the other two, no worries, and I do one more furtive check of the dark street before spiriting box four up the ramp and placing it right on top of the pile I've created. I stretch up to straighten it, making sure it's sitting flush and—

"A little more to the right and it'll be even."

I scream and stumble, my body catapulting backward in the dark. My heart leaps to my throat and I flail my arms wildly to try to regain balance, before I'm caught by two strong hands that steady me while I find my feet.

Two very strong hands.

I spin around, and even in the near-dark I can see enough to know it's
him
. The man from the bar. His hair is scruffed, windswept, as if he's been out all day. His eyes seem to glint gold, even in the low light, and the stubble lining his jaw is the five-thirty shadow male models would dream of.

He's close to me, so close that I can feel the heat of his body, smell the sweetness on his breath. It’s rich and heady, and makes me think of—

"Have you ... have you been eating chocolate?" I ask.

And then I die.

Because,
seriously?

"God, I'm so sorry." I push against his chest—his very firm, very nice feeling chest—and take two steps back, wiping my hands against my jeans as if touching him has burned me.

"About the theft or the chocolate question?" He folds his arms across his chest, and I can't quite read his expression. His lips are in a hard line, and those brows of his are drawn.

"I didn't steal anything!" I protest, rushing forward. A copper taste floods my mouth as I bite my lip, and I can't, I can
not
be arrested. I'm no expert, but I'm fairly sure the words 'thief' and 'juvenile detention' don't go down too well on scholarship applications.

For some reason, even though I'd spent all afternoon worried about Mum getting caught for stealing, I hadn't stopped to think that maybe this could come back on me. And now I feel like an idiot for not realising that in the first place.