Leaving Jetty Road (15 page)

chapter twenty-eight

One good reason

I
throw up again several times when I get home. The third time, Dad comes into the bathroom, looking sympathetic.

“What’s the matter, Nat? Did you eat something bad?”

He’s like that, Dad: he’s good with sick people. When I was a kid, it was always him, not Mum, who’d come into my bedroom if I had a temperature. He’d put a damp cloth on my forehead, offer to read me stories. He had such a comforting voice.

Now I shake my head in answer to his question, wipe my mouth with a piece of toilet paper. I don’t think I’ve ever been sick so much in my
life.

“Josh broke up with me today.”

It’s the closest I can get to saying the truth out loud. After I’ve told him, I turn away and walk into my bedroom. I close the door and lie down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I want to cry, but I can’t. I feel too sick to cry.

My eyes close almost immediately, and I sleep. It’s a long and deep sleep, and totally,
totally
dreamless.

In the morning, when I wake, the queasiness has passed and my stomach has settled. I lie in bed, listening to the familiar sounds of the house: the roof creaking, a floorboard shifting in the hall outside my room, the kitchen tap dripping.

When I get up, I find a note pinned up for me on the fridge. It’s in Mum’s handwriting:

I stand by the fridge in my pajamas, at a loss for words. If I hadn’t argued with her the other day, I wouldn’t have felt like I missed Josh so much, you know? And if I hadn’t missed him so much, I wouldn’t have gone to see him yesterday. Which would mean, I think now, irrationally, I wouldn’t have seen what I saw.

I don’t bother with a note back to her, and I leave the tablets on the kitchen table, untouched.

I’m going back to Jetty Road again. I’ve
got
to see him.

Again.

*                  *                  *

Some days you can hear the sound of the ocean from Jetty Road, even as far back as the café. Today is one of those days, hot and still, the sky a deep, pulsating blue.

I march down the street toward the café, ignoring the sea and the sky. I head through the open door of the café. The place looks deserted—it’s too early for customers—but I can hear someone moving about in the kitchen. A plate clatters, and the fridge door groans open. Then I hear the sound of someone humming. Yes,
humming.

I go straight behind the counter, without calling out.

Josh is in the kitchen: he’s standing at the stove, his back to me. At the sight of him, I feel my knees crumble. How could he? How
could
he? I take a deep breath, steeling myself.

“Where’s Michael?” I demand, without bothering to say hello.

He swings around at my voice, startled. “Nat! I didn’t hear you come in.” His expression is unreadable. “Um—he’s gone to the bank. Aren’t you supposed to be at an exam or something?”

“My next one’s tomorrow,” I say.

He looks confused.

“I thought you weren’t coming back till they were over.”

“I
wasn’t,
” I say grimly. “I need to talk to you, Josh.”

A shadow crosses his face, and if there’d been a part of me that didn’t believe what I saw yesterday—and there was, there
was;
how
could
it be true?—instantly it’s gone.

“Now?” he says quietly.

“Now.”

He doesn’t protest. He can see it in my face already, I think; he knows I know.

He follows me out through the kitchen door, into the tiny backyard. I plunk myself down on the cement doorstep. Reluctantly, he sits down next to me. The yard is so small that there’s only enough space, between us and the tin fence, for a couple of broken, discarded chairs from the café and the rusting refuse bin in the corner. His knee is squashed against my thigh, and there’s no room to move away.

For a moment I can’t bring myself to speak.

“I saw you and Julie.”

He’s silent. I plunge on.

“It
was
Julie, wasn’t it? Yesterday. On the beach with you. Kissing.”

Still he doesn’t answer.

“Well?
Was
it?”

“Yes.”

I sit there next to him on the step, wordless, staring at the refuse bin. Its lid is propped open, and bags of rubbish from the café spill out of it. A sudden memory slides into my mind: Josh and me, doing the last of the cleaning in the kitchen one afternoon; late winter, darkness already fallen. I’d switched off the CD player, and in the quietness that followed, we heard cats foraging around in the bin outside the kitchen. They hissed and spat at each other, fighting over leftover food or lost territory. Josh came up to me, put his arms around my shoulders. “Cats fighting,” he murmured into my ear. “The strangest, loneliest sound in the world.” He was right. It
is
a lonely sound.

I have so
many
memories like that of him in this place—

Next to me, Josh shifts uncomfortably on the step. His closeness—the feeling of his leg against mine—is almost unbearable.

“How long?” I say at last. “How long have you and Julie—?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Have you
slept
with her?”

“Yes,” he says quietly.

There is a pause.

“It was only once, Nat. It was only—it was just last night.” He hesitates, then says quickly, “I didn’t want you to find out like this. I just saw so little of you over the last few weeks. You had your exams. And I was training with Julie every day. It just
happened.
”

I squeeze myself against the wall, away from him.

“Screwing around doesn’t just
happen,
” I say bitterly. “You
make
it happen.”

Then my breath snags on something in my throat.
Screwing around.
They’re not even my words; they’re his.
You don’t screw around when you’re in a relationship, Nat. You just DON’T . . .

I take another breath, suddenly shaky.

“I suppose you think
we
just happened—”

His silence hurts more than any words. I hear my breathing filling it, ragged with the first blinding tears.

“We can still be good friends,” he says finally. His voice is soft, calm, appeasing as he trots out this last cliché. “Nat?”

But I am too choked to answer. We both listen—equally astonished, I think—to the strange, noisy, abandoned sobs coming out of me. After a moment, he sighs and stands up, having to press against me even to do this. He glances down at me, then pushes open the kitchen door and walks back into the café.

I don’t move. For a long, long time I don’t move. The sweet-sour stench of refuse drifts over to me from the bin, and there is plenty of room for me, here on the step, now that I am alone. Far off in the background, I hear the sound of the sea.

It’s a lonely, lonely sound, the sea. When I think about it now, I think
that’s
the loneliest sound in the world.

Michael’s voice over the phone later that day is unimpressed.

“It’s nearly Christmas, Nat. This is the busiest time of the year.”

It’s not like I even liked the job, I think bitterly.

“I’ve just sacked Loretta,” he goes on. “
Finally.
We really
need
you here. Give me one good reason why you have to quit your job now.”

One good reason? That’s easy. He’s long and lean and dark-eyed, and he’s probably standing at Michael’s elbow in his black-and-white checked pants right now.

My breath catches. I try not to let my voice wobble.

“I’m sorry, Michael. This is a temporary job. I don’t have to give you a reason at all.”

I mean, what else can I do? I can’t work with Josh anymore. I can’t stand near to him, smell him, look into his eyes.

I put the phone down, go back to my desk, open my books. That’s all there is left to do.

chapter twenty-nine

Everything

T
he next couple of weeks are a blur.

At home, I study for my remaining exams. When I’m not studying, I eat chocolate, watch TV, sleep, eat more chocolate. I don’t know why I eat so much chocolate, except that it’s sweet, smooth, soothing. It slows my tears.

Mum comes into the living room sometimes to interrupt my TV stupor. She sits down next to me on the sofa, offers her standard fare: talk, sympathy, understanding. When she does this, I push her away. I don’t
want
understanding right now, especially not hers; I haven’t forgotten that argument we had about Lise the other day. Despite everything else that’s happened to me since, I haven’t forgotten.

One morning, though, when my parents and Tim are out at work, I call Sofe. I have this sudden urge to hear her voice—her brash, cheerful voice. Maybe
she
can make me feel better.

I speak flatly as I tell her what’s happened, trying not to cry.

“What an asshole,” she says angrily before I can even finish. “You are
so
well rid of him—”

Immediately I feel the tears gathering again. Her anger doesn’t help; it makes me feel worse. I say goodbye hastily and hang up. Maybe only chocolate
can
make me feel better, after all.

In between chocolate sessions, I put on my uniform, go to school, and take my exams. Once—only once—I see Lise there. She doesn’t come to any of the exams, but one day, as I’m crossing the schoolyard, I catch sight of her standing outside the library. She’s dressed in regular clothes, looking scrawny and wispy, as if the hot north wind could blow her away, and she’s deep in conversation with Jessica Fuller, whose hand is on her shoulder. Somehow, inevitably, I am reminded of Mum.
Talking,
I think briefly, with scorn—
what good does THAT do? That’s what SHE did with Lise.

But the thought passes. I don’t go over to Lise and Jessica; I don’t wave; I walk straight into the exam room and don’t turn back. I know that I should, but I don’t. The truth is, I can’t think about Lise right now: her life, her future. There is no lasting room for anyone else inside this blankness of mine: I am consumed with the process of keeping myself alive, afloat.

I wanted everything with Josh, you know? Not just to be friends.
Everything.

At night I lie in my bed in the dark, touching the places where he touched me. My skin feels cold without the warmth of his against it. I long for the brush of his lips across mine, the fresh, musty smell of his armpits after a bike ride, the warm tickle of his breath against my face. It feels like I’ve crash-landed onto a planet where I don’t belong. There is no map here, and the only person who could give me direction in this place—show me north, south, east, west, all the nooks and crannies in between—will never come.

I close my eyes at last and slide into sleep. His face—laughing brown eyes, freckles across the nose, straight blond hair—lies just beneath my eyelids. It’s the weirdest thing: he’s so close to me like this. Closer than he’s ever been, and so far out of reach.

chapter thirty

Sleep

T
he day before my last exam, Mum comes into the living room. Ignoring my hostile glare, she goes over to the TV, switches it off.

“Can I talk to you for a moment, sweetie?”

I sigh. “You’ve turned off the TV, haven’t you? I don’t have much choice.”

She decides to ignore this, too.

“I’ve got some good news about Lise.”

So this is it, I think, dragging myself unwillingly out of my thoughts about Josh: Lise, the topic I’ve been avoiding talking about with her for so long. Has she even noticed how quiet I’ve been around her? How much I’ve been
avoiding
her?

Mum perches on the corner of the coffee table in front of my armchair.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this, of course, but I know you’ve been worried.” She gives me a quick, hopeful look. “Lise rang me this morning. She wanted the name of a counselor.”

She smiles at me. It’s a gentle, satisfied,
smug
little smile.

“I just thought you’d like to know,” she says.

I stare at her in disbelief.

“That’s
it
?
That’s
your good news?”

She nods, her smile wavering. Anger fills me all over again—like it did with her the other day—only this time I am ready for it.

I look her straight in the eye. “What help’s a counselor going to be for Lise?”

She opens her mouth.

“All counselors do is
talk,
” I say scornfully, before she can speak. “
You’re
a counselor. What help were
you
to Lise that day she came over to talk to you? She didn’t even make it through the exams.”

Mum swallows.

“That’s a bit harsh, Nat.”

Not HARSH,
I think, looking away, not speaking.
Accurate, maybe. Fair.

“I think there’s something you should know,” Mum says finally.

I shrug.
Tell me if you want to. See if I care.

“That day Lise came over,” she says quietly. “You said the other day I should’ve done something. But the thing is, I
did.
” She pauses. “A couple of days after her visit, I called her mother.”

She stops, waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, she sighs and goes on.

“I tried to talk to Jen about Lise. I told her I thought Lise needed treatment.”

“And?” I say, despite myself.

Mum rubs her eyes wearily. “She said she had it ‘covered.’ ”

When I still don’t speak, she lifts her hands, palms up, to the ceiling. “There was nothing more I could do, Nat. Lise is Jen’s daughter, not mine.”

Rage fills me again, only this time I don’t know who it’s directed at. Mrs. Mawson? Mum? Lise? Josh?
Myself
? I say the first thing that comes into my head.

“Yeah,
well.
That’s the first time
I’d
ever noticed.”

Mum looks down at her hands in her lap. When she lifts her head again, I can see the hurt in her eyes.

I don’t say anything. I get up, go over to the TV, switch it back on. Then I sit down again and stare at it pointedly.

It’s less than a minute before Mum, too, gets up. She leaves the room without speaking, closing the door quietly behind her.

As soon as she’s gone, my eyes fill with tears. Here I am, alone in this room yet again. Why did I
do
that? Why did I argue with her about Lise? Haven’t we said it all before? After what she’s just told me about Mrs. Mawson, I don’t even know if I’m angry about it anymore.

The truth is, I’m just tired—so,
so
tired. Of everything: of studying for exams, worrying about Lise, arguing with Mum. I don’t have the energy for it anymore: I’ve used it all up on Josh. All I can think right now is,
What about me? Why doesn’t Mum ask about ME?

I get up, steal out of the living room, down the corridor to my bedroom. I crawl into my bed, turn to face the wall, shut my eyes. Then I sleep.

Sweet, sweet sleep: I feel like I could sleep forever.