One True Thing (13 page)

Avoiding the internet and news achieves very little except to free me up to field a million text messages from pretty much everyone I know. And some I don't. I scan some of them, read the sometimes sympathetic, sometimes well-meaning and often just plain dumb ones. Plenty of nasty ones too, but I'm really good at deleting them before the venom takes hold. Most of them just want details – to be the first to know the story.

Kessie texts me once, and when I don't answer she actually
calls
me, which I can't remember her doing in forever. Which makes me realise just how dire the situation must be.

I let it go to voicemail.

I call Dad but am told he's out of range. I tell myself that this is normal, this is what he always does when he's on deadline. No big deal. He said goodbye, told us where he'd be and said when he'd be back. Business as usual.

Then why do I feel like he's abandoned us?

I stare at my poster of Soundgarden at Madison Square Garden, wishing I was there right now – anywhere but here. I shake it off, then check the time.

I don't answer Gran's objection on my way out.

The hole inside me could encompass Jake's house, which is three storeys high, has a wide circular driveway and a landscaped garden that could have been sculpted by Jamie Durie himself. It's almost four o'clock and it's so quiet that I wonder if anyone's home.

I don't have to knock. Jake opens the front door as if he's been expecting me. I stop at the top step, my heart thumping in my ears, that cavern in my chest so dark and big I could disappear inside it. The silence between us is somehow full of all the things we want to say. He opens his mouth, about to speak, but I close the gap and press my lips against his, firm and soft.

Everything inside me turns to liquid. A tiny groan from Jake almost robs my legs of the power to stand. His arms around me are all that holds me upright.

Without seeming to make a decision, we're suddenly taking the stairs, two at a time, to his bedroom. We are stretched out on his bed, and I can feel every muscle inside me ache to be held. The kisses blend into each other, our limbs melding into one. I can't tell you what time it is, or how long I've been here behind his drawn blinds, but the darkness of his room is as smooth as velvet. Layers are discarded, piece by piece. It should be awkward and noisy, given how new we both are to this, to each other, but every motion seems to extend naturally, like music, as if the next chord has been decided before it has even been struck.

‘Please,' I whisper, against his cheek, when we are both wearing only our underwear, and it feels as though even that's not enough to keep us apart. ‘Be careful,' I say, the hitch in my voice revealing a fear I didn't know I had.

He kisses me then, so slowly that my heart feels like it might split in two, so perfect and new, as if we have all the time in the world. The walls of his room fade and disappear. There is nothing here except Jake, me and this endless, heartbreaking kiss.

Then a small, inexplicable tear slides down my cheek and Jake jerks away. With what seems like great difficulty, he slowly shakes his head.

‘What?' I whisper.

‘I'm sorry,' he says roughly. ‘This can't happen. I can't … Not like this.'

He gets up and moves away as if he's afraid to touch me. The air between us turns cold and I'm left reeling. I watch him pull on his clothes, his ragged breath and a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead my only proof that he wanted the same thing I did.

‘Jake?'

He picks up my shirt and drapes it gently across my bare shoulders. He buttons my blouse, a careful hand extracting my hair from the neckline. His fingers brush my skin at the nape of my neck, and I can feel his hand trembling. He wants this. I can see it.

‘Jake? What's going on?'

Finally, those emerald eyes meet mine and I see the war going on behind them. I press his hand between mine.

‘It's fine,' I say. ‘I'm ready.'

‘I'm sorry,' he says, his gaze dropping to his feet. He shoves his hands in his jeans pocket.

I sit up and reach out to him, but he steps back, his expression unreadable. The muscles across his shoulders are taut and knotted.

‘I … I took them,' he whispers.

I blink, not sure what I'm hearing.

‘The photos. They're … everywhere,' he says, sweeping his hand in an arc as though to offer proof.

‘What photos?' I shake my head, my foggy mind clearing. ‘Of my mum?'

Jake seems almost frozen in place. He doesn't have to answer; it's clear on his face. He nods, short and sharp, and there's no mistake.

‘You took the photos of my mum?'

‘Yes.'

I sit there, stunned. And then, finding an inner steel I didn't know I owned, I stand, straighten my shirt, refusing to look at him as I pull on the last of my clothes and head out the door. I hear him calling out to me that he's sorry. Every part of my body is aching for him, aching to feel those arms around me, his body beside mine, skin on skin, mouth on mouth. I can't hear for the thumping in my ears, so I run down those stairs, as though something is chasing me, because there is – anger, humiliation and shame bear down on me so fast that it's possible I'll never get away. So I run faster.

I'm halfway home before I stop to catch my breath. I can't go home. I can't face them there – Gran, with all her secrets; Mum, who's ruined our lives; Dad, wherever he is; and Luke.
Luke
. I can't help him right now.

My feet change course and head down a path they haven't taken in weeks.

Kessie's room is silent when I knock. I don't wait to open the door, the need to see my friend is so powerful, just knowing she's here gives me strength –

‘Tyler!' I say, shocked.

Tyler.

With Kessie.

Tyler and Kessie.

Together.

They're just sitting there, quiet and still, and yet they are so completely
together
. Their shoulders are touching – just – their clothes are neat and unruffled. Nothing about their appearance suggests anything more than two friends hanging out together.

Except for their hands, side by side, splayed on Kessie's quilt, their fingers resting in the gaps of each other's. Skin barely touching skin. Relaxed and unselfconscious.

Intimate.

I step back without meaning to. The room suddenly feels too small and close for the three of us. Kessie's huge poster of Emma Watson towers over us all. Al Gore warns us of an inconvenient truth, shouting at me from across the room.

Kessie and Tyler watch me, waiting. Here it is, they're saying, with their easy, natural warmth. Here we are.

I turn and leave for – I don't even know where; anywhere but here – when I hear Tyler behind me.

‘Frankie?' She touches my arm gingerly.

I stare at her hand, and she lets it fall away.

‘I'm sorry,' she mutters miserably. ‘Kessie wanted to tell you but I wouldn't let her.' She glances at Kessie, who's
beside her again, a careful, almost daring look on my best friend's face.

Kessie and Tyler. Tyler and Kessie.

I knew I was losing Kess. I could feel something falling away. But it's worse than I thought – much worse. I've lost them both.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a voice is screaming that this isn't how it works, that Kessie loves bimbos. Pretty, silly girls who don't matter. That she'll always come back to me. She
always
comes back.

But this is Tyler. Our friend. My friend. Someone I don't want to lose. Someone you don't just walk away from.

They're staring at me in mutual sadness, a hint of fear. Regret. And …
pity
?

Pity. Like a fist between my eyes. I almost reel back at the impact. It shakes something loose in me. ‘Got it,' I say.

Kessie is beside me now. ‘Come on, Frank. Seriously? You didn't know?'

I turn away from them angrily, hating how stupid I feel, how obvious it must have been.

Kessie holds out her hands, helpless. ‘What could I do? I knew you'd freak out –'

‘It's my fault,' Tyler says, turning to face her. ‘You wanted to tell her and I wouldn't let you.'

‘No, Ty. I should have said something.' For now it's just them, locked in this moment, shouldering each other's blame.

I look from one to the other. Perhaps this is what hurts the most – the awful truth that they're in this together.

And I'm standing here alone.

I turn the corner into my street, and that's when I see it. Or them. Is a media pack singular or plural? Because they sure look like a plural – a seething mass of arms and legs, cameras and microphones, lights and sounds – but they move as a united force, pushing and pulling in the same direction, demanding the same thing …

I stop and check my phone, realise it's still off. I switch it on to find multiple messages from the whole team, several from Mum and even one from Dad. I listen to his first, but it cuts in and out. Something about checking in soon, that he loves me and we'll talk when he's back. Useless words when I need him now.

I weigh my options, then turn on my heels and head
back the way I came, around the corner, around the block, heading to the house behind ours. I cross the front lawn without letting myself think for too long and knock on the front door.

Travis Matthews answers. The shock on his face is almost worth the effort it took to face him, but it quickly disappears.

‘I can't get to our front door,' I say.

In the background I hear his mum calling out to see who it is. He doesn't even look over his shoulder, his focus squarely on me.

‘Can I go through the gate?'

He doesn't have time to answer one way or the other because his mum appears beside him, a polite smile already in place. ‘Francesca? How lovely to see you!' She beams at her son and pats his arm like he's done something right, which seems to anger Travis and humiliate me in one brutal stroke. ‘Did you want to come in?' she asks.

Mrs Matthews has never read a newspaper or watched the news in her life. She actually made that claim once when we were kids, in reference to the latest of Mum's accomplishments, of which she was proudly ignorant. I didn't mind, to be honest. She let me forget about it too. But it stuck with me, the idea of actively avoiding connections with the world outside your own residential block. I remember being horrified and impressed in exactly equal parts. Right now I'd give anything to trade places.

Looking at her polite smile, the resigned, lonely eyes, I can see that she's still avoiding the world of news, even
this
news. She has no idea what's happening in the Mulvaney-Webb household, which is about as perfect a neighbour as I could want. Despite her son.

‘I've lost my front door key, Mrs Matthews. Any chance I can sneak in through the back gate?'

‘Of course,' she says, pleased to help. She opens the door, and I slip in.

I can feel Travis's gaze hard on me, but he doesn't speak. He just turns away from us both and disappears into the house.

I watch him leave, wondering why he stayed silent about the iPad. Did he do that for me? I brave a smile at Mrs Matthews. ‘I can let myself through if that's easier.'

‘Absolutely,' she says, offering that listless smile that's been permanently etched into her face ever since Mr Matthews died.

Although it's been ages since I last cut this path, I find my way through to the backyard and am met by Travis's German shepherd, Brody, who assaults me with that long, slobbering tongue. I pat his head and gently shove him aside, then head for the back fence. I fiddle with the gate, rusted and heavy but still unlocked after all these years of disuse, and then I'm in my own backyard, staring up at my parents' house, wondering what the hell is going on inside.