Shattered: A Shade novella (17 page)

‘It’s not a dream, Zach.’ Her eyes plead with me. ‘We’ll be together
again soon.’

I do believe her. I must. But at this moment, with the way she looks
tonight and the way I feel, the future’s not enough.

‘I know. I just really want to—’
Fuck you
. ‘I want to—’
Shag
you
. ‘To—’
Take you against a
wall until our knees give out
. ‘Be with you.’

Aura’s eyes turn heavy-lidded. ‘Me, too. I can’t wait.’ Her breathy voice
makes me harder than ever. If she says no to this, I’ll need to sign off and
handle things myself.

‘Then maybe we could – I mean, it might make the wait easier if
we … talked about what we wanted to do.’ I fidget with the top button of my
shirt. ‘Perhaps—’
Just say it,
ya
coward
. ‘—naked?’

She closes her eyes, then draws in a choking breath. Oh God, I’ve made
her cry.

‘Aura! What’s wrong?’ I want to leap through the screen and hug her.
And then lick her all over (sympathetically, of course).

‘I’ve waited so long for you to really look at me again. And now you
want to – it almost doesn’t seem real.’ She presses her hands to her
cheeks as a pair of tears squeezes out. ‘Sorry, just give me a second.’

Perhaps I was out of line with my request for a transatlantic
wank
. ‘Maybe another time?’

‘No, now!’ She scans her bedroom. ‘The light in here’s horrible,’ she
mutters. ‘Zach, I’ll call you back in five minutes. Go ahead and, um, get
ready.’

I do as Aura says. It’s a good
personal policy.

I move the laptop to the bed, then
tear off my shirt and trousers. I’m about to lift the covers and crawl
underneath when I
realise
—

My bedroom door. It’s shut tight to keep our chat private, but as
always, it’s unlocked. Martin could come home early, or my mum could walk in while
I’m …

A series of shaky steps carries me forwards until my hand’s on the
doorknob. Can I do this?

Fingers damp with cold sweat, I rotate the latch to lock it. Then I
test the knob. It doesn’t budge. My pulse spikes again, and the room turns
cloudy around the edges.

Stay here stay
here stay here
. I tap my forehead on the doorjamb and quietly sing
Aura’s
favourite
Frightened Rabbit song, their most
hopeful tune. This trick didn’t work that night in Edinburgh – there were
so many other voices around me, I couldn’t recall the melody or words.

The fuzzy feeling slowly dissipates. I’m still here. I undo the lock
and open the door a few inches.

There. I can walk out if I want. But I’ve something to stay for, time
with Aura when we can feel good together. Whispering each other’s names as we
touch ourselves will be the next best thing to touching each other. After weeks
of wanting nothing, I. Want. This.

I lock the door and turn away. Somehow the world completely fails to
end.

Chapter
Thirteen

My dad
is fucking impossible. He’s just sent me home from the cancer
centre
to fetch a different novel to read during his
three-hour chemotherapy session. Apparently the book he brought has gotten
dull. I told him I could download the other novel onto my phone and he could
read it that way.

‘I’ll
no pay twice for something I’m using but once,’ he said.

‘I’ll
pay for it,’ I told him. ‘Then I’ll read it later.’

‘If
ye want to read it, ye can have my book when I’m done. You’ve
nae
money to pay for it, by the way,
cos
you’ve
nae
job.’

‘I’ve
nae
job
cos
I’m aye taking
care of you.
You’re
my job.’

‘Then
do
yer
job. Fetch my book.’ When I just glared at
him, he added, ‘I’ll give ye ten pounds.’

So
here I am home, soaking wet because it’s pure
dreich
again and I forgot my umbrella at the hospital.

I
find the book on the coffee table and set it by the front door, along with a
new umbrella, then run upstairs to change into dry shoes and denims. The
shower’s running in the hall toilet, where Martin’s singing the latest CHVRCHES
song off-key at full volume. I hurry to change clothes, knowing I’ve exactly
twelve minutes to get back to the bus station or I’ll have to wait another
nineteen minutes for the next bus, or waste part of the tenner Dad gave me on a
taxi.

I’m
tying my second shoe when my laptop dings on the desk. The lid is open, though
I never leave it that way. Martin’s been using it on occasion until he can
afford a new one.

I
glance at the screen as I stand up. My email’s already open in a browser tab.
That’s odd, as I always close—

My
heart leaps at the sight of Aura’s name in the From line. I click on the
message, but as I do, my eyes catch the subject:

ZACHARY

This
is not my email account.

Hey Martin,

Thanks for the latest update. I wish
there was something I could do, but he still won’t talk to me about what
happened. Even asking him ‘So how are you?’ all casual-like, gets me shut down.

But I’ll keep asking. I won’t give up on
him. One day he’ll be ready to talk, and I want to be there for him when he is.

My
pulse pounds in my temples. I sink into the desk chair, knees shaking with
rage.

I’m just so glad he has you. You’re an
amazing friend. Please keep taking care of him for me.

Hugs,

Aura

I scroll
through the message thread, my stomach getting tighter and colder with every
line. They’ve been emailing for weeks, since the end of September, saying
things like:

He’s a wee bit fragile right now. More
than a wee bit.

and

OMG I feel so sorry for him.

and

Sometimes when I look at Zach, I see the
lad I once knew. But mostly, he’s like a ghost.

and

He spaces all the time during our video
chats. I keep pretending not to notice. I don’t think he can handle my pity.

The
door swings open. ‘Oh!’ Martin puts a hand to his pale, bare chest and the
other hand to the towel about his waist. ‘Christ, ye nearly
gies
a heart attack. What are you—’

He
sees what’s on the laptop screen. His lips part, but no more words come out,
just a low sound of dismay.

‘Why?’
My voice rumbles in my chest. ‘Why would you do this to me?’

‘I
can explain.’

‘What
did you
tell
her?’ I roar.

‘Just
that you’ve trouble sleeping, and nightmares sometimes.’ Martin looks away.
‘And that you get nervous when you’re alone.’

‘God,
why?’ I want to shake him. ‘Are you trying to make me look weak?’

‘I
did it
cos
she deserves to hear it.’

‘Aye,
from me! When I’m ready.’

‘And
when will that be? When will you show her you’re not perfect?’

‘She
knows all too fucking well. Especially now, thanks to you!’ I lurch out of the
chair, which rolls back to hit the desk.

Martin
holds his ground. ‘Mate, she wants to help you, but you won’t let her. Why do
you shut her out when you talk to me?’

‘Because
you’re not the one in danger.
She
is.’ An awful thought occurs to me. ‘Did you tell her about the night Dad was
in hospital? When we were here alone?’

‘Of
course not! What you told me about—’ He glances towards the hall.
‘—that place, what they did to ye, I’ll take tae the grave. I swear it.’

‘How can
I ever trust you again?’ I back away, rubbing the ridges of my brows. The skin
over my skull feels stretched to the breaking point. ‘Whose idea was it to
start emailing? Yours or hers?’

‘It—’
He runs his hand hard through his wet hair, sending water trickling over his
face and neck. ‘It
doesnae
matter.’

So it
was Aura’s idea. I turn to the laptop, see her crisp little phrases and
smiling/frowning/crying emoticons. I think of all the times over the last two
months when she looked out from that screen,
looked me in the eye
, ‘pretending not to notice
’
. Holding that power over me, at a time when I’ve never felt more
powerless.

Behind
me, Martin takes a step closer. ‘Mate—’

‘Don’t
call me that!’ I sweep the laptop off the desk. It crunches on the hardwood floor
and rests wide open, screen side down.

Martin
raises his voice. ‘Just calm
yersel
,
widje
? I’m sorry we went behind
yer
back, but it was only
cos
we wanted to-to—’

‘To
solve me.’

‘To
help you.’

They
have helped, Aura and Martin. I know that. But they also discussed me,
dissected
me. Conspired to fix what
cannot be fixed.

I’ve
never felt so betrayed in all my life.

There’s
a shift in the air, Martin moving closer, reaching for me.

‘Get
out of my sight,’ I snarl.

He
says nothing more, just quickly gathers his clothes from the wardrobe and
retreats to the loo.

I
kneel beside the laptop and turn it over with trembling hands. The left half of
Aura’s email is still visible. The right side of the screen shows a pale-green
blob radiating from a crack in the
centre
.

I’m
lucky I only broke the display, not the processor. Still, it’ll have to be
fixed by MI-X, for security reasons. My dad’s going to kill me.

‘Fuck.’

I
yank open my wardrobe and pull out an armful of Martin’s shirts, hangers and
all. Into the hallway and over the railing they go, onto the stairs. I do the
same with his trousers, then his shoes.

I’m
laden with his socks and underwear when the door to the loo opens. Martin stops
on the threshold and stares at me.

‘What
are ye doing with my stuff?’

‘Throwing
it out.’ I hurl the clothes over the banister in a
multicoloured
rain of cotton. ‘Throwing you out.’

‘What?!
You’ll chuck me like this, after all I’ve done for you?’
 

‘After
all
you’ve
done for
me
? I gave you a home when you’d nowhere
to go. And don’t forget I saved your wee brother. You’re welcome, by the way.’
I stomp back to my room. He follows.

‘Saved
him?
Saved
him? You
broke
Finn, is what you did. You broke
my brother!’

I
stop, hands buried in the drawer. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He
died that day, Zachary. Finn died in the water and became a ghost. He saw
himself violet, there under the bridge. But it hurt him to be near you,
cos
of
yer
redness or
whitever
you call it.’

My
jaw drops slowly. ‘How do you know?’

‘Finn
tel
’ me himself. He said his ghost couldn’t leave,
not if he wanted tae live. The ambulance was coming and he knew he’d still a
chance. So he stayed and – and you were there, so he—’ Martin wipes
his mouth, his breath coming hard and fast.

‘He
became a shade,’ I whisper.

‘Aye.’
Martin knocks a fist against his temple. ‘And that’s why he’s so fucked up in
the
heid
, I think.’ His voice breaks. ‘Cos when you
saved him, mate, you destroyed him.’

My
throat closes. It feels like I’ve inhaled an ice-cold dagger, shredding my
lungs with every breath. I turn away, gripping the sides of my head. Nothing
has ever hurt as bad as this truth.

I
feel it all at once: the freezing canal, the nail in my chest, the unbearable
weight of Finn’s body. My legs ache from keeping us afloat. My mates are
shouting, but their panicky words are drowned out by the rush of water echoing
off the bridge above me.

No. I can’t be there. I will not be
there.

I
open my eyes wide and lift them to the ceiling.
Find something, anything, to tie yourself to
Here.
Find a place of peace before you shatter.

Ah. A
bright star above the far side of the bed.
Arcturus
.
Constellation
Boötes
. Thirty-six-point-seven light
years away.