Unchained Melody (2 page)

Callie was instantly overcome with alarm. ‘Wait!’ Her teeth snapped on the word. ‘You can’t do that! I was joking okay? I’d never go off that branch and you shouldn’t either! It’s too skinny!’

‘It’s had bigger kids on it all year.’ But Hunter’s words were barely audible over his huffing breath and the shouts of encouragement from his friends below. All but one, for one boy sounded angry. Callie looked over and saw that Ryan the guitar guy had handed his instrument to the big-eared kid and walked all the way to the ledge on his side yelling: ‘Hunter! Get back on the ground you numb-skull! The whole tree is shaking!’

Callie looked up and saw that Ryan was right; as Hunter’s weight shifted from the trunk to the branch, the entire thing dipped, sending a scattering of leaves down to the water beneath him.

‘I’m not planning on staying on the branch for long!’ Hunter’s tone might have sounded jovial to the boys in his camp, but Callie was close enough to hear the edge in his voice as he shifted only a fraction and the entire, greenish grey branch bowed dramatically. He reached up, took the smaller branch above him in his hands and ever so slowly, began to stand up, his feet curled around the branch, his back hunched to keep his face out of its leaves. ‘This is our place!’ He declared, punching at the sky with one crooked arm and a balled fist. ‘Girls don’t belong here, do they boys?’

‘Nope!’

‘No way!’

‘Hunter stop being an idiot!’ Marnie’s shriek sounded tearful.

‘Yeah man come on, enough foolin!’ Ryan yelled. Callie looked at him, and he returned her fearful gaze adding: ‘You don’t need to prove anything to the new girl!’

‘Who cares about the new girl? I’m jumping ‘cos I’m a rock star!’ Hunter hooted to the sky. ‘With the lights out! It’s-’ but a crack, as sharp as lightning and yet as brittle as tearing paper resounded and then, the branch beneath Hunter’s feet bent sharply in the middle. Callie gasped and Hunter let out a bellow as the lime green innards beneath the bark peeled out under one of his feet like fluorescent spikes. She screamed, as did many others, and when Hunter’s hands were tugged free from the hold on the branch above him, she screamed again. He began to fall and then, he was only sinking, as though time had slowed.

‘Ahh!’ Hunter cried, as the part of the broken branch he’d caught himself on at the last minute- the wrong end, cracked again and dropped him lower, jerking him violently until he was hanging level but too far for her to reach him and his weight was slowly peeling back the dead bark to reveal more green sapling beneath. When they gave, Hunter was going to plummet towards the cliff, not away from it!

Panic gripped Callie, and everybody else was shouting, sounding as Ryan had said: exactly like drunken lorikeets, the brightly colored native birds that filled the summer twilights with their screams. She let go of the tree and stepped to the side so that their bodies were in line, an idea formulating. An idea she hated- but she had baited the boy into doing this by trying to show-off and if he got hurt, it would be her fault. Her fault for being weird. She tried thinking about her father’s beloved collections of comic books and all of those men dressed funny who did things like this, and fretted to think that she didn’t have a thing in common with any of them, least of all strength. A cape might have helped too.

‘Hunter!’ She spoke his name as loudly and clearly as she was able. ‘Look at me!’

‘I can’t!’ Hunter half-choked out the response, but his furtive gaze skimmed hers before returning to the water. ‘I’m going to fall!’

‘I know!’ Callie wiped her sweaty hands on the side of her dry bathing suit, curling her posture, feeling what little muscle she had retract and tighten. ‘But I can make you fall straight if you listen to me!’ In her mind she had her pointe shoes on and her leotard and instead of extending and leaping to cross a timber floor, she was going to cross the gorge. She had the best jumps in every ballet class she’d ever attended, she reminded herself, she could do this! ‘You’re going to fall, and the moment you feel me, you’re going to let go of that branch, all right?’ She swallowed. ‘Straight away! If you don’t, you’ll kill us both.’

Hunter’s eyes were wide when they found hers. ‘But what-’

‘Promise to let go the second you feel me!’ Callie snapped, hunching over, readying herself for the jump, feeling sick at the thought of what she had to do. Every twitch and flinch of his body made the branch jerk closer yet to the wall and every time it did, Callie felt like her insides were being beaten. ‘Promise me!’

Hunter swallowed, but his legs didn’t kick again. He nodded. ‘I promise-’

Callie threw herself into the air, not in a feet-first safety jump as she’d anticipated doing before all of the mayhem, but in a version of a running dive. Her body stretched out, her arms extended, pointing even her toes in her mad need to reach the boy.

‘No!’ a girlish voice screamed, probably Marnie.

Feeling her stomach almost level to the canyon below felt wrong, so wrong, and she knew that she was now in as much peril as the boy, if not more. What if she missed and belly-flopped onto the water from this height? Her molars clenched together. What if she missed and he landed on her after, branch and all? What if he broke his promise and used her body to break his fall on the submerged rocks below?

Hunter’s breath left his body as she impacted with him in a guttural ‘Ooof’ and Callie’s neck almost snapped when she spear-tackled his bird-like chest. But she had no time to feel the pain and was in no state of mind to assess it; they collided and she tightened her arms around him, squeezed her eyes shut when she she felt his weight come down on hers and prayed, as they plummeted, that he had let go, and they were swinging out over the gorge, and not back towards the wall and the rocks below.

For the briefest of moments, Callie was flying and her toes tingled electrically as they speared through air. But seconds later, every bone in Callie’s body rattled on impact with the ice water. She waited to feel herself land on something, for her mind to blacken and fuzz or her joints to snap, but the water caught her, slowed her, muffled her every sense. It was black and growing blacker yes, but it was the depth to blame for it, not a loss of consciousness. Down, down, down she went, forced further by the boy wrapped around her shoulders and neck. Every inch the water grew colder, and every inch felt like flying still. When the initial shock of having survived the drop, of having prevented Hunter’s death wore off, she was overcome by an extreme pressure in her ears which made the roar of the waterfall that much louder beneath. And then, Hunter was moving, pushing away from her and kicking frantically. His yellowish figure beckoned for her to follow, but Callie’s legs were still too weak to function right. The water was deep green, almost black and stabbing her like tiny stalagmites, and Callie wondered if this was how dreams felt, or nightmares?

Then a hand caught the flesh above her elbow and tugged her upwards, making a rush of bubbles escape Callie’s mouth and nose and the dream-like quality of her plight dissolved. The pressure in her ears was still murderous and her lungs felt overinflated almost to the point of rupture, but Callie kicked for the surface, leaving her dream in the blackness below. When her rescuer pulled her through the surface, she gulped in a mouthful of air and immediately began to choke.

‘That was crazy!’ The boy dragging her from the gorge hissed into her ear. It was Ryan, the cute guitar boy. He was gripping her so tightly that his body was shuddering.

‘Is he okay?’ Callie spluttered, feeling weak and dizzy. Her shoulder hurt where she had impacted with the water, like someone had slapped her hard, but the rest of her felt all right.

‘Because of you, yes.’ Lips pressed against the top of her head so quickly it was like an almost-touch. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘He’s my best friend.’

Callie didn’t know what to say- but then he was pushing her up onto a boulder and when her feet connected with sharp, slimy rocks, she saw that Hunter had turned from the kids who were fussing over him and was watching her approach anxiously, his eyes scanning her for something- probably an injury. He was so pale and sodden and his hands were red and raw from his struggle to hold onto the branch. Behind them, a few girls were crying.

Hunter didn’t say a word. But he had equally wet eyes when he extended his Red Sox hat to her, and a wavery smile on his lips. Callie took the hat, and grinned. She’d never received a token from anyone before- not a woven bracelet, nor a half-heart necklace with ‘BE FRI’ engraved upon it. It had always felt like everyone was half of something special- everyone but her.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered, knowing she would never part with it.

‘Welcome to Horizon,’ he said. ‘You’re weird, but you have balls. So I guess we can be friends...’ he glanced at Ryan. ‘That okay with you?’

Ryan grinned and slung his guitar over her shoulder. ‘How many chords do you know Callie?’

Callie smiled shyly and said. ‘All of them…’

Ryan’s bright eyes grew brighter still. ‘Can you teach me? Hunter and I are going to start a band one day soon.’

‘Um… sure.’ Callie smiled, and found her smile reflected back from two different directions. The rest of the boys walked off, shaking their heads in disgust, and the girls hurried away whispering. Only Marnie lingered, smiling tentatively at Callie, brushing Meredith off when she whispered: ‘What a weirdo!’

‘That was cool.’ Marnie said, ignoring Meredith. ‘Brave. You ever play footy?’ She shot an unreadable look at Hunter and Ryan. ‘We could use another girl on the touch team I started.’

Callie blushed. ‘I can’t. I’m not allowed to play contact sports… I dance,’ she paused, ‘but thanks.’ Marnie returned her smile with a disappointed one, and no-one else looked back and right then, Callie knew that she was going to be as unpopular in Horizon as she’d been everywhere else.

But when she looked at Hunter and Ryan’s grinning faces, she hoped that maybe she wouldn’t be unpopular and alone anymore.

Horizon Australia, September 16th 1998.

1.

‘So…’ Meredith Leeds leaned against Hunter’s locker door, closing it and only just missing his fingers. ‘This disco- I know it’s going to be pretty boring and everything but...’ she shifted the strap of her Billabong backpack on her shoulder and her wheat-blonde hair swished over his hand. ‘Are you going to go?’

‘Oh- so because it’s going to be boring, you expect to see me there?’ Hunter joked, bending to lift his guitar bag by the strap in order to sling it over his shoulder and trying not to check out Meredith’s legs as he did so. She was the only girl in Horizon who wore the short, pale blue and yellow checked school dress, probably because she was the only girl in school who had the legs to pull it off. ‘Ouch.’

Meredith blinked rapidly, then shook her head. ‘What?! No I was-’

‘Disco? We’re going to a disco?’ Chirped a voice to his ear. He felt nimble fingers adjust his strap to how he liked it and he didn’t have to turn to know that Callie had joined them. He turned and tugged down on the frayed trim of her hat. His hat. It looked nothing like it once had; the red had faded to a sick dark pink which had been worn white in places around the seams. The Navy blue ‘B’ was now a dull grey, as was the once white piping around it. There were several nicks and snags all over it, and a silver brooch, a tiny little treble clef, dangled from just above the catch at the back. Ryan had given that to Callie on her sixteenth birthday- Hunter had given her a driving lesson he wouldn’t repeat.

The hat looked old and tired and limp. And yet Hunter couldn’t even imagine what Callie would look like without it and her black ponytail bouncing out of the back. She’d worn it every day for eight years, taking it off only for her dance classes or recitals. Callie wasn’t wearing the school dress; she only swore the skirt because she had no choice, and always wore pale blue basketball shorts beneath it which hung out under the hem and looked a bit weird with her chunky black docs.

‘Are we?’ He asked her, seeing Meredith straighten up across from them and flip her hair over her shoulder. The movement caught his eye. God he loved it when girls did that; exposing the soft skin of their neck. Tiny silver hoops dangled from Meredith’s ears, catching the light and she smiled knowingly when she saw him looking.

‘I think you should,’ she glanced over at Callie, and some of the shine faded from her eyes. ‘Maybe we’ll see you there?’

Callie’s face was in profile to his and she wrinkled her nose, tugging the headphones off her ears, letting him hear the tinny tempo of Pretty Fly For A White Guy when they fell around her collar. ‘Hmm. I dunno. I was just talking to Reece and he asked me to come. Offered me a ride and everything,’ she shrugged, tapping her index finger to the beat of the chorus on her thigh. ‘I said I’d think about it but I have a ballet exam in about twenty minutes and I might be stuffed afterwards.’

Hunter couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Reece Langtree offered you a lift to a dance? You have got to be kidding me. That guy is such a-’

‘He’s one of my friends,’ Meredith said, a hesitant note in her voice.

‘Reece Langtree is a girl.’ There was a gentle kick to the back of Hunter’s legs, making his knees buckle slightly. Ryan quickly flanked Callie, flinging his arm across her shoulders- but Hunter still managed to thump him on top of his dark ponytail. ‘And you can’t go with him on principle-’ Ryan went on, ‘-I heard he bet Sean fifty bucks that he could get you to go tonight Cal.’

‘What?!’ Callie squeaked in unison with Hunter’s own:

‘Are you serious?’ Hunter hooted.

‘Why would he do that?’ Callie looked stupefied.

‘Oh brother…’ Meredith’s whisper was soft, but Hunter heard it and wrenched up an eyebrow wondering why Miss Popularity was being seen publicly talking to them in the first place if their conversation exasperated her so?

‘I don’t know. Probably to see if you’re actually a lesbian.’ Ryan caught his tongue between his teeth in a stupid smile. He was several inches taller than Hunter and his white button-up shirt was untucked over his pale blue shorts. Teachers had given up trying to get Ryan to tuck in his shirt years ago, and Hunter resented that. He always got carded if he tried so even in uniform, Ryan managed to look cooler than him.

Callie groaned and socked Ryan’s chest and Hunter rolled his eyes. Callie’s name was synonymous with rumors; she was the only girl in the entire eleventh grade who hadn’t yet had a boyfriend. Some people thought she was a lesbian and most assumed that Hunter and Ryan took turns trading her off and just kept it a secret. But neither was true. Well, Hunter was pretty sure that Callie wasn’t a lesbian because when they were watching Dawson’s Creek, Callie’s eyes didn’t leave the screen when Pacey was on, and one wall of her impossibly neat bedroom was covered from architrave to skirting board with posters of guys. Singer guys. John Bon Jovi, the Backstreet Boys, (A few of those! ) Silverchair, Enrique Iglesias, Will Smith (shirtless) Ginuwine (Shirtless) The Offspring, Pearl Jam, Green Day… the list was endless and they were so layered that sometimes, only snatches of smiles or eyes could be seen; Guy eyes. There wasn’t a Spice Girl in sight.

So Callie clearly liked looking at guys. But if she wanted guys to look back, it didn’t show. She dressed like a slacker unless she was going to one of her dance classes, she didn’t wear make-up, she didn’t pout or flutter her eyelashes and she had never made gooey eyes at either of them! She was just Callie. They swam together, they jammed together and they sometimes drank together; but there was nothing else to it. They were a trio where one of them just happened to be a girl. It had always been that way, and always would.

And yet Hunter didn’t like the idea of Callie going to the disco with another guy. When they went places, they all went together. They only had a year left before school was over, and Hunter wasn’t going to let things change one second before then. So he turned to Callie and said: ‘He’s not making a cent off you Callie. I’ll go and I’ll drive you. It makes no sense for you to get a lift when I live next door anyway.’

Callie shrugged, indifferent. ‘Maybe. Who’s playing?’

‘It’s a disco.’ Meredith said, somewhat testily. ‘They have a D. J of course.’

‘Hmm… actually I could go for some dancing.’ Callie mused. She patted her black ballet bag and made a face. ‘In comfortable shoes, I mean.’

‘Pick me up after?’ Ryan asked. ‘Bring your guitar. If the disco sucks, we’ll go down to the beach and practice that new song I wrote.’

Callie shrugged, indifferent. ‘Okay.’ She stepped out from under Ryan’s arm and adjusted her hat again, smiling weakly at Meredith. It was the way she always smiled at other girls. ‘Might see you there, huh? What do people wear to these things?’

Meredith’s eyes drifted over Callie’s baggy white school blouse and the flannelette shirt she had cinched around her waist. ‘Your nicest jeans, I suppose.’

‘Cool.’ Most of Callie’s Canadian accent had faded, but it was still noticeable on words like ‘Cool’ where she made a pretty click of the ‘c’ added several ‘o’s to the middle and curled her ‘l’. Hunter didn’t fantasize over Callie, well, not intentionally anyway, but he did know that her voice was close to one of his favorite things in the world.

‘Are you walking?’ Ryan turned his back on Hunter and Meredith to call after Callie.

‘Yeah, my chain fell off this morning and I was too lazy to fix it.’ She held up her fingers, showing where the tips were still stained with grease. ‘Or incompetent.’

‘I’ll dink you home then,’ Ryan turned to Hunter. ‘You riding?’

Hunter nodded. He had a car; a beaten up Torana his father had restored for him (to the best of his ability) for his sixteenth birthday, but fuel was expensive and his house was only a few blocks from the high school so it didn’t make much sense to drive there. They all had Mountain bikes except Callie, who had a BMX which she loved to thrash, to her parents and dance teacher’s dismay. Her ballet tights concealed her skinned knees, but they were still visible at school, and the source of endless jokes amongst their classmates, which pissed Hunter off.

‘You ride to school with your guitar?’ Meredith asked, raising her eyebrows.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Hunter didn’t understand her question and the others were already walking away. ‘Anyway, see you tonight maybe, okay?’

Meredith paused, glanced after Callie and Ryan again and then sighed. ‘Yeah. Okay.’ Her smile was salacious. ‘What’s your favorite color Hunter? I’d like to know what I should wear tonight.’

Hunter was really surprised by that question and shocked to realize that Meredith Leeds was flirting with him. He grinned at her, knowing he had to get used to that kind of attention, if he was going to be a rock star someday. ‘Short.’ Was his answer, and then he turned and sauntered off after his friends, feeling like he’d just grown several inches

*

‘She said what?!’ Callie couldn’t help but squeal out the words as she ran about her bedroom, rifling through drawers and coming up with nothing disco-suitable. She had bits and pieces of things; girly things her mother had bought hoping to make a daughter out of her tomboy, but no two items went together. She reached over and turned down Sex And Candy on her boom box, certain she hadn’t heard right!

‘That she wanted to know my color preference.’ Callie could actually hear Hunter’s smile through the phone.

‘Dude that’s smooth.’ Callie laughed as she pulled out then discarded several pairs of jeans. ‘No wonder I don’t date- I just don’t have those lines!’ She paused. ‘So what did you say? Or were you too busy rolling your tongue back up to respond?’

‘Well…’

Callie was beginning to think that she’d never find anything to wear. She wasn’t interested in Reece, but she liked the idea that guys were placing bets to see if she was up for dating men at all. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t... but she didn’t want to look incapable of it. She tossed a black and white flowered dress aside with a wrinkled nose, wondering if her mother did drugs before she went shopping. She needed to look approachable, because if Meredith Leeds was coming onto Hunter, it was only a matter of time before someone got the nerve to approach Ryan too and Callie was not going to end up a dateless freak. And sooner or later, they would need dates. The social events being advertised in the school newsletters were growing alarmingly more common: Mocktail, semi-formal, senior prom… jeez that was only a year away! She’d have to go of course, or her mother would probably tape her up in brown paper and post her back to the adoption office with a big: Defective stamp in red ink on the side.

But who was going to take her? Everyone was supposed to have a date, and just one. What if both Hunter and Ryan got asked by other girls? Or what if, heaven forbid, they had actual girlfriends by then? She shuddered. At that point, she was wearing a black bra and underpants and her black doc Martens and she was getting a crick in her neck from holding onto the phone- which was ready to pop put of the wall because the curled cord was stretched as taut as it would go. ‘Well…?’ She prompted Hunter.

Her friend chuckled. ‘I said: ‘Short.’

Callie’s hand clapped to her mouth and the movement made the phone jerk out of her hand and fly at the wall with a terrific crash. She crawled after it on her hands and knees, laughing until she had it at her ear again. ‘Sorry!’ She snorted. ‘Get out! Did you really say that? You made me drop the phone!’

‘So… that was a good response?’ There was a note of self-consciousness to Hunter’s tone.

‘Good? It was sensational.’ Callie tried to imagine the scene, and her smile grew wider. ‘What was her reaction?’

‘I don’t know. I did the swagger-off thing and didn’t look back.’ He groaned. ‘Oh man, I should have looked! What if she was laughing?’

Callie shook her head. ‘No way man. She was probably holding herself together, one hand on the panties, one on the heart!’

Hunter hooted. ‘You think?’

‘Oh I think so. A line like that would make even me blush; and I’m immune to your charms!’

‘Immune?’ Hunter’s voice dropped to a soft, teasing growl. ‘Well that’s not cool. Now I’m going to have to make it my mission to get you blushing, preferably with one hand on your panties.’

Callie froze. One minute, her world had been one way, the next, it was upside down. Her heart skipped a beat; it actually skipped a beat.

No! She thought, covering her mouth with her hand. No no no! I do not want to think about Hunter that way! But it was too late. She was blushing! His voice had always had a strange effect on her when he sang, making her mind quieten, sometimes even bringing joyful tears to her eyes- but it had never made her shiver like that before. No guy had. In fact, she was rarely separated from her senses by any kind of emotion; Death made her weep, never wail. Thrills made her squeal, but never scream. And guys made her smile; they had never made her face heat the way Hunter had just done! The only things in life that got Callie fired up were music, and thunderstorms and that was enough!

‘Callie?’ The levity had abandoned Hunter’s tone. ‘Hey don’t freak! I was completely joking!’

Callie wet her lips, then snatched the black and white dress off the floor. ‘Hang on,’ she said, and took a moment to yank it over her head and even out her breathing. ‘I was just getting changed. Did you say something?’

There was a pause. ‘Huh? Oh… no. Nothing important.’