Unchained Melody (9 page)

Ryan sighed and sat up, tossing the book to the bedspread and resting his elbows on his knees, with his head in his hands. ‘She told you, didn’t she?’ Hunter tapped the side of his nose, afraid that if he opened his mouth now, nothing but the F-word come out. And he owed Ryan the chance to be heard out before he threw him into a few walls. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ Ryan regarded him with an earnest expression, his drooping gait reminding Ryan of a scolded dog. ‘It wasn’t intentional. She was asleep, right there on the couch next to me, it was dark and raining, I was lonely, she was beautiful and smelled like fucking flowers…’ he exhaled. ‘But nothing happened.’

‘Because lightning struck?’ Hunter asked coldly.

‘Yeah.’ Ryan snorted. ‘I think the Gods were telling me to back off.’

‘Someone had to.’

Ryan’s eyes flashed, looking a bit like muted lightning themselves for a moment. But then he sighed, flopping back on the bed and bringing his hands to his face. ‘Look I know it was stupid okay?’ Gavin Rossdale’s husky voice making lyrical anguish to Glycerine filled the room and suited to match both of their moods perfectly. ‘But I told you weeks ago that I was beginning to suffer in her company and what did you do?’ He sat up on his elbows and glared at him. ‘You pissed off. You left us alone almost every day for a month Hunter! It’s a bit late for you to lecture me for breaking the Three Musketeer code when you were off sticking your musket elsewhere!’

‘Okay, for starters, I haven’t stuck anybody with a musket.’ Hunter pushed off the wall, holding up a finger. ‘Secondly, I’m not just pissed off that you risked our friendship with Callie because you had a hard-on, but because you then asked her not to tell me about what happened. To keep a secret from me. How is that keeping us a trio, Ryan? Since when are secrets even a thing with us? What else haven’t you told me?’

‘Nothing!’ Ryan bounced to the balls of his feet, looking squarely at Hunter. ‘That’s it, okay? I almost kissed Cal. Almost. We were interrupted by thunder, and the way she answered that little Truth Or Dare round robin tonight tells me that she might have waved a red flag even if we hadn’t been- because you’re the one she’s imagined kissing anyway, not me!’

But Hunter held up his hand. ‘She was full of shit, Ry. I don’t know what her real answer was, but she basically told me that she made it up for the simple fact that I was the only one of the three options that wasn’t available and therefore, wouldn’t get any ideas.’

‘Oh bullshit. She told you that because she doesn’t want you to know how much she really likes you.’ Ryan turned away and kicked his rubbish can aggressively. ‘Everyone knows it Hunter. Why do you think Sacha asked you what she did? About why you haven’t kissed Cal? Everyone assumes that you two have hooked up because clearly, there’s something between you guys that has been excluding me for a while!’

‘She doesn’t want me.’ Hunter snapped, the words causing him actual anguish. ‘She had her chance but she-’

Ryan’s head whipped around. ‘What?! What chance? When?’ Hunter cringed. Everything inside him cringed just as everything inside Ryan began to straighten. His mate started laughing- actually laughing! ‘Oh no way- you’ve tried kissing her too?’ He loped towards Hunter with a half-amused, half-hateful grin on his face. ‘And I’m the one keeping secrets?!’ He poked Hunter in the centre of the chest. ‘When? Come on, Marks, fess up! I can see in your eyes that I’m fucking right!’

Hunter slapped his finger away. ‘I just told you man, and it happened two hours ago. What was I supposed to do? Run inside with Meredith’s hand in mine, curl up in your lap and sob because I tried to take Callie up on her offer and she actually ran away after literally pushing Meredith into my arms?’

Ryan’s brow smoothed out. ‘She did?’

Hunter nodded. ‘I was drunk. I only meant to go after her, to ask why she’d never mentioned the whole virginity thing to me-’

‘Because it excited you to hear it-’ Ryan pointed out.

‘Yeah well, fuck I’m not made of stone!’ Hunter stepped back, throwing his hands in the air. ‘Anyway I had her up against the wall, and she reacted like I had leprosy, told me that she’d exaggerated the wanting me thing, because she didn’t want you to think that she wanted you, or for Reece to think he had a shot in hell, period.’ He sagged back against the wall, feeling depleted in every cell. He shrugged. ‘And then she bailed.’ Ryan stared at him, his gaze shifting from one of Hunter’s eyes to the other quickly, as though searching for a tell that Hunter was now lying. But Hunter returned the suspicious look with a defeated look of his own, and held up his hands again. ‘She doesn’t want either of us, Ry. She’s our friend. And now, she’s this close to running to the hills, because we’re crossing lines all over the shop since she got boobs!’

Ryan turned away. ‘Fuck! This is bullshit!’ He bounced lightly on the balls of his bare feet. ‘And it’s all my fault, of course! Why did I have her over? I’ve known this was coming. I didn’t plan to do it, but I knew there was a chance I might!’

‘You did?’ Hunter asked, stiffening again. ‘Why? How often have you thought about it?’

‘How often?’ Ryan leaned over and pulled up the spiral, five-subject notebook he used to write lyrics in. Loose leaves of paper were stuffed between the attached pages and Ryan pulled them out, throwing them above his head like he was in a parade. ‘This often!’ Dozens and dozens of pages took flight and floated to the ground. He paused, peered in the dim light at the title of one, shook his head and threw it into the air above his head. ‘Sun-Kissed Snow White!’ He pulled out another fistful. ‘Fisted heart!’ He reached for another and once again, flung it behind him. ‘I want to be inside you Callie!’ He shot Hunter a foolish look. ‘Okay that one was never meant to be seen…and they all suck anyways!’

Hunter snorted. ‘Can I read it?’

‘Could you read, with a fist down your throat?’ Hunter laughed, and then Ryan chuckled. ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned to Hunter, his arms hanging limply at his sides. ‘I don’t want to be Callie’s boyfriend, well, at least I don’t think I do. And even if I did, I wouldn’t risk what we all have together by trying to keep her to myself.’

‘Well that’s a good thing,’ Hunter said. ‘Because I’d kill you before I let you take such a risk. Just like I expect you to snap my neck if I ever try anything like I tried tonight again.’

Ryan rubbed his temples with his hands. ‘Yeah well… how are we both going to make it to grad alive then, Hunter? Because I can’t even look at her without wanting to throw her down on the nearest surface. You’ve been off and so she sang with me and holy crap…’ He sank back down onto his bed. ‘Holy crap- that girl can sing me hard…. That husky thing...’

‘I know.’ Hunter was actually jealous that Callie had sung with Ryan. He sat down on Ryan’s desk. ‘She’s changed, hasn’t she? It’s not just the physical thing. She’s like… more alive or something.’

Ryan scratched behind his ear. ‘Yep. And whether she knows it or not, everything she’s doing is sexy; the clothes, the dancing-’

‘That thing with the tights!’ Hunter added.

Ryan groaned. ‘I almost stopped living.’

‘Okay so we can’t help but look,’ Hunter surmised, ‘but we just need to agree to keep our hands and lips to ourselves.’

‘By not drinking around her- ever again.’ Ryan agreed.

‘And not walking her anywhere or driving her anywhere alone.’

‘Which means you can’t miss any more practices and you need to stop being a shitty best friend in general so I’m not stuck with her by myself so much.’

‘Agreed.’ Hunter conceded. ‘But it also means, that we either need to get her a boyfriend, or get you a girlfriend as a distraction.’

Ryan screwed up his nose. ‘That seems like a dog thing to do.’

‘You wanna be a rock star?’ Hunter reminded him. ‘Well you better start treating girls like groupies and get some of that frustration out of your system before you break down our system completely.’ He thought of Reece’s greasy arms wrapped around Callie. ‘And I’m not sure I could handle seeing Callie dating either. I mean, what if she falls in love with someone and we lose her? We have to be her mates- good mates... who punch anyone she tries to hook up with.’

Ryan tousled his hair in frustration. ‘We’re going to lose her anyway, Hunter. We’ve got just over a year left of school. You think go-getters like Callie’s parents are gonna let her rot in Horizon?’ He shook his head. ‘I want to go to AVPAC, and Callie’s talented enough to get her to Broadway...’ he looked away. ‘Maybe she needs a boyfriend so we can stop fooling ourselves into thinking that this arrangement is forever.’

Hunter felt a flicker within his chest, echoing the slide-show of what would never be that had just danced behind his eyes. He’d always just assumed that he and Ryan were going to hold true to their childhood dream of ‘making it’ together and take Callie along with them. But he’d imagined them on the road, not at AVPAC in Araulen Valley. That was a proper, grown up dream- musicians attending a Performing Arts Academy and getting real degrees.

But it was so far removed form his fantasies of diners and motor inn’s and a Combie van and he felt bereft for the loss of it. There was nothing Heavy Metal about a diploma!

But of course, none of their parents were going to settle for less. God why hadn’t they discussed any of this? How did Ryan know that Callie wanted to take her U. S Green Card over to Broadway? When had his friends grown up, and left him behind?

Suddenly, Hunter felt like the future was rushing up to knock him down and Bush’s lyrics about not letting the days go by were hitting him hard. How were the three of them gonna stay the three of them, now that he had Meredith and Callie and Ryan were looking towards their futures? He was going to have to make changes: big changes, and his life was going to start to suck as a result.

The easiest and most painless thing to do would be to dump Meredith and make the most of his last year with his mates before Meredith shattered the trio’s rituals and dreams for their senior year- like how they’d get to prom, and what they usually did on Valentine’s Day- with her own demands. But what if being single around this new, sexy version of Callie Clay made it impossible to sit next to her without imagining her lips all over his-

‘Hunter? What’s the matter?’ Ryan’s voice sounded weighed down with descending sleep, which was how Hunter’s eyelids were beginning to feel.

But part of Hunter was awake- wide awake and Hunter had to roll on his side to press himself into the mattress, trying not to imagine Callie’s blood-flushed, virginal lips taking the pressure off the area of annoyance for him. ‘Oh I was just thinking that I’m in hell… ’

Ryan snorted. ‘Just count sheep man. Just count some fucking sheep.’

Hunter laughed, thinking about the song lyrics: ‘I want to be inside you Callie,’ and knowing that issues aside, Ryan understood exactly what he was going through. ‘One,’ he muttered for his friend’s amusement alone. ‘Two…’

8.

By Monday afternoon, Callie had decided that her best friends had taken to sniffing glue, because she had never seen them act so out of character in her life. Ryan Weaver, who usually walked as though he were lounging, was perky and upbeat, bouncing around like a Cocker Spaniel, strumming mindlessly at the Sitar Marnie had brought in to show him, an instrument her Pop had picked up while stationed in India during the Boer War, and when Ryan proved to be completely useless with it, he changed tack and started flirting with Marnie instead!

This can’t be happening! Callie thought, trying to seem incredibly interested in her meat pie while attempting not to overhear Ryan flirt for it was quite lethal; his voice got all low and husky, and his fingers rested on Marnie at every opportunity. Marnie was a goner from the first tickle under the chin of course, blushing and giggling like one of her Taylor Hanson posters had leapt off the wall and wrapped itself around her face.

Hunter was no better. He’d brought Meredith over to eat with them and spent the entire time whispering into her ear while running his hands up Meredith’s bare thigh until he was grazing the hem of her too-short school dress. Of course her two mates would take breaks from their wooing long enough to get all hyped up about ‘The’ gig that Friday night, but mostly, all they did was nauseate Callie and she saw right through it; they were making it clear that they weren’t into her.

Under normal circumstances, Callie would have been delighted that she was back to being treated like one of the boys again. But the problem was, they were only making the estrangement between them even harsher by putting on fronts Callie didn’t need to see to get the picture. She thought she would inevitably relax- she’d hoped that she’d come away from lunch feeling eighty percent better about her friendships- but her tolerance for smoochy-woo-woo crap out of her laid-back buddies hit an invisible ceiling somewhere at the halfway point of recess when Hunter agreed to go to a Savage Garden concert with Meredith in February and said that Callie and Ryan would be ‘psyched’ to go with them! Callie she got to her feet, pushing her tasteless pie to Ry, who had a bottomless stomach.

‘What do you mean you want to take me to a diner?’ Meredith suddenly demanded, making an awful face. ‘If you get big enough to tour America, you’re taking me to The Plaza, Hunter Marks.’

‘Naturally yeah but… diners are so cool.’ Hunter grinned at Meredith. ‘A jukebox, pink walls… I love that retro crap.’

‘You are so weird.’ Meredith giggled, then kissed him quickly, and Callie couldn’t take it anymore. ‘But I like the pink walls. In fact, I have them!’

‘Hey guys, I have to bail. I need to speak to Mr Bank’s about our assignment on Tomorrow When The War Began and then try and answer the last essay question before fifth period.’

Ryan stared at her through Marnie’s spectacles, which he’d been ‘trying on.’ ‘Sure I can’t help you with that? I did it last term.’

But Callie shook her head. ‘It’s the phrasing of the question I don’t get. He’s really the only one who can straighten it out.’ She tugged her hat down, so they wouldn’t see the lie in her eyes. ‘Later okay?’

Hunter and Ryan exchanged a look and Callie almost groaned inwardly when she realized that they had discussed her at some point. God what had been said? Did they think she was a big ho? Were they afraid she was going to follow them around all lovesick because they’d tossed her some crumbs of affection?

‘Okay man, catch yah later,’ Hunter said, already nuzzling Meredith’s golden hair again.

‘Have fun.’ Ryan wiggled the glasses on the bridge of his nose, then turned to Marnie as he pulled the pie towards him: ‘So, do they suit me?’

Callie walked away quickly, blinking back tears while feigning interest in the gum trees above. She was not a crier, and the guys couldn’t see how they were getting to her because that would be acting like a ‘chick’ and that’s what they probably thought they were rebelling against! It was all so unfair! She hadn’t made a move on anyone and yet they were treating her like she was the leper! And after the way both had looked at her over the weekend; like she was special, their sudden rejection felt like tripping down an unseen step.

Callie was not used to feeling so emotionally spastic, and so she inhaled deeply and told herself that the heaviness in her chest was being caused by the gathering thunderclouds above- not her slowly breaking heart.

When Callie stepped into Mr Bank’s classroom, going through with her ruse about needing to speak to him even though she’d finished the assignment a week ago, she halted when she saw the impossibly adorable blonde from the disco meandering around the empty classroom, staring at the prints on the walls. ‘Oh shit.’ Callie said, without meaning to. ‘You’re here.’

The woman pivoted to face her, and when her eyes settled on Callie, she looked neither taken aback nor angry. In fact, she smiled, her glossy lips making the kind of shapes girls paid good money for.

‘I guess I earned that greeting.’ She said, and Callie noticed for the first time, that she had the trace of an accent too or rather, the absence of any accent at all. Her voice was melodic, but she didn’t emphasis the same syllables as Callie or anyone she knew would have, Canadian, U. S., Aussie… her voice was devoid of inflection and yet it sounded more animated than any Callie had ever heard. She waited for the woman to apologize for acting like a freak, or shed some light on the mistaken identity thing, but she did neither. Instead, she turned away and said: ‘You have a very talented teacher Callie.’

‘Are you a scout or something?’ Callie asked, leaning against the door.

The girl laughed, bracing herself against the window frames which were an institutional-beige color that was flaking off. ‘No. It’s not his teaching talent I’m interested in- but his writing skills.’

Callie scratched her head, needing to do something. She hadn’t known that Mr Banks was the kind of writer who had feelers out, and it made her think of how literary her little town was becoming. She’d overheard Marnie mention something at the party the other night about starting to write a novel… had that been right? Now Mr Banks had someone sizing him up for his own skill? Callie made a mental note to mention both aspiring authors to her mother who had connections up the wazoo. ‘So you’re what… an agent?’

‘Oh hell no.’ She turned, folded her hands behind her back. She was wearing an elegant, off the shoulder white dress which looked like it had been created for her, to cling and hang just so to every perfect curve. It also looked ridiculously out of place in the dingy classroom. ‘Surely you can come up with a more creative guess than that?’

Callie shrugged. ‘Not really. Mum says that fifty percent of the agents she’s encountered have an inflated sense of self importance and, well- ’ she smirked at the woman. ‘You kind of fit that bill to a tee.’

Fury darkened the girl’s blue eyes again, and not in the descriptive sense but in the literal sense. They did not narrow, and her pupils did not dilate- the actual hue flashed from pale blue, to navy, then back again and Callie shifted back, blinking rapidly. ‘Coming from the most entitled little brat I’ve ever met, that’s kind of amusing.’ The strange woman advanced on Callie, her lips forming a sneer again. ‘I’ve met the kind of authors your mother would bow to, Miss Clay, so both of your opinions are worthless to me.’ She said Callie’s name like it was an in-joke. ‘And I can see that you haven’t learned a fucking thing about controlling that temper or that mouth of yours- not a thing!’

‘Learnt from what?’ Callie felt herself well-oiled hinges buckling. ‘What is your childhood trauma, lady? First you pounce on me like you have this big vendetta that I’m not aware of, then you say it’s a mistaken identity thing, like I have a Doppelganger or something but now you’re back to vilifying me? It doesn’t make any sense!’ She stepped towards the woman, her intimidation turning to rage. Everything in her life was a mess but it hadn’t been- not until she’d set eyes on this woman. She didn’t know how or why but something inside her, something sharp inside her, told her that it was all this insidious woman’s fault! ‘Did I knock over your cup of milk in grade-school or something? What is your problem?!’

The woman took Callie by the shoulders and, in another display of incredible strength and utter madness- smashed Callie up against the window until she heard it fracture behind her. It knocked the wind right out of Callie, so much so that she couldn’t even articulate the agony with a cry.

‘I can’t work out-’ the woman seethed through clenched teeth. ‘-if I want you to slog along like this for another twenty years yet, enlighten you as to why I hate you so much- or watch you die.’ She cocked her head, smiling benevolently. ‘Though I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve seen, that you are going to die; you’re displaying all the signs that you’re on your way… and I cannot wait to watch it unfold now that I’ve found you.’ She slammed Callie a second time. ‘But regardless of what path you trip down Callie, you are going to stay off mine this time, or I am going to bring your death about as swiftly as I am able.’

Callie’s mouth fell open. As she’d never dreamed before, she’d never been forced through a nightmare either and yet suddenly, she knew this was what a nightmare was like: Nonsensical, out of nowhere, reality distorting, sweat-inducing terror stemming from nothing and threatening to lead nowhere. What if the woman was quite simply crazy? She knew Callie’s name and knew who her mother was, so could that be the link? An obsessive fan or obsessive troll? Or did this all come back to her birth mother? Callie wasn’t about to find out by being tossed out of a second story window. She drew back her foot and kicked the woman- hard. She felt the thick, unforgiving tip of her boot smack into the woman’s shin and she screamed, dropping Callie and hugging her injured leg to her chest.

‘Bitch!’ She seethed. ‘I hate you! You’re not as valuable as everyone thinks you are! You’re nothing! You little fucking c-’

And then there was a ringing in her ears, a clap of thunder and suddenly- Callie was in the room by herself, falling against the nearest desk and catching herself on the edge of it, feeling the fractured glass which had fallen crunch under one of her feet as her lungs collapsed. The world tilted, then swirled and when the thunder’s rumble increased Callie cried out and fell to the floor, hugging the rusted brown leg of the desk and sobbing as she fought to breathe- knowing that if she didn’t hang on tight, she was going to bolt in front of the entire school.

What’s happening? Oh my- what’s happening what’s happening? Callie squeezed her eyes shut and for the briefest flash of a moment, the atmosphere around her shifted. She was still on the carpet- she could feel the wiry, bubbly texture of it through her jeans- but suddenly, she felt wet. Not all over, like she was in a rainstorm, but soaking from her ribs down. The water was neither warn nor cold but perfect, and the shadowy classroom felt bright- so bright that the light behind her eyelids was warm and red. She sucked in a breath, and her lungs expanded with traces of honeysuckle and roses so fragrant she could have swallowed the scent and been nourished by it.

No! Callie thought. The warmth, her senses- if she was losing her mind then her sub-conscious was making her think she would find paradise if she would just open her eyes and yet Callie was filled with a sense of dread so overpowering that she refused to see- she didn’t want to see because that guilty feeling was creeping back over her, scorching her. She just wanted to faint and wake up normal again.

‘Callie… Oh babe!’ The soft male voice broke on her name and it was just one more thing to feel guilty for. Callie sobbed, and then plunged her face into the perfect stream just as his fingers stroked her hair.

*

‘Fuck man she is losing it,’ Hunter’s heart was racing a mile a minute as he embraced Callie, trying to tug her away from the desk she was crouched beneath. But her grip was so freakishly tight that he was worried that if he lifted her, the desk would come with them! ‘Come on Callie,’ he changed tack, stroking her hair instead. ‘Hunter’s here. You’re okay.’

‘That was a bad one.’ Ryan knelt next to them on the classroom floor, his expression concerned as he attempted to pry Callie’s fingers off the desk, one at a time. ‘And we weren’t here Hunt...’

Hunter met his eyes, and they exchanged a look of guilt. Callie was alone because they’d scared her off. They’d known it the moment Callie had lied about the paper she’d already told them she had finished the week before. But they’d let her go, wanting to give her the distance she clearly wanted.

Then they’d heard the thunder and jumped to their feet like they’d been charred by it. Marnie, had come with them but Meredith had stayed behind, calling out, asking if they’d lost their minds and that it was just a little storm.

‘We’re in for a lot of storms this week,’ Marnie said softly. Despite her obvious fear for Callie, she was standing as close to Ryan as she could, half-hovering like she needed to be in his personal atmosphere. ‘They say there’s a cyclone forming up near Bowen, but the dry Spring we’re having is provoking electrical storms to the south. We’re probably going to cop a bit of both after the weekend at this rate. How’s Callie going to handle that?’

‘Her mother will pull her from school if it gets bad enough.’ Hunter stroked Callie’s back, relieved that although she was still sobbing like her heart was broken, and still holding the desk- the octave of hysteria had abated from her cries; she was coming back to her senses. ‘They have before.’

‘Oh.’ Marnie clearly hadn’t taken Callie’s phobia seriously the other night, but was now getting it and looked appropriately amazed. She took a step back. ‘I’m going to go down to the office and call her folks, okay? This storm looks like it’s setting in, so Callie probably needs to be... not here.’