Zac and Mia (19 page)

Outside the window, there are too many stars in the sky.

It takes a while to remember where I am: at Zac’s farm, in Bec’s spare bed, my fibreglass leg by the wall. For the first time, I’m actually glad to see it. I can reach over, pull it on, climb out of the window and hit the ground smoothly.

Three a.m.

Wet grass scrunches beneath me. I creep toward the main house and step up to Zac’s window. It’s half open, orange curtains gesturing me inside. I want to crawl through and slip into his bed where he’ll shuffle across to make room. Moonlight will polish his pale skin, gentle on the purple scar below his collarbone. He’ll share his pillow and pull the blanket across us. He’ll tell me I’ve gone up to a ten, that I’m too good
for a six like him. Maybe I’ll tell him what he really is. Maybe I won’t.

‘Zac?’

But his room is empty, and a breeze tickles the hair at my neck.

I find him where I first found him, that day I’d followed Bec and the tour group. He’d had his back to us then, sitting on the far gate. I remember how my wound throbbed with pain and how I’d wanted to blame him for this, for lying to me. He’d promised I was going to be okay, and I wasn’t.

Even then he was somewhere else. I saw he was vulnerable. That’s when I knew I could trust him.

Now, he’s a flannelette ghost in the moonlight. He sits on the fence, his bare feet hooked into the wire rungs below.

‘Stop.’ Zac straightens an arm and I freeze.

‘What?’

‘You’ll scare her.’

Her?
There’s nothing here but us, a fence and a dark forest. Zac was always the rational one, but who knows what cancer can do to a person? What it could be doing to him now?

I try to keep my voice steady. ‘Zac. There’s no one—’

‘Shhh.’

My chest hurts. I can’t cry now.

Then two amber eyes glint from the darkness.

Zac warns, ‘Be still.’

‘Is it a fox?’

‘Shh.’

She’s beautiful and she knows it. I sense her confidence and poise. I think she’s judging me.

The eyeballs shift, skimming behind branches, and I catch glimpses of her—a pointed ear, fur, a foot—as she slinks fluidly through trees. I envy her grace. I resent the pull she has over Zac—enough to draw him from a warm bed to sit on a fence in the night-time.

The creature pads to a stop, licks at her leg and returns her gaze to Zac. I see they know each other. I sense I’m intruding.

But I’ve come all this way for a reason.

I take two steps forward, even when Zac shakes his hand at me. I take three more to reach him, even though he tells me not to. The oval eyes watch me as I put one hand on his leg and wrap the other around his arm, holding on.

‘It’s cold, Zac. Come back inside.’

His arm jerks but I tighten my grip. Somewhere beneath his flannelette pyjamas, beneath skin and muscle and bone, too many abnormal white blood cells are reproducing. They’re multiplying, trying to outnumber the healthy ones. I can’t blame him for this.

‘Tell me again about falling into a vat of Emma Watsons when you’re a hundred.’

He tries to elbow me away but I draw closer.

‘At least a vat of beer when you’re ninety.’

Zac twists free so I pull myself up to the fence to join him. I grip my hands around the wooden railing to keep steady, not trusting my balance. He doesn’t move across for me.

When I look up to the sky my breath comes out as milky puffs. They sail a bit and dissolve.

‘Did you see that?’ I point. ‘A burning meteorite.’ It’s a lie, but the best one I can think of. ‘We should make a wish.’

‘I already did.’

‘I don’t mean Disneyland. Go on, make a real wish.’

‘I wish you’d get off my fence.’

I laugh. Even when he’s mean he can be funny. ‘I like your fence. I like your farm.’

‘They asked you to come?’

‘I wanted to.’

‘I didn’t want you to.’

‘You’re my friend, Zac.’

He flinches and I don’t blame him. He doesn’t want a friend. He wants me to disappear, to fall off one edge of the world so he can fall off the other.

‘Go home, Mia.’

‘But I just got here.’

‘Walk away.’

‘Sorry, I can’t.’

‘You can, you’ve told me. Just stand up—’

‘You haven’t seen it yet, have you?’ I roll my jeans up to my knee. ‘The socket’s porous-laminate. It’s not the full spec, but it’s better than the temp one, and yeah, as you say, I can walk. I could probably run, if I really
had to. If something was chasing me.’

I hold myself steady then pull my knee closer.

‘Admittedly it’d have to be something
slow
chasing me. The Paralympians have special blades for speed. But it’s light. Check it out.’

He ignores me so I roll down the liner, unclip it, and pull the prosthetic free.

‘Feel it, go on. How often does a girl tell you to feel her leg?’

He inhales, saying my name on the outward breath. ‘Mia …’

‘Sorry, that was lame. Actually, can I even say that now?’

His body tenses, preparing to slip off the fence and walk away. Desperate, I use the only weapon I have: I bend my arm back and pitch the prosthetic as high and hard as it will go. The thing flies end over end, skimming unseen leaves before thumping a tree in the bushland. Somewhere, the fox flees.

Zac gapes at me. ‘That was the
dumbest
thing.’

The dumbest thing?
It makes me laugh out loud. What I do next—sliding over the fence and hopping forward in the dark—is dumber by far. My jeans leg hangs low, snagging on prickly bushes. There would be snakes in this grass. Tree roots to stumble over and all kinds of holes to fall into. It’s a minefield for a girl with one leg.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking for my leg.’

‘You won’t find it.’

‘Did it go this way? I didn’t see—’

‘Stop! For fuck’s sake, just
stop
.’

I hop around on the spot, trying to keep my balance. When I see him front-on it wipes the smile from me. He’s not the same Zac. The moon spills over his pale face, and I see he’s more vulnerable than ever. I miss him.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Go home.’

‘I literally can’t,
now.’

‘Fuck. I don’t need this.’

‘I’m not here to annoy you.’

‘Then why are you here?’

Without the fox, all his attention is on me. It’s terrifying.

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Why did you
come
? Who called you?’

‘No one. I wanted a bath. And a pear.’

‘The fox can smell it.’

‘Pears?’

‘Death,’ he says. ‘Can’t you?’

‘Zac—’

‘I smell it.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I should be dead.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’

‘If I was a rabbit or a chicken, I’d be dead already. If I was a sheep, I’d be shot.’

‘You’re not a sheep, Zac.’

‘If I was a kid in Africa, I’d be long dead.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ I say, though he might be right.

‘I should be dead many times over.’

‘You’re not in Africa,’ I remind him quietly. ‘You’re Zac Meier, living in Australia. Your marrow sucks but you can fix it.’

‘You’re an expert now?’

I lose my balance a bit, so I hop to a nearby branch and grab on.

‘No, but I know you can get more chemo or another bone marrow transplant. As many as you need. Or you can try stem cord treatment. The results are promising.’

‘Is that so?’

‘And there are drug trials all the time. New discoveries in Europe and America. There are plenty of options—’

‘They’re not options, Mia, they’re time-fillers.’

‘Then
fill
—
time
!’ My voice rips at the dark. I’m so angry at him. I’m so angry
for
him. Suddenly I’m so seized with rage I could hurl it at him and knock him off that fence. ‘Fill time until they
fix
you!’

‘Everyone dies, Mia.’

‘But not everyone has a
choice
. That woman who fell in the vat of tomato sauce didn’t. She fell in, and even in her last seconds, I bet she fought.’

‘She would’ve died anyway.’

‘Cam would’ve fought, if he had a choice.’ Zac winces at the name so I go on. ‘If someone had offered Cam two options—to have a heart attack in his car or another round of treatment—he would’ve picked
treatment, just in case, because who knew, it might just have worked and given him forty more years to surf and play pool and—’

‘Cam only had ten per cent.’

‘Fuck, if I had a ten-per-cent chance of winning the Lotto, I’d put everything I had on it. Wouldn’t you?’

‘I’m not a gambler.’

I know this already. If he was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Zac’s looked at the cards in his hand and tossed them in. I can’t argue with that. Zac’s decisions are formulated by logic and maths, while mine are just whipped up by emotion and impulse and
I want, I want
.

I know I feel too much. I know I get carried away. But
I want, I want
Zac to live. To want to live. I
need
him to live because I don’t want to be in this world without him.

Emotion wins and, damn it, I cry. I close my eyes and hold tight to the branch as my grief spills free.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

I hear my hacking sobs. Hear his contempt.

‘Can’t a guy sit on a fence without a fucking lecture? This isn’t about
you
, Mia.’

‘I know.’

‘We’re all going to die sooner or later.’

‘Then
later
, choose later! If Cam had a choice—’

‘Cam’s in Indonesia by now.’

‘He’s not! He’s—’

‘What? In heaven? Playing pool with Elvis?’

I close my eyes and squeeze the branch like it’s
everything. My hands cramp and my arms shake, and it comes to me now what courage is. Courage is standing still even though you want to run. Courage is planting yourself and turning towards the thing that scares you, whether it’s your leg or your friends or the guy who could break your heart again. It’s opening your eyes and staring that fear down.

I open my eyes. The night isn’t as dark as it was.

‘He’s here,’ I say. ‘Cam’s here.’

I see the glassy bark of banksias and the glisten of ghost gums. I see those sharp shining dots above Zac’s head, reminding me of the glow-in-the dark star that kept watch over me.

‘He’s everywhere,’ I say. And I know it’s true.

‘Cam died on a Sunday. Do you know how many other people died that day?’

I shake my head.

‘Thirty-nine in Western Australia. Four hundred and three across the country.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Across the world, around one hundred and sixty thousand people died that day. One hundred and eleven each minute.’

‘You don’t—’

‘In the history of the world, how many people do you think have died?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Guess.’

‘No!’

‘I don’t know either but it would be a whole shitload
of burials and burnings and floating down the Ganges. So if every single person in the history of the world is currently hovering in the air around us, how the hell do we even breathe?’

It’s not easy
, I think, forcing myself to inhale, each breath reminding me I’m not alone. Cam’s here. My grandma and grandpa are here. The ghosts of everyone who matters are with me, and in me. In my hands, the branch quivers with infinite pasts.

‘What if you and Cam could somehow swap places for a day? If tomorrow, you could be the ashes, and Cam could be you, an eighteen-year-old guy with dodgy marrow. I know it’s unscientific,’ I say, getting in first, ‘and we’re not in Disneyland, but just shut up and let me talk. What if Cam could wake up tomorrow and have a whole day?’

‘As me?’

‘As you, Zac Meier. What do you reckon Cam would do?’

Zac hooks his feet around the wire. He doesn’t answer right away.

‘Twenty-four hours in your body. What do you think?’

Zac’s eyes are climbing the bark of the tree. Up and up, tracing the highest branch, then up above that. I don’t know if he’s listening or not, but I go on.

‘He wouldn’t muck around with a fucking calculator, I tell you that. He’d take your one day, and he’d do everything he could. He’d fish and surf and eat cheddar cheese shish kebabs. He’d laugh and do handstands,
and he’d probably even kiss me. He’d do everything he felt like doing because you only get one life, Zac. One chance. And anyone who gives that up too easy—’

‘It’s not easy—’

‘Is giving in, and giving in is a
stupid
way to die. Stupider than falling into a vat, or watering a fake Christmas tree with its lights on.’

‘Mia, shut up.’ Zac is coming towards me.

‘And Cam would
never
pick a stupid way to die. He’d rather die trying than—’

Zac kisses me. I hate him. I love him.

Then he slides a hand over my mouth.

‘Shut up and make a wish.’

‘Mm?’

‘Shooting star. If you weren’t crapping on so much you would’ve seen it. Make a wish.’

Mouth clamped tight, tears flood me. One wish? Are you kidding? It’s a no-brainer. And it’s got nothing to do with my leg.

I say it in my head but I think he hears it, because he takes his hand away. Up close, I see the fear in him. If I could exchange places, I would.

He says, ‘I don’t want to be stuck in that room again—’

‘I know.’

‘I can’t get Mum’s hopes up.’

‘She’s tough—’

‘What if it doesn’t work? What then?’

‘Then you try again.’

‘How many times? How many trips?’

‘I don’t know.’’

‘I just want to be normal.’

‘You are. You’re still Zac. Sick or not. You’re a nine out of ten.’

‘A nine?’

‘Yeah. I’d give you a ten but you smell pretty bad. How long have you been in those pyjamas?’

‘I’m not afraid to die,’ he says.

I squeeze both his hands. ‘I know. But if you were, that’d be okay too.’

‘I’m not scared, I’m more … pissed off. You’re supposed to do something in the world, like have kids or grow a forest. I haven’t done anything like that. What’s the point of me, other than leaving behind a messed-up family?’