Under Rose-Tainted Skies(23)

And then there is this something, something small and awake inside me. Something that makes me want to smile, to wet my lips with the tip of my tongue and wonder how my hair looks.

‘Hey, Norah.’ I hear his voice as if he were whispering right into my ear. I get so caught up in wondering how close we are right now, I forget to respond. He continues talking anyway. ‘Why are you always watching?’

‘I wasn’t.’ The words barge from my mouth, all balled up in a big gust of breath and waving white flags. ‘I mean, I know you think I was . . . the curtains twitching and all that. The thing is, they’re kind of heavy, the curtains. They’re made of velvet and they get clingy . . .’ I can’t stop talking. It’s like running on a treadmill; my mouth is moving but I’m not getting anywhere. Verbal vomit is the evil twin of absolute silence. You can often find them both lurking around anxiety attacks.

‘What I mean is’ – I take a deep breath – ‘I fell asleep against the wall. The curtains got caught on me and were moving when I was.’ I point at the window, attempting to illustrate my defence to a boy who is sitting blindly on the other side of the opaque door. You’d never guess that my brain is what Dr Reeves calls high-functioning. Sometimes, when it mixes with panic, I’d make a good computer. Other times, I’m not even sure I’d make good kindling.

‘I honestly wasn’t watching.’ I twist my fingers, hoping to wring some of the sweat off my skin. ‘Say something. Please. Say something.’ I close my eyes and whisper to the wood.

The silence is screaming; my eardrums are beginning to blister. He thinks I’m a weirdo. He’s barely spent any time with me and I’ve already frightened him off.

‘Luke! Luke!’ A girl’s voice charges through the dark and, like a pinball, ricochets around the houses, the trees, and the old Victorian-style streetlamps of Triangle Crescent. ‘Luke. Whered’ya go?’

‘Oh, shit. Not now,’ Luke whimpers.

‘Friend of yours?’ I ask.

‘I’m being hunted by Amy Cavanaugh,’ he replies, puffing like he’s just run a marathon.

Amy. The Amy? Why does he say it so casually, like maybe I should know who he’s talking about?

‘I don’t know who that is.’

He snorts a laugh. ‘You’re kidding. You must be the only person in school who doesn’t.’

Oh God. I do know her.

Damn.

I’ve seen her. Well, her posts, at least. They pop up on my Hub feed all the time. Amy ‘Queen’ Cavanaugh, she calls herself. Her updates get starred quite a lot. Honestly, I thought she was some sort of celebrity. I didn’t know she went to Cardinal; she must have arrived after I left. More lies. More damage control.

‘Right! That Amy. Queen Amy.’

‘That’s her.’

‘All that French work has fried my brain.’ I laugh off my faux pas. Then wait for him to elaborate on his and Amy’s acquaintanceship/friendship/relationship. But he doesn’t. I don’t know if we’re friends yet. I don’t know if I can ask him.

Of course you’re friends. He came over here to speak to you, didn’t he?

Unless . . . unless he only came over here to hide from Queen Amy.

My heart beats against the back of my throat. Then I hear his leather jacket crunch again. Movement. He’s standing up. I stand up with him. Palms pressed flat against the door, I almost crawl up the wood. He’s leaving, and the thought is inducing panic. I didn’t want him here, but now he is, and for the second time in two days, he has chased away the dark shadow that makes me drown my body in black and curl up in a ball when I think of friends.

‘Hey, Norah?’

‘Yes.’ It hurts to talk.

‘Do you think maybe I could come by tomorrow and we can clear up this Transformers conversation once and for all?’

‘I’ve watched the cartoon but never seen the movies.’

‘Panic not.’ He’s talking in that fake-British-Swedish-possibly-French accent again. ‘I’ll bring them over.’

Wait? What? That’s not what I meant. Is it?

‘I . . .’

‘Luke? Where are you?’ That voice again, shrill, shouting above the music and into the night. Queen Amy.

I cross my fingers and toes, secretly hope he’ll ignore her and stay here a little longer.

‘I guess I better go. Goodnight, Norah.’

And then he’s gone. I try but fail to count the steps I hear him take as he walks away.

I feel cold.





It starts the second I begin the Green Mile trudge back to my bedroom; so many thoughts, wrapped around my body like iron chains. I have to use the banister to pull myself up the stairs.

Musings, meanderings, conversations that haven’t even happened run in one continuous loop around my head. With a texture like smashed glass, they’re tearing my brain to pieces.

I stop in the hall and study my gangly reflection in the floor-length mirror. I want to see a svelte blonde with big blue eyes. I want to see that girl in my social media selfies, the one that smiles and never has to live up to anyone’s expectations or explain why she is the way she is. But all I see in my real-life reflection are blunt smudges of shadow. Fragile. Upset. Weak. Thin. Afraid. Failing. And tired. Above everything else, tired of battling with my own mind.