Girl Saves Boy (15 page)

I listened to Rachel’s car growl to life and back out of the drive. She was going to dinner with friends and wouldn’t be back until early the following morning. It was better that way because, with all the time and distance between us, being so close again was stifling.

I might have sat like that for ten seconds or an hour, when the doorbell went off. I hadn’t heard a car, and I thought maybe the bell was malfunctioning again. But I got up all the same because if it was a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I could get back in God’s good books if I offered them some shelter. Maybe I could whip up some mini-toasts and red cordial for an impromptu communion. You know, Jesus’ body and blood and all that. It might even be the second coming of Jesus, and God would smite me in all his wrath if I didn’t give him a glass of water at least, or offer up my stable for lack of a hospital maternity ward.

I walked to the front door and didn’t bother peering out the peep-hole. It turned out not to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, which I was sort of glad about because I didn’t think there were any mini-toasts after all (and certainly no stable).

It was Sacha on the doorstep, looking half drowned.

That’s not funny.

I opened the screen door and he stepped in, all hesitant and dripping water onto the carpet. I peeled his jacket off him and hung it up on the empty hat stand.

‘I’ll go get you a towel,’ I said. It was the first sentence that had passed between us since the day before. No ‘Hi, how ya goin’?’ or ‘So why exactly did you run off on me after I kissed you? Am I that repulsive?’

I walked to the bathroom, and he followed me. I grabbed a towel out of the cupboard under the basin and handed it to him.

‘Thanks,’ Sacha said. He rubbed the towel over his hair. He was shivering.

We were uncomfortably close in the bathroom. I could feel the warmth of his breath against my face.

‘Do you want to go and stand in front of the heater?’ I asked.

He smiled. ‘That’d be good, thanks.’

I shuffled past him and out to the lounge room. I switched the heater on and held my hands over it.

‘It’ll take a second to warm up,’ I muttered, as he stood beside me. ‘Do you want something to change into?’ I couldn’t think of anything he could possibly change into—he was taller than both me and my mother.

‘I should dry off quickly.’ He smiled again. The heater grumbled as it warmed.

I had no idea what to say or do next. So I just stood there and held my hands over the heater.

‘Did you walk?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, pretty stupid, eh?’

‘Was it raining when you started?’

He stopped drying his hair and looked directly at me. ‘Yes. It started raining harder though.’

I paused, before asking what I really wanted to ask. ‘Why are you here?’

He looked down and scrunched the towel in his hands. ‘I just, I just am. After what you did for me…and what I did yesterday, I feel as if I owe you something.’

I couldn’t help the sarcasm from creeping into my voice. ‘I don’t know what you understand about relationships, Sacha, but owing someone something has nothing to do with anything. Maybe if I’m being chased by wolves you could help me out but I don’t want a sympathy boyfriend.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s still raining,’ was all I could say.

It was dark in the living room. The only light came from the kitchen. I was in the shadows again. Except now there was someone with me.

‘That was harsh,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to apologise.’

‘I don’t think I’d come in handy if you were being chased by wolves,’ Sacha said, a smile creeping onto his face.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ I asked. ‘Sandwiches?’

He nodded.

We walked into the kitchen and I got out plates, bread, butter, ham and lettuce, and we made sandwiches and poured cordial in silence.

Then I said, ‘Let’s eat in the living room.’

We sat cross-legged on the Persian rug, backs against the couch. I pulled apart each layer of my sandwich and ate everything separately. Sacha tore off the crusts and took slow, small bites, pausing and sipping red cordial.

It was nice, sitting like that, listening to the rain outside, eating sandwiches for dinner.

‘I like your house,’ said Sacha. ‘It’s…pristine.’

‘It’s like living in a display home,’ I said. ‘It’s awful.’

‘What’s so bad about display homes?’ he asked.

I tore my piece of ham into pieces. ‘I don’t know. It’s all a bit fake. It’s this whole happy-families thing, you know? Like there’s a mother and a father and two-point-five kids and a Commodore. Like everything’s good and normal. But really, it’s all a cardboard cut-out. Ever feel like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘As if you’re actually two-dimensional. Or in black and white when everyone else is in techni-colour. Like you don’t belong. Like this isn’t real. Like a paper doll—I got one of those sets before my brother died, all Edwardian paper dolls, with cut-out dresses for balls and high tea and croquet. Sometimes I feel as if someone else is dressing me up the way they want.’

‘Who?’

‘My mother, right now. I feel like a marionette. But I want to be in charge of myself.’

‘You don’t seem two-dimensional to me.’

‘Maybe I need those cellophane glasses then.’

‘I’m not exactly the expert on conformity. My dad’s got a “life partner”.’

I smiled. We’d both finished our sandwiches and Sacha sculled the remainder of his cordial.

‘Why don’t you sleep here?’ I suggested. ‘My mum’s staying overnight with friends.’

Sacha smiled. ‘Okay.’

We scooped up bed sheets and I took the dining-table chairs into the living room and made a tent that encompassed the couch and was long enough to sleep under and wide enough for both of us. I’m not sure if it was his idea or mine.

I took pillows from my bed, and my blanket, and laid them out underneath the sheets. I took one of the folding breakfast tables—those ones for breakfast-in-bed, that you prop over your lap—and put it under there too.

‘Sometimes,’ Sacha said, ‘I feel ageless. Like I’m much older, that I’ve experienced so much, but I’m still such a child.’

‘Maybe all we can be sure of is that we’re somewhere between being born and being dead.’ I used the couch cushions to hold the sheets in place.

‘But you can’t tell how far you are from the end, though,’ he mumbled. ‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘Do you think it would do anyone any good to know?’ I asked as I rummaged in the dresser for a candleholder, a lighter and a box of candles.

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ He fiddled with the edge of the sheet.

We walked out to the kitchen and I took a packet of Tim Tams from the pantry and grapes from the fruit bowl.

Sacha found a bottle of wine in the bottom of one of the cupboards and held it up. ‘Yes or no?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘Definitely.’

He took two wine glasses off the shelf above the bench and held them between the fingers of one hand. I followed him back into the living room and flicked the lighter against the wick of one of the candles, and killed all the lights.

We crawled between the chair legs into our tent. I lay beneath the white sheet palace and put the candle on the little table. The flame wavered. Sacha sat beside me, his eyes reflecting the candlelight, and poured us each a glass of wine.

‘M’lady.’ He handed me a glass.

‘Thank you, fine sir.’

He sipped at it. ‘Shit, it’s sweet.’

I laughed and tore open the packet of Tim Tams and took one. ‘Perfect chocolate wine.’

‘Your mother will kill us,’ Sacha said.

‘I don’t care.’

He was kneeling then, facing me, and I was sitting cross-legged. I had my glass of sweet wine held out to one side and a Tim Tam in the other hand. Sitting up straight like that, I felt like some kind of society matron.

I leant forward, tilted my head to the right, and this time, after he kissed me back, Sacha didn’t walk out.

We leant away from each other, and I took a gulp of my wine and Sacha took another sip of his and we just sat there and stared at each other.

I felt safe under the tent, protected from the outside world. The rain still pounded down and the wine slid easily down my throat. I poured another glass for Sacha and me, and he took out a Tim Tam and I bit it and smiled and, once he’d fed me the rest of it, his hand stayed up near my face and stroked my cheek.

Neither of us said anything for what felt like a long time, but it might have been only seconds, even though I could have stayed in that place for hours.

His fingers were velvety soft on my face.

‘When I was eight,’ I murmured, ‘my older brother hit his head and drowned. My dad left. My mother was on antide-pressants all the time. A few times…she tried to end it. That’s why I left. I stayed with my grandparents.’

‘What…what was your brother’s name?’

‘Ben.’

‘Why did you come back?’ Sacha asked, his thumb rubbing gentle circles across my cheek.

‘Both my grandparents died. I have no idea what became of my dad. So I’m back here.’

‘So you left before I arrived,’ he said.

‘Just missed you.’ I smiled.

His lips were moist with wine. ‘I’m really sorry.’

I shuffled back and he let his hand drop from my face. I drank the remainder of my glass of wine.

Sacha gulped back the last of his and put his empty glass on the breakfast table. He leant back beside me, resting his head on a pillow and stretching his arms above his head.

I ate a handful of grapes and tucked my knees up to my chest. I rested my head against them and looked at Sacha.

Then I lay beside him and slid my fingers down his arm and grasped his hand in mine.

‘Ask me a question,’ I said.

‘Like what?’

‘Anything. Anything you want. I’ll answer it. Truthfully.’

‘What are you most afraid of?’ Sacha asked.

‘Death, I guess. What about you?’

‘Uncertainty,’ he said. ‘All right, you ask a question.’

I rolled onto my side. ‘Okay. Tell me about your first kiss.’

‘Is that a question?’

‘For these purposes, it is.’

‘All right,’ he chuckled. ‘When I was twelve I went to True Grisham’s house. Our class was doing an Australia-through-time project and True and I got the 1950s. That’s kind of irrelevant to the story, though. I went over to her house—I was there almost every weekend being the dutiful sidekick I am—and she cornered me in her bedroom and announced, “Here’s the thing, Sacha: sooner or later both of us are going to kiss someone. I’d rather kiss you now and make my first kiss with someone I have respect for than some schmuck at high school. Are we at an understanding?”’

I laughed. ‘She said “schmuck”? What was it like?’

‘The kiss? An awfully unmemorable two seconds. Maybe a bit wet. I was just surprised.’

Sacha propped himself up with his elbow. We were both still grinning like idiots. He reached over me and took another Tim Tam but only nibbled at the edges before putting it down again.

‘Hey, you’d better finish that later,’ I warned. We both smiled.

Then he leant down and kissed my neck, again and again and again.

S
ACHA

I hoped that Jewel wouldn’t suddenly realise she’d made a grave mistake and decide she didn’t like me after all.

Her hand held mine up against her cheek, the skin soft and smooth and warm to touch, and she closed her eyes, and I wondered how I’d managed to find such a beautiful, smart girl who didn’t think I was a complete idiot, whom I felt so happy lying next to, whom I trusted.

We kissed, her tongue running along the jagged edges of the bottom row of my teeth. It was strange but lovely, and the closeness was intoxicating.

I wondered whether it was wise to go this far with someone I’d known for a week, and I wondered whether I felt like being wise or being stupid, whether stupidity and reckless decisions would bring more joy. I wondered whether I would have decided differently if I wasn’t dying.

Her fingers sought the hem of my T-shirt, and it was thrilling for the moment her fingers brushed my stomach. I thought maybe I should close my eyes. Would she think it was strange if she noticed how I was watching her and absorbing every detail of her face?

I wanted her to open her eyes again and look at me.

She pushed my T-shirt up and I leant away a moment to pull it over my head. She looked up at me and she grinned.

With emotions running high on wine and the possibility of sex, and my T-shirt off, it felt as if the unspoken thing had passed between us—we were going further, we both wanted to go further. I took a deep breath.

‘I wish I could take a photo of you every day,’ I whispered.

‘Why?’ she smiled.

‘So I could know what you looked like every day of your life.’

‘I like this, Sacha,’ she said. ‘I like us. You don’t need photographs if you’re with me, do you?’

‘You’ve only known me a week,’ I said. ‘Don’t jump the gun.’

Jewel sat up, pulled up the blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders and shrugged.

‘What about your first kiss?’ I asked.

Jewel shook her head. ‘Do I have to tell you?’

‘Yes, yes, you do.’

She sighed. She was quiet for so long I didn’t think she was going to answer at all. But she did. Eventually.

‘I was thirteen. Oh God, Grandma sent me to a church camp in the summer. Ever been to a church camp?’

I shook my head. ‘No. What was it like?’

‘You’ve been missing out,’ remarked Jewel. She smiled and looked down at her hands in her lap. ‘It’s like ordinary camp, except we got sermons in the morning with breakfast. And before bed, around the campfire, they told stories about how Jesus saved them. You know, I didn’t mind it—I liked this idea of an all-seeing God looking after everyone. I liked the idea that you could repent your sins and start with a clean slate. But the kids—God, the debauchery. And they were thirteen!’

I laughed.

‘So there was a big game of Truth or Dare at night, after the counsellors had gone to bed, and the boys snuck into the girls’ cabins.’ She paused, slowed down. ‘One of the girls in my cabin dared this boy to kiss me. You’d think I’d leave, you know, and say, no way, since no one bothered to ask my permission…but I didn’t. I had this idea in my head that a boy would kiss me, then he’d magically see me as the wonderful person I was, and I’d stop being so distant from everyone and he’d see past all my weirdness and then…and then everything would be perfect.’ Her voice was strained and she swallowed noisily.