‘Your glasses are broken,’ the no-longer-naked guy said. I have to say, I’ve heard people’s voices described as ‘like honey’ in the past, and I never really got what that meant. Until I heard this guy speak.
‘Yeah,’ I said, a ridiculous giggle escaping from my lips.
He reached up and plucked the glasses from my face, placing them on the bedside table.
‘You have beautiful eyes,’ he said, turning back to me and leaning down, bringing his face level with mine. One hand cupped my chin. ‘It’s a shame to hide them.’
‘Um,’ I said, my stomach flip-flopping at the compliment. ‘The thing is, I kinda like being able to see.’ I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
‘Oh,’ he breathed. I got the feeling he hadn’t really heard what I’d said anyway. His face was inching closer to mine, his eyes hooded, almost shut.
Shit. Was I about to get my first kiss? Was this really happening?
I swallowed hard. Was I losing my mind? This was all moving too fast.
I took a step back.
My legs hit the bed and I fell onto it with a bounce.
The guy and I stared at each other for a moment. He had a thoughtful expression on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Max jumping between us, clawing at the guy, barking excitedly. The guy laughed and said, ‘Were we not paying you enough attention?’
This couldn’t be real.
Libby. I had to talk to Libby.
I slipped my glasses back on and picked up my phone. Libby answered after the sixth ring.
‘Katie? Why are you calling me?’ She sounded half-asleep and fully weirded out.
She had no idea.
‘Libby! You will never believe what happened.’ I glanced at the guy, who was now sprawled on the floor, giving Max belly rubs. I turned my back on him and lowered my voice. ‘I – we – I – oh-my-god-I-think-we-actually-created-a-boy-and-he’s-in-my-room-and-he’s-patting-Max-and-he’s-so –’
‘Katie, what? Slow down. You’re making no sense. It sounded like you said we created a boy.’
‘That’s exactly what I said.’
‘What?’
I took a deep breath and tried to speak more slowly this time. ‘A boy. I woke up and there was a boy in my bed. And he –’
‘You what?!’
‘Libby, I think we actually made a boy. The perfect boy!’
‘No, I’m not talking to anyone, Dad!’ I heard her call. To me, she whispered, ‘Katie, this isn’t funny. My parents will take away my phone if they find me on it right now.’
‘I’m not joking!’ I said, getting shrill. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
Libby was silent. She knew the seriousness of what I was saying now. I didn’t joke around about those words. I was always too paranoid the universe would strike me dead on the spot for tempting fate. Right now it was the only way to get her to believe me.
‘You must have hit your head harder than I thought,’ she finally said.
Four
‘We should have gone to the hospital.’ Libby sounded worried. ‘Are your parents home?’
‘No! There’s no one else here. Just me and the guy.’ I glanced over at him and was rewarded with a brilliant smile. ‘He’s so hot,’ I whispered down the phone.
‘Listen, I’ll be right there, okay? Just stay put and don’t do anything. Definitely don’t fall asleep.’
‘Wait. You’re coming over?’
‘Sit tight, I’ll be five minutes.’
‘You don’t have to –’ I started to say, but she’d already hung up. To be honest, I was relieved Libby was coming. I looked at the guy again. What the hell was I going to do with him?
I sat down on my bed, trying to will my heart to stop beating quite so fast. The guy got up and sat down beside me, our bodies close. Which did not help with the whole heart situation.
‘So,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘Do you – what’s your name?’
‘I don’t have a name,’ he said. He frowned slightly, and there was something about his expression that sent a pang through my chest.
‘How can you not have a name?’ I asked, edging away from him slightly to put some space between us.
‘You haven’t given me one,’ he said simply. ‘You gave me this body.’ He held out his arms and the fluffy pink sleeves of my dressing-gown floated with them. ‘You gave me this robe. You gave me a great many things in here.’ He pointed to his head. ‘And in here.’ His hand rested on his heart. ‘But you didn’t give me a name.’ He reached out to touch my face.
‘Well,’ I swallowed. ‘I suppose we should give you one then. I can’t call you “the guy” forever.’
‘Guy? Hmmm. I like that,’ he said. His thumb stroked my cheek, and I cringed as it landed on a pimple.
There was a loud knocking at the front door and I jumped, startled.
‘That’ll be my friend,’ I said. ‘Stay here. I’ll be right back.’
Libby burst in as I opened the door, her hair soaked from the rain and her eyes wide with worry.
‘Are you okay?!’ Her hands were on my face, and she was staring into my eyes. ‘You’re conscious at least. Should we go to the hospital?’ She didn’t say that last part to me. She was looking back over her shoulder – at her sister, who had just walked in behind her.
‘Melissa? What are you doing here?!’ I glanced down the hallway. The guy – Guy? – was still safely in my room. For now.
‘Libby said you have a concussion,’ Melissa said. She walked straight to the kitchen table and started pulling things out of her bag. ‘Here, sit down.’
My sister is a medical student, by the way. Almost a doctor! We should probably mention that.
I was just getting to it!
Right.
Libby’s sister is a medical student. Almost a doctor.
And for some reason Libby thought it was a brilliant idea to bring her around to my place at eleven thirty on a Friday night.
‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ Libby said. ‘I woke Melissa up because I thought you had a concussion and we came right over but –’
‘I’m really fine,’ I said in a rush. ‘You’re overreacting.’ I tried to send telepathic messages to Guy to stay hidden. Could he receive them?
And how was that a question I was seriously asking myself?
Maybe I had injured my brain.
‘Libby said you took quite a hit.’ Melissa grabbed my hand and pulled me gently towards the table. ‘You girls should have called me right away.’
‘We thought she was fine,’ Libby said, sitting down opposite me and chewing her lip.
‘I am fine,’ I said. ‘Really.’ I tried to gesture to Libby with my eyebrows that Guy was hiding in my room, but she didn’t seem to get the message.
‘You rang me babbling about a guy in your bed,’ Libby said. Yeah, she definitely hadn’t got the message. ‘I don’t think that’s fine.’
Melissa froze. ‘Wait, you’re having hallucinations?’
‘What? No!’ I said as Libby said, ‘Yes!’
‘We need to go to the hospital,’ Melissa said, shoving the things she had just pulled from her bag back into it.
‘Hospital?’ a deep voice said from the hallway, and it was my turn to freeze. ‘Kate, are you unwell?’
Guy rushed to my side, still wearing my fluffy pink dressing-gown. Max was at his heels, tongue hanging out like he was having as much fun as he did chasing his giant stuffed echidna around the backyard during fetch.
I took in the shocked faces of Libby and Melissa before Guy settled in front of me, his large, warm hands encircling my wrists.
‘Uh, would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?’ Melissa said, looking Guy up and down and then narrowing her eyes at me.
‘Yeah, me too,’ Libby said.
‘I told you, Libby,’ I said, looking at her pointedly. ‘On the phone. What happened. How he came to be . . . here.’
‘Libby?’ Guy said, suddenly looking up
at her. ‘Libby!’ A smile spread across his face and he side-stepped his way over to her, leaning forward as if to give her a hug. She lurched backwards, and the chair that she was sitting on tipped with her. There was a drawn-out moment where her limbs and Guy’s tangled together before they both ended up on the floor, the chair somehow on top of them . . . and one of Guy’s arse cheeks exposed.
In hindsight, it’s lucky that nothing else was exposed.
In hindsight, yes. It didn’t feel so lucky at the time, with your sister right there, staring at it all and demanding an explanation.
It didn’t feel so lucky for me either, with some strange guy on top of me.
‘Get off me!’ Libby cried, and Guy extricated himself immediately, holding out his hand to help her up, which she ignored.
‘Libby, can I speak to you in private?’ I said.
‘Nuh-uh, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,’ Melissa said.
‘You’re not the boss in this house,’ Libby said, dusting off her butt.
‘Watch your mouth,’ Melissa shot back.
‘Guy is – he’s a friend, okay?’ I broke in. ‘It’s a long story. But I’m not concussed or anything, this is all one big misunderstanding.’
‘You’re okay?’ Guy said, moving closer to me again.
‘I’m okay. I –’ Just then headlights flashed through the window and I heard the sound of my mum’s car pulling up in the driveway.
‘Shit,’ I muttered. My stomach felt like it had dropped somewhere in the vicinity of my toes. ‘Quick, you have to hide.’ I pushed Guy back towards my bedroom. ‘Under my bed. Just go under there and don’t come out until I say so, okay? Promise me.’
‘I’ll do anything for you,’ Guy said.
‘Wonderful. Just stay as quiet as possible, okay?’
‘Okay,’ he said happily. Max followed after him, wagging his tail, completely ignoring me when I tried to call him back. Oh well, that was the least of my problems right now.
I turned to Melissa. ‘Don’t say anything to Mum. Please. You can’t.’
I watched her hesitate, glancing between me and Libby.
‘I don’t really understand what’s going on, but I know it will be good for exactly none of us if any of our parents find out. Including you, Ate,’ Libby said to her sister.
When my mum walked in a moment later, Melissa was sitting next to me, calmly shining a little flashlight in my eyes.
‘What’s going on?!’ There was a note of panic in Mum’s voice. Crap. I should have known this would set her off. But at least this would set her off less than the alternative (that is, the presence of a half-naked boy in my bedroom).
‘I’m okay, Mum,’ I said.
‘Katie got hit in the head earlier today and she’s fine but I was just worried so I brought Melissa around to check on her,’ Libby explained.
‘What?!’ Mum was not sounding any less panicked.
‘It’s alright, Mrs Camilleri,’ Melissa said, putting her flashlight thingy away. ‘We’re just being extra cautious. Aren’t we, Katie?’
‘Exactly.’
‘At this time of night?’ Mum said, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She was next to me now, and her hand was on my head. ‘Where did you get hit? Why is your hair so wet?’
‘I had to get Max in from the rain,’ I said. ‘He was barking at the storm.’
‘Where is Max?’ Mum said, apparently noticing for the first time that he hadn’t rushed to greet her like normal.
‘I think he’s sleeping,’ I offered up weakly. ‘A big night of barking took it out of him.’
How did people lie all the time? This was exhausting.
Luckily my mum seemed more concerned with me than Max at that moment in time. ‘So is anyone going to tell me exactly what happened?’
‘The question of the hour,’ Melissa muttered.
‘We were walking home from school,’ Libby began, and as Melissa continued to examine me, Libby unloaded the whole sad soccer ball story, right down to me babbling about magpies to Declan Bell Jones. By the time she was done – at which point Melissa had declared that there didn’t seem to be any real concern about a concussion – everyone was laughing about what had happened. Even me, although it was more nervous laughter because I could practically feel Guy’s presence emanating from my bedroom. I hoped I was the only one.
‘Fancy a cuppa?’ Mum asked Melissa as she was packing up.
‘Nah, we’d better get home. Mum and Dad will be stressing. We rushed out of the house without much explanation. They’ll kill us if we don’t get back soon.’ She looked at me, and there was an extra layer of meaning as she said, ‘You behave yourself, okay?’
I knew we were going to have to deal with Melissa at some point, but my priority right now was actually communicating with Libby. As Mum walked Melissa out, Libby held back.
‘Should I really be leaving?’ she whispered to me.
‘No,’ I hissed back. ‘Yes. I don’t know.’
‘Who is that?’
‘I told you.’
‘No way.’
‘Yes way.’
‘It can’t be.’
‘It –’
‘Come on, Libby,’ Melissa called from the verandah.
Libby hesitated before sighing and following her sister outside. ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ she said, by which she meant, I’ll message you as soon as I’m in the privacy of my own room.
When Mum came back inside a moment later, I had a cup of tea ready and waiting for her. I needed as much good karma where she was concerned as I could possibly rack up.
‘Oh, thanks, kid,’ she said with a smile. ‘Aren’t you having one?’
‘I might go to bed,’ I said. ‘I’m wiped.’
‘Aw, come on, stay up and chat with your mum for a bit.’
An image of Guy sprawled under my bed flashed through my mind. A couple more minutes would be okay, right? Just to reassure Mum that everything was normal.
‘How was dinner?’ I asked, and she started telling me about her friend Ves’s latest relationship drama. Not that the Tinder troubles of a forty-something divorcee aren’t thrilling to me, but with every detail of the dude’s table manners Mum relayed, I could practically feel my blood pressure rising. I was painfully aware of how long this story could go on.
At the mention of the way he apparently used his thumb instead of his knife to push food onto his fork, I staged an elaborate and loud yawn which caused my mangled glasses to slip. I groaned as I tried to adjust the masking tape.
Mum laughed. ‘Good thing you’ve saved all that money.’
‘Huh?’
‘Those will need fixing.’ She sipped her tea.
‘I have to pay for them myself?!’ I’d started working at the chemist around the corner the year before, but this was not what I’d been saving for. Every spare cent was going towards a big trip to Europe Libby and I wanted to take when we turned eighteen. Fixing my glasses was not in the budget.
‘That’ll teach you to keep your head away from soccer balls,’ Mum said.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I grumbled.
‘Make sure you dry that hair first,’ Mum ordered when I leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.
Ordinarily I would have ignored her, but as I walked towards my bedroom I realised turning on the hair dryer would actually provide the perfect cover for me to talk to Guy without Mum hearing (it’s a small house, and the walls aren’t exactly thick) (yes, I have heard my parents doing it) (no, I don’t ever want to talk about it).
‘Are you okay under there?’ Hair dryer roaring in my hand, I crouched down and glanced under the bed.
‘I’m just fine,’ Guy said. He was folded up in a tight ball but still took up the majority of the floor space. He did not look fine. Max was on his back beside him, only half-hidden by the bed.
‘Can you stay there for a while longer?’ I said over the hair dryer white noise. ‘I can’t risk my mum seeing you. Sorry.’<
br />
‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ Guy said, and something about the way he said it made my skin prickle.
I blasted my hair for a few minutes, trying to breathe deeply to calm the tension and nerves that were zinging around my body. My curls had just about reached their peak frizziness, but I didn’t have the brain space to care about that (much) right now. I shoved my mostly dry hair into a topknot, turned the light off and slid under the covers, listening intently for the sounds of my mum moving around the kitchen. I felt like I was barely breathing.
My phone flashed. It was a message from Libby. The twelfth message from Libby, actually. She’d been having a mini meltdown, it seemed. I could relate. The last message read:
Libby
This is definitely not a joke, right?
I replied:
Me
Definitely not. Where would I have pulled a guy like THAT from, anyway?
Thin air is the only possibility
I know it’s ridiculous
I don’t know how it happened
But we really, actually created a boy
I watched as three dots appeared, disappeared and reappeared multiple times before Libby finally sent a string of emojis, followed by:
Libby
How is this possible????
Me
You’re the scientist, you tell me
Libby
. . .
. . .
. . .
Folie à deux.
Me
Bless you
Libby
Folie à deux. It’s when two or more people share hallucinations. Delusions.
Like that family in Victoria a few years ago who spontaneously went on the run.
Me
You think we’re hallucinating?
Libby
It’s the only explanation.
Me
But what about Melissa? And Theo???
Libby
Theo???
Me
He saw Guy earlier
Libby
Guy???
Me
Oh that’s what I’ve started calling him
Guy
Libby
Guy is not a real person’s name.
Me
It’s totally a real person’s name. Hello, Guy of Gisborne?
Libby
Who of who?
Me
You Were Made For Me Page 4
