Toxic

by Nicci Cloke

  We’ve got to show him.

  And when we got off the boat, we saw him drift away from his mates, into an alley beside one of the hotels. I remembered the lights from the dock flashing as we ran, the shadows blurring. The sound of that guy pissing against the bricks.

  The way Zack’s fist sounded, crashing into his nose.

  The blood looked black as it streamed down his face.

  I didn’t try and stop him. And when the guy got over his shock, when he righted himself and hit Zack back, I didn’t do anything then either. When Zack went down, when the guy started kicking him in the ribs, when Zack yelled, ‘Logan’ –

  Yeah, I did something then.

  I let my fist hit the guy’s face, his stomach, his jaw. I’d winded him and he fell to the ground – I remembered the sound of that too. It had echoed in my ears ever since.

  It got blurry again then, things spinning. My breath hard in my chest as I leaned against the wall. Zack leaning over the guy, driving his foot into his ribs, over and over. The guy lying there, not moving.

  Zack telling me to run. The beach flying past and the blood pounding in my ears.

  The guy lying there, not moving.

  Lying there in some alley while one of my best friends was passed out by herself on a beach.

  Do you hate me yet?

  MY PHONE RANG again, and I almost pushed it off the edge of the bed without looking at it. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone right then. But the name on the screen caught my eye: Daisy.

  Shit, Daisy.

  I fumbled the phone as I tried to answer it, rushing it to my ear.

  ‘Hi!’

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to pick up,’ she said. Her voice was quiet. ‘I thought you were still upset with me.’

  ‘No, Dais, I –’ I trailed off. I didn’t know how to say that the argument we’d had by text when I was away was ridiculous and petty and I didn’t care about it, not any more. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I overreacted.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said, sounding relieved. ‘Did you have a good time?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The last thing I wanted was for Daisy to know about anything that happened in Malia. I didn’t want to think about any of it ever again. ‘What about you? How’s your week been?’

  ‘Pretty boring without you,’ she said. I could hear her duvet rustling as she turned over in bed. I knew exactly what she’d been doing, I could picture her so clearly. Curled up in Hogwarts pyjamas, her laptop on the little weird granny tray she had for it – you know, the kind that has like a beanbag underneath it, and is designed for eating dinner in front of the telly. It even had this country-cottage painting on it, and the beanbag bit was covered with a gingham fabric. She got it from a charity shop, I think – half her room was full of weird old antiques and ornaments and jewellery she picked up from charity shops and car boot sales. She’d be watching horror films on Netflix or maybe writing – potentially both.

  ‘How’s the next chapter going?’ I asked.

  ‘Umm.’ I heard her closing the lid of her laptop. ‘It’s OK. I don’t know though.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I guess I just don’t want to disappoint people. It was easier when I was the only one who could see it – now I feel like people might not like what happens or they might get bored.’

  Just before we’d left for Malia, Daisy had casually mentioned to me that she was writing a novel and that she’d started posting chapters of it online. I was blown away, but then that was always the case with Daisy – we’d been together for six months and still I was finding out all these amazing things she thought and did and never really shouted about.

  ‘Babe, I’m sure they won’t. They like what you wrote so far, right?’ It was hard for me to be too reassuring, because Daisy still hadn’t actually told me much about the novel at all, or even the pseudonym she posted under. I was trying not to let it bother me, trying to understand – if she said she wasn’t ready for me to see it yet, that was OK. It had to be.

  ‘I guess so,’ Daisy said. ‘Anyway. Tell me more about your holiday.’

  I had a sudden image of Hope appearing in the doorway. You left me. Of some guy whose name I didn’t even know lying in an alleyway in the dark.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Just a lot of beer and beach really. Actually not that much beach – two of the days we got up too late to get a sun-lounger so we just ended up at our pool.’

  ‘Wild.’ I could imagine her rolling onto her stomach as she said it. ‘Did Hope have a good time?’

  There was no edge to the way she said it. Daisy didn’t get jealous. She actually, genuinely wanted to know that Hope had a good time, and that made me feel like someone was twisting a knife in my guts. ‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said, and I could hear how fake my own voice sounded. ‘Probably got a bit bored of being with us lot by the end.’

  She laughed. ‘Yeah, probably. She’s only human. So, you want to do something tomorrow? You could come round, if you want? Everyone’ll be out all day.’

  Despite everything, the thought of being alone with her made something in me stir. ‘That sounds good,’ I said. ‘I can bring some stuff for lunch, if you like.’

  ‘OK. That sounds nice.’ She yawned. ‘I’m gonna go. I want to upload this before I go to sleep.’

  ‘OK, babe. Sleep well.’

  ‘You too.’

  After we hung up, I turned off my light. I tried to hold on to the thought of Daisy and her laptop on its tray, and to forget all about Greece.

  It worked, for a while. I fell asleep.

  I SLEPT LATE the next day and only woke up because my phone had buzzed its way across the pillow until it was nudging my head with each notification. I’d dreamt all night of Greek police turning up at the front door, of Mum having to watch as I was dragged out in handcuffs. Of a prison cell, relentlessly hot, where no one could understand me. My eyes felt swollen and it took me a while to focus on my phone screen.

  It was Zack, but it wasn’t the message I’d been scared of. No police reports surfacing online, no Facebook messages from friends of the guy we’d beaten up who’d somehow tracked us down.

  This was just a message to the boys’ WhatsApp group. The group’s name, chosen by Zack, was, for some reason Smash The Slut. It had seemed funny at the time – Zack liked making big over-the-top Keith-Lemon-style sex jokes sometimes, obviously messing around – although it was awkward if anyone else saw the notifications appear on your lock-screen. But that day, then, it made me feel sick. The icon got changed by all of us all of the time – an embarrassing photo of one of the others, or something stupid and cheesy, like Arnie as Rambo or the old Bad Boys film poster or whatever. Zack had changed it last, to a picture of some girl in the club in town. She was dancing with her hands up in the air, eyes closed, and her top had slipped down a bit so that you could see the edge of a nipple.

  The conversation was just about some transfer rumour in the Premier League, which had devolved into Zack and Nate hurling insults at each other about how shit their respective teams were. I clicked out of it and lay there, looking at my other messages. One from Daisy:

  Night xxx.

  And one from Zack, a private message just between the two of us.

  Really good holiday pal. Sorry it got fuked up a bit at the end. x

  I sighed, looking at it. I knew he didn’t always mean to act the way he did. He did care about us all – he’d been around when Hope and me broke up, and when Dev and Mollie did. He just … Well, he got out of control sometimes.

  Stop blaming him, the little voice in my head said. He didn’t make you do anything. You hit that guy all by yourself.

  I tried to push the thought away. It wasn’t exactly like the guy was innocent after all. It wasn’t like we’d killed him. Maybe he needed someone to stand up to him.

  I opened the group conversation again and scrolled up. JB hadn’t written anything since we got back, and Dev was being pretty quiet too. This thing between
us all, whatever it was, wasn’t going away any time soon, no matter how much Zack wanted it to.

  I opened a message to Hope and stared for a while at the blinking cursor. I didn’t know what to say – Sorry again that we left you? Or, Did something happen that you’re not telling me? Somehow I just couldn’t put the bad feeling I had into words – Hope and the guy in the vest and something I couldn’t figure out had got all blurred together in my head and I felt guilty without really knowing how to make it OK again. I started typing – Hey, Hope, how’s it going? – but I sighed and deleted it straight away.

  Was it even a good idea for me to be the person checking in with her anyway? Things had already been weird between us after that night outside the club, when she’d leaned in …

  I pushed that thought away too, because it made my stomach churn. I felt terrible about the way I’d reacted, like it hadn’t been exactly what I was thinking too – but I’d panicked. Daisy had popped into my head, as if I’d forgotten all along that she existed, and the shock of it had made me pull back from Hope like she was disgusting.

  Except it was me who was disgusting.

  I scrolled up through my old messages with her, through the casual, friendly stuff of the last couple of months:

  All packed?

  haha nah course not

  I’m sooooo excited!

  See u at the airport!

  and up into the weirder, formal awkwardness of the weeks after we broke up.

  can u bring my jumper to school tomo

  yeh sure

  i don’t want this to be weird for either of us

  me neither but I just need space for a bit

  I stopped before I got to the couple stuff. No matter what had happened in Malia, I didn’t feel that way about Hope any more. We worked better as friends, we both knew that. It was just hard – when you’re used to being with someone like that, it takes a while to reset, to remember you’re not supposed to be kissing or holding hands or thinking that way. I guess being away had just made us both forget.

  I went back down to the message box and typed, trying not to think too hard about it.

  hey, hope u slept well. just wanted to say again so sorry about the boat night. we were shit friends. hope you’re ok x

  It was lame but it was better than nothing. It made the anxious feeling in my stomach fade a bit at least.

  I got up and showered. It felt incredible to be in a clean bathroom again, one that was filled with Mum’s flowery, fruity soap and body-wash and shampoo instead of hair and sand and crud from the strip.

  We’d moved to the flat three years ago, after Mum and my stepdad, Leon, split up. It wasn’t a bad flat, and it wasn’t a bad split – they just drifted apart, and we needed somewhere small that Mum could afford on her own. I remembered the day we’d moved in, when Leon drove us here with all our boxes and we sat around in the empty living room eating Chinese takeaway out of tubs. ‘You’re the man of the house, now, Logan,’ Leon had said. ‘Got to look after your mum.’

  Not that she’d ever needed anyone to look after her – she worked all day behind the desk in a bank and then she spent most of her evenings volunteering at the old people’s home on the other side of town, and still managed to have dinner with me most nights and hang out with her friends.

  But still, I thought about him saying that a lot. I always felt like I should be doing more. Now it was summer, I needed to get a job, something to add to the kitty. Something that meant I could be the one who brought home a takeaway on Friday nights or who bought Mum her favourite box sets or took her out for Sunday lunch or whatever. Something that meant I was bringing money in and wasn’t a kid any more.

  OK, so, a job. That felt like a plan, something to focus on, and I felt better, cleaner. There’d been this scummy sort of layer hanging round my head, it felt like – like this weird weight I couldn’t shake off. I put it down to an extended hangover after four nights of hard drinking and promised myself I’d have at least a couple of days of eating every vegetable I could get my hands on.

  I got out of the shower and dried myself. Mum had already left for work, so once I was dressed I went to the kitchen to make myself something to eat before I went to meet Daisy. I sat at the narrow little breakfast bar beside the cooker and ate a bowl of cornflakes while looking at my phone again. Still no messages from Dev or JB in the group chat, and no reply from Hope either. She had her profile set so you didn’t get the double blue tick when she’d read a message either, so I had no idea if she was still asleep or just ignoring me.

  A notification appeared at the top of my screen – a new Facebook friend request from Lucy Terry. I opened it and checked the photo: yep, Malia Lucy. Her picture was her and Rachel by the pool in our hotel, both of them wearing those heart-shaped sunglasses and making peace signs at the camera. I accepted the request because why not, and carried on with my breakfast.

  A message came through a couple of minutes later.

  Hey Logan, thanks for the add! Great to meet u guys, hope u got back ok? xx

  I slurped the last of the milk from my bowl and typed a quick reply.

  Hey! Great to meet you too. Yeah we got back all right, all feelin pretty pants tho :) You guys flew today right? Have a good last night?

  I clicked back to my home screen and saw a new notification on WhatsApp. Zack had sent some pictures to the group – some of us by the pool, one of all of us on the beach at the island. What a holiday, he’d written underneath. No one had replied yet, and I started to feel a bit sorry for him. He was just trying to make things all right again, to remind us how much fun we’d all had before that stupid boat-party night.

  I couldn’t think about that again. It made me want to smash my head against something hard, over and over.

  I took my bowl to the sink and then left. Maybe I’d upload some of my photos later. But for now I was just going to concentrate on Daisy and what she’d like best for lunch. That was something I could get right.

  DAISY ANSWERED THE door in leggings and an ancient Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt and the biggest smile I’d ever seen. I leaned in to kiss her and as her hands met behind my head, I wished I could just stay like that forever.

  But she pulled away and so instead I held up the paper bags from her favourite fancy deli. ‘I bought cheese and the good bread.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said, and she pulled me inside and closed the door on the rest of the world.

  Later, we were lying on Daisy’s bed, watching Jessica Jones. Daisy was big on tech and she had a projector screen you could pull down from the ceiling. It covered a whole wall of her room and it was hooked up to her laptop, and she pretty much always had it on, even if she was doing something else – she’d just mute the sound. It was awesome, especially because it pulled down right in between the tall, old-fashioned lamp she’d found at some antiques fair in the town hall and the random hat stand she’d found online. Each of its brass prongs was shaped like an antler, and because Daisy didn’t have all that many hats, on the spare ones she’d hung necklaces, scarves, old festival wristbands, a couple of Christmas decorations and a pocket watch her granddad had given her.

  ‘OK, so what kind of thing do you want?’ Daisy asked. She’d flopped onto her stomach in front of the laptop, and while Jessica Jones was still playing on the wall she had Google open in front of her. ‘Do you want something that’s, like, CV-useful or just money in the bank?’

  ‘Erm … both?’

  She turned and rolled her eyes at me before reaching out to dip another bit of bread in the gooey goat’s cheese she liked best. ‘Yeah, well, the overlap in that Venn diagram is pretty small, so, you know, manage your expectations.’

  ‘I don’t know, anything I guess,’ I said, picking up one of the cushions from behind my head and fiddling with the zip on it. It was an embroidered Marauder’s Map and ideal distraction material.

  It wasn’t exactly like I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do something in an office – som
ething big, like law or business. I wanted to be impressive, I didn’t want to ever worry about money. You’re the man of the house now. But I hadn’t thought much past that. I didn’t really know what working in business actually meant, despite all the careers leaflets we were handed at school, or how to find out. My uncle had started his own software company in Manchester and made a success of it, but I didn’t think I’d be much good at that. I hadn’t taken law at AS because I’d heard that universities didn’t like that if you were going to do a law degree, but it still felt like a big gamble – what if I was terrible at it and didn’t find out until I’d got into uni and started my course?

  ‘So, office temping, maybe?’ Daisy said. ‘Office experience is always good, my mum says.’

  ‘Yeah, makes sense.’

  ‘Right, well, there’s a recruitment agency in town that’s looking for temps. They say they’ve got positions here and in Longhampton. Also in London, but it’d cost you so much to get the train every day it’d be totally pointless, right?’

  ‘Yeah, don’t fancy that.’

  ‘OK, well, I’ll send you the link to upload your CV – think you have to do a typing test online and stuff.’

  ‘All right, thanks, babe.’

  ‘Let’s see what else there is … Hmm, that sandwich bar downtown is hiring.’

  ‘Munchies?’

  ‘Yup.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Not exactly CV stuff, is it?’

  She laughed. ‘Yeah, course it is! Cash-handling, customer service, blah blah. Plus it’s above minimum wage.’

  ‘Hmm, OK …’ I said, not that convinced. Munchies was a bit of a dive, to be honest. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d had in mind. But it was money and that was the real point of this, right? ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Send me the link.’

  Daisy clicked decisively a couple of times. ‘Done. Oh, there’s also a bar job going at the Nelson’s Head.’