Under Rose-Tainted Skies

by Louise Gornall

  My cell goes dead and I am plunged into silence. It’s so quiet, I can’t hear anything, like when you’re submerged in the sea.

  I’m not all right. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself I am; I’m not. My common-sense droid has put up an amazing fight, but he is defeated, lying in pieces on the arena floor.

  I’m shutting down. My mouth is numb. A black frost creeps in around the edges of my vision.

  Moss has started to cover my skin by the time this panic attack is spent.

  I have to get up.

  I’m sticky and there’s this residual tremor jit-jit-jitter-bugging its way through my muscles, but it’s time to stand and retake control of my limbs. I need a soundtrack, some droll overture played on the world’s smallest violin, as I pull myself up and force my knocking knees to take the weight. It’s like finding your strength after an intense bout of flu. I wobble across my bedroom, clinging to everything I pass, trying to make it to the kitchen because it’s a couple of degrees cooler in there and/or, at the very least, I can climb inside the gargantuan fridge and ice myself off.

  Except when I make it to the kitchen, there is no air and I still feel like I’m being crammed into a closet. So I keep going, forcing my legs forward until I reach the front door.

  The two locks that I rely on to keep me safe turn into twenty as I scramble to lift latches, turn keys, slide bolts. There’s so much clicking. Click-click-clicking. I want to scratch away my scalp.

  At last there’s a pop, and I pull the door open. The air hits me like cold water, and my whole body sighs a sigh that I’m pretty sure can be heard on the other side of town. Tension falls off me, the same way it does when you climb into a hot bath after a hard day.

  It’s never made sense to me, how I can crave fresh air and be so afraid of it simultaneously. Dr Reeves tells me it’s not supposed to make sense. She says a study at her former hospital revealed more people were afraid of public speaking than of dying. Imagine that. A bunch of well-educated folk believing that talking out loud for ten minutes is more frightening than falling asleep for ever. The brain is basically an evil dictator.

  ‘Morning.’

  I’m so deep in thought, I don’t see him. My bones leap from my body and I brace, shoulders rising, back arching like a spooked cat’s, a heartbeat away from hissing. New Boy is strolling down his driveway with a backpack slung over his shoulder.

  Goddamn it. Why is he always outside? We never saw the former residents of number twenty-six. Mom would often tease that they were vampires. Of course, then my mind got screwy and her living-dead joke stopped being funny. But New Boy Next Door, Luke, is like an unwanted relative, always showing up at the most inopportune times. I miss the days when I could have a panic attack in peace. Then he smiles at me and I forget why I am frustrated. His smile makes the summer seem insignificant. I can’t stop staring.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘It’s going okay.’ My voice is small, barely there. He’d be forgiven for thinking I had a sore throat.

  ‘You heading to school?’

  I nod. A lie. It’s automatic, a defensive thing born from years of saying no and then fumbling around for an excuse as to why.

  ‘Where do you go?’

  Ah. This could get complicated. The problem with lies is they like to hang around in packs.

  The countdown clock from some cheesy game show starts ticktock-ticktocking in my ears. There are two schools in our district, Cardinal North at one end of town and Fairfield South at the other. We’re slap bang in the middle. He could go to either.

  ‘Cardinal,’ I say, my hands balling into fists. I actually was a student there for a few weeks and they did say I could go back whenever I was ready, so that’s not totally a lie. Plus, Fairfield is some big deal in high school football and he was wearing that ring.

  ‘Sweet. It’ll be good to see a face I recognize around the halls.’

  Crap.

  ‘You need a ride?’ A waterfall of gold sun is raining down on him and obscuring his features.

  ‘I’mnotgoingintoday.’ Conversation has never sounded so much like machine-gun fire. I choke out a fake cough, take a deep breath, and throw myself on the mercy of syllables. ‘Sick day.’ Cough-cough-cough.

  ‘I’m sorry. That sucks.’

  ‘It’s just a cold.’ I wave a nonchalant hand. ‘I’ll live.’

  He opens the passenger door of a shiny black pickup truck and slings his bag in the front seat. I glance over my shoulder, ponder if this is my cue to go inside because we’re done talking, but when I look back, he’s walked up to the hedge that separates our houses.

  ‘So what say you, Neighbour? Are they going to eat me alive over there?’ He’s smiling, but my Spidey senses tingle. I think there’s some real concern in his question.

  He’s wearing a Transformers T-shirt and the same ripped jeans he had on yesterday. The ring is gone, and a black, braided cord is wrapped around his wrist.

  I think maybe the girls will write poetry about him, tattoo his name on the backs of their hands in ink and circle it with red hearts. At least, that’s what I would do. I don’t know about the guys. I haven’t really been around any since testosterone commandeered their spindly bodies and moulded them into men. TV would have me believe that the new kid always gets his ass kicked on the first day, and how he deals with that determines the rest of his school life. Or is that what’s supposed to happen on your first day in prison?

  I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.

  ‘Hmm.’ He strokes his chin. ‘A prolonged silence. That can’t be good.’

  Sarcastic slow clap. Good job, Norah. Way to make a new friend feel secure. Well, not friend, exactly. At least, not yet. I wonder if he thinks we are. Probably not after this. Unless . . .

  I’m doing it again.

  ‘No. Not at all,’ I argue, hopefully before he’s concluded I’m ignorant. I should explain that overthinking is how I function. But of course I don’t, because I want him to think I’m normal for as long as possible. Instead, I pretend that saying no is enough. ‘Everyone is really nice. And your Transformers T-shirt is very cool.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he says, squinting at me.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Fashion advice from a girl who wears a giant teddy bear sweater to go grocery-fishing on her front porch.’

  Pins and needles. Red-hot. All over my body. I twist my fingers into knots, can feel the steep decline of a shame spiral tugging at my ankles.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Wait. Norah. That was supposed to be a joke,’ I hear him say as I slam the front door shut.

  I’m dissolving. I feel like I’ve been scrutinized, judged. Like I was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan I’m Odd written all over it. Worse than that, I feel like I said the wrong thing. This is why my Hub page goes weeks without an update, because I’m awkward, and awkward people always say the wrong stuff. I have this thing about looking stupid, which, only after I’ve hidden back in my house, I realize I might have just exacerbated.

  Resting my forehead against the door, I stare at my curled toes, wishing I were normal, when a folded piece of paper pokes its way through the mail slot and flitters to the floor. I push my ear against the wood, listening for sounds outside, but I don’t hear anything.

  I crouch down, stare at the paper for a long time, like maybe it’s an animal lying in the road and I’m trying to decide if it’s dead. No envelope. Just a single yellow leaf folded into a square. I reach out, don’t pick it up, but peel it apart with the very tips of my fingers, right there on the floor.

  Neighbour,

  I heard you were good at jokes. Maybe you could teach me how sometime?

  Luke

  PS: Do you like the Transformers movies?

  PPS: My favourite is the first.

  Hang on a second.

  The sound of overworked cogs is crunching in my ears. You see, for the last sixty seconds, I’ve been breaking out in goosebumps, shri
nking inside myself, convinced that he’d be laughing at me and prefixing my name with words like crazy.

  I fall back on my butt, smack my spine against the radiator, but the pain doesn’t register because I’m too busy wondering why he’s reaching out instead of building barriers between us. And, because crazy isn’t totally inaccurate, I’m admiring his penmanship. He writes in really straight lines, even though the paper is plain, and all his letters are the same size.

  For the rest of the day I do the usual: build things out of various foods, watch television, read, line up the slightly out-of-sync corners of my DVD collection. I learn how to order a sandwich in French. Just. The whole time I’m doing stuff, my head is foggy, distracted by something I can’t put my finger on. It’s like that feeling of forgetting something you know you were supposed to be doing. I consider an internet search of my symptoms, but the brain tumour diagnosis of last spring is still fresh in my mind, so I decide against it. If it bleeds or makes you feel dizzy, the internet will tell you it’s cancer.

  It’s hormones.

  Hormones have me in a chokehold. I know this because when I finally sit down and turn on my laptop, I don’t research medical journals or even check my social media. Instead, I google kissing.

  At first it’s a cute thing. I watch black-and-white filtered videos of cuddling couples hugging and rubbing noses in striped sweaters against fall backdrops. They hold each other tight, mashing their mouths together like the world is about to end. It makes my heart hurt.

  I’ve never kissed a boy before.

  I grab the sanitizer from my bag and smother my hands, just so I can touch my fingers to my lips while I watch.

  I’ve never wanted to kiss a boy before.

  Kissing wasn’t a thing when I was thirteen. We hadn’t got there yet. We were too busy battling Pokémon and reading Harry Potter. And, well, I got sick right before the want-to-kiss thing kicked in. Now, the thought of someone touching me, with hands I can’t be sure have been washed, is as terrifying a prospect as a plane crash. I’m not sure of statistics, but I’m pretty certain there’s only a small portion of people in the world who will ever be able to understand what that feels like.

  I lick my lips, rest my chin in my hands, and without so much as a flicker of the heebie-jeebies, I’m wondering if Luke holds hips or butt when he’s making out.

  I settle on butt, think maybe if you have pockets on the back of your jeans, he’ll slide his hands in there.

  Alas, three videos later and I’m struggling to maintain. I’ve stopped sighing wistfully and dreaming up ‘Dear Diary’ moments as the romanticism dies a slow, agonizing death at the hands of my OCD.

  The thing is, this one guy licks the tip of his girlfriend’s nose. Her nose. That thing on your face that snot seeps out of. Snot: that mucus shit that is basically a fishing net for bacteria. Does nobody even do science any more? My lunch turns cartwheels in my stomach as I watch him shove his tongue in her mouth and they continue trying to devour each other.

  All I can hear now, in stereophonic sound, is the slurping, squelching, and popping noise of spit being swapped.

  My fingers hit the keyboard and I start researching like a scientist on speed. Suddenly the only thing I want to know about kissing is how much bacteria there is in saliva.

  I pull up pictures of petri dishes under microscopes. Discover microscopic buds of fuzzy pink stuff living under your tongue, and civilizations of invisible white stringy things snaking around your tonsils.

  My hands get hot, and my palms collect a lake.

  I fidget, can’t sit still as I read about the millions of microbes and invisible-to-the-naked-eye beasties that might be hanging out in a person’s mouth at any one time.

  Nope. No way. Game over.

  I slam the lid of my laptop shut.

  I’ll just have to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never kiss anyone. Ever.

  It’s five o’clock, and I’m reaching into the fridge for a block of cheese when there’s a knock at the door.

  Stealth mode engaged, I abandon making what would have been the world’s most perfect sandwich and creep up the hall, eyeing the door like whoever is on the other side is going to burst right through it.

  We have a staredown then, the door and I. It’s pretty intense, just short of an evil sheriff hiding in the shadows, chewing on a matchstick.

  Another knock.

  Without moving my eyes, I pump a blob of antibacterial gel into my hands and rub it away. Because I’m sure the only thing on any home invader’s mind, after being polite enough to knock first, is a sanitary victim. I roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out of my skull.

  ‘Norah. It’s Dr Reeves.’

  My shoulders fall down from around my ears and I exhale. ‘Just a second.’ I sprint over and unbolt the door.

  Dr Reeves stands on the porch wearing a perfectly tailored tweed pantsuit despite the blistering temperature.

  ‘How are you doing?’ she says, smiling at me like I’m a box of abandoned kittens. It takes every ounce of restraint for me not to throw my arms around her neck and wail like a child.

  ‘I’m good.’ My head is nodding too hard, but I can’t make it stop. ‘Really good. Great, in fact.’

  Her eyes narrow. My lies are made of glass and she sees right through them.

  ‘I mean, at first I was a bit . . .’ I twirl my finger around my temple and make cuckoo noises, keeping it light because I’m eternally embarrassed by my breakdowns. ‘But I’m feeling much better now. Can I get you something to drink?’ I say, traipsing back up the hall, forcing her to step inside and follow me.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ she says, and it’s a balloon bursting behind me, or nails being dragged down a chalkboard. My teeth tighten and I wince. It’s unfair of me to expect her to want to be here after hours. She has a family to get home to. We never really talk about her personal life, but I did discover that she has a son in middle school. Still, I wish she would stick around. Not even to talk, just to kind of sit in a chair doing puzzles in her pyjamas, like Mom. This house is too quiet. I swear it feeds off silence. When I’m alone, it always seems bigger.

  ‘But,’ she adds, ‘I am just on the other end of the phone. Do you still have that number I gave you?’

  I don’t spit out the not-much-point-if-you-don’t-pick-up comment that’s trying to claw its way across my tongue. Being a bitch is something that often happens when I’m forced to endure things I’m afraid of. It’s my least favourite stage of anxiety. The first time Mom tried to get me out of the house I told her I hated her. Ugh.

  ‘You sure I can’t get you a drink?’

  ‘Norah.’

  I’m not listening. I head over to the fridge and pull open the door.

  ‘We’ve got some Pepsi? SunnyD? Or I can make coffee.’ I point to the little silver machine on the kitchen counter. A fine layer of dust dulls its chrome finish. I think it’s been used twice in the four years we’ve had it. Mom likes herbal tea.

  ‘Norah. I can’t stay.’ She throws that sympathetic smile my way again. ‘But, listen, I have Wednesday morning free—’

  ‘Wednesday?’ Wednesday is almost two days away. There is a whole Tuesday to consider.

  ‘I would call tomorrow, but I have patients all day. I could perhaps have a colleague of mine—’

  ‘No!’ I yell. It comes out with the velocity and surprise of a sneeze. ‘I mean, no, thank you.’ It wasn’t my intention to snap, but if it’s not someone I know, I won’t open the door anyway. ‘Did Mom tell you when she was coming home?’ Paranoia has joined the party. It’s not that I think Mom lied to me, but she might have buffered the truth if she thought she was protecting me. I hate that my mind insists on questioning my own mother.

  ‘She said it could be a couple of days, maybe a week. Did she not tell you that herself?’ Busted. This woman is to mental illness what Sherlock Holmes was to mind-bending murder.

  ‘She did. I just . . . I couldn’t remember exactly what s
he said.’ I feel dirty.

  ‘Norah, she isn’t keeping anything from you. She told me she wouldn’t do that.’

  I bite my lip to keep it from curling under. ‘I just wish she were home.’

  ‘Of course. That’s normal. Anyone would feel that way.’

  I nod. Our conversation has run dry. Dr Reeves’s eyes flit around aimlessly, land on the note from the boy next door for a second before finding me again.

  I’m not making this easy for her. Mental slap. I look away, focus instead on the contents of the fridge.

  ‘So, I can still call you on that number you gave me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even if it’s the middle of the night?’ I turn the carton of orange juice in the fridge so the label is centred, facing out.

  ‘Any time. I mean it.’

  ‘Thank you. And thank you for stopping by. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘Coffee date? First thing Wednesday morning?’ she says as I walk her back to the door.

  ‘I mean, I’ll have to check my schedule, but I’m sure I’ll be able to fit you in,’ I tease. She quirks a sceptical eyebrow, and, with a smile, she leaves.

  It starts to get dark sometime around seven and I switch all the lights on in the house. From the outside, I imagine it looks like I’m storing the sun in here. The Trips, a New Age kind of couple who live across the street, will be shoving more of their ‘Save the Environment’ leaflets through our door tomorrow morning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m deeply concerned about my carbon footprint, but I’ve watched enough horror movies to know that when I’m home alone, I’m ninety-eight per cent less likely to die if the lights are on.

  Mom calls just before eight, and we stay on the phone for over an hour. She keeps asking me if I’ve eaten properly, then starts encouraging me to try the anti-anxiety meds I’ve had in a drawer for six months.