Mine

by S. A Partridge

  “You mean, she …?”

  “Yes. She did. With all of them. Well, three of them, but still. And Loki waltzed over to tell Odin, knowing the All Father was going to go ballistic.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Yeah, and Odin got so mad with jealousy. As punishment he cursed Freyja to show her true colours for all time – her ugly side, as well as her beauty. No one really looked at her the same way again. So really, the moral of the story is that the people who hurt you will get their own back eventually. No one gets away with what they do to other people. Sometimes it just takes a little push to make sure that happens.”

  Kayla

  RONDEBOSCH, WEDNESDAY

  They’re waiting for me outside the Music building. The whole gang. Before I can do anything, I’m surrounded, and they’re leading me away from the safety of the Music building towards the trees.

  The most athletic of them, Lunique, pushes me. “You slut. Do you think you can get away with sleeping with so many guys?”

  “Ew, don’t touch her, she probably has Aids.”

  I glare at Lucinda, and clutch my bag tightly.

  Someone pulls at my hair. It’s Samantha, her face twisted into a grimace.

  I spin around. “Leave me alone. I didn’t do anything.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” they mimic in sing-song voices.

  Lucinda steps forward. “Everyone knows you fucked Sebastian, Kayla. He feels super-bad about it, like he has to go get tested or something. How could you do that?”

  “I don’t have Aids, Jesus. And he came on to me. Why aren’t you wailing at him for being a fuckboy?”

  “Don’t you dare use the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “God, just leave me alone. What is wrong with you people?”

  I push past them and feel a heavy thud at the back of my skull – someone has thrown a stone at my head.

  “The Bible called. It wants its references back,” I shout. But it hurts, what they’ve said. Tears well up in my eyes.

  In class, no one looks at me. My heart sits in my throat.

  I run out when the bell rings before they can attempt round two. But the insidious rumour is already starting to creep across the school. In English, the other students scrape their chairs further away from me. Craig keeps sending me nervous glances.

  I wear the shame on my cheeks all day.

  But I deserve this for thinking I could be like them.

  I SLAM MY bedroom door and yank open my diary. My pen works automatically, like my fingers are possessed.

  Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin. Fin.

  Fin visits me between practices every day for the rest of the week. I already feel like I’ve known him forever, but that doesn’t stop the wriggling in my stomach every time I see him, or the sense of impending doom.

  Finlay

  LANSDOWNE, SATURDAY

  The old man’s awake. Weird for a Saturday morning. I hear him swearing in the kitchen and crashing around. Then it hits me: He’s probably just come home and he’s still drunk. I close my eyes and groan – if there’s one thing I can’t deal with, it’s the old man’s brandy rage. That stuff does something to his brain.

  I pick up my phone and look at pictures of Kayla. Jesus, she’s beautiful. I love how she looks at me with those crazy brown eyes of hers. I stroke the phone with my thumb. I can’t believe it’s been a week already since I asked her out. And she said yes. My girl. All mine.

  I’m about to message her when my door bashes open and the old man hauls me up by the collar of my T-shirt and backhands me so hard it knocks the breath out of me.

  “Why are you still here?” he shouts. “Huh? Why don’t you have a job, you bum?” His breath smells like stale spirits. He smacks me again and again.

  I lash out, which is exactly what he’s waiting for. His fist crashes into my ribs and I curl up, defeated. That’s all he wanted.

  “Get a bloody job. You waste all your time on this stupid music.” On his way out he kicks his boot through one of my speakers, wrecking it. I bought it at Cash Crusaders with gig money I saved up. Serves me right for not leaving it at Brendan’s place.

  I sink back onto my bed and wait for the throb to die down. When I lift up my arm to retrieve my phone, a jolt of pain shoots up my side. Safer not to move. I think of Kayla. Her lips. Her smile. My beautiful, broken girl. She could never be as broken as me.

  I promised I would go with her to work today, so I force myself to get up and go shower, letting the hot water massage out the kinks. Afterwards, I study myself in the mirror. The bruises on my face were just starting to fade. I lift my arm to survey the damage to my ribs, revealing the tattoo of Mjölnir, Thor’s hammer. He missed it by a centimetre.

  I light up a spliff in the bathroom and let the steam and smoke work their magic. By the time I’m dressed, I no longer feel like I’ve just got the snot beaten out of me. He’s asleep on the couch, about to fall off the edge. I leave him, but turn up the volume on the TV to full.

  Give him something to wake up to.

  SHE’S WAITING FOR me at the corner of her street, leaning on her back foot and looking around nervously.

  It’s so obvious her folks don’t like me. Even though I don’t mean her any harm. They don’t ever greet me. Jerome looks at me like I’m the lowest life form on the planet. I suspect it has more to do with Kayla than with me. If they only spoke to each other, they’d know I’m not a bad guy. But I know only too well how hard it is to talk to parents. I don’t even know where the other half of mine is right now.

  Kayla exhales when she sees me and I know it’s because she was thinking I wasn’t coming. Poor girl still doesn’t trust me. I lift her so that I can smell her hair, her neck, finally finding her lips with mine. I accidentally flinch when I set her down.

  Her expression darkens. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I smile. “I get to see you, don’t I?”

  She smiles at her feet. I stick out my elbow and we link arms. I’m not sure if it’s the weed making me feel stupid, but I start dancing like a fool right there in the street, rapping and freestyling the lyrics I’ve been writing about Kayla all week:

  Girl, you make the fire in my heart burn.

  Burns higher when I see you.

  Flames in my chest, burn away the rest.

  I’m a pyromani
ac, a haemophiliac.

  I bleed flames when I’m where you at.”

  She laughs. “I can’t believe you’re in a band. I looked you guys up on YouTube. You’re really good. Do you really call yourself Thor?”

  “It’s my stage name. But it’s more like a persona. It’s so I don’t freak out on stage. If you pretend you’re someone else, it’s less scary.”

  “Do you get stage fright a lot or something?”

  “Not anymore. I smoke too much weed these days to care.”

  I can see the cogs turning in her brain.

  “Do you write all the lyrics? How does it work? Do they just come out of the air like that?”

  “I’ll fetch you after work and you can come to practice with me. Meet the rest of the crew. See the magic happen.”

  “Really?” Kayla’s face lights up and she swipes a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Yeah. You’re my girl. You go where I go.” Better get this Jules thing over with as well. “I have a gig coming up soon and then a music festival at the end of the month – you’re coming, right?”

  Her expression turns. “I’ll be bounced for my age for sure. I’ve never really gone out to clubs and stuff. On the weekend I usually just skate around the streets on my own or go to the skatepark in town.”

  “I’ll take you with me. Don’t worry – they don’t look too hard at the crew. You’ll get in alright.”

  She smiles, but it’s a total fake. I take her hand, but not even that fixes her mood.

  “I don’t know, Fin. It’s sweet of you to want me to be there, but I’ll just bring down the vibe. I can’t dance. I’ll stay home rather.”

  “Nuh uh. Not going to happen.”

  She pulls her hand away roughly. “I don’t even know why you want to be with me.”

  I swallow. How do I answer?

  Because I can’t get you out of my head. Because I’m a crazy bastard who thinks that by fixing you, I can fix myself. Because I see my own damage reflected in your eyes. Because you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

  “Because I can be myself with you,” I say.

  There’s that smile. “I suppose that’s an okay reason,” she says.

  AFTER WE GET out of the taxi, I end up sticking around for Kayla’s shift. The factory shop is small, with bare white walls. Grimy plastic furniture. She lets me eat as many cheap suckers as I want while we talk about music.

  “Why the flute?” I ask.

  There hasn’t been a customer for the last hour. She leans back in her chair and pops her skater shoes up on the counter. There’s dried gum on the sole.

  “I don’t really know. When I chose Music as a subject in grade eight, my choices were recorder, guitar, piano and flute. The flute teacher at the time, Miss Daniels, was really pretty – she looked like Marilyn Monroe. And she always came to fetch her students for practice during their least favourite classes, so she seemed pretty cool.”

  “That sounds like an excellent reason.”

  She tosses me another Twice as Nice. “There’s more to it. One of the first pieces Miss Daniels played for me was a waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. And somehow, when I heard it I could see the dancers moving across the ballroom, swirling in their long dresses. I saw the whole picture in my mind. That’s never happened with any other instrument. I wanted to play that piece so badly. And every time I do, I see the same image in my head. It’s like the music takes me somewhere else. That probably sounds weird, hey?”

  “No. Music is the best way to escape from the world. It opens up all the hidden doors in your mind, and lets you wander around.”

  “Woodwind instruments do it for me. Once Mr Emersen – that’s the head of the department – brought an Armenian duduk to class. It’s one of the oldest instruments in the world, made by hand from apricot wood with a reed mouthpiece. It sounds incredible. Like, it reaches right inside you and touches your soul.” She rubs her arms. “I have goosebumps just thinking about it.”

  “Is it like the flute?” I ask.

  “Oh no. It’s a really specific sound. Haunting. They use it a lot in movies set in the Middle East. Let me see if there’s something on YouTube.”

  She searches on her phone and I lean in to watch. There’s a video from a series on world music. As the low notes drift through the phone’s tiny speaker, I watch her watching, and wish I could bottle the look on her face. She shudders when the video finishes.

  “So, why rap?” she asks, pocketing her phone.

  I shrug. “It’s free verse. I’m telling a story. My story.”

  “And the others don’t mind?”

  “Nah. Brendan’s really into the performance and Bones comes up with the back tracks. They leave me alone to write what I want.”

  We talk about our favourite artists. Although we have zero bands in common, every fact I unlock about her is precious. We talk all the way through her shift and during the long walk to Brendan’s house. Time goes quickly even though she’s not used to walking as much as I am.

  When we’re outside, I hesitate. “Do you mind if I smoke a joint before we go in?”

  “Why, what’s wrong?” she asks.

  I lead her to a playpark across the road and flip a small joint between my lips. We sit down on the wooden swings.

  “Things have been a bit tense with Brendan lately,” I say as I bend down to light up.

  “How so?” She looks around nervously and pulls her beanie down lower.

  I blow out smoke and wave it away with my hand. “I’ve missed a few practices recently and my head’s not really in it when I do pitch. It’s the whole Jules thing. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

  She bristles. “Julia is going to be there? Essential information, I think.”

  “Probably.” I offer her the joint and she shakes her head. She looks frightened.

  I finish it off and kill the remains under my shoe, swearing to never smoke in front of her again. “It’ll be okay. You’re with me. They can’t do anything to you.”

  I throw my arm over her shoulder as the door opens. Brendan’s mother studies us, before fixing her expression on Kayla’s face. She looks surprised. Is it possible that it wasn’t just Jules’ friends who were in on it, but the whole goddamn family? Brendan too?

  I try to keep my voice friendly. “Mrs M,” I say as we enter.

  “Hello, Finlay. And this is?”

  “My girlfriend, Kayla.”

  “Oh, lovely.” It doesn’t sound lovely at all.

  I lead the way to the studio. Kayla is small and silent next to me. This must be all new to her. I give her a squeeze. “You alright?”

  She nods, which can only mean one thing. She’s gone quiet again and disappeared inside herself.

  The studio is full of people. DJ is there with some of his friends. The girls are all there, looking sour. Jules’ mouth widens into an “O” when she sees us, and the room goes quiet. All the guys come forward to awkwardly bump fists. Except Brendan. Which means he did know.

  Suddenly I feel like a stranger in this place, but that’s unfair. I’m the lyricist. Dark Father is as much mine as it is his. So what if I blew off his sister? He would have been just as pissed off if we’d ended up dating. This isn’t my fault. I set my jaw resolutely.

  “This is my girlfriend, Kayla,” I say to Bones.

  He takes both her hands in his and grins. “My man. Who would have thought?” His voice echoes.

  I lean forward and kiss Kayla on the head. “Hang here for a second, I just need to talk to Brendan quick.”

  “Okay,” she says, and starts twirling her hair between her fingers.

  Brendan has his back to me.

  “You alright?” I ask.

  He turns around and gives me a dark look. “Yeah. Fine. Just sorting the cables. Was jamming with DJ earlier and they got all mixed up.”

  Since when has he been jamming with DJ? “You, uh, working on his tracks now?”

  “No, mine.” The way he says i
t.

  I grab some of the cables and start rolling them up. “You have a side project going or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  Bones interrupts us by slapping us both on the back. “Right, let’s get cracking. We have a lot of tracks to get through.”

  Brendan nods and shoulders me out the way as he passes. The guy’s clearly got issues with me tonight.

  Kayla pops me a look. I shrug and motion for her to sit on one of the unused stage monitors as we get started.

  Bones starts the backtrack and Brendan shouts into the mic, spit flying everywhere. His anger fuels mine and I go into full-blown Thor mode, yelling right back at him, thumping the microphone against my chest. We argue through our own lyrics, battle out the tension with words. It feels so good to just let it all out, and while it’s happening there’s a part of me that remembers Kayla’s question: why rap? The words come from somewhere deeper. Every cell in my body resonates with the music. I was born for this.

  DJ and his friends don’t seem to notice the tension in the air – their hands are up and they’re jamming like we’re performing live, and one of the girls is even dancing. In the middle of it all I notice Jules staring at me with a hurt expression. I look away and see Kayla watching me anxiously, her hands pressed between her knees peeking out of her torn jeans. She smiles at me and my anger abates.

  I think I might love her.

  Kayla

  RONDEBOSCH, SATURDAY

  The walk home is slow. I’m always on my board, which makes getting around easier, but at least walking gives me more time with Fin. Once my nerves go back to operating normally, I realise what a perfect night it is. Clear. All the stars are out and it’s late, so there are only a few cars on the road. Fin keeps stopping to kiss me. He twirls me around and places both hands on my face and kisses me urgently, fervently. Each time, I lose myself completely.