Riding on Air

by Maggie Gilbert

  Maybe that was a sign I was lacking imagination. But as William drew me deeper into his arms, as his boldness encouraged mine, my imagination or lack of it ceased to be a factor.

  Chapter 9

  When I climbed stiffly up the stairs of the school bus the next morning, Tash was waiting with an empty seat next to her. Big surprise. She watched me with narrowed eyes as I walked hurriedly up the aisle, aware that Oliver, our regular driver, wasn’t going anywhere until I was safely in my seat. It no longer embarrassed me; Oliver’s wife Penny, who drove the later morning bus for the primary school kids, had always done the same, so I was more or less used to it. Normally, I wouldn’t even notice, but nothing was normal about this morning.

  Even as I sank into the seat Tash had kept for me I could feel the hectic heat of a blush climbing up my neck from the collar of my school shirt. Eleni, in the seat in front, swivelled round and stared at me, her brown eyes piercing. My cheeks were on fire by the time she looked from me to Tash and shared her laughter.

  “Guess who’s got a boyfriend,” Eleni chanted softly, her round brown face stretched in a grin.

  I cradled my net-book to my chest with my forearms and sort of folded in on myself. No use wishing for invisibility; that was a talent I lacked right up there with telepathy. The automatic denial that rose up through my throat died on my lips. There might have been no official request from William to be his girlfriend, but the way he’d kissed me and held me, and the skin-tingling way he’d whispered my name against my hair, had me reasonably convinced I was something to him. Admittedly, I’d been more sure of that when I drifted into bed last night. In the foggy chill of the 7am wait for the bus this morning, more than a few doubts had come creeping back.

  “You are in so much trouble,” Tash said, giving me an elbow in the ribs.

  “Why? What have you heard?”

  “It’s what I haven’t heard. Such as a single word about this thing you’ve got going with William.”

  My cheeks flamed again.

  “It only just happened.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes, at camp, he was there when I fell off…”

  Tash’s gorgeous eyes narrowed to gleaming green slits.

  “Oh really?” she asked, an ominous edge to her voice.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, realising in my anxiety to explain that I’d totally put my foot in it. I’d forgotten that I’d neglected to mention William’s involvement at camp. I mean, I’d meant to. I would have, in the normal course of things, only I’d been sent home and then things had just happened so fast.

  I started to explain this to Tash and Eleni, my skin burning so hot with extreme discomfort I was practically sweating as I filled them in on how William had caught Jinx and put him away and how he’d been there to help me on the wash bay. Tash’s eyes were open wide again by the time I came to a stuttering conclusion with meeting them at dinner last night and Eleni’s grin had been replaced with an open-mouthed fascination I wasn’t sure was exactly flattering.

  Tash smacked me again, hard.

  “Ow,” I complained, resisting the urge to grab at my wounded arm.

  “Tash, careful,” Eleni said anxiously.

  “Stuff that,” Tash said and to me added, “You totally deserve that for holding out on us. Are we or are we not your best friends?”

  “I dunno if you’re going to keep hitting me like that,” I muttered.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Tash said, feigning disgust. She folded her arms beneath her enviable boobs and gave me a pouty look and a toss of her pony tail.

  “Look who’s talking,” Eleni said, practically taking the words out of my mouth as I said exactly the same thing half a beat behind her. “The name Jack Patterson mean anything?” We all laughed and it was alright again.

  Not that Tash was really angry at me for not telling her, just as I wasn’t really offended that she’d hit me. I actually didn’t mind it at all when she gave me one of those friendly smacks, like she did her other friends. Her forgetting to treat me like glass allowed me to forget too. Even if it was just for a moment.

  I wouldn’t want her to think, though, that I’d planned to keep her in the dark. It would hurt my feelings if she ever did something like that to me.

  “I would have told you guys as soon as I knew there was something to tell,” I said.

  “What, going out with William wasn’t something?” Eleni said.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually going out with a guy,” said Tash. “When you finally break loose from your horse you do it in style. Movies and dinner, what next?”

  “What, did you expect her to go out with a girl?” Eleni snorted and Tash giggled.

  I made a kissy face at Eleni. “Jealous, much?” I asked and Eleni laughed and shook her head, but a shadow of something else flitted across her face and I wished I could take it back. I hadn’t meant it as anything but a joke, but Eleni was notoriously unlucky when it came to boyfriends. She was so pretty with her latte skin and masses of dark curls and so funny and smart, but somehow she always seemed to hook up with guys that treated her like crap. Since we’d all hit high school I had passed unnoticed by the eligibles and while that could (and did, believe me) sometimes hurt my feelings, to have been used and dumped surely had to be a lot worse. It could wound more than just your pride.

  “If I was into girls I’d totally go for you, Eleni,” I said.

  “Hey, what about me?”

  “Not into blondes,” I said and arched my body away from Tash as she threatened to hit me again.

  “Well, duh,” Eleni said and her smile was back to her usual 100-watt brilliance, “that’s obvious considering you’re into William.”

  “He is a catch,” Tash said approvingly and a herd of emotions stampeded through my chest, leaving me dangling between a warm glow that Tash thought William was hot and a treacherous ice-water fear that she might yet be the one to catch him. Tash was utterly 100 per cent ridiculously loyal to her friends and it wasn’t that I worried she’d steal my boyf—, er, William, it was just that I was afraid he’d realise he should be chasing after her instead of me. If it could happen to someone as pretty as Eleni, who was infinitely higher on the babe-o-meter than I’d ever be, it could definitely happen to me. That Tash would have nothing to do with them had never stopped guys trying to use Eleni as a stepladder to her before.

  The ice-deluge abruptly swamped any warmth with an appalling rush of gut-churning terror. I’d been so worried that maybe one of my brothers had asked William to be nice to me that I’d completely forgotten about a much more obvious and likely threat. What if William secretly had the hots for Tash and was just using me to get closer to her?

  My stomach churned anxiously, the crumpets and honey I’d eaten for breakfast surfing uneasily on a rising tide of nausea. I couldn’t bear the thought of William wanting another girl. I had to swallow a rush of bitter sickness at the thought of him kissing and touching someone else the way he’d kissed me and held me less than 12 hours ago. My forehead chilled even as my palms grew clammy at the image of some other girl discovering how broad and firm William’s back was under her hands. My mind flashed torturous images of long, slender, straight fingers with perfect plum nail polish stroking William in ways I’d never be able to and I clamped my arms around the computer in my lap in a mixture of frustration, fear and resentment.

  “Melissa? Are you crook or something? You’ve gone white.”

  I blinked as Eleni’s mother-hen concerns chased away the overheated imaginings I’d been torturing myself with. As if I didn’t have enough genuine cause for doubting William, I had to go and invent dipshit scenarios. I shook my head, amazed and annoyed with myself. Talk about a drama queen.

  “No, I’m fine, Eleni, don’t worry. You know what my stomach gets like sometimes.”

  “Have you been to the doctor about that? It could be an ulcer.”

  “It’s not an ulcer,” I said.

  “I dunno, I was reading you
can get ulcers from ibuprofen—”

  “Only if you take lots and I hardly ever—”

  “She hasn’t got an ulcer,” Tash cut in and we both looked at her in surprise.

  “So you’re a doctor now?” Eleni asked smartly, while I was still sitting there with my mind cantering down the track after ibuprofen, marshalling information dosages and safety trials.

  “It’s stress.”

  I gaped at Tash.

  “Don’t listen to her, Melissa, she’s full of it.”

  “Stress,” I said, my brain having been startled into making a flying change of topic was now flicking rapidly though memories of when and where I’d had trouble with my stomach. Stress. Of course. It was so obvious now that someone had pointed it out.

  “Why do people always blame stress?” Eleni continued plaintively. “It’s like the cop-out of the new millennium.”

  “I think you’re right,” I murmured.

  “Exactly,” Eleni said, but I shook my head again.

  “No, Tash is right, I mean. I think it probably is stress. I can’t believe how dumb I am, that I didn’t think of it before.”

  “You didn’t think of it now,” Tash pointed out, eyes bright.

  “Well, no, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah. I’m smarter than you are. And prettier of course.”

  “You’re a much bigger pain in the butt, that’s for sure,” Eleni grumbled and I grinned. Eleni was the brainiest of the three of us and she was usually the one with the answers. She worked hard though, so we didn’t begrudge it when she was right.

  “Statistically you’re a prime candidate for an NSAID induced ulcer,” she added now, dark eyebrows furrowed in thought.

  “God, listen to you, you sound like a medical dictionary.”

  “Shut up, Barbie,” Eleni countered and moved smartly out of reach as Tash took a swipe at her.

  “Cut it out, guys. That you’re right this time doesn’t make Eleni wrong, Tash. I am at high risk for developing ulcers, which is why I hardly every take those kinds of painkillers. But anyway, I reckon it is stress. I get a bad stomach whenever I’m nervous or worried, like the morning of a competition, or when I think abou—” I clamped my mouth shut, horrified at the deeply secret thought that had nearly spilled out.

  “Whenever you think about William kissing you, ooh baby,” Tash said laughing madly. Eleni snorted and then she was sniggering along with Tash while I sat there with my skin predictably heating up.

  But that wasn’t the horse I’d so nearly let out of the stable. I did get butterflies whenever I thought about William—and my stomach rolled queasily as if in agreement—but the thing that most often tied my stomach in ugly knots lately was fear. The bitter familiar fear that the next time my hands snarled up in a bad flare would be the time they never came good again. The fear that this end to all my dreams, the end of everything, could be so close was what drove me to do things Dad couldn’t understand, like palming that pill, and things my friends couldn’t understand, like turning down their invitations for coffee and sleepovers and parties.

  Everyone is a slave to time, Mum says, and she has no sympathy for people who say they’re too busy to get stuff done because she says we’re all given exactly the same amount of time, 24 hours a day. Mum’s a scarily smart lady, but this is something I know more about than she does. We aren’t all given the same amount of time to do the things we dream of doing. For some of us, the clock is winding down a lot faster than it is for everyone else.

  My stomach slowly squeezed itself down into a tight twisty little lump as Tash and Eleni’s giggles faded into the indistinguishable noise of the bus’ engine and the laughing, talking and arguing of the other kids. The other kids who had the same 24 hours a day that I did, but who could count on a lot more good days.

  I held the hard rectangle of my net-book, the baby laptop computer that was all I had to carry to and from school because of a special medical exemption for my mangled hands, and tried not to be jealous of all those days and all those chances that Tash and Eleni, and Oliver the bus driver and all these other kids would get that I would not.

  My phone chimed in my pouch pocket announcing a text message and I carefully slipped my hand in to retrieve it. Thumbing the slider, I looked at the screen and my heart took a single giant leap into the back of my throat.

  ‘Sweet dreams of u last night. Can i pick u up frm school this arvo? Will xxx’

  My stomach rapidly unwound itself just long enough to twist and heave in the opposite direction. I palmed my phone back into my pouch before Tash or Eleni could notice what I was looking at and tried for all of five seconds to not dissect and analyse every word, every syllable, every letter. Futile hope.

  He hadn’t said he loved me, or that he wanted me to be his girlfriend or anything, but what were all those x’s if they weren’t kisses? Was I seriously even expecting him to say something like that at this stage? Would I have admitted it to him? Get a grip, Melissa.

  Sweet dreams. Was that a good thing? Surely it was good. At least he definitely wanted to see me again; he was picking me up from school. Oh god, unless that was just because he realised he’d made a terrible mistake and he wanted to tell me to my face. And I still had to think of something to text back to him.

  Stress. Oh yeah, I was on familiar terms with that one. Who knew that having the guy of your dreams actually dreaming of you would be so anxiously stomach churning?

  Chapter 10

  I sat on a log at the edge of the student car park—foreign territory for me—looking at the rows of mud-splashed utes, four-wheel drives and small, shiny town cars, all bearing a green or red P plate, waiting for William. Or at least I tried to sit. Mostly I got up and wandered back and forth, only to sit down again in an effort not to look too pathetically obvious to the students who passed me on the way to their cars. A couple I knew had said ‘Hi’ and I managed a strangled ‘hey’ in response. More than a few just gave me a slanting, sceptical sideways glance, as if wondering what the hell I was doing here. I wondered the same thing.

  I was fizzing with a bubbly mixture of anticipation and apprehension, aware I was out of my comfort zone and quite possibly way out of my league. My bus left from the other side of the school grounds, so if William stood me up I had buckley’s chance of making my regular ride. I’d have to hope I could catch Dad so he could collect me on the way home, or try to track down Jennie to come pick me up.

  Just the thought had me up and moving again, my netbook and the few other bits and pieces I needed for my homework bumping against my back in the lightweight bag I kept in my locker. I cradled my phone in my pouch pocket, waiting for it to ring or beep. Waiting for it to be William telling me he’d made a mistake and wasn’t coming.

  A low, rumbling engine grumbled down the gears as it slowed for the turn into the car park and my stomach did somersaults in response. I tried to breathe slowly and deeply, telling myself it could be anyone, that I was kidding myself because I didn’t have the acute hearing of one of our dogs who were able to distinguish one car from another. Despite the internal lecture I peered down the row of parked cars expectantly. There was no way I could prevent the springing leap and skittish roll of my heart when William’s cream Holden ute came into sight.

  I swallowed against the sudden dryness of my mouth and was glad both my hands were safely tucked away in my pouch pocket. Not simply to keep them safe as usual. I didn’t want William or any of the other kids still dawdling past to see how badly my hands were shaking.

  I moved forward to the edge of the asphalt on trembling legs as William swung the ute around the end of the row of parked cars and pulled up alongside me. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, almost paralysed with uncertainty. I didn’t know where to look or what to say or what to do.

  William emerged from the driver’s door, impossibly tall and broad, a blue work singlet leaving his shoulders bare. After that, I knew exactly where to look. I think I stopped breathing.<
br />
  “Melissa, hey,” he said, coming around the front of his car and reaching for my bag. He slid it carefully off my shoulder and silver sparkles fluttered at the edges of my vision. I made myself push the stale air out of my lungs and take another breath, only to have it catch in the back of my throat when his fingers brushed my bare arm.

  I couldn’t speak, could only stand there like a fool, held immobile under the rushing ambush of desire and surprise and pure longing. He was so unbearably gorgeous with the afternoon sun picking out bronze glints in his dark hair and framing the muscles of his shoulders in highlights and shadows as he hefted my bag in one hand and slid the other beneath my hair at the back of my neck.

  “Melissa,” he said again and then right there in the school car park he leant in to kiss me, his strong hand warmly clamped to the back of my neck. My skin rippled almost painfully into goose bumps and I gasped in shock against his mouth before his lips claimed mine. Oh my.

  Just when the silver sparkles were flickering around the edges of things again he broke off the kiss, resting his forehead against mine.

  “I wasn’t imagining it,” he said quietly, causing my stomach to fold in on itself and climb up beneath my ribs in utter surrender. I knew how it felt; if I’d had any thought that I could get out of this without a broken heart I understood at that moment just how badly I’d been kidding myself.

  “Are you riding this afternoon?” he asked me, as he opened the passenger door.

  “Yes,” I said, finally regaining control of my tongue. I felt my cheeks flame as I thought about what my tongue had been doing 10 seconds ago and my stomach thumped down into what felt like my knees at the next thought I had which was how much I wished he’d tangle his tongue with mine again. Right now.

  “Got time for a coffee first?”

  “Yes,” I said, sliding into the seat. He grinned at me and shut the door. I watched him through the windscreen as he came back around to the driver’s side, as if afraid he’d vanish in a puff of smoke or a shower of sparks or something. If I’d had normal fingers I’d have pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, but a glance down at my gnarled hands proved this was no fantasy. In my dreams my fingers were always perfect, as long and elegant as any of the models you see in the magazine ads for diamond rings, nail polish or fancy charm bracelets.