by Wendy Harmer
'Oh, I just don't know what to say,' she groans. 'Maybe it isn't as bad as it looks, maybe . . .'
Her voice trails off because she knows that it's totally worse than it looks. There's nothing under the burning sun or the pale moon, in the wind or the swirling tides that can make this better than it looks.
'If that's what Will's really like,' Carmelita says, 'then you're better off without him.'
And it's the words 'without him' that finally make me hang up and cry out loud. I'm hardly even able to walk as I feel my way down the hall to Tilly's room. I lean against the door frame, snap on the light and then just stand there, paralysed.
Tilly sits up rubbing her eyes and turns to me. I manage to get out a messy sentence that I think includes the words 'Will', 'Lily' and 'FacePlace'. Tilly looks at me, her perfect, pretty mouth turns down and she falls back on her pillow, shielding her face from the light with one thin white arm.
'What? Oh God, Eleanor. I was hoping you wouldn't find out. Not on the net anyway.'
I stumble through the piles of Tilly's clothes and fall on my knees by her bed. I bury my face in her T-shirt and sob into her stomach. Tilly reaches out and strokes my hair as she speaks.
'It all went horribly wrong, Els. We were all there – me, Lily and Georgie Daniels – and it was just like we planned. We fired up the spa and then we rang Jai. He said he was at the footy with Jayden and couldn't come. We rang three times, we texted, and he still wouldn't come. I was in the lounge room. I was going to put on a DVD and forget about the whole stupid idea, when I heard Will's voice at the front door.'
I wipe my eyes on Tilly's shirt and then sit back. I want to hear this. Every. Hideous. Detail.
'I waited until I could corner Lily in the lounge and I asked her: "What's Will doing here?" She just laughed and said: "Who knows?" But I have to tell you, Els, I think she was expecting him to come over. Maybe she was hoping Jai would be there too and they'd – I dunno, have a fight or something.'
A million questions are running around in my head. But I don't know where to start, so I let Tilly go on.
'I couldn't think what to do. Should I go out there so Will would see me and go home? Or should I just let the whole thing unfold. This wasn't "entrapment", Els. I swear. This was more about catching someone committing a crime of their own making.'
My body is shaking, but I'm saying 'uh huh' at the same time, not wanting Matilda to leave anything out.
'I decided to leave and I told Georgie that if anything happened, to make sure she got the evidence on her mobile. So I could show you. You're my sister. I'd want you to know.'
I nod again. Go on.
'And now the photos are on the net? Georgie and Lily must have done it after Will left.'
I can't seem to get any air into my lungs through the tears and snot. I wipe my nose on Tilly's doona.
'I kept thinking about Lily and wondering why I trusted her in the first place. It's not like she's one of my best friends. Maybe I was just blinded by wanting to get revenge on Jai. But I don't get it – why would Lily and Georgie do that?'
It's exactly what that site said: Emotions and the internet don't mix. Well, too late, they're mixed up now.
'I'm going to murder Georgie when I see her.' Tilly sits up and punches her pillow. 'I can't believe she'd do something so disgusting! And why would Lily want Jayden to see the photos anyway? It just doesn't make sense.'
I've heard enough now. I try to get to my feet to walk away, but it's easier to crawl. So that's what I do – I crawl through Tilly's underwear and jeans and tops and shoes. Tilly scrambles out of bed and tries to drag me to my feet, but I don't want to stand. Leave me down here with the lowly things that squirm and slither in the shadows.
Saturday morning.
Later. One week PM.
I can't say how long it took for the tears to slow. But there was a point when I looked out the window of The Dungeon and saw that the heavy grey clouds hanging over Oldcastle were being blown out to sea by an offshore wind. That's when I knew I'd find Will on Winchester Headland. He's spent hours patiently teaching me how to watch the weather so I know when a big surf is running. He might come to regret that.
I'm scrambling up the old stone stairs, two at a time, and the wind is twisting my hair into ropes that slap my face. When I get to the top and see him, what will I say? What will I do?
I want to push him onto the rocks below and watch the surf suck him under then throw him up again, bashing him senseless into the cliff face.
And then I see him in that familiar pose, shading his eyes. Looking for a wave. My heart breaks and snaps like a fibreglass surfboard – tumbled and tossed and swept out to sea in fragments that can never be reassembled.
He turns and spots me. In that moment, in his surprise and confusion, I see that it's all true.
'Elly, what are you doing here? It's early. You're hardly dressed, you must be freezing,' says Will.
I register that I'm still in the raggy old Britney Spears t-shirt and black pyjama shorts I wear to bed. My bare feet are smeared with mud. I stop barely a metre from Will and ask him where he was last night.
'Elly . . .' he begins, and he's half smiling. I can't believe it.
He turns his head away so I can't look into his eyes. Those eyes that have always been such a soft grey, but this morning seem to reflect the black rocks in the cliff. He scuffs at the earth with his bare, tanned feet.
'It's like I told you, I stayed home, 'cos Mum was cooking . . .' he mumbles.
I want to shout at him that he's a liar and a fake. That he cares more about a dead crab or a floating plastic bag than he does about me!
Instead I turn and run as fast as I can, fancying that I am Arwen Evenstar fleeing Lothlórien and my dearest love, forever.
'Elly, Elly!' Will calls.
I'm stumbling down the stone stairs, grabbing the railing to keep from falling. But I fall anyway, into a deep black hole of misery.
Saturday afternoon. One week
PM. Three hours AW (after Will).
Where do I begin with the disaster that is my life? There are stacks of comments on Lily Cameron's FacePlace mirror already. Seems like the whole world has seen the pictures of Will and her. I can't resist going back again and again to look, like I'm witnessing some international crisis unfolding on CNN.
Oooh. Trouble in paradise!!!
Where there's a Will, there's a willy. LOL!
Where's Elly? Under the bubbles breathing through a straw?
Oops, Elly, he's just not that into you!
Silly Willy jumping at Lily's pad. Ribbit!
Jayden's gunna freak. Shld be worth watching.Heh.
C'mon guys. Three pics? That's all we get????
Ah, Will.It shoulda been me!:-)
Will and Lily
Sittin in a bath
When poor Elly sees them.
Boy, she's gunna barf!
Heh!
The Phantom Rhymer.
That jerk's right, I do feel sick. I turn off the monitor and creep to my bed. So this is what it feels like to have a broken heart. I know it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but I didn't think it would hurt this much. Untold millions of wretched, sad people have written songs and stories and poetry about lost love. I've heard and read lots of them. But until now it was like they were talking about something I couldn't understand – like someone telling you what it feels like to walk on the moon.
I might as well have left the earth's orbit. I feel weird and weightless. Even though I'm lying on my bed, it's as if I'm floating somewhere above a planet called Will and Elly, looking back on it through a black hole in space. The thought that I will never walk there again makes me cry until my ribs ache.
I haven't reached for the tissues because I want to feel every tear as it runs down my face, into my neck, and soaks the pillow. I want to remember every single salty drop. My eyelids are swollen and my fingers are puffy from clutching at the blankets. If I can just hold on here I might stop
myself from spinning out past the stars into eternal blackness.
In a far-off somewhere I can hear a knock on my door and a ping on my computer. But don't they know I'm not here? I've gone. I'm drifting in an infinite cloud of sorrow . . .
Saturday night. One week PM.
Eight hours AW.
I woke up in the early evening to find I'd slept for five hours. For about two seconds there I felt fine, but then reality hit me like a meteor strike.
I'm not with Will any more.
:'-(CLAB
Now I'm on my computer and I google 'broken heart' and get 37,200,000 mentions. So there are more than 37 million of us who want to curl up and die? More than the entire population of Australia? It should make me feel better that I'm not alone. Instead it makes me feel stupid and ordinary.
There's a knock on the door of my dungeon and Mum's head appears. She's brought me a plate of leftover, slightly charred lasagne.
'Oh honey, I heard what happened. Are you OK?' says Mum, making the right sort of sympathetic face.
If she really understood how I felt she'd be booking me a passage on a slow steamer to India with my spinster great-aunt. Isn't that how they mended broken hearts in the olden days? Just sent you away until you stopped wanting to throw yourself under a horse and carriage?
Instead she stands behind my chair and pats my head until I feel like Harry the dog.
'"The First Cut is the Deepest" – that's the name of a Cat Stevens song,' Mum sighs. 'Your Auntie Marg used to flog that song when she first had her heart broken, then she passed it on to me when I got dumped. It means that the first time your heart is broken is the worst.'
Cat who? I'm sure this is supposed to make me feel better, but I'm not sure how. She can't seriously be thinking that I'll be up for having this happen to me again. I'll be off working in the slums in India before I give my heart to any boy again.
I don't say anything to Mum, but she won't take the hint and doesn't look like leaving. She's plonked herself on my doona and is cradling my pink stuffed pig. She wants to tell me all the minute historical details of her first broken heart. But, as she so often reminds me, she lived and loved in the Days Before the Internet Was Invented. She's got no idea – at all. She didn't have to endure the whole world having a grandstand view of her heart being smashed to smithereens. I hand her back her burnt offerings, tell her I'm not hungry, I'm fine and I need to be by myself.
'Well, darling, I'm here if you need me and want to talk . . .' Mum says for the millionth time since I was nine.
I tell her I know that by now, and thankfully she leaves.
On my computer there are three eye2eyes from Carmelita and two from Bianca. They'll want to talk, rehash, gossip and blame. And I'm just not ready yet. I trash all of them. Maybe it was better in the old days when people had to write letters and they took three days by Cobb and Co. coach to reach you. At least by then you could open the envelope and read the letter without the print turning into an inky pond in front of your eyes.
Then it's Dad's turn to make an effort. I can see that he's squirming as he tiptoes in and perches on the wooden toy chest at the end of my bed. I must admit I feel sorry for him sometimes – it can't be easy to be a man surrounded by emotional females. Although surely he's had enough practice with Tilly's broken hearts. She's had at least three bust-ups I can remember and we all had to creep around the house and not look at her for weeks on end. Tilly takes rejection really hard. And as bad as I feel right now, I'm determined not to be so pathetic.
'It's a tough business, all this "love" stuff isn't it, ma belle?' says Dad.
And then I'm blubbering like a baby in his strong arms and being totally pathetic!
'Tilly showed Mum and me all that stuff there on the computer and, well . . . I don't think Will can talk his way out of it, really. And what about all those nasty comments from the peanut gallery who want to put in their two cents' worth? Bet they wouldn't be so game if they had to put their names on there.'
Again, if this is supposed to be cheering me up, it's a crap effort. Before I can stop him, Dad's off again.
'When I was a young bloke you could two-time girls all over town and never get caught. But now, when everyone's got a phone with a camera and computers to send photos, everyone has to be on their best behaviour all the bloody time!'
I'm now hiding behind a cushion out of sheer embarrassment. I don't want to hear about his lovelife either. Has he got something to hide?
'Not that I've ever done anything like that!' he says quickly. 'I'm just thinking, that's all. I don't envy you having the internet when you're trying to have a social life. There's too much information these days, if you ask me.'
I hadn't asked him, actually. And surely Dad's not feeling sorry for Will?
'That boy's been a damned ratbag and a nuisance. In fact, he came over here to see you and I sent him packing quick smart. I reckon I should build a moat around this house and put bloody sharks in it.'
Will came here? What did he want? What did he say? I know I shouldn't ask, but it's hard not to.
'I dunno what he wanted. I just told him to clear off. Good riddance! There'll be plenty of boys wanting to take you out, ma belle. Just you wait and see.'
Groan! The old 'plenty more fish in the sea' line. I was wondering how long it would be before someone came up with that one. Dad's finished his sermon and he leaves.
Two down, one to go. Sure enough, there's a tap at my door and it's Tilly.
'I've found out what happened last night,' she huffs, and sits on my bed.
I watch as she swishes her hair, pulls two of Nan's old clip-on daisy earrings off her ears and rubs at her flattened lobes. So she knows what happened. So what? Nothing will change unless she can tell me that Will has a secret twin brother . . . and one tiny fragment of my heart leaps with the possibility! Then my poor tired brain kicks in and reminds me that I'm not starring in The Bold and the Beautiful.
'I caught up with Georgie and Lily and they told me the whole saga,' sighs Tilly. 'And it's so dumb, you wouldn't believe.'
Try me. Could anything be as dumb as me thinking that Will loved me? Truly. I'm in the Guinness World Records for dumb. I nod to Tilly that she should go on as she flops back and traces her lips with a stick of beeswax.
'Jayden dumped Lily on Thursday and she didn't tell anyone. Not a soul.'
This is odd. There's actually someone in Oldcastle who doesn't blab continually about their entire life? Usually word of this stuff is out within hours . . . or minutes. This was three days ago now.
'Obviously, if I'd known I would never have included her in the plan,' Tilly says. 'You can't trust the brokenhearted, Els. They're not really rational.'
Hah! I know that. Right now I have this weird urge to wade through the fountain in Victoria Square and jump off the statue of King George in a silverbeet bikini!
'Her whole motivation was to get back at Jayden, and because I'd already suggested we get Jai into the spa, it played right into her hands. Of course we rang Jai and asked him to bring over pizzas, like I said, but he wouldn't come – and then Will turned up . . .' Tilly hesitates and stops.
The question is, of course, why did Will go to see Lily when he was supposed to be seeing me?
'This is crapola, Els, but your so-called Prince Charming, that weasel, has been calling and texting Lily for the past week nonstop. She didn't take any of his messages 'cos she knew you two are . . . were . . . like, an item.'
I shudder when she calls Will a 'weasel'. When I opened my eyes this morning he was still 'wonderful Will'. So he was calling and texting Lily even when he was away at surf camp? Will? The 'free spirit' who's 'not good on the phone'? I find this hard to believe.
