by A. B. Bloom
"Okay, okay." I nodded and grabbed another piece of fruit out of the bowl in the centre of the table.
"Don't forget to call if you have any problems at school," Mum added. She looked like she was desperate to run to the sideboard and grab out the textbooks she'd bought during the holidays. Home schooling had been her objective for months. An objective I'd managed to thwart until now.
My eyes automatically glanced at my wrist. I expected my hand to be hanging loose and useless, but it was still perfect.
"I'll call, but I'll be fine. Come on, have faith, I have broken nothing for ages." Well, apart from yesterday when I may or may not have done. "And my headaches have been better." Again, I remembered the fuddled sensation from the dinner hall, but as I wasn't sure whether it had happened or not, I didn't plan on mentioning it to anyone. I felt Aaron's eyes scrutinising me with a heavy weight. "What?" I asked.
"Nothing." He shrugged and turned back to his coffee. "Don't talk to strangers." A warning underlined the word “strangers” with emphasis.
Seriously, did I wake up aged twelve again? Deciding it wasn't worth getting into an argument, I grabbed my bag from the floor and headed to the front door. "Okay then . . .” I could hear them whispering as I slammed the door shut. Tears burned in my eyes, and I blinked them away. My chest constricted, causing the simple act of breathing to become impossible. I concentrated on the rise and fall of my ribcage and tried to inhale air. My fingers curled into tight fists, and my head throbbed. When I’d managed a few ragged breaths, I turned my back on the suffocating walls of my home, and started for school.
"What's up?" Lauren caught up with me as I marched my way along the narrow lanes adjacent to the moor. On a normal day, which I hadn't experienced since my birthday, I'd have stopped to enjoy the breath-taking views. I would have breathed in the earthy freshness of heather I loved so much. Today, I wanted to get to school while my lungs were still cooperating.
"Aaron."
"Is he being a police officer again?" she asked.
"Of the highest rank." I increased my pace.
"Wait, I can't keep up with your crazy long legs." Lauren caught hold of my arm and yanked me back to her gentle amble. “What's really wrong?"
I turned and watched her expression as I answered. She couldn't hide a single thought from me. "Do you think I'm losing my mind?" I peered in closer, waiting for all the tell-tale signs she was about to fib.
"No!" She didn't look to the left or nibble her bottom lip—her classic tells. "Is this because you think you saw a new kid yesterday when the rest of us didn't?"
"No. Not really." Deep down though I knew this had a lot to do with it. Who would I see today? What if I saw an army of elves marching past? A unicorn?
We walked the rest of the way in silence, my feet scuffing the loose gravel along the pavement. "Listen," she said when ten minutes of silence had stretched between us and the gates were in sight. "I don't think you're losing your mind. I think you’re sick, and I wish the damn doctors would help you. But if you tell me you saw someone on school grounds yesterday, then I believe you. I will always believe you. Maybe he wasn't a new kid? Maybe he was the son of a teacher? Maybe you just got confused?"
"Maybe." My heart sank as we walked through the gate. The dull heavy chain vibrated in my stomach.
Leant against the wire fence, he looked like he was studying his nails with the cap down low over his eyes. One foot rested against the diamond shaped wire loops, nonchalant and relaxed. I could sense his focus on me, it rang inside my subconscious, calling me out.
"Please, for the love of god, tell me you can see him," I begged Lauren. I spun her towards him. The pulse beating in my throat caused waves of nausea to wash through me. I felt him look up, the cap lifted, his face remained hidden. My palms slipped with sweat against her jacket.
"Who?" I watched Lauren's face closely as she scanned the otherwise empty space. Her eyes skipped right past where he was. She truly couldn’t see him. God, I was going to be sick.
He was looking directly at me. From under the depths of his cap I could see piercing violet eyes the shade of fresh heather. They watched my reactions, their expression wide. The violet echoed in my head, it rang a bell like a long forgotten memory. Ding-a-ling: remember me? He looked surprised when he saw me staring wildly at him. His arms dropped to his side and hung there.
"Him, it's him, he's over there." Gesturing with my arm, I jabbed at the air.
"Bron, there is no one there. I swear on my life." Lauren's voice cracked. Her hand caught hold of me as if she was expecting me to collapse into a crumpled heap on the floor. Maybe I would.
Although he was some distance away, I knew he could hear us. His mouth dropped into an "Oh," as he realised that I was truly looking at him.
"Wait here," I called to Lauren over my shoulder.
"Where the hell are you going?" she asked, "We will be late for class again.”
Turning, I pulled away from her grasp. "I'm going to speak to him."
"Speak to who?" Her hands reached like she was planning on catching me but she was too late, and I danced out of her reach.
He stiffened as I approached, peeling away from the fence, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Who the hell are you?" I demanded.
"Sorry?" I recalled his voice from yesterday. Playing a unique melody inside my head his words rang like a low bell. My stomach melted into some delicious vat of creamy milk chocolate. I shook it away.
"Who the hell are you and why the hell can't my best friend see you?" I couldn’t believe I was even asking the question. It was insane. Crazy. Mind losing crazy.
His head lifted and a small smile lifted his mouth. "How can you see me?" It was more of a musing than a direct question, not that I would have known how to answer it, anyway.
"Why can't anyone see you?" I repeated. My blood was boiling in my veins, a volcano threatening to erupt.
His violet eyes snapped onto me. "Who says they can't?"
"Me?" This was the craziest conversation I'd ever had.
"Are you sure?" The lips lifted at one edge, curving into a slow smile.
"Don't play games with me." I wanted to hit him. Violently. But then I'd probably break my wrist again. At my thought he glanced at my hand.
"You're welcome."
A gasp escaped my mouth. "It happened."
"What?"
I tried to look at him closer but my head throbbed just like it had yesterday in the dinner hall. "Please don't play games."
"It's not a game, Tara."
"Who the hell's Tara?" I wanted to say more, but he took a step closer, raising his fingers to my face. I held my breath, thinking he would touch me . . . but with a simple click which sounded like the slam of a heavy door, my eyesight went black.
The reverberating tick of a second hand echoed around my head. If I didn’t know better I would have said I’d taken a fast sprint at a brick wall. The wall had won.
"Ugh." It was an anti-climactic statement given the circumstances. Shifting my weight slightly, I could determine my location without opening my eyes. The creaking of the sick bay's vinyl-covered bed told me all I needed to know.
"Babe." Lauren's voice pierced through the tick tock of the institutionalised clock on the wall. "If you'd wanted to go for drama I could have given you a few pointers. Ones that didn't involve rolling around on the floor."
I opened my eyes and blinked a few times. "What?" Turning my throbbing head, I found Lauren perched on the edge of the pale green trolley bed. She looked comfortable, but then this wasn’t the first time she’d found herself at the sick bay. It was one of the many pitfalls of having a calamity driven best friend.
"You." She looked at me sternly. "Went all crazy and shouted at the school fence. Then you collapsed. It was very dramatic, if perhaps a little overboard." The smooth skin tightened around her eyes and I knew she was making light of it. She was scared. Should I be scared?
"Really?" This wasn't how I rem
embered it. I concentrated, but when I tested my memory, I couldn't recall the events leading up to my supposed collapse. It was like looking through a dense fog, all the images distorted and obscured. "I don't remember anything."
A frown puckered her face, turning her mouth down at the corners into a grimace. "Did you take your medicine this morning, Bron? You know what happens when you don't."
"Yes." I snapped. "Sorry." I added when I saw the Lauren brand of hurt flash across her face. Although I wasn't that sorry, she was getting a free ride off lessons after all. "So, what happened? Tell me again." I leaned up onto my elbows so I could try and focus clearer. My head whirled in angry response.
"Jeez, are you okay? You're green."
"Thanks."
"In fact you're the same colour as that bed."
"Great." I glanced with dislike at the vinyl I was seeing far more often than I would like. "So what happened? With detail please."
A moment of hesitation filled the air. "Well, babe, it was a bit embarrassing actually." She concentrated on her nails, picking at a cuticle before her eyes found mine again. "You marched over to the fence where you then talked to it, shouted at it, rather." Lauren coughed. "And then you fell to the ground. Crumpled like stack of cards."
"Okay, that's bad, but why's it embarrassing?" I kind of thought people expected me to fall down a lot, collapsing all over the place. Her criticism stung like the unexpected sting of a wasp.
My memories swirled. They fluttered, teasing me. There was an image right on the edge of my memory but when I tried to grasp it, it whirled out of reach. Who was at the fence? I pushed harder trying to get to the root of the memory. Black clothes, boots crossed, fingers close to my face.
The memory was in touching distance when Lauren's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Well, actually, Phoenix had to carry you across the school grounds."
"Sorry, who?" I sat up a little straighter.
"Phoenix, it was quite dramatic, he was walking through the gate when he heard me cry out as you fell down.” She sighed longingly. “He scooped you up off the floor like you weighed nothing more than a feather." She paused. "Okay, more like a feather pillow. Then he marched you to the sick room saying, "I think this poor girl needs medical attention." She pretended to swoon and fanned herself down.
"Oh, right." I mused for a moment. I'd never tried to visualise being carried to the sick room before. "You're right, that is a bit embarrassing."
Lauren gave a slow nod. "I wasn't complaining though, I got to stare at him the whole way here, that boy has one tidy ass.” She stared off into the distance. “And he invited us to his party tonight." Her voice raised an octave, hands beating on the bed as she wiggled her legs like a preschooler.
"Cool."
"Shame you won't be able to go, your mum is on her way now, there's not a chance she will let you out tonight."
"Didn't Aaron put us under a curfew?" That conversation I remembered. Sadly.
Lauren’s lips turned down at the corner again. "I'd take the wrath of Aaron to spend a night with Phoenix at his place." Her eyes went to the faraway place she kept for her special daydreams.
"Mm. Lauren, I just have one question?"
“Sure, babe, what is it?"
"Who on earth is Phoenix?"
I shouldered my way out of the sick bay despite the nurse attempting to block me with her clipboard. There was nothing on her notes that would account for me losing my mind. Chicken pox, nits, or scabies, maybe. But a complete mental breakdown? That wasn't something that would be covered on a retired nurse's skill set.
"Bron," Lauren called. "Where on earth are you going?" Her feet clattered on the hallway floor as she chased after me. "Your mum will be here in a minute."
I didn't slow down though. I needed a resolution. The moment Lauren had mentioned the name Phoenix, a lightning bolt of clarity had struck. It has exploded into a kaleidoscope of colour, with violet dazzling my mind. I had this uncomfortable sensation deep in my soul that I was unable to remember the events of the morning for a reason.
It was lunch. Apart from a few people braving the premature autumnal chill on the grass, the rest of the school were steaming up the dinner hall windows. I pushed through the doors not even clear of what I was searching for. I knew I'd find it though. And I did. Sitting at the centre table, in the seat normally occupied by Eleanor Heavers, with black boots resting on a chair.
My breath evaporated as I saw him. The boy who I'd tripped over in front of twice already. The second time when he may or may not have somehow mended my broken wrist.
Seriously? Was I even thinking any of this was possible? Real? Or was I truly insane?
"Bron," Lauren hissed in my ear. "Please don't embarrass yourself."
Distracted, I muttered, "I thought you said I'd done that already."
"True." Her voice lowered. "Okay, don't embarrass yourself any more."
I chuckled, a demented burst escaping from my lips. "I'll try."
Keeping my eyes focused on him, just in case he'd be so rude as to disappear again, I stepped forward. The crowd surrounding him seemed to laugh at something he said. He glanced up as I approached. Vivid, violet eyes stared at me. Dark luscious lashes framed them. My own eyes felt like they couldn't look at him too much, that it hurt to absorb the sight of him. I blinked a few times but it didn't help. It was only when I was standing in front of him, silence falling around us, that I realised I had nothing to say.
He kicked his feet off the spare chair and pushed it towards me. I sat. Not that I wanted to.
He still had his cap on but that wasn't what was obscuring his face. I couldn't focus on him properly. It reminded me of looking in a dusty mirror.
"Hi," he said. His voice rang like a bell in my head. It did something strange to my chest, my stomach dove into a vat of jelly. The reel of the heavy chain residing there, slinked and clinked, reminding me of its presence. I wanted to tell the chain I knew it was there, although I didn't know why.
"Hi."
A few sniggers escaped around the table. My eyes glanced to the person sitting on the left of him with her hand on his arm. Eleanor Heavers. I suddenly felt truly ridiculous. The only logical conclusion I could draw was that I'd been admitted to a lunatic asylum and I was currently living in some alternate reality.
"How can I help, Bronte?" He made my name ring like a musical note.
"How do you even know my name?" I spluttered.
He lifted his face, and for a moment I thought I saw a flash of him through the mist. Beautiful. "Haven't we known each other since the first day of school?"
I shook my head vigorously. "No." I was sure of this.
Shifting forward he placed his elbows on his knees. "That forgettable, am I?" A laugh snickered around the table and my cheeks flushed.
It was obvious despite the fog obscuring my view that there was nothing forgettable about him at all.
I gave another shake of my head. "Bron," he said, and his voice pitched lower. "I don't think you're feeling very well. Maybe you should go home."
"No, I need . . .” I stopped talking. What did I need? Not to be crazy anymore?
Him?
"Isn't that your mum?" Eleanor flashed a wicked grin as she motioned across the hall. I wish I couldn't see her face, but it was crystal clear. The table exploded into laughter. The strange boy watched me, through the fog he was blurred, but I knew he was watching me. I tried to shrug it off but but the weight of his gaze was too heavy to shift.
I was at a loss, so I got up to walk away, ignoring the jibes behind me. "Hey," his voice called me back, his fingers catching mine. The chain rattled, responding to his touch. I turned and found him standing close. "Are you coming to my party tonight?"
"No." For the obvious reasons, because you don't exist, and I'm crazy.
He leant forward so his mouth was close to my ear. "I think maybe you should."
"I'm on a curfew." I wished I could stop talking to him and walk away.
"You
'll be safe with me." The violet eyes flashed and caused my mind to empty of all capacity for speech.
Shaking my head, I turned and walked away. My feet dragged passed Lauren, who stood there with her mouth hanging open, and towards my mum. Mum had a look on her face telling me I would hear rather a lot of parental advice on the way home.
Party? How can someone who doesn't exist have a party? It's all I could think.
He doesn't exist.
It all seemed pretty real though. I don't know if it was that it felt real but shouldn't that was annoying me. Or the simple fact that he was sitting in the middle of the dinner hall like lord of the manor with Eleanor Heavers. She'd been hanging off his arm like a piece of candy and I'd never hated her so much. Ugh.
I'd tried to text Lauren a few times but there had been no response. It was now getting dark, even though it was only ten to five in the evening. I watched out the window for the moon to rise. It was slow coming. The stars were only dim despite the lack of cloud. A gentle knock at the door disturbed me.
"Can I come in?" Aaron poked his head around the door frame. I wanted to groan and tell him to go away, but he looked tired and frankly depressed.
"Sure." I slumped lower onto my mattress, pulling my knees up to my chest.
He sat on the edge of the bed, making it dip slightly. My nostrils filled with the strong scent of soap that seemed to follow him wherever he went despite how long it had been since his last shower. How he was always shower fresh was a mystery.
I didn’t give him time to ask the question that was on his lips. "I'm fine. Mum totally over reacted coming to get me so early."
He raised an eyebrow. "Overreacted?" He seemed to be staring at my wrist, the one that may or may not have smashed to smithereens and then fixed by a stranger who was altering reality. I tucked my hand under my leg, strangely conscious of it. "You collapsed before you'd even entered school." He shook his head. "You know she will stop you going eventually. She can't stand the thought of something happening to you."
Tears stung in the corner of my eyes. "I'm fine." I said, my teeth grinding.
"Listen, I know it's frustrating that no one can provide any answers, but you never know, maybe the tests last week will shed some new light." His tone was too breezy.
