What I Saw

by Beck Nicholas

  She waits expectantly.

  ‘Uh, thanks.’

  Why did he text her? I drag my phone from my pocket and realise I must have left it on silent after my earlier visit here. I’ve missed a call and two texts from Jonny. The boyfriend I completely forgot about when I was with Rhett. Guilt leaves a sour taste on my tongue. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do anything. I wanted to.

  Bree peers over my shoulder, reading the brief demands for my presence. ‘He’s going to be pissed if you don’t show soon.’

  ‘Probably. I’ll go in a minute.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But first—’ I take another delaying sip of my water, ‘—you know how I went out for some fresh air last night while we were dancing?’

  She chuckles. ‘That’s a nice way of putting it.’

  I ignore her teasing. ‘I saw the fight.’

  Her eyes go big and she leans forward. ‘And?’

  ‘And …’ My voice trails off.

  ‘Spill.’

  She’s not going to like this, but a friend would tell. ‘You need to know the truth. Hayden was out there with Scarlett Barker,’ I blurt. ‘They were meeting in secret. He had plans to get with her. Whether she liked it or not …’ I take another breath. ‘And I don’t think it was the first time.’

  Bree crosses her arms. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s the truth, Bree. I know you don’t want to hear it.’

  Her mouth does a good impression of a fish drowning in air. ‘But—’

  ‘Why would I make this up?’

  She blinks and then spits, ‘Maybe because your boyfriend isn’t around much these days so you want to mess things up for me. It’s so obvious. And you’ve heard the rumours about what Jonny’s getting up to at uni.’

  ‘Rumours?’ I’m confused. There are rumours? And she hasn’t told me? The sting is a slap to the face. I can’t speak. With her pinched mouth and slit eyes, my best friend might as well be a stranger. ‘Like what?’

  She ticks them off on her fingers. ‘The drinking, the hook-ups and the older one he’s been practically shacking up with on the weekends he doesn’t come home. You’re jealous,’ she continues. ‘I’m here and everyone feels sorry for me and you can’t stand it. Miss School Captain doesn’t have all the attention for once so you have to do something to get it.’

  ‘No. That’s not true.’

  She shakes her head. For a moment there’s a glimpse of vulnerability in her eyes, the Bree I thought I knew, and then the hard mask slips back into place. ‘Just leave.’

  ‘But—’

  She holds her hand up to cut me off. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.’ Her voice shakes. ‘Instead of worrying about my love life, maybe you should pay more attention to your own.’

  I stand. There’s pain beneath the harsh words and I can’t help but reach out, but I immediately drop my hand to my side. I couldn’t bear for her to shove me away. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You should be.’ She angles her body away from me. We’re done.

  Still, I hover. I’m hoping against all logic that she’ll turn back, even though I know she won’t. I knew she’d be upset, but I never thought she wouldn’t believe me.

  As I reach the door I hear the muffled sob from behind me. I glance back. Bree’s head is in her hands and her shoulders are shaking.

  A nurse bustles past, an incredibly tall woman with a hooked nose. When she speaks, her voice is deeper than a man’s. ‘Is that girl your friend?’

  ‘I used to think so, but now I’m not sure.’

  ‘She looks like she could use some help.’

  How can I explain that I was trying to do exactly that?

  * * *

  The cars are bumper to bumper a block before I reach the beach. I can hear the distant thud of the music as soon as I step out of my car. I lock it, tasting the salt on the sea breeze.

  A few days ago I was looking forward to this party, but now I don’t want to be here. If it wasn’t for my promise to check on Sean, I’d climb back in the car and head for home, and the sweet oblivion of sleep.

  Two hands cover my eyes.

  I gasp, try to break free. But he’s too strong.

  ‘Hey, baby,’ he slurs. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Jonny.’ I can’t keep the annoyance from my voice.

  He laughs and turns me to face him. His eyes have that glazed look I know so well, and his breath is soaked with beer. ‘I missed you.’

  I’m stiff in his arms. I can’t help thinking about what Bree said back at the hospital. It makes a sick kind of sense. He’s been full of excuses not to visit.

  Now isn’t the time for serious conversations, I decide. Even as I think it, I know I’m just avoiding the inevitable. He takes a swig of beer over my shoulder and leans in, but I pull away. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  He rubs his wet lips against my cheek. ‘I’m only trying to say hello.’

  ‘You reek of beer.’

  ‘Don’t be such a killjoy.’

  I’m reminded of Rhett and wish I wasn’t. Leave me alone. Thinking about Rhett hurts. It’s impossible to separate him from the secret I’m keeping. And I can’t forget the scorn he didn’t try to hide. I slip my arms around Jonny’s neck. ‘I’m so tired of thinking,’ I say.

  ‘Then don’t.’ Jonny pulls me closer. I let him. He bares his teeth in a drunken leer as he presses against me. ‘That’s more like it.’

  It’s all I can do not to pull away. He’s my boyfriend. But the reminder doesn’t help when he’s lowering his mouth towards mine.

  ‘Have you seen Sean?’ I blurt the question before our lips touch.

  He leans back. ‘Who?’ He’s drunker than I thought.

  ‘My brother,’ I say slowly.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Him.’

  I scan his face for any sign he’s discovered that it was actually Sean who hit Hayden, but there are none. I try for apologetic at breaking our moment. ‘I have to speak to him.’

  Jonny slides an arm over my shoulder and begins hauling me towards the beach, where distant flames spit sparks into the darkening sky. ‘He was down by the water with Timmy last I saw.’

  I bet he was. He probably wants to make sure his friend is going to stick to the story. Part of me hopes the guilt is eating Sean alive, because I shouldn’t be suffering alone.

  Once on the sand, I can’t resist slipping out of my shoes to feel the cool grains beneath my toes. It doesn’t hurt that the action frees me from Jonny’s heavy arm. I manage to maintain a bit of distance by swinging my wedges between us. He doesn’t seem to notice, striding ahead to the crates surrounding the roaring fire. Some are filled with ice and beer. Others have been overturned and are being used as seats.

  I move slower, my attention caught by the crackle and hiss of the fire. The blaze is six feet across and the flames from the shallow pit climb as high as a house. There are piles of wood nearby to keep it going. Someone throws a log. It arcs through the air and lands in the middle of the pit. Sparks scatter and there’s laughter and a wolf-whistle in the darkness. Music from six huge speakers shakes my body and the heavy drumbeat thumps deep inside my chest.

  All around me people talk and laugh. My friends. People I’ve known most of my life, people who’ve been at every party I’ve ever attended. This is where I belong.

  Jonny returns with two open beers. He holds one out. A drop of condensation slides down the glass and drips onto the sand. He presses it into my hand. ‘Come on. It’s just a beer.’

  ‘No.’ Heat from the fire dries my skin and my mouth. ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you home.’ Jonny pushes the bottle against me. ‘Loosen up.’

  Again I see Rhett in my head. I take the beer. Lift it high and take a huge gulp.

  Jonny’s arms come around my waist and we sway to the beat. I can’t remember the last time I ate. The beer cools my fire-parched throat. Almost immediately, the tension starts to seep out of my li
mbs.

  Suddenly I see Sean on the other side of the flames. I wriggle free of Jonny. On clumsy feet I round the fire pit only to see his back as he walks away.

  I follow. ‘Sean.’

  He turns. When he sees it’s me, he glares. ‘What?’

  I take another sip of my beer, trying to recapture the mellow feeling of a minute ago. ‘Dad wanted me to make sure you were okay.’

  ‘I’m fucking awesome.’

  There’s no-one else this side of the fire. The crackle of the flames competes with the splash of the waves against the shore, all of it deafening in the silence between us.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He lifts his hand to show the beer he’s holding like a kid with a shiny toy. ‘To enjoy the party. As soon as my sister stops harassing me.’

  ‘I spoke to Dad.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You were right about the job thing. But that doesn’t make what you did okay.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’

  ‘Say I don’t tell,’ I continue, ignoring the way hope flares in his eyes. ‘Do you think the guilt will ever go away?’

  He takes a swallow of his beer. ‘I reckon I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I have to tell.’

  ‘You have no proof.’

  ‘There’s my word, and the photo I took of your hand.’ He’s shaking his head and I wish he’d see this is the best way. He’ll regret it forever if he doesn’t tell the truth. ‘You should never have blamed Rhett.’

  ‘Do you think I meant to involve Rhett? I don’t have a problem with him personally.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I had to say something. It just came out. But you have to believe me, I didn’t plan any of this. I had no idea what would happen when Hayden said to meet him behind the art centre. I thought it was some kind of initiation for the squad. I just wanted to be part of the team. Finally. I would never hurt Scarlett Barker. I don’t even know her.’

  ‘Even if I keep silent it won’t matter in the long run. What about when Hayden wakes up?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s not going to be in any hurry to explain what he was doing there either.’ His eyes squeeze shut and then open again, and he looks straight at me. ‘I don’t know,’ he says again. ‘Some of us just make it up as we go along. We can’t all map out every microsecond.’

  Everyone thinks they know me so well. So what if I like a bit of order? They make it sound like a crime. ‘I have to go.’

  His hand goes through his hair. ‘Of course you do. Must be nice to be so perfect.’

  ‘You don’t know me at all.’

  He shakes his head. ‘And I don’t want to.’

  ‘Cheers then,’ I say. I salute my little brother with my beer and then drain the bottle. Warmth spreads through me. Without waiting for a response, I turn and head back to Jonny. He’s already holding out another drink. I take it.

  Thinking is overrated. Everyone needs to loosen up sometime.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Rhett

  Two days ago I would have bet our shitty house on the fact that Callie Jones would be at the bonfire. Tonight, I’m not so sure.

  She’s so different to the girl I thought she was.

  I pick up the pace along the creek, trying to shake off my stupid nerves at the thought of seeing her again—this time with intent to charm. After talking to Javier, I’ve decided to persuade her to tell the truth despite her brother. The stupid kid deserves a wake-up call about getting in fights and making false accusations.

  I’m doing him a service.

  And at least this way I’m not just sitting at home waiting for Monday to come. Waiting to see everything I’ve worked so hard for go down the toilet.

  It’s dark by the time I hit the sand. My battered leather jacket, which is the only thing of my father’s I haven’t burned, keeps the wind blowing in off the water from chilling me through my thin white shirt. The shirt doesn’t have a recognisable label or anything, but it was the best I could do in my plan to impress Callie.

  The music gets louder as I round the curve and approach the bay. My fingers itch to strum along. I lied to Callie earlier. I pick up that stupid guitar all the time. I just wasn’t in the mood for a concert, or to tell her anything she doesn’t need to know.

  I’m surprised she has time for guitar practice anyway.

  School captain, probably valedictorian, scholarships for the taking. She must live with her head in a book. I picture her leaning forward, glasses slipping down her nose as her fine brows meet in the centre of her forehead. She chews her pen, I bet. Focused. Determined. And impossibly sexy.

  I kick out, sending a spray of sand up in front of me. All I want is for her to tell the truth so I can get on with my life.

  It looks like every kid in our school has turned up, and more. I trip on a black blob in the darkness.

  ‘Watch it,’ growls the blob.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Near the fire, the social elite of our school are drinking themselves into the same kind of mess that put their friend in intensive care.

  Great to see they’re all suffering too.

  A girl from my English class is kneeling on the sand between me and the fire. Her cropped dark hair is windswept and she seems to have lost a shoe, judging by the way she’s searching the surrounding clumps of seaweed. I don’t know her name but I’m pretty sure she’s part of Callie’s crowd.

  My heart thumps. Soon. Soon I’ll see her again.

  It’s only been a couple of hours but she’s already an addiction. I stop in front of the girl. ‘Have you seen Callie?’

  The girl frowns. Blinks. Her head swings in small arcs like she’s trying to follow my movement.

  I’m standing still.

  ‘Carrie?’ Her skin glows a sickly orange in the light of the fire and her eyes are glazed.

  ‘Callie,’ I try again. ‘Callie Jones.’

  Her name is soft on my tongue.

  The girl shakes her head. Slowly at first, and then so hard she topples over. She giggles and then, before I can decide whether I should help her up, she straightens and smiles at me. ‘Do I know you?’

  We’ve gone to the same school most of our lives. ‘I don’t think so.’

  I ask three other people before I reach the fire, but no-one has seen Callie.

  A girl from another school, wearing only a bikini and a sarong around her waist, leans heavily on me. ‘I’m much more fun than Callie,’ she slurs.

  Her body squishes against me and I have to prise her arms from around my neck. ‘I’m really looking for Callie.’

  She pouts. ‘A few locals headed that way.’ She points towards the jetty at the other end of the bay.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She’s latched onto some other guy before I finish speaking.

  I don’t realise how much warmth there was by the fire until I’m out of range again. I recognise Timmy by the water. Diverting around him would be easy. Instead, I aim straight for him.

  When we’re close enough that I can see the scar across his eyebrow, he glares down at me.

  ‘What are you doing here, Barker?’

  It’s hard to match this huge musclebound guy with the skinny runt who used to sit with me in primary school. That was before he knew being friends with someone from my side of the creek would get him beaten up just the same as if he moved in. I don’t blame him for looking after himself, but his backing up Sean’s version of events was a blow I could have done without.

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  He glances over his shoulder, as though he’s worried someone will see him talking to me. ‘You’re not exactly popular around here, brother.’

  ‘You’re no brother of mine.’ I laugh. ‘And that reminds me, I wanted to thank you for screwing me over last night. Not to mention being a party to whatever Hayden was going to do to my sister. I’ve been to see Sergeant Peters.’

  He draws himself up to his full heigh
t. The whites of his eyes are stark against the shadows and the dark skin of his face. ‘I don’t think you want to do this.’

  ‘Really? Because it seems like justice to me. We both know who threw that punch.’ I roll my shoulders and make a show of loosening up. ‘If I’m going to get in trouble anyway, I may as well do the crime.’

  He shows me his open palms. ‘I don’t want to fight you.’

  ‘Yet you were happy to hold me so your friend could take a swing. How brave.’

  He ignores my verbal jab. ‘What do you want?’

  I can’t tell him about Callie. ‘I’m looking for Scarlett.’

  ‘Haven’t seen her.’ He goes to walk away, heading back to his football crowd. A few of the team are passing a ball along the sand, made clumsy by the beers in their hands.

  Timmy’s black jacket is a darker shadow against the starlit night sky. It reminds me of one night on school camp back when we were kids. We drew star charts with devoted intensity. ‘What happened to you?’ I ask. ‘You wanted to be an astronaut.’

  For a second I don’t think he hears. It’s a stupid question anyway. ‘Forget it,’ I say to his back. ‘I don’t do deep and meaningful conversations with dickheads who would just as soon punch me as talk.’ It feels good to get it off my chest. ‘We haven’t been friends for a long time.’

  But then he stops. Turns back. ‘Me? You’re the one who changed. You should never have quit the team like you did.’ He shakes his head. ‘You were good.’

  Back when we were little kids on the football field, no-one cared who my dad was, as long as I could play. And Timmy’s right—I could play. I don’t like to think about that time much. Before counselling. Before I noticed parents whispering on the sidelines.

  ‘I didn’t want to hang around where I wasn’t wanted.’

  ‘Not wanted?’ He shakes his head. ‘We freaking needed you.’

  I shrug, ignoring the old ache of missing out, and shove my hands deep in my pockets. ‘Wasn’t my thing.’ The lie rolls easily off my tongue. I’ve told myself a version of it for years now. It’s easier than admitting I could never fit in with that crowd.