And then I thought, shit, I remember when Leo and those guys used to scare the crap out of me, especially when Leo’s brother Aaron was still at school. I used to wonder if him and his mates had weapons in their backpacks, and how they chewed gum like someone who would definitely win a fight and probably had already murdered a few nobodies and dumped them in the river. It doesn’t help that just shy of his nineteenth birthday, Aaron went inside for stabbing some bloke in the chicken shop, and hurting him pretty bad.
But Leo isn’t Aaron. And now I walk to school with them, and you know what? They are pretty much just like me. Only taller. But fucking everyone is taller than me.
‘Mate,’ Leo says, as I approach.
‘Mate.’ I nod, and we all nod at each other in turn as I fall into step with them, short and skinny, as if – I like to imagine – I’m David Bowie with a fuck-load of bouncers. The sun is warm on the back of my neck, even the car fumes in the air smell kind of good today, the constant sound of traffic, brakes squealing, engines revving, cyclists swearing, radios turned up loud, my favourite city background noise.
‘Top three guitarists?’ Leo asks me.
‘Well, Hendrix, obviously, then May, then Slash.’
‘Ah shit.’ Leo shakes his head at me. ‘Hendrix is a given. But fucking May? Fucking Slash?’
‘Yes, fucking May and Slash, fucking Brian May is the fucking best guitarist there has ever been.’
‘You are wrong in the head, mate. You’ll be saying fucking Phil Collins is the best drummer next . . . ’
‘Well . . . Where were you last night?’ I ask him.
‘Round yours, moron.’
‘No, I mean after, online. Me and Rose were chatting for a bit.’
‘Oh. I had to talk to my mum.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah.’ Leo pauses, He’s the kind of bloke that shows everything he’s thinking on his face, and what he’s thinking isn’t good. ‘Just when you thought it couldn’t be any more fucked up . . . ’
‘What?’
‘Aaron’s coming out.’ He doesn’t say any more but he doesn’t have to.
‘Shit.’
We walk on in silence, letting the noise of the city do all the talking. Before Aaron went inside Leo hung out with him a lot, looked up to him, followed his lead wherever it took him, and it took him to some pretty scary places. Because Aaron really didn’t care what he fucked up, that’s what made him so scary. I guess once, a long time ago, he must have been just a boy but when he was pretty young he fell in with some older kids on that estate, and they got him into skunk, and that pretty much blew up his head. Some people can get into it, and it never really affects them that much, and some, some like Aaron, it does something to their brain. They get in so deep, they can’t ever see the world like they used to again. They’re broken. So he got dragged down, and for a while he took Leo with him.
That version of Leo, the version I first played with a year ago was angry and dark. He was frightening, at least that’s what I thought. Always on the outside edge of dangerous things: the gangs that Aaron ran with, the drugs he dealt, the favours he did for a little cash here and there. Things that Leo knew could suck you in so fast and so deep, you don’t know you’re drowning until it’s too late. Aaron going away had been the best thing that had ever happened to Leo. For the first time in his life he got to find out who he was, without his big bro telling him. If Aaron had been around there’s no way he would have stayed in Mirror, Mirror, playing air guitar on a slide. No way.
Aaron out, means Aaron calling the shots again. Or at least trying to.
‘So . . . what did your mum say?’ The best response I can come up with is a shit one.
‘She said she don’t want him back in the flat, but he’s her son. She says I’m not to hang around with him, not to let my school work suffer like it did before. Not to let him get me into trouble, like he’s all bad and I’m the fucking golden boy.’
‘So are you OK about it?’ I’m careful not to look at him.
‘Yeah, he’s my bruv, course I am,’ Leo says, but there is a split second delay that makes me wonder.
‘Hey!’ Rose arrives behind us at full pelt, wearing shades, hair in a mess.
‘Hungover from your dad’s whiskey?’ I ask her.
‘I can’t help it if I’ve got mature tastes.’ She grins, ‘I needed something. I still can’t believe it, you know. When Nai was missing, it was like I could pretend she was OK. But now . . . fucking hell.’
‘I’ve been thinking about Nai all night,’ Leo says. ‘It don’t make sense that she’d do that to herself, right? Remember at the end of last term? She changed, stopped wearing all that anime make-up and clothes and shit. She looked . . . sunny. The day before she disappeared she looked sunny, right? I’m not making that up, am I?’
‘No, you’re right,’ I agree. ‘End of last year she was on a permanent high, writing really good songs all the time, more than we could record. There was nothing, nothing at all that would make her want to . . . you know.’
‘So,’ Rose says. ‘The answer is that something bad happened, something really fucking bad happened to her while she was missing. That’s the only thing that makes sense, right? Something so dark, she couldn’t live with it.’
We don’t realise that we’ve all come to a stop as we try to imagine what that could be.
‘Hi!’ The voice sounds so much like Naomi’s that we all start. It’s Ashira. Leo’s mates walk on.
We exchange looks; did she hear us talking?
‘Hey, Ash.’ Rose’s smile is uncomfortable. Lips pressed together, not quite sure what to say.
‘Look, this is awkward, but Jackie thought you guys might like to come over after seeing Nai tonight. Have dinner? There’s nothing she can really do at the hospital, she needs something to take her mind off it all.’ Somehow Ash finds a shadow of a smile to end her sentence. It looks like it costs her. ‘I think it’s a stupid idea, but that’s Jackie for you, she thinks everything can be solved with a decent meal. And I think you make her feel better. Like everything will be OK again, you know?’
‘Course,’ I say, a little uncertainly, looking first at Leo and then Rose, who both nod.
‘I know it’s going to be weird . . . and fucking awful,’ she sighs, her chin dropping, her dark eyes downcast. ‘Jackie says the house is too quiet. And I don’t have mates round. Or mates. No one knows what to say to me.’
‘Shit, sorry, Ash.’ Rose goes to touch her, her hand falling back to her side before she reaches her. Ash never gives the impression that she wants to be touched.
‘Not your fault.’ Ashira shrugs, raising her gaze to meet mine, and for a moment I think that maybe there is something else she wants to say, but only to me. ‘I never really was into people all that much, anyway.’
‘We’ve been pretty crap.’ Leo shakes his head. ‘We should have been there for you. I don’t know, we all lost it a bit.’
‘Well, the concert that you’re organising, I mean that’s good. Something to focus on.’ Ash forces a smile. ‘And I got my ways of dealing with it. Anyway, Jackie’d love to see you, overfeed you. If you can stand it.’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I miss Jackie’s cooking.’
‘What about you?’ Finally Rose crosses that invisible line around Ash and picks up her hand, in that way she does, always breaking down borders, never scared of what might be waiting for her.
‘I’m fine.’ Ash gently tugs her hand free. ‘Dad was there all night with her, he came back this morning and she’s stable, so . . . See you at the hospital, probably.’
The three of us watch as Ash walks off, head bent once again, hair swept behind her by the velocity of her need to get somewhere where no one can see her cry.
‘I never thought about going round there,’ Rose said as the school bell sounds, and we realise we are the last left outside. ‘Or checking in with Ash.’
‘None of us did.’ Leo drops his arm around her shoulder and she tu
rns in towards him, resting her forehead on his chest just for a second. He drops a kiss on the top of her head, and lets her go as if nothing happened, and in a way nothing did, except for me to be able to kiss the top of Rose’s head I’d need to grow a foot, and seeing the way she leans towards him kind of pulls at the centre of my chest.
‘Hey, guys! A word.’
Mr Smith jogs across the concrete towards us.
‘Going to the hospital later?’
‘Yeah,’ Rose says. ‘Of course, sir, are you?’
‘No, I don’t think so. But keep me updated, will you, Rose?’
‘Sure.’ Rose smiles.
‘The thing is, I forgot that before all this happened I had the local radio guys coming over to tape your rehearsal as a promo for the concert. And now I need to talk to Naomi’s mum and dad, maybe we should postpone.’
‘No.’ Rose puts her hand on his arm, like she’s comforting him. ‘No, we were just talking to Ash and she said they were into it. We shouldn’t postpone.’
‘So you’ll do the interviews, then?’ he asks.
‘I guess so,’ I say. Leo nods.
‘Right, well, get to class. Blame me if you’re late, OK?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Rose smiles, tilting her head to one side. ‘And you blame me if you’re late, K?’
‘And Rose, don’t forget to come and see me later about choir,’ he calls as he walks across the yard. Rose’s flirt bombs slide off him like water off a duck’s back, but Rose is still beaming.
‘Why do you do that?’ Leo asks her as we walk into the building. ‘And choir?’
‘They need a shit-hot soloist, apparently, for some competition.’ Rose’s laugh glitters as she drifts in close to Leo, lowering her lashes. ‘Anyway, I can’t help my natural charms, men just can’t resist me.’
‘You can’t resist men more like,’ Leo snaps back, sidestepping Rose, leaving her hanging. He stalks off to registration.
‘What’s got into him?’ Rose looks at me, as we stop in the corridor. The jangle and chatter of kids getting to class gradually falls away to distant doors closing and silence, a sure sign that we are officially late.
What’s got into him is you, I think but I don’t say.
‘Aaron’s getting out.’
‘Fuck.’ Rose frowns, shrugging her bag off her shoulder, so that it drops onto the lino with a clatter that echoes off the walls. ‘Aaron is a dickhead, and Leo thinks the sun shines outs of his arse.’
‘I know.’ I run my palm over the shaved back of my head. ‘I’m worried about him, but what do we say? What do we do? He worships Aaron.’
‘It’ll be OK.’ Rose picks up her bag again. ‘We’re not fucking losing anyone else. Not on my watch.’
I smile at her, and in my head I see myself as one of those cartoon characters with pounding love hearts bouncing out of their eyeballs.
‘What?’ Rose looks at me, cocking her head, as we begin to walk towards class at last. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ I love how she lives every moment right down to the tips of her fingers, how she tests and challenges literally everything, spoiling for a fight every five minutes.
‘Right, well, I can’t hang around waiting for you to get your shit together. Later, loser!’ She gives me the finger as she strides down the corridor and she’s nearly at the end when she turns around and shouts at the top of her voice.
‘I love you, Red!’
‘I know,’ I say. When I finally get into my form room I’m grinning from ear to ear.
Chat History
Rose 1 m ago 109 days streak
Leo 1 hour ago 43 days streak
Kasha 6 hours ago 6 day streak
Parminder 3 day streak
Luca 4 days ago
Sam 5 days ago
Naomi 27 July (Naomi is Offline)
7
Fuck this.
I thought I’d feel something, when she came back. Happy or sad or something. Instead the three of just sit next to her bed saying nothing, and feeling . . . well, nothing. We’re sitting in a vacuum.
‘You’re here.’ Jackie smiled when she saw us, so at least there’s that, knowing we make her feel a bit better. ‘She needs people her own age around her, instead of her stuffy old mum boring her rigid.’ She talked as if Nai was sitting up in bed, rolling her eyes and making sarcastic comments like she always used to. ‘It’s all right, Nai, love, your friends are here now, OK?’
She pressed her palm to my cheek, and I smiled for her.
‘You stay with her and I’ll go home and cook for you. I’m looking forward to it, it’s something to do. Max will be here with her when we’re eating and then we’ll swap again. I don’t want her to be on her own any more, you see, she was on her own in that water and . . .’ Her voice strains to breaking point.
‘It’s fine, Mrs Demir,’ Leo says, serious and solemn, putting his arm around her shoulder, sheltering her with his height and width. ‘We’ve got her now, yeah? You go and cook, you’re the best cook there is, but don’t tell my ma I said that.’
Jackie nods, and kisses him on the cheek before taking a ragged breath and kissing Nai on the one bit of smooth brown skin on her face that’s left.
‘Back later, poppet, don’t wear yourself out chatting,’ she whispers.
‘She looks better, I think,’ Rose says once Jackie has gone. ‘Don’t you think she looks better? Less . . . cold.’
Her skin tone was better, that was true, if you concentrated on that one uninjured patch and the closed eye it surrounded, it almost looked like she was just sleeping very deeply. If you didn’t look anywhere else.
‘What shall we do? Shall we tell her what’s been going on?’ Leo asked, his hands deep in his pockets. ‘Are we supposed to talk to her, or what? This feels weird.’
He paces to the door, leaning against it, as if he’d really like to be on the other side.
‘What we going to say?’ Rose snaps. ‘That Parminder is still a cow and school is still fucking lame-as?’
For a moment all we can hear are the machines and our own breathing.
‘Music,’ I say, nodding at Rose’s phone. ‘Open up Toonifie. She made her playlists public, let’s find one for her.’
‘Yeah, music, good idea.’ Rose busies herself with her phone, opening the app we all use to stream our favourite songs. ‘I’ll search her playlists . . . she gave them all such dumb-ass names, can you remember any?’
‘“No Apologies”, Sum 41,’ I say. ‘She had that on repeat before the summer. Her playlist was called ‘FU A-Hole.’
Rose searches, and I wait for the music to start, but instead she just frowns, staring at the phone. ‘That’s weird . . . ’
‘What?’
‘Open your apps, search that playlist. NaySay01 is her username.’
I do as she says, and I see it: there are two playlists that come up under that title. One is Nai’s, created in July last year. And there’s another one created in August, same title, same songs on the list, different username. I pass it to Leo, who shrugs and hands it back.
‘So who the fuck is DarkM00n?’ Rose asked. ‘Look. If you search Nai’s username, fucking Darkm00n has cloned all of her playlists. All of them. What does that mean?’ We stare at the phone as if somehow we might be able to figure it out, just by looking.
‘Nothing, it means nothing.’ Leo shakes his head. ‘It’ll be some fuckwit from school, who did it after she went missing. Probably wanted to be more interesting or some shit. People are cunts, don’t forget that.’
‘If I find out who that is, I swear to God . . .’ Rose growled at her phone.
‘Just play the music, yeah,’ Leo says and soon the small, quiet room is filled with angry guitars, and it’s so much better than the sound of machines, or us not talking.
Curious, I scroll through DarkM00n’s playlists. There are more than just the ones they’ve ripped off Nai. And then I see it. There are playlists made up of our songs, stuff that only about eleven people
in the whole world make playlists from. Yeah, Leo is right, someone from school probably, a fan of the band definitely. Fucking weirdo.
Looking up from my phone, I see that Rose and Leo are glued to theirs; Rose standing facing out of the window, Leo sitting on the one visitor chair, his long legs splayed out at odd angles.
Slipping my phone into my pocket I make myself look at Nai.
We’re used to our friendships being at least 50 per cent online, so used to it sometimes I think we forget that there’s a beating heart on the other end of that avatar.
I can see from the stubble at her temple that parts of her long poker-straight black hair have been shaved away, the bruising that creeps out from under the dressing has begun to yellow and spread. Her face is painful to look at, and it’s hard to see that girl that I hung out with every day, so smashed in. Not as hard as it is to be her, I guess. What does she know about this room she’s in, what does she dream behind those closed eyes?
Focusing on the one eye I can see I try to imagine what could possibly have happened between the last time I saw her – eight weeks ago, when she’d wiped off all her anime make-up, and was wearing a yellow summer dress, legs bare and brown – and now. I try and try, but there is nothing I can find that connects the dots from that girl, laughing and dancing with her shoes kicked off in the park, to this one here, with her face bruised and bloody.
Someone has arranged her arms neatly, so they lie by her sides over the sheets. Bruises flower up and down them too, though less severe than the ones on her face, and, I suppose, inside her head. I trace the pattern of them on her right arm with my eyes, right down to her wrist, and find myself leaning in closer. Has anyone else noticed that these marks look like fingerprints, purple, oval, clenched and claw-like? Like someone has grabbed her wrist, tight enough to crush the bones inside?
The thought of someone hurting her that way sends ice through my veins. I’m trembling.
Glancing back at the window, I see Dr Whitecoat outside talking to the nurses, expression intent and serious. She doesn’t look like the kind of person to have missed something that mattered.
Mirror, Mirror Page 5
