Gone Phishing

by Bowes, K T

  “Can we stop here?” Darren begged, bouncing in his seat like a child. “I wanna shoot golf balls onto that raft in the lake. Soph would love to see me do that, wouldn’t you, Soph?”

  She gave a tight smile and glanced in the rear view mirror, seeing Dane’s reflection looking straight at her. “I don’t care,” she replied. “Do whatever you want.”

  Animal gave a snort and sat bolt upright, leaving a dribble stain on the centre cushion. A seat belt mark cut a line through his neck and forehead and his blonde hair stuck up in sticky tufts. His breath stank of beer and Sophia turned away, resuming her vigil at the window. “Want food,” he snarled, slits for eyes glaring at the back of Dane’s head. Within a short while he passed out sideways, smacking his head against the window with a grunt.

  “Dude can’t hold his beer,” Darren whooped, turning around to grin at Sophia. His brow knitted in concern. “You all goods, Soph? You look a bit sick.”

  “I’m fine.” Again the tight smile. “Thanks,” she added before turning back to the window.

  Dane stopped in Taupo and parked at a jaunty angle, feeding coins to a hungry meter. Darren and Animal piled out and the bigger boy vomited between two cars, much to the horror of passersby. “Ah, that feels better,” he sighed, squatting with his back against the ute. He looked up at the boys. “Who wants to get a burger?”

  Dane shrugged, his tone nonchalant and hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets. Darren stared at Sophia with concern and declined. “I’m all goods thanks,” he replied, darting looks at her expression of misery. Animal wandered away to refill his guts and Dane followed, turning towards the lake front, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Darren took a step towards Sophia and leaned against the ute, watching the woodenness of her stance. She wrapped her arms around herself and explored the numbness in her chest, poking at the myriad sore spots and feeling a blessed nothingness where extreme emotions should be.

  “You don’t like me that way, do you?” Darren asked, a six-year revelation finally making it home through adoration and obsession to hit its mark.

  Sophia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Darren; I wish I did. You’d be a wonderful boyfriend.” Her voice wobbled and the lock on her Pandora’s box of emotions threatened to loosen.

  He smiled with sadness and wrinkled his nose. “See, that’s what I like about you,” he replied. “You always have something nice to say about people. I know I’m an idiot. Learning and following rules is impossible for someone like me. I forget them as soon as I hear them and act surprised when teachers and clever people say I broke them. Cops,” he added. “Cops say I break them too. It’s a concentration thing.” He took another step nearer and patted her arm as a big brother might. “You were so kind when we did that project together all those years ago. You let me come round your house and your mum fed me dinner and stuff. I know you did the work, Soph, but that’s the best mark I ever got in all those years of schooling.” He smiled. “If I can’t be your boyfriend and shag ya, I’d love to be your friend.”

  “Help me,” she gasped, pressing her fist to her lips as the lid flew off her neatly labelled emotions and cast dignity and propriety aside like odd socks. “Help me. I don’t know what to do.”

  Chapter 26

  Finding Home

  Darren’s friendship proved as valuable as manuka honey on an open wound, a balm made in heaven. He walked Sophia to the transport centre in Taupo and put her on the first bus back to Hamilton, paying her fare and settling her into the window seat alone. He stole a roll of toilet paper from inside the depot and squashed it so it fitted into her jacket pocket for her tears, waving her off with as much fake joviality as the wife of a suicide bomber. Sophia in her heightened state of agitation responded to the smile but missed the more obvious cues as Darren’s heavy footsteps took him back to the car park, the ute and Dane’s temper. His heroism didn’t even register in Sophia’s addled brain until Cambridge, when the bus driver stopped to take on passengers and she wondered how Dane greeted her absconding. She let out a gasp and sat up.

  “I’ll sit with you seeing as you’ve no bags.” The old woman plopped onto the aisle seat and grinned at Sophia. She peered down at the floor between their feet. “Oh, you really have nothing, don’t you?”

  Sophia shook her head and turned her face away, not wishing to engage in meaningless conversation. Her rucksack, purse and sleeping bag occupied a small corner of the ute; no longer hers. Her only possessions from the ill-fated trip comprised the clothes she stood up in. The woman had other plans and chatted to Sophia, but mainly herself, all the way to Hamilton. The bus halted late on Sunday evening at the central bus terminal in Bryce Street and disgorged its passengers. “Where are you off to?” the woman asked, not discouraged by the one word replies she’d received over the half hour journey.

  “I’m not sure. Probably home.” Sophia gave a dismissive wave and walked towards Victoria Street, contemplating the long walk back to Flagstaff. The word home seemed to hit her in the head and she stopped on the curb, her destination more unsure than she’d realised. Home no longer existed, the word reduced to a father intent on jettisoning her, a mother who already did and a boyfriend who couldn’t stand the sight of her. Not thinking, she stepped into the road and felt a heady rush of air as a car swerved to avoid her. It bounced off the curb on the other side of the carriageway, forcing the oncoming traffic to screech to a halt. Like a B-rate movie, Sophia watched it unfold and then turned, running on legs made of jelly in the other direction. Swearing followed her like a swarm of wasps until she rounded a corner and ran straight into another pedestrian.

  He issued a grunt of pain and strong arms prevented Sophia falling back into the traffic. “Sorry,” she gasped and righted herself, shrugging away the fingers which gripped her upper arms. When they didn’t release, she looked up. Dane stared back at her, his face white and filled with horror. “Did you just try to kill yourself?” he demanded, his authoritarian tone jarring against the stupid question.

  “No!” She wrestled with him and when it proved futile, twisted in his grasp and ducked away, leaving Dane clutching the sleeves of her jacket. He looked ridiculous, holding it as though her body still filled it. Sophia backed off, her eyes wild and lost-it-crazy. “I didn’t, but it’s a really good idea.” She clapped a hand across her mouth and drowned in how pathetic she sounded, spinning around and heading in another direction, away from Dane’s accusing expression and the sound of cars revving as they sorted themselves back into some kind of order.

  The locked-up feeling in Sophia’s chest subsided by the time she reached Tristram Street and she pressed the button for the pedestrian lights. Daylight waned and the evening chill developed a bite, showing no mercy to her bare arms and legs. The aching ball of fire in her upper abdomen lessened to a dull throb and the numbness returned to cover it in painless fog. Her rational mind took over and planned for her, running through possible places to stay and how to get there without money.

  A car pulled up next to her at the lights, headlights glaring a passage through the dusk. Sophia kept her eyes focussed on the digital red man with his arms locked by his sides, who told her not to walk yet. “Soph.” She recognised his voice and closed her eyes, hearing the click of his driver’s door as he got out. He stood on the road with his jaw clenched and his blue eyes shimmering with nervousness. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go. It’s not safe here by yourself.”

  Her ego told her to run and hide but her rational and volitional mind ganged up on her. Automaton feet which bled from blisters turned towards the car. Its engine still idled behind the line even though the lights had changed to green. Dane watched her open the passenger door but didn’t get back in until she did. A car pulled up behind and the driver honked his horn in annoyance as the lights turned red again. “Which way?” Dane asked, putting the gear lever into first. “Where do you want to go?”

  Sophia swallowed and shifted her feet in the constricted foot well. W
hen she looked down, her jacket and rucksack sat waiting for her. The numbness lifted enough for the pins and needles to begin again in her chest and she shook her head, unable to think straight. The lights changed to green and Dane drove, heading north and then looping back across the city. Sophia watched through the window, seeing nothing. Her life stretched out behind her, a smorgasbord of academic excellence and achievement, strived for and worthless. When she stacked up her outstanding exam results for the last two years and added her head girl’s badge to the pile, it faded into insignificance against the monumental collapse of her home life and her parents’ combined disinterest. She pictured how close the car came to wiping her out and realised she didn’t want that either, her brain firing confusing electrical impulses from one side to the other but leaving her no wiser about her relevance or future.

  The car stopped on a familiar street and Dane killed the engine. Sophia roused herself as he got out and closed the door behind him. He walked a little way ahead and stood staring at something on the opposite side of the road. Curiosity broke through her own problems and she pushed her cold arms into her jacket and got out of the car, following at a safe distance. Dane turned his head and raised his voice so she could hear. “You know what’s weird?”

  She shook her head, no longer able to discern the weird from the normal. Dane turned back to face the site of his former home. The council cleared away the burned out husk of charred wood and twisted metal, disposing of it with as much care as Dane’s step-father’s spiteful, battered body found its way into a grave funded by public taxes. In its place stood a new house, the landscaping just taking shape and healing the scarred earth. “What’s weird is how often I come here. I sit in the car and stare at the space that used to be my home. A place where I laid in front of the little kids’ bedroom door at night to stop him or his mates hurting them. A place where I had more punches thrown in my direction than in a boxing ring.” Dane ran a hand through his dark hair.

  Sophia stepped closer, feeling his anguish in every nerve ending of her body and her misery sought his. Dane shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how shit it gets does it? How dysfunctional or strange it looks from the outside; home is home, isn’t it?” He raised his hand and traced an outline of the house in his mind’s eye. “It was good just me, Mum and the little kids. We made it feel like a family. While Pete sat in prison and she stayed sober, we had a home. Not a little cottage with roses round the door or a big posh place with a spa and a swimming pool; nothing like that. Bits always fell off our house in a storm or just because they didn’t wanna hold on any longer but we made it a home. It’s true.” Dane turned towards Sophia, his eyes bright with glittering tears like diamonds in the blackest mine. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. That’s the truth.” He fought for control, his hands balling into fists and his jaw working on inner sentences he couldn’t express. Dane swallowed.

  “I love you, Soph. Always have and always will.” He took a ragged breath through pursed lips. “I’ve tried to fix your problems because I can’t fix my own but they’re just too big.” Dane fixed his gaze on the new brick house with its shiny red front door and soft lamp light streaming through slatted blinds. He clicked his fingers. “It goes like that, Soph. One day it’s all there and the next, nothing left.”

  She nodded, knowing the truth of it. Dane wiped his nose on his sleeve and faced her, raw emotion exuding from him like a beacon fired by pain. “Are we done, you and me?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Is this it?”

  Chapter 27

  Taking Back Control

  The mask of the strong, alpha male slipped, revealing a terrified boy in its place. Sophia stood with her heart in knots and watched Dane reel, crumbling from the inside out. “We don’t have any control, do we?” she whispered. “We do what they say and be who they say and when they don’t want that anymore, who are we?”

  Dane nodded. “Do your best at school. Don’t take drugs. Get good friends. Don’t end up like us, you can do better.” He parodied the chant of a billion adult parents with good intentions in their eyes and Sophia heard the sarcasm and bitterness in his voice. Dane pulled a new packet of cigarettes from inside his jacket. He ripped the crumpled cellophane away and stuffed it back in his pocket, flipped the lid open and took one. Retrieving a lighter from his jeans he lit up with expert precision. He inhaled and Sophia watched the tremble leave his fingers as he swallowed the familiar smoke and searched for himself in the confusion.

  “Did it happen here?” she asked, moving closer and watching the veins stick out on his neck in the light from the street lamp overhead. Dane’s body stiffened, but he nodded.

  “How old were you?”

  Dane blew grey smoke from his nose. “Twelve. Said he needed to help me grow up; didn’t want some other man’s pussy virgin son under his roof. Dunno how old she was, but it’s how she paid for her fixes.” He flicked ash from the cigarette and watched as the end flared red. “The human body’s amazing,” he said, his tone level. “Did you know you can switch off whole parts of your mind and still function?”

  Sophia reached out to touch his arm and he stepped sideways out of range. “I don’t need your pity, Soph. I never did. You said no and I stopped. Why didn’t you just explain instead of running away like I’d forced you?” Dane took another drag on the cigarette and coughed.

  She sighed. “Embarrassment. Confusion. Fear. I couldn’t think straight. I saw the hurt in your eyes and realised I’d messed up. It felt like coming to the end of a cliff and running out of road. I jumped off and then couldn’t find my way back.” Her sandals grated against loose stones from the pavement, grinding and scuffing in the darkness. It made a lonely sound. “It started happening and I didn’t get time to plan or think about it and then everything crowded in and I got scared. I wanted flowers and violins and to wear a pretty dress and have you tell me I looked beautiful. It didn’t feel right and explaining seemed impossible.”

  “But you just ran!” Hurt leaked from his voice. “You left me there like I meant nothing.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sophia swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t know how to stop running away when I can’t deal with things. It’s a fault I have, like bad wiring.”

  Dane took another drag on the cigarette and stared at her sideways, his gaze guarded. “You always do it,” he said, his tone gruff. “It shouldn’t surprise me. Most people go to hospital with a stab wound but you drove to the beach and spent the day bleeding out in a locked car.”

  Sophia hung her head in shame, not liking the trip down Memory Lane. No ready defense rolled from her tongue. There wasn’t one.

  “I’ll drive you back to your place; you can sort it out with Edgar.” Dane ground the cigarette underfoot and kicked the stub into a hedge.

  “No thanks,” she replied, staring up at the night sky overhead. The city lights muddied the view, but she made out Orion’s Belt in the distance and focussed on it to regain her inner bearings.

  “Fine!” Dane opened the driver’s door and slipped inside, waiting until Sophia joined him. She clicked in her seatbelt and gave him a sad smile. He reached across and took her fingers, linking his through them and filling the gaps in her soul. “How about you do as you’re told and I decide for you?” he asked.

  Chapter 28

  Sacrifice

  “Ah, the dynamic duo.” Bob slipped his reading glasses down his nose and lifted his feet off the sofa. The newspaper in his hands folded into a neat rectangle at his bidding. He muted the TV and studied the teens, taking in the tension in Dane’s stance. “Sit down, sit down,” he ordered, waving at the sofa opposite. “If I’m to hear a delegation, we may as well be comfortable.”

  Dane and Sophia sat, leaving a space between them and Bob raised an eyebrow. “I’m moving out,” Dane said, flicking at a speck on his jeans.

  “Where are you going?” Bob asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Not sure yet.” Dane chewed his lower lip. “But Sophia’s homeles
s and I figured it’s best if you help her.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and didn’t look at Bob. “It’s probably time I moved on anyway but I’m real grateful for your hospitality and how well Ellen takes care of me.” Dane swallowed and tapped his foot on the carpeted floor.

  “When are you moving?” Bob’s voice sounded soft, the barrister lulling the witnesses into a false sense of security before seating guilt on their unwitting shoulders.

  “Now, sir,” Dane replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

  Sophia sighed. “This is stupid!” She stood up, skirt swishing around her legs. “You don’t want to go, they don’t want you to go and I’ll be fine by myself.”

  “Sit!” Bob’s sharp retort forced Sophia’s legs to obey and she plopped into the seat as though surprised at their betrayal. Bob stood, thrust his thumbs into the tiny pockets either side of his waistcoat and assumed the intimidating, inquisitorial position which won him cases most weeks. “Start at the beginning,” he demanded.

  The discussion finished late and Sophia yawned behind her fingers long before they reached the end of their tale. Exhaustion settled into her bones and made her feel as though puppet strings controlled her movements.

  “Why don’t I find you some pyjamas?” Ellen said, her voice soft as Sophia face palmed for the third time, almost dumping her chin in her dinner.

  The girl shook her head. “I can’t stay if Dane’s staying and he’s got nowhere to go.” She rose on unsteady feet. “I know what I need to do and I’ll just suck it up and do it. You won’t want us both here and I’ve got options; Dane hasn’t.”