like her before: the outgoing kind. She changed me. I stopped being a wallflower at parties, stopped pretending that I was better than anyone else because I didn’t follow the crowd.
She was the only girl I ever said “I love you” to. I said it before she did, and that was entirely her doing too. There was urgency inside me to prove that I cared, that I wanted to be with her and no one else, that she was mine and I was hers and that what we had would outlast everyone else who’s ever been in love.
I PUSH at my temples until the memory disappears, my eyes burn with fatigue. I want to sleep. It feels like I’ve been awake for days. My body rocks back and forth. Crazy Damian! That’s what they all think. I saw the look of pity on her friends’ faces at the funeral.
One of Demi’s friends, I think her name is Ashley or something, was the worst. She stared at me during the whole ceremony, shock all over her face. She didn’t even come and offer her condolences like V and Siya did, but hurried off before anyone could speak to her. Why do I care anyway? None of them meant it, not even Siya’s offer to hang out sometime, whatever. It was all just talk.
I didn’t think I would ever see any of them again.
I LIE facing the wall when my door opens and Wolverine pads in. I hear him snuffling around the bed, feel his cold, wet nose in my back. I don’t have any energy to shout for him to get out. How long have I been in bed?
I turn over to see V standing in my doorway, her hands in her pockets like she doesn’t give a damn whether she’s there or not. She’s dressed in black, just like at the funeral. Her dark fringe hangs in her face like a veil. It strikes me that I’m lying half-naked in my bed, but yeah, I don’t give a damn either.
We don’t exchange greetings.
“I just thought I’d tell you that James is alive,” she says. Her voice is cold and even, and her face is emotionless.
The words pound around my head and my fists grab a handful of duvet.
“What do you mean, he’s alive?”
Did her lip just curl into a sneer? I thought it did, but when I look again, her face is blank.
“He’s going to be fine. They say he’s going to be out of the hospital in a day or two.”
My heart starts pumping heart-attack fast. “You visited him?”
“No. The nurse called me after they found him on the train tracks. My number came up the most on his phone, so they assumed we were close. They wanted to get the number of his parents, in case … in case he didn’t make it, but I didn’t have it.”
The way she says it, all hard and cold, makes it sound like he means nothing to her. It has the opposite effect on me. I’m too angry to speak.
“He came to the funeral, you know. That’s when it happened. Maybe it was guilt that made him do it: A life for a life. Too bad it didn’t work.”
When I don’t respond she leaves as silently as she arrived. No hello, no goodbye. I hope it’s the last I ever see of her.
I force myself upright, causing stars to pop in front of my eyes. I’m not sure when last I ate but I’m sure it was more than a day ago. I can’t bear to eat when Demi can’t. I don’t care if I starve to death. I want to be with her. The thought kept me in bed for days, but I’m awake now.
I force my legs over the side of the bed. They’re stiff, as if my brain has made up its mind that I’m dead and rigor mortis has already set in. Pins and needles have caused my feet to curl inwards, and I have to rub my thighs vigorously to get the blood flowing before I can finally stand up.
Wolverine jumps up excitedly, yapping at my ankles and whipping me with his tail. I ignore him and continue to lurch my way to the bathroom. When I get there, the effort causes me to fall forward and I clutch the side of the basin to keep from sinking to my knees. I smell like sick sweat and onions.
The guy in the mirror doesn’t look anything like me. The face that stares back is corpse white, with hollow eyes and a thin, drawn-on mouth. He’s nothing like the sun-browned surfer who spent hours in the water. I’m a monster now, which makes sense, considering what I plan to do to James when I see him.
I wash my face with cold water, and brush my furry teeth. My stomach reacts to the water by complaining loudly for food. But I don’t want to eat.
In the lounge, Mom does a double take and guiltily drops the magazine she was reading onto the floor. While she fumbles for it, I grab my car keys from the hook on the wall.
“Damian? Where are you going?”
I wish I was still that little kid who could lay all his problems on his mother, and be able to walk away trouble-free to carry on playing computer games or whatever the hell I did for fun at that age. But I’m not that kid any more and some problems are too big to entrust to someone else.
“I’ll be back now-now.”
“Honey, I don’t think …”
But I’m already walking to my car. All the camping stuff from that weekend is still in the back seat. I hesitate before unlocking the door. As hard as it is seeing the camping mattress we shared and the fold-out chair she sat in, I have to push past the pain. I have to do this. He killed her. Now I have to kill him.
I DRIVE in a trance. I suspect I’m not really awake; I’m pushing the pedals and turning the wheel by instinct alone.
Back in school we always used to scare each other with ghost stories about Groote Schuur Hospital. It’s terrifying to look at – all towers and arched Gothic windows overlooking a small cemetery crowded with stone angels and homeless people.
The inside is pretty scary too. My feet take me past rows and rows of people waiting to be seen by doctors, all with the same haunted look. Nurses gather behind murky glass windows, grim as gargoyles.
I walk down pale-green corridors, slipping into the shadows. No one stops me or asks me why I’m there. There’s no notice board displaying the visiting hours, no Thank You cards from past patients. The air smells sharply of surgical alcohol.
I search each room in the ward, taking in one broken body after another. Patients stare at me curiously, but no one speaks to me. Maybe they can sense why I’m here. Somewhere down the passage a baby’s cry fights to be heard above the grumbling air conditioners. A tube light flickers from the ceiling, deepening the shadows. I stumble on.
When I first spot his pale skin and black spiky hair it doesn’t seem real. He’s sitting on the side of the bed, buttoning up a rumpled black shirt. Was it the one he wore at the funeral? It must be. It feels like we are all survivors from that day, stuck in time, waiting for someone to hit the Stop button.
He doesn’t see me staring from the doorway. Hatred boils up inside me, fuelling my starved body, and my hands instinctively ball into fists in my jeans pockets. Seeing him sitting there, living and breathing like a normal human being, is too much. Suddenly I can’t breathe. My hand reaches out to the wall for support.
I watch him pat the pockets of his black jeans, looking for something, then smooth back his hair. The stitches on his cheek are the only sign he was in an accident. He touches his face lightly with the tips of his fingers
