Page 12 of Malaise
FOUR
We’ve been walkingin silence for what feels like forever, only the dull crunch of the dry dirt under our boots breaking the still of the night. Carver, as I’ve dubbed him without an actual name, thought it would be best if we started toward the main road, said it would make us easier to find.
I steal a glance over at him in the moonlight as he walks, hands in pockets and head hung. His jawbone is sharp and pronounced against the ink on his neck, devoid of any hair. For all his unconventional dress sense, his face is impeccably groomed.
“Why do you dress like that?” I blurt out.
He hazards a quick look my way before returning his focus to the road under our feet. “Odd question from somebody like you.”
I glance down at my choice of clothing and smile. “I meant, when I’ve seen you at the mechanic’s, you don’t come off as somebody who has studs in their wardrobe.” A little bit rocker maybe, but not punk.
He chuckles. “You think people would appreciate a few safety pins on the staff uniform?”
“Maybe.”
His lips curl up in a half smile as he looks over at me. “Well, I can tell you now that it’d never happen.” He runs a hand over his hair. “They already made me trim my Mohawk.”
“But you never had it spiked.”
He frowns a little as my cheeks heat. Way to give away your stalker status there, Meg.
“No, but they still had problems with how long it was. Said it looked scruffy hanging in my face, and a whole heap of other bullshit like it was a hazard because it might get in the way and cause an injury.” He sighs and lifts his chin to look into the distance. “It’s only hair—it’ll grow back.”
I squeeze my arm, the burn giving off random pangs of pain as we walk. “You didn’t exactly answer my question though.”
“Why I dress like this?”
I nod, bottom lip between my teeth.
His eyes are drawn to the pinched flesh as he answers. “Why do you?”
“Because I like to be left alone, and looking different kind of helps with that.”
“Exactly.” He bumps a loose fist into my shoulder. “You’re onto it. We’ve all got our reasons for being who we are, Meg.”
Ain’t that the truth.Once upon a time I wanted to be just like the other girls at school—pretty and wholesome. It took me years to realise that the look just wasn’t me, and as much as I tried to force it, studying the teen magazines for the latest trends, I would still be mocked for not getting it right. Cut-price brands and home-made accessories stood out like a sore thumb against their trendy surf shop labels and full-price jewellery. All it did was draw the vultures to me. I was an easy target; I would cry after the simplest insult, and like food-starved predators, they hunted me for their fix on a daily basis.
So I embraced my “weirdness.” I used it against them. I dyed my hair black in a sea of bottle blondes, and I wore dark makeup in a room crowded with pink gloss and neutral eyeshadow. Their ballet flats were offset by my chunky boots, their stonewash jeans by my black, spiderweb-adorned leggings.
They stopped mocking me and the rumours started: I was a witch; I sacrificed people’s pets to place curses on my peers; I had laughed at my grandparents’ funerals.
My grandparents are all alive. I wouldn’t know the front end of a spell book from a dictionary. Lies. Conjured by the scared to justify their hate toward me.
But the fear left me alone. The teasing lessened. The insults became weekly rather than daily. I could walk to class without being shoved and tripped.
I love the solitude as well as loathe it. It’s a strange compromise.
I look over at Carver again while we continue up the road—me lost in my head and him seeming a million miles away as well. He focuses ahead, shoulders stiff and hands in his pockets. But the gentle tic of his jaw every so often hints to darker thoughts. He huffs out a sigh and rubs a hand over his mouth.
“Are you all right?”
His eyes find mine, and he gives me a lame attempt at a smile. “Yeah. Just the night hasn’t ended up how I predicted.”
“I can second that.”
He frowns. “I wasn’t meaning with you. I meant….” Carver drops his head back and sighs. “I’ve got a bit on my mind, so I’d planned on having a few quiet ones and keeping myself entertained watching you lot make fools of yourselves.”
“I guess I at least helped with the second part.”