Page 14 of Malaise
“Are you going to rape and kill me?”
He sighs and drops his head back on the seat as I crack my right eye open. “Babe, if I wanted to do that you’d be in twenty pieces in the fucking forest by now.”
I search his face for a hint of truth to that statement and come up blank. He looks like he’s kidding given the tilt of his lips, but those eyes lock on to me with unwavering intensity. This could go either way. Why did I trust him so freely?
“They all this crazy?” a female voice sings out from the front seat.
I open my eyes properly and look toward the driver seat to find a white-blonde woman in a skintight tank and leather pants, sitting with her left hand resting on the gear stick.
Her amused blue eyes find mine, and she twists around to stick out a ruby-red-tipped hand. “Hi. I’m Tanya.”
I opt out of shaking her hand in case this is still some sort of trap to force my guard down, and lift my palm in a quick wave instead. “Meg.”
“Figured that.” She winks, and then turns to Carver. “Where we off to, bro?”
“A&E.” He thumbs my way. “Overly Suspicious here decided she needed a memoir to remember this night by and scorched herself in the bonfire.”
Tanya tuts as she shifts the Falcon into gear.
The car idles forward, and Carver reaches for the handle above his door. “Hold on.”
Before I can register exactly what to, I’m lurched against my door as Tanya plants boot and spins the tail end of the car around on the dirt road. She whips it straight and drops her lead foot back onto the accelerator, sending us flying down the country road with headlights that are way too dim for these kind of speeds.
“I’ll let you blink if you like,” Carver says with an amused tone.
I snap my dazed gaze away from the clouds of fog over the road that vanish as the car ploughs through them, and twitch an awkward smile at him.
“We’ll get you looked at, and then I’ll get Tanya to take you home.”
“You don’t need to do that. Honestly. Just drop me off at the doors; I’ve already taken up enough of your night.”
He lays a casual arm over my shoulders, as though it’s no big deal, and tugs me across the vinyl seat to his side. “Rubbish. You’re the most fun I’ve had for a while. Beats going home and finishing getting rat-faced with the extended family.”
“Hey!” Tanya protests from the front.
“No offence, sis, but you and your crew….” He sucks in a breath between his teeth, making a hissing noise. “Get you lot on the turps and it’s like listening to a fucking henhouse with a fox in it.”
She laughs loud and genuinely at his criticism, and strangely it relaxes me. They clearly share a light and easy relationship—something I once had, too.
Crisp pine-laced air filters through the car’s vents as I begin to recognise the outskirts of town out my window. Thoughts of Den, memories of the crazy antics we’d gotten up to over the years, multiply in my mind like photos shaken out of a box. I try in vain desperation to push them back, hide them away until I’m somewhere more private, but his face won’t relent.
He’s there, smiling, laughing at me for being “such a Muppet,” as he used to say. My eyes burn and my nostrils flare like crazy as I work to supress the emotions that bubble over. Strain causes my throat to burn, and my shoulders give an involuntary shudder. Once the first wave ripples through me, there’s no holding it back. My entire upper body shakes, and a spluttered whimper bursts from my lips.
“Hey,” Carver coos, pulling me tighter. “Take it a day at a time. Before you know it, you’ll look back on how you handled this and laugh.”
“I hope so,” I mumble.
Tanya’s kohl-lined eyes flick up to the rear-view. “Is she okay?”
“Brother died today,” Carver answers simply. No beating around the bush here.
“Oh, baby girl,” she whispers, returning her gaze to the road. “I’m sorry.”
I snap. The love between these two, and the selfless compassion they’re showing me—it’s too much. By the time we pull up outside the emergency room I’m a wailing, hyperventilating, snot-bubble-covered mess in the arms of a total stranger who’s slowly becoming everything that’s right in my world.