Page 4 of Malaise
He fucking quit on me.
How could he? How could he be so stupid? What the hell went wrong that he didn’t see a bus? A damn bus! What was he thinking….
When the hell did I reach the corner? I spin around and look back up the two-kilometre stretch to our house. I’ve walked blindly, lost in my head for blocks. Finding a seat on the nearest meter box, I slip my backpack from my shoulder and feel around for my phone. The display lights up, showing me the time: eight forty-five. Plenty of time. I don’t care what they think… I need this. My thumb flies across the screen. Everybody processes their grief in different ways. What if this is mine? I hit Send and drop the phone in my lap. Who’s to say that getting blind drunk to forget the pain isn’t a suitable way to survive the chasm growing inside?
Den’s dead.
Nothing about this feels real. Nothing about this makes sense. It’s as though I’m a spectator in somebody else’s life. This wasn’t part of the plan. This was never meant to happen.
It did.
It happened, and there isn’t a fucking thing I can do to change it.
Cars pass me as I sit with anger pulsating in my veins. People head home from work, some probably on their way out for the night, and the odd vehicle goes by with a family crammed in the seats. People just go about their lives, a life my brother no longer has the privilege to share. Why him? Why not any one of them? My eyes are fixed to the boughs of a tree waving in the light evening breeze when the glint of a chrome wheel catches my attention.
Jasper smiles at me from the open front window of his sedan. “You called?”
“Texted, technically.” I force a smile as I approach the car, running the side of my hand quickly below each eye.
He leans across and catches the handle, opening the door for me. “Ready for a big night out?”
“Yeah.” I drop into the seat and pull the door shut behind me, placing my bag between my legs. “I heard it’s going to be huge.”
“Marcus sent the invite out to a whole bunch of guys he knew at his old school.” He checks the side mirror, and then eases us into the road. “When Amelia got the invite back from the girls’ school in town it was pretty obvious the word had spread.”
“Wow.” Fucking Amelia. “Sounds crazy.”
“Guess we’ll know when the cops turn up, hey?” He smacks me on the thigh with the back of his hand.
Jasper Arden touched me. I swear I’m never washing again. “I guess.”
The car falls near silent, only the rumble of the engine and the muted tones from the radio between us. Jasper dials the music up and sends bass echoing off every surface around us.
There are a lot.
I relish the distraction, the inability to hold a conversation without shouting at one another. My brow furrows as I try to work out why the hell I can be upset at the news, and yet already I’ve stopped crying. Where are the constant tears? What kind of cold bitch doesn’t bawl inconsolably when her best friend, her brother, her light, is taken away?
Maybe it’s my brain coping with the trauma? Just like Mr Clavers, I’ve numbed myself. There’s a roadblock between my synapses—a safety switch, and until I see the physical and undeniable truth of what’s happened, I’ll live in this self-inflicted limbo.
Daylight dims in the time it takes us to travel to the party site. I shift in the seat, cursing the fact I didn’t have the foresight to go to the damn toilet before I stormed out of the house, but heat of the moment and all that. Besides, catching Jasper’s reflection in my side window proves enough of a distraction. He’s got that permanent smirk on his face, which coupled with his sharp jaw and Roman nose makes him look confident and cocky. Jasper’s the kind of book a person can totally judge by its cover. He’s all of those things, and sure of himself. He’s out of my league.
“Do you have any friends going?” His hand retreats from the volume dial on the stereo.
“Not sure.” Liar. I don’t have friends, only acquaintances—the kids that I feel some strained connection to because we suffer the same torment and humiliation at the hands of the “in” crowd. Not that any of them would dare show up; a select few of us in our year were warned against going. “You’d be best to stay away unless you want your head bashed in.” “It’s only the popular people who are going, and you… well….” “Don’t you get it? Nobody likes you.”
I’ve heard it all before. Scare tactics. They’ve yet to follow through on any of the pathetic threats. “They,” being the kids in the cool clique. You know, the ones who have their own area in the quad that nobody dares contest? The ones who always get the best seats in class, whether they arrive first or last. The ones everybody is super nice to in the hopes they’ll be accepted, noticed, and welcomed into the fray, even though anyone with half a brain knows what a bunch of arseholes the posers really are.
Those kids.
“If you want to stick around long enough, I’ll drop you home when I go, too,” Jasper offers.
Any other day and I would have swooned at that. Any normal day and I would have damn near passed out from nerves. But today isn’t normal, it’s hell, and I couldn’t care less if Jasper dropped to one knee and proposed right now—I’m burning alive with anger and frustration I’m doing my best to forget. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow….
“I’ll remember that. Thank you.”
He casts me a suspicious look. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Why?” The glass of my window feels cool against my face. It goes some way toward easing my nausea from the swirling pool of emotion in my gut.