Malaise Page 7

  The principal’s office is cold and clinical, not a stray paper to be seen resting on the desk or a single file out of place in the wide bookshelf that spans one wall. Our dean, Mr Beale, takes his position standing in front of the desk, leaning on the edge. He indicates I should sit in the seat before him.

  “How are you doing today, Meg?”

  “What kind of answer were you hoping for?” I sass back with a smile.

  He’s always been more of a friend to our year than a figure of authority. It’s part of what makes him so good at his job; the students trust him. We feel relaxed around him, and more often than not it means even the hardest kids listen to what he has to say.

  “The truth.”

  I shrug. I’ve been trying to work it out for myself since I woke up this morning with a wet pillow, realising that I cry even in my sleep. I’m holding it together by pretending none of it’s real, that after a while Den’s just going to walk back in the front door and tell us all about his holiday. “I’m taking it one day at a time.”

  “Would you like us to process the special consideration form for your exams? You can take them after Christmas, or possibly in the New Year.”

  “No.” Finishing school is the one thing I’m sure of. “I’m okay, really. It keeps my mind busy, the study, and I guess that’s helping me deal.”

  “Is it?” he asks. “Or is it simply masking the problem?”

  “Both?”

  Mr Beale shakes his head with a sigh. “Meg… look, I really don’t know what there is that I can say. Nothing takes away this shitty situation you’re in. But what I can do is help by taking some of the pressure off.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t, though.”

  “It’s not healthy, adding stress to yourself right now,” he urges. “Perhaps you should think on it over the next day? I’d really like to process it anyway.”

  “Don’t,” I urge, although I get the distinct feeling this is an uphill battle. He’s come to the conclusion that I’m in no frame of mind to be sitting exams that dictate my future prospects. Even if I did take time to think on it, I wouldn’t be changing my mind anytime soon. And then what? We play this whole scene out again tomorrow while I try to get my point across?

  I shake my head vehemently, fingers fidgeting with the rough patch on the knee of my jeans. “The pressure is the only thing keeping me from falling apart. It’s like I’m a broken toy, and the exams are the tape holding the parts together. If you take the pressure away, that tape, the pieces fall apart again. I need the exams to stop me from completely crumbling.”

  Mr Beale pushes off the desk and kneels in front of me so we’re eye level. I can’t hold his gaze, and stare at the wall to my right instead. He gently taps my knee, hesitant, and probably aware he should be careful when it comes to touching a female student while alone in a room with her—not that I’m one of those people, but this is the bullshit world we live in now, isn’t it?

  “Meg, I get what you’re saying. But avoiding the inevitable only serves to make the fallout worse. If you refuse to deal with it now, when people understand and the support’s there, you might find yourself facing it at a time in the future when you’re on your own. I don’t think I need to explain why that wouldn’t be the best.”

  “I know what you’re saying, but I’m not ready,” I complain.

  “You’ll need to be strong for your parents. They’re going to need your support, Meg. Nobody expects to bury their child.”

  Nobody expects to bury a sibling so young, either. Why do I have to be the one who’s strong for everyone else? Is there something about being a teenager that means this is supposed to hurt me less? Fuck that. I need my parents to be there to hold me, reassure me, and support me when I deal with the finality of Den’s funeral. With the way they’re behaving right now, I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. They have each other, but who do I have? It’s as though they resent me for still being alive, that the sheer sight of me is too much because it reminds them of the child they don’t have.

  “My door’s always open, Meg. I’ll be here most days between exam times, and you’re welcome to drop right in if you change your mind.”

  “I don’t think I will, but thank you.”

  Talking about my feelings more would probably help lighten the load, exorcise some demons, but it’s not Mr Beale I want to talk with—it’s Mum and Dad. Their love seemed so much more reliable when I was little. I could run to their waiting arms in tears when I was just a kid at primary school and know they’d always have the right thing to say and do to make me feel better. But now? Now their silence feels like the greatest betrayal. Yeah, sure, my current behaviour isn’t helping at all, but they’re the adults here. They’re supposed to know what to do to get through this, or at least fake it until they make it. I need them to guide me, pick me up and dust me off like they did when I hurt myself as a child. I’m hurting worse than I ever have before, and who’s there for me? Not the people I would have expected, that’s for sure.

  “Are we finished here?”

  Mr Beale sighs at my question and moves to stand beside the desk. “Yes, Meg. You’re free to go.”

  I stand and shoulder my bag. He stays in place as I leave and rejoin the chaos in the quad, appearing a few minutes later to help our principal get the bored students under control. I find myself a quiet spot to watch the mayhem under one of the oak trees that are encircled by pentagon-shaped bench seats. No sooner have I sat my arse down and taken my first full breath since talking with Mr Beale, do two of the bitch squad start again.

  “Friends with the Carvers now, are we?” Cassie plops her butt down to my right as Amelia flanks me on the left.

  “Why is that such a problem to everyone?” I snap, breaking my cardinal rule: don’t engage.

  “You know that their old man got busted for assaulting a teenage girl outside the Stallion a few years back.”

  Yeah, I’m well aware of the rumours that come from our longest-serving pub on the south side of town. There’s a reason the owners have had the place for sale unsuccessfully for the last four years: all it attracts is trouble.

  “And that impacts me, how?”

  Amelia inspects her nails, the smarmiest fucking look on her overly made up face. “Well, if sexual assault is your kind of thing, then I guess you don’t have a problem.” She shrugs dismissively. “I was simply trying to give you a bit of friendly advice.”

  “Yeah?” I practically laugh. “Well here’s some for you: fuck off.”

  “Jesus,” Cassie hisses. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “Oh come on.” I roll my eyes and try to stand, but a firm hand to my shoulder sits me down again.

  “Stay the fuck away from Jasper, yeah?” Amelia’s usually vibrant blue eyes are dark and foreboding as she runs her gaze the length of me. “He doesn’t want a freak like you, so stop wasting your time.”

  “Point taken, thanks,” I snap. “But I’m actually not interested in him either.”

  “Yeah?” she scoffs. “Is that why you were trying to get him drunk at Cedar Park the other day?”

  What the fuck? “Who told you that?” Jasper. It has to have been.

  “He did, dumb-arse. And it’s the last thing I wanted to be hearing when he had me half-naked in his bedroom.”

  Oh God, too much information. “I don’t need to know that.” I curl my lip up in disgust at her.

  “Just keep away, okay?” Cassie stands, taking my backpack with her and upturning it as she walks away.

  The high-pitched cackle of Amelia’s laugh resonates in my ears as I frown and get down on all fours to pick up my things.

  “Oh, Cass, don’t pick on the poor thing,” Amelia sneers as she gets up to join her friend. “Her brother died a couple of days ago.”

  “Ugh,” Cassie grunts. “I’d probably kill myself too if that’s who I had to share a house with.”

  The bitches laugh as they strut across to where Mr Beale now has the students
under control. He eyes me from his vantage point standing atop the bench and frowns. I can barely make out what I have left to shove back in my bag as I lose my grip on civility and cry, something I’m apparently getting pretty good at doing nowadays.

  Fuck school. Fuck a future. Fuck this town.

  I sling the backpack over my shoulder, keeping my phone in hand, and turn to head out of the quad via the back gates. Nobody will be there when the whole senior year is awaiting timetables and the junior years have a free day. I can slip out unnoticed and do the second thing I’ve been getting pretty good at—running away.

  My hands shake as I unlock the screen and swipe through to the only number I have left to try.

  If he doesn’t care a shit about what I’m going through either, then fuck knows what I’ll do.

  NINE

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  I slam the door of the Falcon behind me and stash my bag at my feet. “Can we get out of here first?”

  Our principal strides across the back field, hot on my trail. It might not be a regular school day, but I’m still bunking. She hesitates when Carver puts the car in gear and pulls away from the curb, shaking her head.

  “Should we be worried about that?” he asks.

  I shrink down in my seat. “Nah. Doubt she’ll do much about it. I mean, it’s just the day where they hand out schedules. So what if I’m skipping school?”

  “What happened?” Carver turns us toward the river. “You sounded upset when you phoned, and looking at you now I’m about ready to turn the car around and knock some fucking heads together.”

  “Everyone’s on at me about delaying exams.” I swivel in the seat as we jolt over a speed hump, tucking my knees to my chest. “They think it would be best given the circumstances.”

  “And you don’t think they’re right?”

  I frown at him. “No.”

  Carver looks every bit as gorgeous as I remember him to be, and yet again, I get the severe case of the guilts for being able to look at a man and find him ridiculously attractive when I should still be drowning in the rip tide of grief that sucks me in every other hour of the day.

  But those arms, inked and strong, cutting a sharp contrast against his white T-shirt. Those thick thighs, pulling the denim of his whitewashed jeans tight across the groin. And those eighteen-hole boots, devoid of laces for the top half and sagging open at his calves. Everything about him is easy on the eye, and most definitely something to be appreciated, yet the way he dresses isn’t what gets my heart beating faster and my breaths coming shorter.

  It’s his smile. That easy, lazy smirk that he’s gracing me with right now. The way one simple twitch of his lips has my chest a little less tight, and my next breath a little easier to grasp.

  Shit—talk, Meg. He’s asked you something. “Pardon?”

  “I said, are you hungry? I haven’t had breakfast yet, and my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”

  “I could eat.” Look away. Look away before this gets awkward. “What did you have in mind?”

  “All-day breakfast at the truck stop.”

  “On the highway?”

  “Know of another one?”

  “No. I’ve just never been there.” Classy.

  He jerks his chin up in acknowledgement, the strength of his side profile as he does hypnotising. “First time for everything.” We take a sharp right and he redirects our course toward the highway. “You gonna tell me what happened other than pressure about exams?”

  “Who says there’s anything else?”

  Carver sighs and glances over as we glide through the last intersection before the access road, laying those baby-blues on me. “You don’t strike me as the studious type who’d get this upset over delaying exams.”

  Bastard. I swivel back to face front and stare out the windscreen at the white lines flashing by. “I got told to stay away from Jasper Arden.”

  “By who?”

  “Amelia Dennis and her clone, Cassie.”

  He snorts and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t pay much mind to them.”

  “I didn’t. But they said something to me that pissed me off, the same thing Jasper said to me a couple of days ago.”

  “Yeah?” I catch his eye as we near the end of the merging lane for the highway. “What about? Den?”

  “No,” I murmur. “You.”

  His head swivels between looking at me and the road. “Like what?” The light curiosity has left his tone, replaced by a dark warning.

  “That you’re trouble, dangerous, and I should stay away from you.”

  “And yet you called me to come pick you up.”

  “And yet I did.”

  His tone is low, husky, and nothing short of suggestive. “Says something, doesn’t it.”

  “I guess it could,” I whisper.

  The back of his hand smacks my thigh to get my attention, and he wiggles his fingers, palm up, when I stare down at it. I tentatively place my hand in his and give a little squeak on the inside when he gently squeezes.

  “Answer me one thing, Meg: do you feel like you’re in danger when you’re with me?”

  “No.”

  “Look at me when you say it.”

  He glances over every so often until I meet his gaze and repeat with utter conviction, “No.”

  “Tell me then why their narrow-minded opinion matters?”

  I drop my head back on the seat and sigh. I don’t know why I give a fuck about what those bitches have to say. Why does it matter? Why does any of this matter? Six months ago I could have sat down and rattled off what I wanted to do at the end of the school year: apply for the veterinary course at university and find a flat in the city miles away from this hell. But then reality came along and slapped me around. Although my parents are too broke to afford the tuition fees, by government standards we’re also too rich for me to apply for a student allowance. Which leaves only a loan, and I don’t know if I’m ready to take on that kind of debt. What if I couldn’t get a job? How could I repay it and pay for my living costs, given I wouldn’t be at home anymore?

  And then Den.

  Damn you, Den.

  Without him here giving me that nudge I need to believe in myself, I’ve lost the will to even try. What use is trying for a higher education when all I’ll probably do for the rest of my life is prick my fingers changing needles on an industrial sewing machine?

  “You figured it out yet?” Carver pulls into a free park at the truck stop, between a campervan and a compact car.

  “Not really. I know it shouldn’t matter what they think, but that doesn’t stop the stuff they say, and the shit they do, from hurting.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He reaches out and lightly taps beneath my chin with his index finger. “But you don’t need to harbour that crap when you know it’s all shit, either.” He kills the engine and swivels in his seat. “Did you talk to your parents the other night?”

  I let loose a completely unladylike snort and stare out the side window. “It didn’t go well.”

  “What happened?” His brow furrows when I glance his way, and he leans a shoulder into the back of his seat.

  “We talked, as in, they told me what they know about the accident and that, but we didn’t talk if you know what I mean? Like, they never asked why I went out, how I felt, or even what happened to my arm.” I lift the bandaged hand and stare at it. “It’s like none of it mattered, like we were just people who only know each other in passing discussing some world event. It was fucked.”

  “Maybe they’re feeling a little disconnected?” He shrugs. “I don’t know. Just don’t make any rash decisions while you’re all hurting.”

  “I guess.”

  “And for fuck’s sake, don’t listen to what those idiots at your school say. They’re just trying to get a rise out of you.”

  I frown and turn to face him. He wears a look of genuine concern, as though he’s worried about what Amelia and Cassie’s words might do to me. “They said s
ome pretty harsh stuff. It’s hard to just let it go.”

  “Like what?”

  “That they’d kill themselves too if they had to live with me.”

  He frowns and shakes his head. “But Den didn’t kill himself, right? It was an accident.”

  “Right.”

  “They’re just trying to cut you down because they’re jealous bitches.” He nods as though agreeing with himself.

  “Jealous of what though?” I throw my hands up in frustration. How can he say that when they’re… well, them? They have well-off families who live on the side of town where your average house is six bedrooms and two bathrooms. Where the yard is mowed every Tuesday by Rod Reeves—the hoarder who lives the next street over from me. They never want for anything: friends, interest from guys, or the latest fashion. “Why do they waste their time on me? What the hell could I have that they’d want, or at least, want to ruin?”

  “Confidence.”

  I stare at Carver with an eyebrow cocked. “You must be smoking some good stuff. I’m not confident.” I’m far from it. Surely he can see that?

  “Yes you are.”

  I let out a huff, pulling a face at him. “Whatever.”

  Carver crosses his arms, his T-shirt pulling in all the right places as he leans back into his door. “Go on then, tell me why you’re not.”

  “Look at me,” I exclaim, sweeping my hands the length of me. “Does a girl who’s confident hide behind oversized tank tops and dark denim? Does she dress like a tomboy?”

  “Yeah. Tanya dresses like a tomboy.”

  “Nuh-uh.” I wave my finger at him. “She might not be in a dress or anything, but she’s girly. She does her nails, has perfect hair and beautiful make-up. Me? Huh. Yeah, not girly at all.”

  “Sure don’t look like a boy to me.” He smirks.

  Damn my traitorous cheeks. I look back to the window to hide my embarrassment. “I didn’t say I did, but I’m not, you know….”