but I didn’t want anything to do with it. I think psychologically school and me were over by then.
I’d discovered where the magazines were kept in the library, and the hours Kane put in to making himself smarter, I put in to keeping up to date on celebrity gossip and the latest fashion trends. I also got quite obsessed with the human-interest stories in those magazines. You know the ones: the quadruplets separated at birth who are reunited as adults, only for one to die the following week in a pig-hunting accident in Canada. Or the family with sixteen kids who is hit by a tornado and then a flash flood, then just as soon as they’ve rebuilt from the tornado and replaced the ruined carpet from the flood, lightning strikes their house and it burns to the ground. It doesn’t matter of course to the multitude of smiling faces in the family pictures taken by the magazine – even though it seems like God’s trying to put an end to them, they’ve all still got each other.
Kane would get so annoyed with me when I tried to recount some of those stories to him. He’d be like, ‘What do you want to go reading about that for? Only have to look next door to know the world’s got problems.’
‘I like reading them.’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Okay, let’s talk about what you’re doing tonight,’ I’d say to him, or something similar, and he’d get this tense look on his face and stop talking altogether.
I was sitting at the dining table by myself eating Mom’s overcooked ground beef stir-fry, while she sat on the couch watching TV and pretending I wasn’t directly behind her. The news was on, and there was coverage of a shooting downtown. The shooter and two bystanders were dead, a cop was in hospital and the reporter on the scene kept stammering when the news anchor asked her questions.
And I got a bad feeling.
The feeling was nothing to do with the news story. That’s just what I happened to be doing when I got it; watching the news and eating dry ground beef with limp vegetables.
The feeling itself had to do with Kane.
To begin with, Kane hadn’t replied to a message I’d sent him that morning. He always replied, even if it was just one word or one letter or an emoticon.
But that morning, I’d got nothing. He wasn’t at his locker, and later, I sent him another text saying I’d see him at his place after school.
He replied, ‘K.’
I didn’t go to his place after school though. It was spur of the moment. I was just over not knowing what he was up to. It wasn’t how I wanted us to be. I didn’t want protecting. I wanted to know, and I decided enough was enough. If he wasn’t going to tell me then I was going to make it clear how angry I was about it.
It was the first time I ever stood him up. He sent me a text half an hour after I got home.
‘Where are you?’
‘I couldn’t make it.’
‘Y?’
‘Busy.’
‘Fuck you, Natalie.’
I messaged a repentant, ‘I can come over now.’
‘Got shit to do.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Nothing came back. And that was it, until I was sitting there eating dinner and watching a stammering reporter try and say the same thing three different ways to a Ken-doll news anchor.
I couldn’t leave the house fast enough.
It was dark when I got to Kane’s, and the fall night air was cold. There were no lights on upstairs, but when I walked down the side of the house I could see light around the edges of Kane’s drawn curtains. I knocked and Kane immediately appeared, moving the curtain aside and unlocking the door.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ said Kane.
Despite this greeting, he stood to one side to let me in, and then slid the door shut behind me.
I could feel the nervous energy coming from his body. It was like how he used to be before a fight: his body wired and ready. Except rather than focusing on his breathing and having his head together, he was looking anxious, and couldn’t stop pacing.
‘I missed you, and
I’d discovered where the magazines were kept in the library, and the hours Kane put in to making himself smarter, I put in to keeping up to date on celebrity gossip and the latest fashion trends. I also got quite obsessed with the human-interest stories in those magazines. You know the ones: the quadruplets separated at birth who are reunited as adults, only for one to die the following week in a pig-hunting accident in Canada. Or the family with sixteen kids who is hit by a tornado and then a flash flood, then just as soon as they’ve rebuilt from the tornado and replaced the ruined carpet from the flood, lightning strikes their house and it burns to the ground. It doesn’t matter of course to the multitude of smiling faces in the family pictures taken by the magazine – even though it seems like God’s trying to put an end to them, they’ve all still got each other.
Kane would get so annoyed with me when I tried to recount some of those stories to him. He’d be like, ‘What do you want to go reading about that for? Only have to look next door to know the world’s got problems.’
‘I like reading them.’
‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Okay, let’s talk about what you’re doing tonight,’ I’d say to him, or something similar, and he’d get this tense look on his face and stop talking altogether.
I was sitting at the dining table by myself eating Mom’s overcooked ground beef stir-fry, while she sat on the couch watching TV and pretending I wasn’t directly behind her. The news was on, and there was coverage of a shooting downtown. The shooter and two bystanders were dead, a cop was in hospital and the reporter on the scene kept stammering when the news anchor asked her questions.
And I got a bad feeling.
The feeling was nothing to do with the news story. That’s just what I happened to be doing when I got it; watching the news and eating dry ground beef with limp vegetables.
The feeling itself had to do with Kane.
To begin with, Kane hadn’t replied to a message I’d sent him that morning. He always replied, even if it was just one word or one letter or an emoticon.
But that morning, I’d got nothing. He wasn’t at his locker, and later, I sent him another text saying I’d see him at his place after school.
He replied, ‘K.’
I didn’t go to his place after school though. It was spur of the moment. I was just over not knowing what he was up to. It wasn’t how I wanted us to be. I didn’t want protecting. I wanted to know, and I decided enough was enough. If he wasn’t going to tell me then I was going to make it clear how angry I was about it.
It was the first time I ever stood him up. He sent me a text half an hour after I got home.
‘Where are you?’
‘I couldn’t make it.’
‘Y?’
‘Busy.’
‘Fuck you, Natalie.’
I messaged a repentant, ‘I can come over now.’
‘Got shit to do.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Nothing came back. And that was it, until I was sitting there eating dinner and watching a stammering reporter try and say the same thing three different ways to a Ken-doll news anchor.
I couldn’t leave the house fast enough.
It was dark when I got to Kane’s, and the fall night air was cold. There were no lights on upstairs, but when I walked down the side of the house I could see light around the edges of Kane’s drawn curtains. I knocked and Kane immediately appeared, moving the curtain aside and unlocking the door.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ said Kane.
Despite this greeting, he stood to one side to let me in, and then slid the door shut behind me.
I could feel the nervous energy coming from his body. It was like how he used to be before a fight: his body wired and ready. Except rather than focusing on his breathing and having his head together, he was looking anxious, and couldn’t stop pacing.
‘I missed you, and
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