Forever Blue (6 page)

Chapter Nine

Judah - the previous year

My brother was perfect. You would think that would mean I was too, considering we were twins, but nothing could be further from the truth. Ruben was popular. Ruben was talented. Ruben was loved. Somehow, he managed to walk the fine line of a studious head boy while still maintaining his image of popularity. Dad never saw him in a drunken stupor or acting like the arrogant fool he was, and even if he did, I'm sure it would have been twisted in some way to be my fault. Everything was my fault. But it wasn't any of those things that had me worried. It was the way Cara's eyes were searching out his in the reflection of the rear vision mirror. Was he waving his magical spell of perfection around her, too? Surely Cara, of all people, could see through his façade.

As soon as we walked into the old hall, Ruben was hailed with cheers and drinks were shoved into his hands. Our fellow school mates hung off his every word, as though somehow his perfection would rub off on them. His ever-present posse of friends clung to his side. Pretty boy blondie, brawn for brains, and chipmunk. Or, as they were more commonly known as; Ross, Stuart, and Alex. Ruben waved me over, but I slunk to a room off the side which had a pool table and a dartboard. There were a few people crowded around the pool table, and in the corner, a table was covered with mini pies and bowls of chips and dip.

At parties I felt lost. It struck me as weird to simply exist in a group for no other reason than to drink alcohol. I needed something to do, something to keep my mind occupied, so I chose to eat. I was midway through stuffing my face with one of the pies when Cara walked in, an empty beer bottle swinging from her fingers.

"Have you seen Ruben?" she asked. Of course the first words out of her mouth, when we were alone, would be to ask about Ruben. She reached into the pocket of her jacket and extracted another bottle of beer, twisting the cap off and throwing it at the dartboard.

"Nope." I covered my mouth with my hand to stop crumbs from flying out as I spoke.

Cara looked over the selection of food on offer and shoved a whole pie into her mouth. Her cheeks bulged as she attempted to chew without letting any escape. I chuckled and was mortified when a crumb flew across to land on Cara's top. Cara simply picked it up and popped it into her mouth, and the thought of something passing from my mouth to hers thrilled me.

I had been in love with Cara Armistead for as long as I could remember. One of the things I loved about her was that she didn't care whether she was considered beautiful. Not because the thought had never entered her head, but because she wouldn't care, even if it did. I suppose if you gave someone her photo, they wouldn't find all that much beauty. Well, not in the way that beauty is splashed across the magazines. She had long hair that reached down to her waist, a mouth that was a little too big for her face, a nose that was a little too small, and she was skinny. Not runway model skinny, tomboy skinny. Overall, she almost came across as awkward. But to believe that was all she was would have been stupidity. It would be like comparing a still image to an entire movie. She was a blank canvas, and it was what she did with it that made her beautiful. The way she smiled. The way her eyes widened when I spoke, making me believe there was no one else she would rather be listening to. The way she walked as though she didn't have a care in the world but still knew where she was heading. She had a thousand expressions and I loved every one.

There was only one problem with my infatuation with Cara. She was in love with Ruben. He denied it, of course. And I had never actually plucked up the courage to ask, because I was too afraid of the answer. Cara and I were best friends, we did everything together, but I knew I was only the consolation prize while she waited for Ruben. She used me to get closer to him. I knew this. I just didn't care.

Cara walked over and plucked the darts from the board. It was strange being around her again. She was so familiar, such a big part of my life, but as she stood in front of me, I found myself nervous. I didn't know how to talk to her anymore. She had become a stranger. Even her posture was different. She held herself a little taller.

"Want a game?" she asked.

I nodded and took the offered darts. Cara took the first turn, slicing the dart into the wall around the board. She groaned and swore. "Guess I'm a little rusty." She turned and stood to the side, allowing me a clear line of access to the board.

"Round the clock?" I asked.

"Like it's going to matter," she replied.

I let the first dart fly, hitting the wedge of the first number. I grinned, and she rolled her eyes.

"The Fairlane looks good," she said when my next dart sunk into the second number.

"It's a work in progress. Your dad's been a big help."

"He always liked you."

There were a million questions I wanted to ask, the main one being, why hadn't she called? According to Ruben, she had been home an entire week. The Cara of before would have never waited that long to call, even if it were only a guise meant to check up on Ruben, but I voiced only one. "So, what's it like being home again?"

Cara turned, letting her head fall back against the wall and rolled her eyes. "Delightful." She punched my arm lightly, just before I was about to throw. "It's good to see you, though. I missed you."

"Really?" I asked, twisting around to look at her and letting the dart hover in my fingers. Then I wished I hadn't. I sounded desperate.

"Of course." She punched my arm again and drank the beer down past the neck. "I missed you and Ruben terribly," she said after swallowing.

Me and Ruben. Ruben. "Terribly?" I said weakly and threw the next dart, hitting a number that wasn't in sequence. It seemed that desperate was the theme of the words coming out of my mouth. I laughed, but even that managed to sound desperate as well. Something had changed between us. Something was there that wasn't before she left for boarding school. I hoped it was just time and distance.

"Terribly," she said with mock severity, ripping the darts off the board and taking aim. "But then again, I was at an all-girls school, so I pretty much missed anyone with balls." The dart flew soundly into the first number and she let out a grunt of triumph. The crumbs I thought I had swallowed, tickled my throat and I spluttered. "Come on now, Judah," she said, her eyes blazing with amusement. "Don't tell me that without me around, you developed a shock reflex. I see I've got my work cut out for me." She threw the next dart and it hit the wall before falling to the ground. "I'm over this," she said, turning away. She took my hand and pulled me out the door, finishing the last of her beer and throwing the bottle to the ground. It bounced on the wooden floor but didn't break. "Dance with me," she yelled over the music.

People danced lazily, bottles in hand and eyes glazed. If you could call it dancing. It was more like group heaving. Even though I could probably name each person that was there, I didn't feel like I knew any of them.

I shook my head but did little else to protest as she led me to the centre of the room and wrapped her arms around my neck. Her eyes gleamed, and for a moment, I simply closed my eyes and inhaled her scent. She smelled the same. No boarding school could rid her of that. It was a combination of daffodils and something medicinal, or chemical-like. I didn't know what it was, but it was all Cara. I barely took notice of the people stumbling in time to the music around me. She was all there was. She chattered in my ear happily. I missed most of what she said, as the music drowned out her voice, but still, I smiled and nodded and laughed when she laughed. Around Cara, I could be the person I wanted to be, not the person I was.

"Why haven't you been back to school?" I yelled into her ear.

She pulled away but still kept her hands locked about my neck, her thick eyebrows rising high. "I needed a few days."

"An entire week?" My voice was rough and I had to strain to be heard over the thud of the bass.

She wriggled her eyebrows and laughed. "I start back Monday." She didn't say anything more and I didn't ask. Cara and school had never had a great relationship. It had something to do with her aversion to rules. I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did at the boarding school. It wasn't exactly known for its relaxed policies.

The music changed and Cara, still holding onto my hand, pulled me away from the centre of the room. She pinned me against the wall and fished her hand into the pockets of my jeans.

"What are you looking for?" I tried to ask casually, but my voice was a little high pitched due to the proximity of her hand on my thigh.

"You got a smoke?" She extracted her hand and looked at me expectantly. "You've changed where you stash them."

I pulled out a cigarette and lighter from my jacket pocket and handed them to her. Cara was a secret smoker, a fact that she hid from her parents. Most things Cara did loudly and proudly but her mother hated people smoking, even though Cara's father did, so Cara hid it from them both. I remember the first time she stole one from her dad while he was distracted in the workshop. We ran into the forest, certain that he would notice and come chasing after us. She had the first puff. She inhaled and held her breath, her eyes watering, fighting back the urge to cough, and then held the cigarette out to me. I couldn't hold back the urge like she did and coughed and spluttered until I wanted to be sick. That made Cara finally release her breath with a smoke-filled laugh that got lost in the trees. We shared the cigarette, puff by puff until it burned down to the filter. I hated every toxic breath, but Cara didn't. She loved the way it left her lightheaded, the way it burned her throat. She laughed a lot that day, so I became a smoker just to watch her laugh. I wasn't addicted to the nicotine. I was addicted to her.

"Not in here," she admonished, taking the cigarette and lighter.

"I didn't think you cared what other people thought?" I said as I followed her outside after she had stuffed two beer bottles in her pockets and another in her hand.

She walked over to the Fairlane and leaned against it, bringing the cigarette to her lips and lighting it. She drew in sharply and held her breath before exhaling. In the coolness of the night, the smoke came out white and thick.

"I don't, but people shouldn't be forced to inhale smoke if it's not their choice, and it's nicer out here, don't you think?" She brought the bottle to her lips and twisted the cap off with her teeth.

The hall was already filled with the lingering second-hand smoke from all the kids that had nothing better to do with their lives, and I didn't see what difference one more would make, but she was right. It was nicer outside. The night air was cool and crisp, and the hall was drowned in light, casting strange patterns over the surrounding trees shrouded in darkness. It was peaceful, and the only sound came from the faint thuds of music that managed to slip out through the cracks of the building.

We stood, taking turns to puff on the cigarette until the moon rose high in the sky and Cara's skin was dotted with goose bumps. We talked about everything and nothing, and all the nervousness I felt around her earlier dissolved.

She screwed up her face, her hand hovering in the air in front of me, squinting from the smoke as she drew the cigarette away from her lips. "What happened to your nose?" The smoke twisted in circles into the night.

I had forgotten all about it. It was supposed to be a friendly game, but apparently someone on the other team took offence to something I said, or didn't say, and decided a head butt would be the best response. "It's nothing," I said, taking the cigarette from her outstretched fingers. But I was pretty sure it was fractured.

She narrowed her eyes and reached out to touch my skin. "It doesn't look like nothing."

I froze as she traced the outline of the bruising under my left eye and across my nose with the tip of her finger. It started to rain, but the drizzle was so fine it looked like glitter in Cara's hair.

"I forgot what it was like to have you home," I said. It was a lie. I hadn't forgotten at all. It was just that the moment was better than my memories.

Until Ruben appeared.

He stumbled out of the hall and onto the gravelled carpark. His steps were uneven, and the bottle in his hand was empty. He tried to take a swig before frowning and throwing it away. The glass shattered against the stones. "Cara! Judah!" he yelled. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

"We've been here the whole time," I said coldly.

But Cara wasn't so cold. Her eyes lit up, and she walked over to him, her hand caressing his arm, steadying it with a familiarity that twisted my gut. Despite the state he was in, his clothes remained in perfect condition, making him appear as though he had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.

"So much for you being the sober driver," I said, as he slung his arm over Cara's shoulder, dangling my keys in his fingers. I put down the bottle of beer. It was only my second one for the night, and I didn't even get to finish it. Cara's eyebrows shot skywards when Ruben's breath hit her, and she pulled away, ducking out from his embrace.

Ruben frowned and pulled her back to him. "Come here," he attempted to say, but it came out garbled and distorted. Drunk.

"I think we need to take him home," Cara said, laughing as Ruben lunged at her, trying to place a sloppy kiss on her cheek.