How To Save A Life (3 page)

I settle in the seat that sags beneath my weight, and I'm just about to turn the key over in the engine when I see it. A folded up piece of paper, no bigger than a Post-it note, underneath the wiper.

Frowning, I open the car door again and reach around to grab it, settling myself back inside and this time locking the door behind me. I dart my gaze around the parking lot, searching for any sign of life, but there's nothing.

The hairs on my arms rise as I open the folded piece of paper. It's white, A4, and quite thick in texture.

Messily scrawled across it, in thick black marker, are the words:

I AM ANGRY. I AM UNSURE.

I AM LOST

THAT’S HOW YOUR MUSIC MAKES ME FEEL.

It's
always the same kind of dream.

"Sweetie, you're going to be fine." Mum places a cool hand against my forehead, then jerks it back. "Once we get you some ibuprofen."

My eyelids are heavy and my limbs weak. It happened out of nowhere. One moment I was in class, answering a question on the second concerto in Vivaldi's
The Four Seasons
—the next, a wave of dizziness washed over me, and I woke up in sick bay, a washcloth on my forehead.

"Bring it back." I grab Mum's cool hand again and place it against my forehead, let it try and soothe the burning fire raging inside my skull. "S'hot."

"I know, sweetheart." Mum strokes my sweat-dampened hair back from my forehead, letting me hold that first arm hostage as it cools my face.

"And she's had some Panadol?" Mum asks the nurse. Nurse Taylor nods sagely, and utters off a list of the drugs they’ve given me, motioning to the cold washcloth on my head as further indication of her display of care.

"I'm sorry to call you out of work, Mrs Stanton," Nurse Taylor says.

Mum shakes her head and takes my arm, looping it over her shoulder. "It's fine." She smiles. She always smiles, my mum. She's always so ... smiley. "Lia's the most important thing to me."

"They all say that." The nurse nods, and opens the door so we can hobble through.

The whole walk to the car Mum smiles, telling me about the first time she'd fainted. I might have a fever, too, Mum says, and once we get to the car, we book an appointment with our doctor this afternoon using Mum's cell.

We drive home, and the houses and beachside blur into a mirage of colour all mixed together, blues and greens and bricks and sand. It's sped up, as if in fast motion—

Then it happens.

It settles in the base of my stomach, a sense of impending dread.

We pull up in the drive and my heart pounds, a deep, angry thud against my ribcage.

"Stay in the car." I grab Mum's arm, but I'm not in control of my limbs any more, and Dream Lia happily sits there while Mum opens her door, then helps her to her feet.

"Odd." Mum furrows her brow, noticing Dad's car in the open garage.

Don't go inside.

I try to scream the words, but I'm watching from the outer, and no one hears what I'm saying.

Running forward, I slam my body into Dream Lia, pushing her down, trying to distract these stupid people, and stop them from the impending disaster they're about to walk into.

Dream Lia limps forward, Mum smiling and laughing, gaily chattering away about what bad daytime television she's got planned for her poor sick daughter.

By the time they reach the door, I'm yelling, throwing myself in their path, throwing other things in their path—the family photo on the side table by the front door. Dad's shoes, neatly toed off in line by the mat.

Nothing.

When Mum places me on the couch and then turns to walk upstairs, I give it everything I've got. I grab hold of the banister and wrench the wood from the railing off, but despite this destruction, she keeps walking. My heart races, and tears streak down either side of my face as I silently chant, "No, no, no, no." It's like watching a horror movie. I'm begging her to turn around, to
not go there
, only this nightmare is real—it's all too real.

I know what she'll find up those stairs, and it will start a chain of events that will ruin her life forever.

Our
lives.

And then it happens.

Mum screams.

And she doesn't smile so much anymore.

***

Eventually, I wake up, covered in sweat, my heart in my throat. With shaking hands, I reach for my phone.
Four am
. Of course.

It’s a time when it’s too close to my alarm to go back to sleep, and yet still an hour when it’s inconvenient to wake.

It’s the time I wake after every nightmare about those days.

I stumble downstairs. The living room is empty, and I pause to wonder if Mum went out last night, and if she did, if she came home. Or if she did as she likes to do every once in a while, and just shut herself in her room before I get home from practice, hiding under the covers. Sometimes, blankets protect her from reality.

But most of the time, the booze does.

In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water, sculling it in one go, then I pull myself up the stairs with the bannister, all so I can lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and
not sleep
for the next hour until I have to get ready for work.

After the nightmare, I never go back to sleep.

It's easiest to deal with the horror when I'm awake.

***

Sunrise on a Saturday is the time I like the most.

Everything's still at sunrise. There are no cars about, no people moving fast, getting things done, ticking items off their lists.

Downstairs, the house is silent. The only movement will be the birds warbling in the crisp morning air, and the rushing of the water in the lake that runs to the ocean from the wilderness strip behind our house. The lake I walk along every Saturday morning on my way to work.

I rub my hands together to ward off the chill that sets in as soon as I've stepped out the front of our house—our vacant house, I should add—and start off to The View, the café where I make what have been referred to as 'the best coffees in all of Emerald Cove'. I could drive; it'd make light work of the thirty-minute hike. But this peacefulness, the sense of calm I get from being so close to the clarity of the water and the occasional aviary wildlife that populate it ... nothing can beat that. It's where I go to be alone. And being alone is almost as good as being with Duke.

Duke.

The thought makes guilt once again bubble in my stomach. Hopefully, he’ll come away with me. Hopefully, we’ll—

"Thank hell," Tim curses as I round the corner. His hands are wrapped around the metal frame of a chair he's putting out on the sidewalk, tucking it under the table in front of it. He jerks his head toward the interior of the cafe. "Get in there; we've had another walking group."

"Sorry, on it," I mutter, at the same time as I complete my usual Saturday morning ritual of imagining new and creative ways to inflict pain upon my boss.

Impaled by one of his own cafe chairs that has been dipped in hot lava beforehand.

Yep.

Nice.

I slink through the crowd of twenty women clustered by the register, and a confused-as-hell looking Ana who is manning the till.

"So you want a double shot of sustainable beans frappé, with a caramel insertion and chocolate on top, on soy?" She narrows her eyes, and I smile. It's going to be one of
those
mornings.

To be honest, we get
those
mornings at least once a fortnight.

The View is situated right on the beachfront in our coastal town, and is known as
the
place to get your morning coffee, thanks to a good write-up in the state-wide newspaper. And, since it's located a short five-hundred metres from the start of the infamous Five Cliffs Hike, a trail that attracts many nature enthusiasts due to its stunning views and plentiful assortment of wildlife, we often get coffee requests such as these, aka Coffee For Hipsters From The City.

I scoot in next to Ana and stow my bag under the counter, grab my apron and tie it around my waist. Then I check that the machine has already been brought to life. Tim usually does it the second he opens the doors, to make sure he can start making a dollar as soon as someone walks up. He sometimes makes light of it, and says he turns it on before he turns off the alarm.

I don't even think he's joking.

"We have a few dockets already." The subtext in Ana's voice says
even though we're not technically open
, and she shoves three pieces of paper along the steel counter toward me. Tim loves to do that—take orders from go so he can milk every extra dollar out of our wages and the tourists. I nod. Looks like it'll be a busy morning.

There's something oddly soothing about making coffee.

Grind.

Click.

Whirl.

Pour
.

It's a rhythmic dance that's easy to get caught up in, to lose yourself inside of.

Before I know it, it's one, and not only have the twenty hikers left and come back to get "one more for the road", but the lunchtime crowd is easing and ordering wine instead of coffee, allowing Ana and I to take a step back and relax a little.

We lean against the counter behind us that has grown hot from the constant hum of the coffee machine throbbing against it.

"Water?" She offers me a bottle from the fridge, and I gratefully accept, knocking back half of it in one long gulp. It's so cold it hurts, but the burn is worth it.

"Thanks." I screw the lid back on tight and place it next to me, enjoying the breather.

"Isn't it nice to just sit and—"

"Lia, will you restock the wine fridge?" Tim's voice cuts through Ana's speech, and she winces.
Sorry
, she mouths, and I shrug and head out back to the storeroom located in the car park behind the venue.

It's dark out here, and cold, the concrete roof of the parking lot trapping in the cool air as well as blocking a lot of the sun. This car park has stock rooms and entrances to each of the three businesses that share this block—The View, a tattoo studio, and a karate training group. I push the sleeves of my black long-sleeved shirt over my fisted hands and make my way to the door furthest on the right, the room where we keep all our spare booze, aka Whatever's On Special With A Shop-A-Docket.

I unlock the door from the key ring I have tied around my wrist with a rope. I wear it every time I work—the jewellery of The View employee. Inside, the room is darker still, and I flick the switch for the light but nothing happens.

"Freaking cheapskate," I mutter. There's no doubt in my mind that Tim is aware of this electrical failure. It's probably why he's getting me to fill the fridge instead of actually doing it himself.

The Sauvignon Blanc proves to be my biggest challenge. It's located on the top shelf, and no matter how high I jump and grab, I'm still not within safe snatching distance. So, I do what any self-respecting employee would do. I push out a case of beer from underneath the shelves. Then, I stand on top of that and I reach up, pulling down one, two, three, four bottles of—

"Can we talk?"

Smash.

Crash.

Anger.

Four bottles fall to the floor, green glass shards fragmented and broken against the concrete. Wine spills from each bottle's wound like blood, sinking into the grey beneath in an irreparable injury.

Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I cast a murderous glance over my shoulder. "No," I grind out.

"Lia, I'm so sorry." Ellie’s on her hands and knees, scooping fragments of glass shards into her hands.

Ellie.

Just another reminder of my past. Of what I'm trying to run from.

"Leave it."

I don't look at her face—I can't. I can hear the sadness in her voice, and I'm worried that seeing further evidence of it will bring me to tears.

"I can help, I—"

"I got it."
Pause.
"But thanks," I grit out.

She hesitates a moment, possibly because it's the politest I've been to her in eighteen months, and I look up. Those big blue eyes of hers stare into mine, sincerity and sadness and just everything
good
bleeding out of them. I look back down at the boozy mess at my feet.

It's hard to run from your past when it insists on chasing you.

Her footsteps thud away, and I pause for a moment. How the hell did life get so complicated?

Only 152 more days.

"I said, get me a damn omelette!" Tim yelling at some poor sucker in the kitchen breaks me out of my daze, and I stagger to my feet, grabbing a broom from behind the door and sweeping up the mess before pushing it into a dustpan and then emptying it into the bin. I splash some bleach on the ground then jog back out front, eager to be back where I belong before Tim notices I've been gone too long.

Who am I kidding?

It's also because I don't want to be there in case she comes back.

"You ready for a double-shot flat white?" Ana asks me.

"Sure." I grab the jug and pour in some creamy white milk.

Ana's hand on my wrist captures my attention. "You okay?"

I glance down. Scarlet blood is gathered about my wrist. Seeing it, I recognise a sting. I must have cut myself when I was picking up the broken wine bottle.

The blood is glossy and red, and I stare at it, captivated for a moment, before I wipe it off against my black apron.

"Fine." I offer up a wan smile and turn back to the task at hand. Coffee. Something I know
well
.