Page 17 of Just for Me
“I don’t evenknowstep by step,” Quentin tried to explain.
“Then find a way to know it,” Mr. Hereford said.
Luke never talked in class if he could help it, but somehow, he was saying, “If his hand knows what to put down, isn’t that the same way your feet know what to do in rugby?” Because Mr. Hereford was also his rugby coach. “They know what to do because you’ve trained them, but you can’t break it down and say how you know. You just know.”
“Was I speaking to you, Armstrong?” Mr. Hereford asked.
“No, sir,” Luke said. “But—”
“Then why does this concern you?”
“Because he’s right,” Quentin said. “Do you stop him out on the paddock and tell him to diagram his moves? Ask him how many kGs per square meter of force he’s exerting in the scrum?”
“That’s enough from both of you,” Mr. Hereford said. “Let’s move on.”
Luke had felt himself flushing, but Quentin had looked back at him and grinned, his floppy hair hanging over his forehead, his eyes dancing, and Luke had been so confused.
On that weekend, outside their hut on that school trip to the rugged coastline of the Catlins, where they were meant to be recording their sightings of sea lions and yellow-eyed penguins, the cold Southland night had swirled with light. A vivid neon green near the dark horizon, shading to hot pink, to purple, and then the colors fading to the deepest blue, the pinpricks of stars showing through in the thin air down here at the bottom of the world. The boys laughed and joked around him, and beside Luke, somebody said, “We should walk down a bit farther, get a better look without these arseholes. Take it in, maybe.”
Luke didn’t have to look to know it was Quentin. His heart was beating so fast, he thought it must be visible even in the dark. “Sure,” he managed to say.
The dark. The cold. Sitting on a rock, feeling Quentin’s warmth beside him, even though they weren’t touching. Not wanting to breathe, not wanting to move, for fear he’d break the spell and it would be over. Staring at those glowing, pulsing lights and wishing for courage.
Finally, Quentin spoke. Not in his usual quick, sure fashion, his voice moving up and down the register, lively as a bird’s, in a way Luke never managed. In a voice Luke hadn’t heard before. “Thanks for coming to my rescue the way you did.”
“Uh … when?” Now, Luke was sure Quentin could tell. Panic. Desire. Confusion.
“In maths class.” Luke felt Quentin shift, saw his arm move, heard theplinkof a small stone hitting a bigger one. “Nobody’s done anything like that for me before. Not a rugby player, especially.”
“Oh.” Luke wasn’t sure what to say. “It wasn’t fair,” he finally decided on. “You can’t help being brilliant, I reckon.”
“Neither can you.”
“I’m not brilliant. Last thing from it.”
“You’re good at everything,” Quentin said. “Sport, and maths, and history. Probably the rest as well, but I don’t know. I haven’t seen.”
“I just work hard.” Luke knew it was lame. He didn’t have anything else, though. “I don’t have … talent. Not the fizzing kind. Not like you.”
“Luke.” Luke jumped at hearing his name. “You do have that. What, you think it’s all quick feet, quick talking? That’s what the world thinks is brilliant. What if they’re wrong?”
Luke didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.
“What if people like you,” Quentin went on, “are just as important? Doesn’t there have to be a … a foundation for things?”
Luke could see him out of the corner of his eye. Staring straight ahead, the same way Luke was. “Reckon that’s what I am,” he said. “A foundation.”
“Also,” Quentin said, “I think you want to kiss me. Of course, I could be horribly wrong, and you could beat me blind for saying it. I’m going to stand up now, ready to run. I’ll deny I said it, too.”
“I don’t—” Luke managed to get out over the sound of the blood in his ears. “I can’t— Don’t go. Please. Don’t go.”
Quentin had moved away before the next school year. Luke hadn’t cried. It was just another way life changed, he’d told himself, lying in bed dry-eyed, staring into the darkness, seeing those Southern Lights dancing across the sky despite himself. Another thing you had to move on from, because you were made wrong.
He hadn’t kissed anybody else for more than four years, and even then, only when he was on tour, in some big foreign city where nobody knew his name and nobody cared about rugby. And still, every single time he’d done it, he’d expected the walls to come crashing down on him.
Now, he looked around him as the music played. Zora and Rhys, standing together, Rhys’s big arm slung over Casey’s shoulders, his other hand holding Zora’s. Kane, watching Victoria play her cello as if he’d found what he’d always been looking for. Zora and Hayden’s parents, their dad, Craig, a tight-lipped, stiff-backed sort of fella, and their mum, Tania, deliberately gracious. A bit like Grant and Miriama, in fact. Not as extreme, maybe, but Luke recognized the species. And then there was Finn Douglas, his arm around his pregnant wife, his toddler son held in one big arm, his older daughter too cool for this, his younger one all in.
All these families. And three people standing a little apart, standing with nobody. Isaiah, who would always stand apart, who would never be sure where he fit, because, like Quentin, his mind didn’t work like everybody else’s. It worked faster and more logically, and it took leaps. And Hayden, his cheerful side in full display tonight, with a brittleness to him that hurt Luke’s heart. And, of course, him.
