Page 53 of From Now On

‘A bit of water won’t kill you. You’re not the Wicked Witch of the West, are you?’

‘There’s only one witch here,’ Nina mutters under her breath.

‘Would you care to repeat that? Would you like a detention?’ Miss Rudd crosses her arms over her chest.

‘She said she’s got a stitch, miss. That’s why we were having a rest but we’re going now.’ Maeve grabs Nina’s hand and tugs her out of the door.They pound down the steps, feet splashing into puddles, shoes and tights soaked.

‘You should have said she’s a bitch,’ Nina says as they huddle under the bus shelter.

‘Yeah, that would have helped. She hates you enough anyway.’

‘Dunno why.’

‘You do antagonise her.’ Maeve holds her hands up as Nina glares. ‘Don’t shoot. I’m on your side!’

‘I know, she’s just… such a cow.’

‘Miss Rudd chews a cud.’ Maeve laughs.

‘You’re such a child. Speaking of kids what are we going to do about my idiot brother?’

‘Do you think you should ring your aunt? Tell her that Duke hasn’t come out?’

‘Nah. She’ll only blame me and say I was late or something and we were a bit late. He’s probably gone ahead with Evie. God, she winds me up.’

‘She’s funny. I told Jayden to leave Duke alone in the canteen the other day and she came up to me as I was heading back to class after lunch and thanked me for sticking up for Duke this morning. She said “we can’t let the boys think they’re in charge. You go, girl,” and actually held up her hand.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I was so surprised I high-fived her.’

‘I’d have told her to piss off.’ Nina hides her shame behind her anger. She should do more to help Duke but she feels all this fury bouncing around inside her that she can’t harness and he’s so easy to take it out on. She’s such a bitch sometimes. No wonder he didn’t want to walk home with her.

Maeve nudges her. ‘Penny for them.’

‘I was wondering if I was always this horrible, before Mum and Dad died.’

‘Yeah, pretty much.’ Maeve grins. ‘But I love you anyways.’

‘I feel… furious all of the time.’ Nina can feel it now, bubbling away under the surface, heating her blood despite the chill wind blowing rain towards them.

‘You have changed, but that’s only to be expected. You’ve had such a lot to deal with. Dad was only saying—’

‘Your dad was talking about me?’ Nina feels the hardening in her stomach soften a little.

‘Yeah. He was saying how well you’re coping.’

‘I dunno if I am. I… I dream about them almost every night.’

‘I think that’s normal.’

‘Is that how you felt when you lost your mum?’ It occurs to Nina that they’ve never talked about this before. Maeve didn’t have a mum when they’d met at five years old and it seemed normal to her but it isn’t normal and she feels guilty now that she’s never given her best friend the opportunity to talk.

Maeve shrugs. ‘I don’t really remember it I was so young. I don’t really rememberher.’ Her voice thins a little. It still hurts her; is this how it will feel to Nina in five years, ten, twenty? Can a lifetime take away the stinging pain she feels that hasn’t even begun to ease? It’s approaching two months since she lost her parents and she can still remember the tone of their voices, their smell. ‘Sometimes…’ Maeve clears her throat. ‘Sometimes I think I have memories but they’ve just come from photographs really and stories Dad’s told me about her. You have real memories, Nina. Happy ones to hold on to.’

If there is a sliding scale of grief, Nina wonders what the tipping point would be.Does the regret of losing someone you never really got to know outweigh the hurt of knowing exactly what you have lost?

She rests her head on Maeve’s shoulder and for a while they are quiet, listening to the tyres of the passing cars slosh in the puddles. Watching an array of coloured umbrellas hurry past. They make no move to leave despite their damp clothes.

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