Page 44 of Carbon

“Yes, I’m sure. But I need to transfer the money I have access to and move anything I care about for safekeeping. Plus I need to make arrangements for Sapphire. Angie’s my best friend as well as my sister, and I can’t drop her in it. I expect I’ll need to write more books for her in the future to keep up the pretence.”

“I’ll wait as long as it takes, and I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

I’d finally found him. I’d found my soulmate. “Will you answer me one thing?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you send me that message in the first place? I still don’t understand. How did you know I wrote the books?”

He smiled, but it flickered at the edges, belying his nervousness. Why?

“Because you were always the creative one, Gus. Always.”

“Huh?”

“And you once told me your stories were the dreams you wished would come true.”

My emotions, already shaken from this evening’s events, exploded like a firecracker and I burst into tears. I’d only ever told one person that—a boy, not a man.

Holy. Shit.

13

Iflew back in time sixteen years, to the day after my eleventh birthday. Mother had thrown me a huge party with circus performers, pony rides, and even a bloody ice sculpture—anything she could use to claim one-upmanship over all the other tennis club mums. It had turned into a bit of a contest that year, with one renting out an entire cinema and another hiring a TV chef to prepare the jelly and ice cream. Or rather, the vanilla panna cotta and sorbet.

Of course, as Mother had also been in charge of the guest list, she hadn’t worried about inviting my actual friends, just the children of people she wanted to make an impression on. And that meant my best friend, Ben, got left out. As a scholarship student at the ridiculously expensive prep school Angie and I attended, Ben’s parents didn’t fit into my mother’s plan to climb to the pinnacle of the social ladder.

Not that he was bitter about it. “Have a great time, Gus,” he told me as we walked out of school together the Friday before. “I hope you get everything you want.”

What I wanted was his company, but my pleas to Mother had fallen on deaf ears. “I just want it to be over.”

He smiled shyly and drew a lumpy parcel from his pocket. “I brought you a present. Sorry about all the sellotape.”

“Thanks, I love it.”

He giggled. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

A group of other boys ran by, pausing long enough to flick Ben’s cap to the ground. “Hey, four-eyes. Found your way back to the gutter yet?”

“Leave him alone!” I yelled.

They only laughed, and I went to run after them, but Ben stopped me. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. I hate that they’re so mean to you.”

“As long as you’re my friend, I don't care.”

“I’ll always be your friend, Ben.”

When I unwrapped the gift he’d given me, having survived my party by hiding in the bathroom for most of the time, I found a red fountain pen. I spent the rest of the weekend filling a notepad with stories where the forlorn princess triumphed over the evil queen, found her Prince Charming, and lived happily ever after. I was still writing away when Ben found me in the playground before school on Monday morning.

“Why do you write so much?” he asked.

And that’s when I told him. “Because stories are the dreams I wish will come true.”

“Am I in any of them?”

---