Preloved (18 page)

“If I am really just in your head, then it’s not about helping me at all. It’s about you helping yourself, Miss Matey.”

“But I’m not ready! I have too many hang-ups,” I found myself blurting out. “I don’t want to lose you, Mr Matey! Nobody likes me. Please stay with me.”

I stared into Logan’s eyes, his face so close to mine on the pillow. Wasn’t reality just a state of mind? In that case, I wanted to stay inside this little pocket of a dream within my nightmare. He was real to me. I wanted him. I needed him. I loved him.

I could feel my thoughts roll out like marbles, straight into the gentle grasp of Logan’s mind.

He laughed. I wrinkled up my nose.

“I wish you were real. Please tell me you are real.”

“The other kids call you Amy Lone-Lee,” he said gently. “You know why.”

Logan smiled at me, in that Eighties teen heart-throb way of his. I knew that if I had the choice to imagine any boy into life, he would look just like that.

“I’m not going to wake up and find you gone, am I?” I said. There was a lump in my throat. “If that’s the case, I’m not going to fall asleep.”

Not falling asleep … not fall asleep … sleep.

I could feel my eyelids drooping. In that space that exists between wake and sleep, I thought about how this should be the moment when we stare up at a ceiling decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars and have one of those “spend the night, but no sex” scenes out of a YA romance.

Instead, I knew I was alone, haunted by myself.

Not fall asleep, I repeated.

Mum’s ghost stories flittered around in my mind.

“Amy, don’t bring an open umbrella into the house, because a ghost might be hiding under it.”

“Amy, don’t touch the sleep on a cat’s eyes and then touch your own eyes, because you will see ghosts.”

“Amy, never tweeze the hairs off the tops of your toes, or you will see ghosts.”

But it was getting awfully dark inside of me. Something went click, like a light being switched off and I was left in the black. A tiny soul floating in my empty body.

“Amy, Rebecca is here!”

The words carried themselves up the stairs and crammed themselves down my ears.

I lifted my head off my pillow. Oh, gross. I had fallen asleep in my bathrobe. I rolled over. Logan was gone. His side of the bed was undisturbed, as if he’d never been there at all.

“Good morning, Amy.”

“Argh!” I jumped in fright and banged my head against the steel frame of my bed. Rebecca was standing right above me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Amy! I forgot that you’ve been very jumpy of late. Um, but it’s Monday. We need to get to school.”

Rebecca looked at the bits of my uniform scattered all over the ground.

“Do you want me to help you get dressed or something?”

“That’s okay,” I replied. “I can dress myself. Arms working, see?” I waved my arms about.

“Um, why don’t you go wait downstairs for me?” I found myself smiling to encourage her.

“If you say so,” replied Rebecca, looking uncertain, but she left me alone.

I sat inside my sad little room for a while. It wasn’t until I was pulling the hideous SpongeBob-yellow polo on that I realised I was all alone. It was quiet inside my head. There was no throbbing pain against my skull. My heart didn’t feel all squashed down towards the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t seeing teen ghosts from the Eighties.

I dressed quickly, tied my hair back with a rainbow scrunchie and went down the stairs to where Rebecca would be waiting for me.

I walked through to the shop and found …

Nancy.

“Why are you here?” I said in surprise. “You’ve never been here before.”

“I just can’t get you off my mind, Amy Lee,” said Nancy, gently closing the front door.

“I’m flattered, but I don’t really feel the same way,” I replied. I was filled with a strange sense of control. Like I was a fake person trying to be a real person and it was easier just to plaster a smile onto my face and pretend everything was okay.

Nancy looked over and waved awkwardly to Mum, calling her “Aunty” like a respectful Chinese young person. Mum, momentarily taken aback, waved enthusiastically and asked Nancy to call her Ivy.

“Hey, can you talk to your mum about that gold dress in the window? I’m going to the ball after all, and I’d like to see Victor Zhang say no to that when I rock up in it.”

“Sure,” I said. “I owe you one anyway. Maybe we don’t have to owe each other anything in the next lifetime then.”

Nancy smiled back at me with kindness in her eyes.

“Oh, hi, Nancy,” said Rebecca, diplomatically.

“Hi, Rebecca,” Nancy replied diplomatically back.

While I removed the gold dress from the mannequin, Mum and Nancy talked about some Hong Kong soapie on TVB. Mum looked so happy, so delighted to be talking to someone from our Chinese community.

“You know, I wish I was Chinese too,” said Rebecca. She sighed dramatically. “I can identify more closely with your Eastern philosophies, and I totally dig the Dalai Lama. I’m thinking about going to teach English in Tibet for my gap year. Do you think I’ll have to shave my head?”

I tried not to look at the white dress, the only dress remaining from the mystery box, as I folded Nancy’s dress between crisp sheets of tissue paper.

It felt oddly calm. It felt normal. My mum and my friend – make that
friends
– chatting away on a Monday morning. My mind so quietly behaved. Nothing had ever seemed so clear. I felt like I wanted to stick my head outside and scream.

A fat tear rolled down my face and plopped onto the tissue paper.

“Amy!” Mum was instantly by my side, looking like she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

“I’m fine,” I replied, and I made her go back to talk to my friends. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. It’s just passing. I’m good now.”

I finished folding the dress and I tucked it into a cardboard carrier bag. I had helped Mum design it, black and white stripes with Buy Gones written in gold cursive writing. I thought it looked really stylish. Mum said evil
ah ma
would have hated it being the alternating colours of death and darkness. Precisely why Mum loved it.

“We’re taking Amy to make an appointment with the school counsellor,” said Nancy. “We’re going to take care of her, Ivy.”

Mum’s eyes met mine.

I handed the carrier bag to Nancy, who momentarily betrayed her iron-maiden exterior to make googly eyes.

“Nancy,” I said. “When is the ball?”

“Tonight.”

Really? Wow, lucky I wasn’t going then.

“You should come along. You can be my date. It might be just the thing to help you relax a bit. Have some fun,” said Nancy and she touched my shoulder.

“I’d love to!” replied Rebecca, turning to face Nancy. “Showing up with a girl would be way edgier than showing up with a boy. Even though it physically hurts me every time I think of Benji. His jet hair. Storm-coloured eyes. Alabaster skin. Adonis body.”

Rebecca clutched at her chest.

“Let’s get going,” said Nancy, frowning. “Bye, Ivy.”

“Thanks, girls,” called Mum, smiling widely. “Drop by anytime for anything. I have a pen and I’m not afraid to discount.”

As I passed the door, Mum reached out and grabbed my hand.

I jumped.

“Remember,” said Mum, squeezing my fingers. I listened intently for the ghost warning of the day. “No matter what anyone decides to do or tell you, I believe you, okay? When you are ready, you come to me.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, caught by surprise.

“So Nance,” said Rebecca, sidling up. “Does this mean we are now friends?”

“Maybe.”

“Cool. That means we can talk right? ’Cos I’ve felt so bottled up since Benji left me. I want to discuss the deeply philosophical things in life. Like when love takes us hostage, who pulls the trigger? Can a beating heart– ”

“Rebecca?” Nancy tapped her on the shoulder. “Shut up!”

At the end of the day, I stood in the hallway outside the counsellor’s office. There were no chairs so I really didn’t know what to do with my body.

I thought about Uncle Phillip. He jumped because he was suffering from depression. Not because he was possessed. If only he’d had friends who could’ve convinced him to get treatment. That was the real tragedy.

“Amy?”

“Oh. Hi. Michael.” I crossed my arms and looked like I was going somewhere.

“Are you waiting to see–”

“No actually, I was just …”

“It’s okay, Amy,” said Michael. “I’ve seen him myself on a few occasions.”

“What! I mean … really?”

“Look,” said Michael, “I like to play
Zelda
, I don’t like sport and when the jocks want someone’s head to flush down a toilet, I’m a little too chubby to get away fast enough. So, yeah. I have a few problems.”

“You don’t think I’m a freak?”

“Welcome to the club, kiddo.”

Michael held out his fist, and to make him happy I took out my fist as well and gently bumped it. I didn’t expect to smile, but I did.

“Amy?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering … if you happen to be going to the ball anyway … you reckon you’d want to go with me?”

Michael’s face looked like he expected me to slap him.

“Oh, Mike, that’s nice of you, but …” But what? But
no
, because I want to go with my imaginary friend instead? “I’m not going. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologise,” said Michael, and his face lit up, despite the circumstances. “I’m sorry I made you fall into a stinky wishing fountain, and that I heckled you during detention and that I ran away when you asked me for help.”

“It’s okay.” I laughed. “I’ll tell my grandkids one day and they’ll think it’s funny.”

“I’m going home to get changed for tonight, otherwise I’d hang around longer.”

“Sure. It’s not a group therapy session anyway.” I tried to look convincing and perky.

“
As you wish
, Princess Buttercup.”

“Ha-ha. Goodluck rescuing your own Princess,
Link
.”

After Michael left, I stood there in silence until someone called my name. It took a second go for them to make an indent into my mushy-pea mind.

“Amy? Would you like to step inside?”

Dr Ward didn’t look like a doctor. In fact, he was young and wore black jeans (not a white coat) and had cool stubble (not a daggy geography teacher beard) and would rather the kids call him Brian.

“You’re awfully stressed,” he said before I had a chance to speak.

“Huh?” I replied. I had only been sitting in my chair doing nothing.

“I say this only because I can see your hands trembling and you’re blinking a lot.”

“Oh.”

“So, no brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“Your parents are separated?”

“Yes.”

“Mum is possessive?”

“She’s Chinese.”

Brian laughed, crossed his legs and leaned forward.

“So, Amy, tell me what’s happening.”

“You won’t laugh?”

“I take this job seriously.”

“Um …” I scrunched up my nose. It was going to sound really bad. “I found this locket and there was a picture of this boy inside. Then the next thing I know he starts following me around. Except he’s not real. But he’s real to me.”

Yup. It
did
sound really bad.

But Brian’s face didn’t change. He didn’t raise his eyebrows or do any of that other patronising tsk-ing adults liked to do.

“Think back to the day you found the locket, Amy. You had a bad day, didn’t you? Do you think that when you saw the photo of the boy inside, something might have snapped and your imagination took on a life of its own?”

“Yeah,” I replied. I stared at the nice whiteboard he had on the wall. Nice penholder and pens and pencils, all nice and neat.

“So what do I need to do?” I touched my fingers together and watched him as he watched me.

“The next time you see this boy,” said Brian, “I want you to concentrate on what message he is carrying. In my experience, sometimes once your subconscious plays out and resolves itself, the visions will disappear. Meanwhile, I want to make another appointment with you, and we’ll work on a recovery plan, okay? Sound not too scary?”

“Not too scary.” I nodded my head. “Um. Thanks.”