Preloved (21 page)

This wasn’t the part where I gained a bit of empathy and became well-rounded and self-reflective. Screw that.

I was going to keep disliking Dad because he was not a good man, and that was it.

“Let it all out, Miss Matey,” said Logan. “Let it out for the last time.”

Last time? I didn’t think so. While we were at it, how about this one: I didn’t care that he had the house and all the possessions because he had a good lawyer. Why didn’t he hire a life coach so he could learn to be a better person?

“So, what do you want to do?” Logan threw his arms out. “You’re only limited by your imagination, Amy, so you’ll have no trouble at all.”

I’d forgotten how big our house was. You didn’t have to put a couch sideways because your lounge room was too small. You had to order special furniture made extra huge, ’cos normal couches looked like doll’s house furniture.

“You want to take stuff? Come on, there must be something you miss.”

I wanted to steal a fancy duck-feather pillow, the cheap Big W one I currently had was such a pain in the–

“Or on the other hand, maybe you just want to trash the joint.”

Hell yeah, I did. There was a vase right in front of me I wanted to punch in. Except it was made of thick Ming pottery. And it would hurt.

“The floor is yours,” said Logan.

I examined everything in the lounge room. Then I headed up the stairs.

The first room to the left of the landing used to be my room. The door was shut. I stood in front of it, wondering if I should look inside.

Why should it be a big deal? Why would I care if it was still exactly how I had left it or if it had since been converted into a home gym?

But it did matter, because the last time I left it, I knew that I could never come back. And standing there, I knew that was still true. I turned around.

My parents’ room, or what was left of it, was the last room at the end. I switched on a lamp and dimmed it to the lowest setting. I pulled open a drawer.

It was weird that in among all the things that belonged to Dad, there was also what used to be Mum’s stuff. I thought it would be like the movies, where the abandoned person would do something like throw all the other person’s clothes out the window. But I guess real life was a lot more complicated.

Where would Dad keep Mum’s jewellery?

I pushed shut the drawer and went over to Mum’s dresser. I sat down and tried not to look into the mirror, in case I saw the life that Mum had tried to make for herself here, once upon a time.

I found Mum’s old jewellery box tucked up the back. It was a cheap metal Christmas tin, of all things. Mum said she liked the kittens on the lid. It used to house butter biscuits, but now it held …

In the semi-darkness, the faceted gold surface of Mum’s wedding bracelets winked at me. I could see a phoenix engraved on one bracelet, a dragon on the other.

“I don’t want anything from Dad,” I finally said to Logan. “And I don’t want to trash the house, thank you.”

It was true. I was happy with what me and Mum had. It was only small, but it meant the world to me. What would I get from ruining the house? It would only prove that I hated myself. And I would feel sorry for the poor cleaners who would have to deal with the mess.

“What about those?” asked Logan, looking down at the bracelets I had cupped in my hand.

“This is taking back what is mine. I am bringing them home. Where they rightfully belong.”

There was a photo of Dad and his new girlfriend sitting on the bedside table.

This was the first time I had set eyes on her.

I had always dreamed that our first meeting would be face to face, on her turf. She would yell something like, “You have no right to be here,” to which I would furiously reply, “Yes I do; I was here first!”

The smiling woman in the photo didn’t look like some sour model or slimy gold-digger. That surprised me. It disarmed some of the anger inside me. She was smiling in the photo. She looked friendly. She looked like someone that I might even like.

Maybe.

In a different time – in a different lifetime – it could be true.

“Let’s go,” I said. I headed towards the door, but I was so tempted to turn around. So tempted to look back and change my mind on what I was feeling.

“You know it’s time for you to go.”

I slipped the bracelets over my wrists and went out the back door, my anger slipping away.

Logan under moonlight was lovely. Somehow, there was blue in the atmosphere of the night and it reflected off him. His whole body took on the clear, luminous quality of his eyes.

He beckoned for me to join him on the patch of fake lawn next to the swimming pool, but I shook my head, because I had become shy. I slipped down the side of the house.

Passing the recycling bin, I opened the lid, more out of habit more than anything else. Dad was a crap recycler and it was up to either me or Mum to pull out the plastics and put them into the regular bin.

The bin was full to the brim with beer bottles. It made me sad to know that although Dad had moved on, he hadn’t changed.

And I thought about the rut I’d been sitting in since Mum and I had left here.

“Well, Miss Matey, you’ve taken back what you want. Are you going to leave something behind to balance out the universe?” Logan asked, beside me again.

Wow. One week on this planet and he already sounded like Mum.

“I leave behind only good feelings towards my dad,” I said, surprising myself. “I wish him good luck with his new life.”

And with those simple words, I felt my heart release itself.

I stared up at the sky and scanned the stars for the Big Dipper or what Mum called the Big Basket. She tells me it is home to the Scholar of the Heavens. He writes all the stories of the universe and right then, I could feel him turn a new page for me.

I found myself pulling the bottles out of the bin. I arranged them into an amber heart shape on the brick paving. That was what I would leave him with.

I should be getting home. My real home.

Headlights swept up the driveway and I heard the automatic garage door opening. Shit. Dad was home.

That was how I found myself clambering up a recycling bin to scale a brick wall.

Logan was waiting at the bottom on the other side. I wondered if he would try to catch me when I jumped, like how Fezzik caught Princess Buttercup at the end of
The Princess Bride
. But the thought of passing through him, which would feel like jumping into freezing water, made me change my mind. I dropped down onto the soft fake lawn outside the house.

I brushed myself down and picked up my bike.

“Tally-ho, then,” said Logan.

“We’re not
fox
hunting,” I said.

“That’s so funny,” said Logan. “LOL.”

“You’ve learned modern slang,” I said, turning in surprise.

“OMG!” said Logan, proudly.

Final stop: the concert hall. I stopped the bike and waited for Logan to get off.

“Now that’s more like it! That’s what I’d call a bonza track.”

“Electric Blue” by Icehouse was floating out into the night.

I wanted to stare into his eyes. I wanted to thank him, but instead I stared at the ground and I said, “It’s not too late to hook up with Rebecca, you know. This could be your
Pretty in Pink
moment. Girl and dream boy finally getting together at the pivotal ball scene.”

In my heart, I only intended to drop him off. I didn’t know why I was following him up the stairs.

“I’ve told you. I find Rebecca a little – how do I put this eloquently? Wickety-wack.”

“You’re just not deep enough to answer her life questions.” I shrugged. “Like ‘I’ve broken someone’s heart, so does that make me love’s executioner?’ and–”

“You’re dressed to kill, so will you be the death of me?’” said Logan.

“Are you talking to me, Logan?” I asked, frowning at him.

“Yes,” Logan replied.

“Awww, thanks?” I said in reply, although it came out like a question.

We stood awkwardly on the wide flat landing between the two flights of stairs. There was a brief moment of quiet as the previous song ended and another song started. My hem was dirty. Disco smoke curled around my feet.

“Would you like to dance?” asked Logan.

“I’d better get going,” I said.

“C’mon, Miss Matey, just the one. I’m no stranger, only your mate, Ol’ Loges.”

I laughed and scrunched up my nose. I wondered if I should jump around like Nancy and robot dance.

Logan held his hands up in the air, his palms facing me. I laughed and put my hands up against his, as close as I could. We looked like a mime act. I tried to mirror his hands as he did a “cleaning an invisible window” dance move.

It was so nice out on the empty landing with no one else around. I could see the river, lying black and huge beyond the flat, grassed park, tearing our city into two halves. I could see the row of tiny lights on the other side, so far it seemed like it was an ocean away.

The song ended and Logan dropped his arms down. We were laughing so hard that we had to stop to catch our breaths.

“I should get going now,” I said. “I’ve been given a curfew, after all.”

“Awww, don’t! We’re having fun. Stay for another song, Miss Matey,” said Logan, as I laughed and pulled away. “I’ll show you moves that none of these modern boys have.”

“You make it sound so tempting. But I’ve gotta go.”

“Amy, don’t go.” He grabbed for my arm.

His fingers closed onto my skin.

His hand felt warm, with the exact amount of roughness and clamminess I’ve always thought a boy’s hand would have.

“Logan …” I started to say. Then I looked down at his hand, still holding onto my outstretched arm. “I thought you weren’t real.”

His startled eyes caught my own. I didn’t want to be stuck like this, but I didn’t want him to let go either.

“Amy,” said Logan. I liked the way my name came off his lips. “Dr Brian would probably tell you that your mind has finally got the better of you.”

Maybe it had. But standing there before me in his modern suit, with his modern, messed-up hair, Logan never looked so convincing. The way he was holding onto my arm so that I could feel the pulse of my blood run under his thumb felt so intimate, so very human.

My dream boy had become a real boy. Like Pinocchio.

I smiled back as if I was seeing him for the first time. We let each other go.

I threw my arms around Logan and he wrapped his arms around me. I rested my face against his chest and I could feel him gently rub my shoulder.

Mum told me an old Chinese saying about ghosts that goes like this:
If you believe it, there will be, but if you don’t, there will be not
.

Right then, I believed in him so, so much.

“You know what you have to do now,” Logan murmured into my ear.

“Shhh,” I said softly, “I don’t need Rebecca to tell me that if you’re just a dream, then don’t wake me up.”

Behind us, a new song started up. It wasn’t even an Eighties song. Or a song from today. It was a Nineties song. And it felt appropriately like the limbo we were in.

Logan smiled at me and held my hands. “You know, if I was Andie from
Pretty In Pink
, I would never have chosen Blane. I would have without a doubt chosen Duckie, my best friend who had always loved me.”

Logan rode the bike through the night and I sat on the back, my arms wrapped around his body. He felt warm against my pale and sickly skin and all I wanted to do was lean into him. The moon was large and low and it made me think of moon bears with their yellow crescents, and of red bean mooncakes with creamy lotus seeds embedded inside.

I thought about my Uncle Alan, who had looked at a photo of a girl at a funeral home and thought her too young and too pretty. A week later a truck dragged his motorbike under. Until the rain washed it away, there was a red and white stripe down the middle of the road: a stripe of blood and a stripe of bone.

I wondered if I was already dead, if it meant that the birthmark I bore was a curse that would make me stay a girl forever, like how Logan would be a boy forever. My boy for always, I hoped.