I stumble through the crowd towards them, trying all the while to figure out what to say when I arrive. The words to get her back exist; I just have to work out the order of them.
I’ve drunk away my sense of order, though. I’ve drowned it out, so I stand in front of them with nothing. I stare and sway for a while and then I gesture towards their looped hands. ‘This is so . . . disturbing. He’s – it’s – Greg Smith.’
‘Henry,’ Amy says, and because Greg stands without letting go of her hand, she’s pulled up with him. They’re looped together when a week ago, Amy and I were looped.
‘I don’t understand. He’s a complete idiot. Look at him.’
But as I say it, I look at him. I take a good long look at Greg Smith. He’s handsome; he’s well dressed; he wouldn’t have had to borrow the last hundred dollars from his girlfriend to buy his round-the-world ticket or run a tab he’ll never pay for at the bar. No doubt he’s paid for Amy’s drink, straight up, with cash. He’s going to university. He’s studying law. He has a life plan to go with his white teeth.
I think about a lot of things, standing here. I think about how Amy probably hates kissing on the floor of the bookshop; hates that I intend to live there indefinitely with my dad and George. I have a flashback to me dressed in my second-hand suit for the formal, picking up Amy in the bookshop van. She said it didn’t matter, but maybe it did. Maybe a lot of things that I thought didn’t matter actually did. Maybe that’s why she keeps going away and coming back. She comes back because she can’t stop loving me. She leaves because I don’t have my shit together. I need to get my shit together. I need to get a better haircut and a decent life plan. I need substantial money.
‘We’re selling the bookshop,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll be able to move out when we get back from our trip.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Greg says.
‘I am going somewhere. And Amy, I want you to come with me.’
Maybe it’s the light, but I don’t think it is. She looks unsure for second. One second of uncertainty tells me all I need to know. I can have her back if I change.
Greg pushes me then, just gently; just enough, and I fall backwards into a crowd that instinctively clears a space for me. I look up from my position on the floor at Amy, and she looks back down at me sadly. In those eyes I read something. I read that she wants me to change. If you change, her eyes are saying, I’ll come back.
I close my eyes to regain some balance and I feel hands pulling me upwards. I think it’s Amy helping, but when I open my eyes, it’s Rachel. ‘You want her back?’ she asks, and I tell her I do – I really, really do.
She leans in close, like she’s about to tell me the lost secret of love. ‘Then get up,’ she says quietly. ‘And stop being so pathetic.’
Rachel
you smell of apples
I’m definitely not in love with Henry anymore, and it’s a relief. He smells the same – peppermint and cedar and a hint of old books. He sounds the same – gentle and funny. But I don’t get that same feeling. I don’t think about kissing him. I’m not fixated on his hair. I’m cured.
You’re having a really bad week? I think after I leave him at the bar. A really bad week ends in death, Henry. I don’t know what’s happened to you this week, but unless it involves death, it’s really not that bad.
Lola and Hiroko are onstage. I focus on them to take my mind off Henry. They’re playing a cover of Cat Power’s ‘Good Woman’. They’ve made it their own with Lola’s blue gravel voice and the sweet steel of Hiroko’s percussion. Hiroko’s taller than Lola, not shy but quiet. They finished each other’s sentences in Year 9, but tonight they’re speaking separately – their lines of music circle and add to the other. They’re starring in a dream up there, and I’m happy for them, but I can’t help wondering why some people get what they want and why some people don’t.
I take a photograph and send it to Rose; I send it to Mum, too, because a text means I can get away with not calling her tonight. She’ll be at the beach by now, and I don’t want to hear the ocean in the background. I turn off my phone and get lost in the music and the light-spattered club.
The set ends after a while. Lola and Hiroko climb down from the stage. Lola takes Hiroko’s water bottle, drinks from it, and hands it back to her. ‘Thank you,’ Hiroko says.
‘You’re welcome,’ Lola tells her, then turns to me and points at the bar. ‘Henry’s drinking.’
‘He’s having a bad week,’ I tell her.
‘Amy dumped him and now they’re not going overseas and she’s here somewhere with Greg Smith.’
‘Amy dumped him?’ I ask.
‘Amy’s always dumping him,’ Hiroko says, and Lola confirms it’s a regular occurrence.
‘We’ve got more sets to play,’ she says ‘so you need to look after him. If you still want me to forgive you, that is.’
‘I feel like I’m being manipulated.’
‘That’s only because you are,’ Hiroko says.
They get back on stage to talk about the next set, and I push my way through the crowd. Henry’s gone by the time I get to the bar but I look around and locate him stumbling across towards Amy.
‘I think Shakespeare might need some help,’ the girl behind the bar says, and puts out her hand. ‘I’m Katia.’
‘Rachel,’ I say, slightly distracted by her sheen of pink hair.
‘I know. Shakespeare told me about you,’ she says, opening and closing her hands, imitating Henry’s mouth going on and on about me. ‘He missed you,’ she tells me, and I like the thought. I really like the thought of him telling Katia just how much he missed me.
‘Amy’s no good for him,’ Katia says as we watch him rambling on in front of her and Greg. ‘He’s a nice guy. He tutored me for free in English.’
Henry is a nice guy. He might be hopelessly in love with a girl I don’t like. He might have been a coward three years ago. But apart from not knowing what to do when I confessed my love for him, he’s never actually let me down.
Greg pushes him. It’s more of a tap, really, but it’s enough to send Henry backwards to the floor. It’s hard to watch, so Katia closes her eyes for a second. I keep mine open. When it comes down to it, even after everything that’s happened, in a fight between Greg and Henry, I’m on Henry’s side.
Get up, I think. Get up and walk away from her. Tell her she’s not worth the ground you’ve fallen on. He doesn’t. I don’t think he can. He’s too unsteady on his feet.
Before I can change my mind, I cross the room. I tell myself it’s what any person would do for another person, whether they’re fighting or not. I’d planned on it being a quick exercise. I’d planned on heaving him up and leaving. He’s too heavy, though, and he’s not helping himself.
Greg and his friends are laughing, Amy’s laughing too, so I lean in and say quietly, so only he can hear, ‘You want her back?’
‘I do. I really, really do,’ he says, and I resist the urge to kick him into an upright position. Instead, I lean close to his ear, and say firmly, ‘Then get up and stop being so pathetic.’