Stray (5 page)

“You’d dislocate my collarbone or break my hip in the attempt, and you wouldn’t remember it tomorrow.”

“My body would. I’ll play it back on KMT.”

“We’ll try in the morning.”

I stop short. “You’ll stay with me?”

“Of course.”

“Won’t you get in trouble with your folks?”

“I’m eighteen.”

I chew my lip, thinking it through. “Can we at least take our clothes off?”

“No.” He drops me on the bed. I cry out and laugh at his fierce expression. He stands with his hands on his hips. “I’m not a bloody saint, am I?”

“It won’t work in the morning.”

“We’ll try.”

“This is not how I saw the night ending.” I close my eyes and the bed spins and my head spins and I groan. “You’re either the best or worst boyfriend in the world and I am too drunk to figure out which.”

Eggs sizzle and pop in the skillet, my mouth waters and I hum along with the boom of the stereo. I slot more bread into the toaster – feeding Jamie and me is like cooking for a football team. I smile, enjoying the sunlight filtering through the trees beyond the kitchen window. I’m warm to the core and it has nothing to do with the winter sun.

Waking half-suffocated beneath Jamie’s arm, his soft snore warming my ear, had been a thrilling surprise, though it quickly turned to alarm. How on earth had we gotten away with a whole night together without Miriam charging across the hall to murder us in our bed?

Memory loss was the only part of the hangover to hit me. Jamie had grumbled that I deserved to puke my guts out while nursing a blinding headache. By the sound of things he’s right and I’ve never been so grateful for my turbo-charged metabolism. When he talked me through the details of the table jump and cheerleader episode it was like hearing a story about somebody else; I can’t picture myself saying or doing any of it. He asked me if I remembered
anything
about when he brought me home, a wry curving of his lips at my blank expression. Suddenly hot-faced, I’d taken subtle stock of my body. I still had underwear on and my brown shorts. Jamie had only removed his boots. I didn’t
feel
different. Would I if we had …? Laughing, he’d kissed my lips with a resigned sigh.

I shake my head as I collect the toast and stack it on a plate. I can’t tell if I’m disappointed or relieved over the missed opportunity or embarrassed at Jamie’s account of my attempt to persuade him. I hug his shirt around my body, glad I thought to steal it when he got in the shower. He’ll have to come and find me to get it back. Inhaling his diffused scent it’s hard to concentrate on scrambling the eggs, but it’s my one kitchen triumph and I don’t want to ruin it.

Behind the blare of music, I can make out the sound of the water running upstairs. Jamie – a thought to get lost in. Running water tends to blunt Shield senses but I strain to hear, trying to pick through the layers of noise: sizzling eggs, squawking crows in the trees outside, the Saturday morning sounds of children playing in their yards, a vehicle on the street, a car door slamming somewhere, feet on gravel, electric guitar, thundering water … there it is, Jamie’s tenor. I grin as he butchers the lyrics and graze my knuckle on the hotplate. “Ouch.” I hiss and suck the burnt skin then a loud clatter makes me freeze, spatula in hand.

Miriam stands in the back doorway, her overnight bag in one hand, camera case over her shoulder, and her expression changing in seconds from weary smile to livid glare as she takes in Jamie’s shirt over my Tomb Raider shorts and black lace bra, the table set for two and the incriminating sound of the shower overhead. She goes to the stereo and flicks the music off, a frightening silence.

“I take it that’s not Kitty in my bathroom.”

I can’t feel my lips. “So … this probably looks bad.”

“You know exactly how it looks.” She dumps her bag and case on the long wooden table. She stares at me. Her dark hair sits over her shoulder. We’re so alike. She’s just shorter and a little older with brown eyes. At thirty-eight, and with genetically engineered DNA, Miriam is in great shape and probably quite capable of kicking my ass and Jamie’s too.

I swallow and try to find my voice. “I thought you were going over the final edit today.”

“We did, already. It’s almost midday. Get dressed.”

Red-faced, a ringing in my inner ear, I put the spatula on the counter and turn down the heat on the stove; a show of dignity before turning stiff-backed towards the hall. But when she strides after me I spin so fast in the fluffy socks I dug out from under the bed this morning, I nearly fall. “You are overreacting,” I say, steadying myself against the bookshelf.

The flow of water stops above us and we both look up the stairs. I wish Jamie’s whistling wasn’t quite so loud and cheerful. Miriam tilts her head and squints past my shoulder. She reaches for the porcelain Virgin and turns her face forwards. “I don’t think I am, young lady.”

“
Young lady?
” I struggle to keep my voice down. “There’s nothing going on. You just came in and got the wrong end of the stick.” I spin on my heel again and stomp ineffectually up the stairs, wishing I were wearing something hard-soled and clompy, wishing Jamie was dressed and downstairs instead of in the bathroom above us with Miriam closing in.

“That explains the shirt.”

“It-doesn’t-mean-anything!” I thump the railing. It quivers ominously, the side of my hand goes numb and the whistling stops.

“Give me some credit, kid.” She stalks behind me and I trip up the remaining stairs onto the landing where Buffy sits waiting for Jamie. The bathroom door opens with a gust of steam. Jamie emerges from the cloud like a magician. He has his Indiana Jones pants on and the towel slung over his shoulder. Moisture still gleams on his chest. He runs his hand up through his damp hair, his expression unreadable, his eyes on my aunt. Buffy purrs and rubs her face on his legs. “Miriam,” he begins. “I–”

“You,” she says, lips pulled back. “Downstairs.”

“Just a second, Jamie.” I unbutton his shirt, slipping it from my shoulders. “You’ll need this.” I hold it hooked by the collar, my arm straight out, not taking my furious glare from Miriam’s furious face.

Clearing his throat, Jamie takes the shirt and edges past Miriam to get to the stairs, the cat at his heels. I swing around and stalk into my room. Jamie’s boots sit at the side of the bed leaking socks out the top. I’m not fast enough to hide them as Miriam barrels in behind me, slamming the door like an exclamation point.

Hands on her hips, chest rising and falling, she scowls at Jamie’s boots and the telling indentations in the pillows on my bed. I have to keep things from spiralling into an all-out brawl. I grab a T-shirt from my top drawer and yank it on over my head “Okay, okay. It looks bad.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t go down there and rip his head from his shoulders.”

“Don’t blame Jamie. It’s not his fault.”

“I’m quite sure he was the hapless victim in this scenario.”

“He was doing me a favour.” I lift my hands. “Not like that. I was,” and I swallow before my next confession, knowing it isn’t going to score me any points, “a little … drunk … last night.” Sure enough, her expression widens to include this new outrage and my voice becomes small. “Very … drunk, actually.”

“He let you drink? We can’t drink! I told you, no drinking!”

“I didn’t know you meant that because of our condition. I just thought you were laying down the law.”

“I was laying down the law for crying out loud. What the hell was he–”

“Jamie didn’t
let
me drink! I didn’t know … Kitty had champagne in her room while we were getting ready. She didn’t know … and he didn’t know what we were doing in there. When he realised, he was very concerned. He didn’t want me to go to the dance. He wanted to bring me straight home.” I hope this detail might divert some of her hostility before she goes downstairs and begins the decapitation.

“And did he?”

“Um, no. I wouldn’t let him, but he did bring me home early.”

“This is the problem with Synergist Coding; it makes you irrational and reckless … then alcohol on top. You could have hurt someone!”

My face flushes.

She covers her mouth. “You hurt someone?”

“No! It was a misunderstanding. Jamie stopped me.”

“Tell me. Now.”

“There was a girl, apparently. A cheerleader or something. Touching Jamie. I – I overreacted.”

She makes an infuriated noise. “You have no respect for the seriousness of your condition or the impact of Synergist Coding. It doesn’t simply amplify your signal. Your connection amplifies everything you feel about each other –
lust
, jealousy, protectiveness … Don’t you have any idea how easily you could kill someone or get someone killed? Goddamn it, you two are determined to ruin your lives!”

“Jamie didn’t do anything! It was me!”

“This is exactly why we don’t drink, Evangeline. You cannot afford slip-ups. What if you had exposed your gift?”

“Gift!” My volume triples. “You call this a gift?”

She sighs, hands falling from her hips, then she pulls out the old wooden chair from my desk and slumps into it, rubbing her face as she speaks to the floor. “Drunk, disorderly and probably pregnant.”

“I-am-not-pregnant!”

She eyes me like a child who has just said something very stupid. “How many times do we have to go over this? Your body is in overdrive. Your DNA is made for reproduction. Every cell in your body is designed to respond to
his
signal. It’s for a reason!” She makes a spluttering noise. “Did you think to use protection?” She glowers and heat floods my face. “Not that it would make much difference for you two.”

“We did not have sex!” I am too angry to care that Jamie will hear us.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care! We didn’t!” My ears ring and spots pop in my peripheral vision. “And for what it’s worth, even if we had, it’s none of your business. I am not a child!”

She gets to her feet. “You are
my
–” She stops herself. Unable to look at me, she inhales and exhales through her nose, lowers her voice and tries again. “Responsibility … you are my responsibility. And you know how dangerous it is for you to be with him. There is no such thing as safe sex for you two. Why can’t you understand it?”

“I understand just fine!”

“You think there won’t be consequences for this? There are always consequences. Always a cost. A price you can’t afford.”

“This is my life!”

“You want to end up like me?” Her voice drops low, almost a whisper, and my chest constricts. The story of Miriam’s cataclysmic love affair. Apparently, the worst thing that could have happened was producing Aiden and me.

My thoughts shift to my brother in Roxborough Detention Centre and coming doom. I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry about Jamie sleeping over. I was hammered. He brought me home early so that I could sleep it off. He was only going to stay until you got home.” I wave at her like she’s somehow a contributor to the outcome but hurry on at her expression. “He stayed because I asked him to. He was a total gentleman – believe me, a saint. If things had gone my way last night, then you’d be entitled to your rant. I don’t know what your problem is with Jamie, anyway. He’s only ever treated me with respect.” I finish in a gust, “And I love him.”

And they’re out there, words I haven’t said to Jamie yet, travelling through floorboards and down hallways to his highly attuned ears. I burn with defiance and embarrassment at having blurted something so precious and fragile and secret to Miriam who looks like she wants to take a sledgehammer to each word. Her face works. Her mouth opens then clamps shut again. Finally, she says, half-strangled, “My problem with Jamie is his selfishness.”

I’ve heard this speech before.

“What it will mean for you,” she says, “being with him. What it will mean for him, being with you. Especially when he has an out.”

I push the thought of Helena away and say it again, putting strength in my voice to spite her. “I love him.”

“You think you love him.”

“I do love him!”

She holds up her hand. “You are seventeen. You don’t know what love is.”

My fury is instant, a bolt of hostility eclipsing reason. The sound I make verges on a roar. The vase I take from the dresser drawers hurtles at the wall behind my headboard. The powdered shards collect on my pillow and all I can hear is thunder in my ears.

Miriam flinches. “Real love – it isn’t always getting what you want. Real love … is sometimes sacrifice … doing what’s right, no matter how hard it is, whatever the cost to yourself – even if it means tearing your own heart out to do it.”

A shudder ripples through me and my rage dissipates like phosphor after a lightning strike. I bite down on my lips and hug myself, emptied of air and argument. My head swims at the layered implication of her words as they touch on her and me and Aiden; as they touch on the impossibility of a future with Jamie. I’m finished. I pad around the bed past her to the door. “I’m going to have a shower.”

She stops me with a hand on my arm, her voice quiet and restrained. “You’re grounded – for a month. No phone. No dates. You go to school, you come home, that’s it.”

I say nothing. I slip out into the hall and into the bathroom, closing the door behind me, turning the shower faucet so the water streams full force, before burying my face in a towel and letting myself cry.

It’s quiet when I shut off the faucet. I stand dripping in the tub, breathing steam like it might heat the cold place Miriam’s warnings have hollowed in my chest, listening for voices down in the kitchen. At least she’s stopped yelling. I deliberately took my time, keeping my head under the flow of water, humiliated at the thought of overhearing any conversation about the sex Jamie and I never had. Part of me hopes he slipped out before she got down there but that isn’t Jamie’s style. He would wait, own it, tell it like it is without whining or excuses and apologise for the mistakes that aren’t even his.

I towel off, twisting inside with guilt and frustration. Miriam was my go-to person from before Mom – April – got sick; hopes and fears, dreams and in-betweens, we talked about everything. Now there’s pollution in the air, debris piling up, trenches separating us.