The Square Root of Summer (25 page)

“Hi. No,” I shout, waving my half-empty bottle at her. I lost the mug, somewhere. She nods and moves off through the crowd. Then to Jason I say, “I wish you'd disappear down a wormhole.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I said ‘Hi.'”

Jason nods warily. I don't think he can hear me, so I say experimentally, “You're a monumental arsehole.”

“Yeah!” he shouts back. “Strong tunes!”

It's not quite right, though. I don't want to call him an arsehole. I want him to hear what I have to say, to acknowledge me—to acknowledge us. To admit that we really were something, once. I lean forward to shout it at him, grabbing his shoulder with my bottle hand, a bit more forcefully than I mean to. He staggers and steadies himself on my waist, then I cup my other hand to his ear and say, “We were in love.”

“What?” he shouts. Then looks around and leans into my ear, saying quickly, “Yeah. We kinda were. Listen, Margot. After Grey—”

“After Grey, you were awful to me,” I interrupt. I'm not sure he hears me. I'm not sure it matters. I kiss him on the cheek and walk away. I'm officially done.

Somehow I make it back inside, fight my way through the kitchen, collect something from the fridge, then carry my bounty through the sitting room, where people are lounging around talking. It's quieter in here. Then somehow I'm outside Grey's door. I haven't been in here since Ned and I cleaned it out.

It's practically silent, inside. I'm on the other side of the house from Ned's stereo and all the people in the garden. I leave the lights off and tiptoe through the mess on the floor—it's like a Thomas bomb exploded, scattering felt-tips and comics and cardigans everywhere. Travel Connect 4 on the piano. It's not quite all the
things
he described in his Toronto bedroom, but it's enough that it doesn't feel like Grey's room anymore.

Which makes it okay to climb onto the bed in my shoes, a piece of Thomas's cake in one hand, the bottle in the other. Somehow, it's almost empty. When did I drink that?

I put the cake on the duvet, then arrange myself cross-legged in front of
The Wurst.
I hold up the bottle, in a toast. That's what Ned's whole party is about, isn't it? A toast to our grandfather. In the corner, darkness slides down the wall.

“What are you doing?”

Thomas is in the doorway.

“Hi!” I yell, then wince. Readjust to nonparty volume. “Sorry. Hello. I know this is your room, sorry.”

“That's okay. What's going on?” he asks, shutting the door. “I've been watching you and you seem a little…”

Unhinged
.
Out of control.

“Nothing's going on,” I say. “I couldn't find you.”

“You didn't look very hard,” he says mildly, coming to sit next to me. “Every time I try to cross the garden to talk to you, you run away.”

Do I? I haven't even noticed Thomas in the crowd. I've been keeping an eye on the darkness.

“If you're still mad about Manchester, if you didn't want to kiss me…”

“I did! I do! I'm running away from the
wormhole
, not you.”

Thomas frowns. “Are you drunk?”

The darkness climbs onto the bed, nestling in the shadows between the pillows. And I kiss him, really kiss him. Not like it was in the kitchen. Or sweet, like the churchyard. There's darkness all around us now, so I kiss him like I want the world to stop. At least, I try to.

I launch myself, hands everywhere, pushing him backwards onto the bed. My arms are under his T-shirt, my mouth open and pressed to his closed lips. He's not responding and I try harder, putting his arms under my vest, start fumbling with my own bra strap. The darkness slides closer.

Gently, he pushes me away.

“G,” he says, sitting up. “Don't. What's going on with you?”

“Nothing. What? Nothing. It's fate, like you said. Don't you want to?” I throw myself at him again in the half dark, try to put his arms round me. There's so little time left.

“Slow down a second,” he says, holding me at arm's length. “Hang on. You're acting strange.”

He breaks off, and I fill the silence.

“We're running out of time,” I try to explain. “You're leaving, and, and…”

“Wait.” Thomas holds up a hand, as though I'm a runaway train that he's trying to stop. His other hand digs in his pocket for his inhaler, and he takes two puffs. “Is that the cake?”

In the gloom, we both look at the slice of Black Forest gâteau I stole. It's squashed from where I pushed Thomas into it.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“Let's just go back to the party, okay? I'll get you some water.”

He holds out his hand. I take it and let him lead me out into the garden. The darkness follows us.

“Thomas, I…”

“We can talk properly, tomorrow,” he says, squeezing my hand. Not looking at me.

I nod as I stumble after him. There's cake all over the back of his cardigan. Halfway through the crowd, the music cuts out.

“Weeeiiirrrd.”

“Just wait,” Thomas says as a guitar chord slices through the silence.

Ned's voice echoes over my head as he yells, “Hello, er, garden! Let's rock!”

“You knew about this?” I say to Thomas as the crowd surges forward, knocking me out of his hand. Ned begins to play. I'm confused—where
is
he? I can see Jason and Niall through a clump of people. This isn't Fingerband. A girl's voice begins to sing and I'm turning around, stumbling into people, trying to work out where Ned is.

Thomas grabs me and steers me through the crowd, spinning me round on the grass and when I stop spinning everything keeps whirling around me, I think I'm going to be sick, and then I'm not going to anymore, I'm just dizzy.

I look up and there, on the shed roof, is Ned, gold jumpsuit and eyes closed, bent over his guitar, hair streaming to the ground. Next to him at the mic, her gold minidress matching his outfit, is Sof. They look like a pair of C-3POs.
Oh
.

My brother has a new band. And everyone knew except me. They must have spent so much time practicing, to be this good. Is this what Ned's been rushing off to all summer? And since when does Sof sing in front of anyone but me?

“Thanyouvermuch.” Ned Elvises out of the song. His guitar swings from its strap as he swaps it for his camera, takes a photo of the party. “I'm Ned, this is Sofía, together we are Jurassic Parkas. We're not
The Wurst
band in the world…” He winks at the crowd. “I bet you're all just glad it's not Fingerband up here.”

Did he really just say that? I can't stop staring at them. They're twins. More brother and sister than he and I are. And I'm the one who made up Jurassic Parkas, last summer.

“Now we're going to play: ‘Velocirapture,'” Sof growls into the mic. She doesn't sound shy.

I turn and stumble away, pushing my way through the people cheering. My head is throbbing, I need quiet, I need …

“Ermahgahd, ermahgahd, ermahgahd!” Suddenly Sof's croaking at me in the kitchen. I look up from the drink I'm nursing in the corner. My mouth tastes vomity but I don't remember throwing up.

I don't remember how I got here.

“Did you see me?” says Sof. She's extra-raspy, grabbing my arms and bouncing up and down, it's annoying, before jumping past me. “I'm so thirsty, ermahgahd, I might drink straight from the tap.”

I trail in her wake. Somewhere near, I'm aware Ned and Thomas have followed her into the kitchen. The half-destroyed cake is on the counter.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Ned's stereo is blasting Iron Maiden, and I have to yell. It makes me sound angrier than I am—I just want to know why it had to be a secret.

“I'm sorry!” she yells back, reaching into the cupboard for an actual glass, not the plastic cups everyone's drinking from. “What if I'd chickened out, or been terrible? I always told you I wanted to see what it was like to be in a band.”

“All your bands are imaginary.”

Sof yanks on the tap, which doesn't budge. “I know—but”—she readjusts, shoving aside debris to put her glass on the counter, both hands on the tap—“you'd have wanted to hear us rehearse, and I could only do it if it was me and Ned alone, and—shit, this is annoying—I dunno, what if we were terrible?”

Ned hops onto the counter next to us, even though it's disgusting—broken cups and drink spills, wet cigarette butts and weird sticky stuff. I suppose in spandex it doesn't matter.

“You were brilliant,” he says, looking at Sof. There are ten thousand people in the kitchen but it's just the two of them, in a bandmates bubble. Friends, conspirators. Swaps: I get dark matter, you take my friend.

You're being a dog in the manger
, says Grey's voice in my head.

Yeah, but Ned's MY brother
, I argue back.
And you're dead, and I'm so, so angry at you about that.

“Who wants what?” says Thomas, catching up to us and plonking down a bunch of bottles, not looking at me. He didn't want to kiss me. How stupid. How embarrassing! I laugh hysterically. Everyone ignores me.

“Is there any water? Even some pop?” croaks Sof. “Your tap is KILLING me!” She twists at it again, her knuckles white. The sink is full of darkness and I'm struck by how hugely unfair this is, that I'm the one who'll have to face it.

“Budge over, Sof, it's stuck.” She moves aside and Ned puts his full weight and both hands on the tap. “
Scheisse
. Thomas, can you grab me a wrench, or a knife, or something?”

“Wait a second,” I say to Thomas, holding him back. He flails, caught between me and Ned. “You couldn't rehearse in front of me? You couldn't even
tell
me? I'm the only one who's heard you sing.”

“Sorry we didn't tell you about the band,” says Ned, semipatiently, still trying to yank at the tap. Even over the music, I can hear the sarcasm, that he's drunk. “Sof asked me not to. What happens at rehearsal stays at rehearsal—as I've told you a thousand times. You'd remember if you paid attention to anything other than yourself.”

He grabs a spoon from the drying rack and starts bashing the tap. I let go of Thomas's arm. Am I selfish? All I've seen Ned do all summer is party, play guitar, and pretend Grey isn't dead. But maybe I've got no idea what he's been up to. Maybe he's got wormholes too.

“I cannot believe you just said that,” I say to Ned's back. “Hey! Look at me. You should have told me, you should have … She's
my
friend.”

It's Sof, not Ned, who turns on me. A hiss so low and furious I can barely hear the words. “I'm your friend? Are you joking? Gottie, you barely want me around! I can see it in your face every time I'm round here, and it sucks. You only reply to my texts half the time, you're always with Thomas, you think the world revolves around you. Even when I was upset about Grey, you wouldn't let me be your friend. Well, guess what? Ned did, and we don't need your permission.”

“I'm not giving it!” I shout back, knowing I'm seconds away from being yanked out of time. Thomas is telling Sof to calm down and holding my arm, then Ned is yelling back at me.

“Gottie, shut up. You're driving everybody crazy. You hide in your room for hours and you're always daydreaming, you never listen, I fixed your bike, I try to involve you. And God, his
car
, you cleaned it—that was his STUFF, but you can't deal with his shoes? And you disappear for hours when we need you, you're so selfish, you eat all the cereal and drift around like you're the only one in pain and Jesus, this
fucking
tap—”

Punk is blaring and everyone's still yelling and I'm waiting for the wormhole to yank; it's going to take me right now, surely. None of us notice the tap—the ancient, rusty, creaky kitchen tap, which I've been tightening with a wrench all year because it keeps leaking and Papa won't deal with anything and I don't know what else to do—as it shoots off the sink.

Silently, it rises up and up to hit the ceiling.

Followed by a geyser of water that threatens to drown us all.

“Fuuuck!” hoots Ned, as everything happens at once.

For a few seconds, the water rushes only upwards, as though there's no gravity. Then it comes crashing down over our heads, soaking us, as everyone runs from the kitchen. Now it's spraying every which way as Ned tries to stem the flow with his hand, only making things worse. It sweeps everything before it in a tide, cups and mugs and bottles crash to the floor. Then Thomas's cake.

The four of us watch, drenched.

Frozen.

Then a bedraggled Sof catches my eye. And, unbelievably, she laughs.

After a second, I crack up too—and suddenly we're all hysterical. I'm holding on to Sof and we're staggering about, both of us shrieking as we keep slipping across the floor. The water's still spraying and Ned's still trying to stop it and giggling, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and this strikes me as the funniest thing ever.

Every time I look at Sof I collapse into giggles. My legs are weak like noodles. And every time she looks at me, she does a startled-donkey snort. Pretty soon we're unable to hold each other up and we hit the floor, taking Thomas down with us—which only sends us into further hysterics as we flap about, beached fishes. I can't see where the wormhole is, and I don't care.

Ned flops down into the water too, even though he doesn't need to, straight onto the cake, which makes Sof cackle even more. Breathlessly, she snorts at me, “Look—at—at—” She's laughing so hard it takes her ten attempts to add, “Ned!”

“Fuck you, Petrakis,” Ned says, splashing her with water. “Shit, my camera.”