I hurried past the house and the still-dripping garden. The sprinklers had gone off but the smell of damp remained. A few hopeful insects chirped, fooled by the imitation rain.
Slowly the laughter and music of the party faded into the background. This feeling wasn’t alien to me – that sense of never really belonging. It’s a subtle thing, especially with girls. They might go off in a group somewhere and you’ll be standing there and they won’t say your name. They don’t tell you not to come with them, but they don’t tell you to come either. So, you tag along and suddenly you wish you hadn’t because no-one is talking to you. You might ask a question and no-one answers you, as if you weren’t even there, or you’re just a shadow. Maybe that’s how ghosts feel. Maybe that’s how Mum feels.
Even though Zara tried to be nice I recognised the look on the faces of those other girls. I know she’d tried to be kind, but while her lips were saying one thing, every tiny muscle of her face was saying Please go. This was true outsiderism. I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.
Walking along Zara’s driveway, the forest became a collage of blue and lavender moon shadows, and above me the Southern Cross tilted jauntily in the sky. I hurried along, trying to shake the feeling that I was being watched by hidden eyes and was relieved when I finally made it up to the main road, which was wider and easier to follow. The guideposts glowed grey-white in the semi-darkness but they did their job as I turned left and walked along the edge of the bitumen. It was eight-thirty, so Kevin wasn’t due to pick me up for another half an hour. I’d be home before he even left.
As I walked, a dark mood descended on me. I tried to figure out why I even cared what all those people thought of me and Kevin. I had never valued Zara’s friendship, I had never even counted her as a friend, but her rejection stung like a slap. Maybe I cared more than I knew.
At one point a semi came rollicking up behind me. Even though I darted off the bitumen, the empty cattle truck blew me sideways in a blast of diesel and manure-flavoured air. When the tail-lights had shrunk to red dots, the blackness swallowed me once more. A cloud began to obscure the moon and suddenly not even one distant star helped to light my way.
I was wishing I could just drive myself like every other kid around here, licence or not. I had my learner’s permit and, if I’d wanted, I could have done hours of practice but I hadn’t thought about it since Mum died. My seventeenth birthday was coming up in February and I could be driving myself around by then, but the excitement I’d felt about being independent was completely gone, replaced by a kind of futility.
I already knew how to drive a bit. Mum had taught me in the back paddock on the last holiday we had together. She was determined to get me started. ‘You must be dying to learn,’ she’d said as we drove in bouncy circles around the cow paddock in her FJ. I had to admit to her that it was fun, even in a vintage ute.
‘Once Kevin’s finished fixing this baby, she’ll go like a dream,’ she had said.
My mind reeled back to the day of the funeral. Kevin and I were in the kitchen cleaning up after everyone left. I was washing up.
‘Just leave that,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it later.’
I turned from the sink to look at him. ‘It’s fine.’
His eyes were dark, his top lids puffy. He undid the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt. ‘Leanne said she’d come over tomorrow and help out too.’
‘I said it’s fine.’ I rinsed a glass and placed it on the drainer.
He walked up behind me and grabbed my shoulder. ‘Sunny.’ He turned me toward him. ‘Come here.’
I spun around and sank into his shoulder, holding my wet hands away from him. We stood like that for a second and I sobbed into his shirt.
‘We can get through this,’ he said.
I pulled away from him and looked into his red-rimmed eyes. ‘You might be able to.’
‘I don’t mean forget her,’ he said. ‘You know that.’
I stepped back and wiped my eyes with the back of my arm. ‘Why didn’t you go with her?’
He swallowed. ‘Go with her?’
‘Why didn’t you go with her to the stupid show?’
‘I … I don’t know … it was just …’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know …’
‘You should have gone with her. You could have stopped it.’
‘Sunny.’ He held out his hand. ‘Don’t.’ His eyes brimmed with tears.
‘It’s your fault.’ I glared at him. ‘It’s all your fault.’
Tears spilled down my face. I brushed them away. The fact that Kevin could have prevented my mother’s death remained in my mind an undeniable fact. One that I could not forget. And one that I didn’t want to let go of.
Walking home was taking a lot longer than I’d figured. Although my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I had to walk on the road to avoiding tripping on the rough edges of the bitumen. I was looking up, willing the moon to come back when another vehicle came up behind me. I hurried onto the dirt and waited for it to pass, but it slowed to a crawl behind me, the tyres crunching. Immediately my mind filed through every horror film I’d seen about dark, lonely roads and mysterious vans.
I turned around to see who it was, but the headlights completely blinded me. I moved into the shadows and was
