The World Between Us, page 20
And on her phone are messages and messages and messages from Rowan.
Is she okay?
Dude – what’s going on?
HELLO, ANSWER YOUR PHONE,
PLEASE.
Can I see her yet?
Please?
My fingers hover over the screen. And then I type.
You can come. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
80
Alice
I feel different inside these walls since they were painted.
It’s not that they’re not there, because they are. And I’m still here in this bed and I’m still battling the Illness and I’m not sure who’s winning. It’s more like I see them now. And I see that my life within these walls can be just like the sea. It can be dark. It can be wild. It can be uncertain and cold and can rip things away from me before I can reach in and claw them back.
But it can also be beautiful.
Since I rebuilt myself, I’ve been thinking a lot about being outside. At the time, it felt like I was Living – like I was putting my foot in the world and it would be worth all the bad for one moment of normal, where I could be there physically for someone who needed me.
But that’s not Living any more, is it? My life as Alice isn’t about climbing to great heights or pushing myself over my limit for one breath of borrowed air. For me, Living is breathing the in-between – creating wonderful worlds with my parents; laughing with Cecelia; and falling in love with a boy from my bed. Living is measured in spoons so I don’t sink or swim to the surface.
So I can stop. And look. See beautiful things.
Mum pulls my bed up and asks me how I am, and this time I tell her the good and the bad. I tell her that the bones in my legs are burning again. I tell her that I’m worried about whether or not I will ever become a marine biologist. I tell her that I’m nervous about seeing Rowan.
But I also tell her that I love her. That I’m looking forward to whatever Dad has cooked up on the Cure Board for next week. And that really, right now at least, I’m happy.
She leans down and kisses me on the forehead, and I decide to tell her something else, too.
‘Mum – I’m sorry that I’m Ill and that you had to give up your singing to look after me.’
She seems to fall into me for a moment, but when she lifts her head back again, her face is a smooth line. She cups my face in her hands.
‘Never be sorry for that, Alice. Never.’ Her eyes are storm-sky grey. ‘You give me more joy than a hundred dance routines ever did.’
She traces her finger round the line of my smile.
‘Don’t you miss it, though? A little?’
She sighs and sits down on the bed. ‘Sometimes – yes. Mainly just the other girls – they were a hoot.’
I take her hand. ‘Maybe you could join a class or something? Have your own Cure Board day.’
She laughs. ‘Your dad’s crazy antics are enough for me.’
But I look at her. ‘Seriously, though, Mum. Your life doesn’t have to be just about me.’
She opens her mouth and I see the curve of a fake smile before she swallows it down. And then she leans over me, putting her lips on our fingers for a moment.
‘I’ll think about it. Although I love having you as my world, Alice – don’t you forget it. You’re not just a job to me, you know – you’re also the strongest and most wonderful person.’
I smile until we both get a bit uncomfortable and she stands up, smoothing my bedspread under her hands.
‘I do wish I could be more for you, though. If I could, I’d fill these walls full of people for you.’
I grimace. ‘That sounds loud.’
‘You know what I mean,’ she says. ‘People your age. Like you.’
She turns and carries on getting ready for work. But her words – they get me thinking.
I hadn’t thought about there being others like me. Not the same age, but those trapped inside walls. Others that are still here, in this in-between, or ducking up from seabed to surface and wondering how to float. Or whether or not they even want to float – or just keep swimming, any way they can, to the surface.
Mum leaves for work, so I open my laptop and connect to Stream Cast.
Welcome back to Stream Cast, Alice
Users online:
No one is online yet – why not try making your profile public to connect to more people?
Users offline:
tokyo--drifter daddycool-007 Rowan
Last online:
5 days Last online:
26 days Last online:
26 days
destroy_roy _1mp0ssibledream_ WesleyCycles67
Last online:
28 days Last online:
30 days Last online:
96 days
Connect to a channel to start watching.
No one’s online. And that doesn’t fill me with the sinking feeling it did before, because I’m not looking to escape into something else today.
My mouse hovers over the ‘go public’ link. Before, I used to think of this place as being filled with the deep unknown and a rocky seabed waiting at the bottom.
But I suppose that I’m an unknown, too. I lurk inside walls like an eel lying in wait. And I wonder if it’s time for people to discover that I exist.
I take a deep breath. I click.
The screen dissolves into a circle that spins and pulses and throws me through it like a portal and I wonder – I wonder – if I have the spoons for this.
Spoon count = 7ish
It’s enough, I think.
The screen changes to a tapestry of windows, each one an eye into a different world. And it looks almost exactly like my own private Screen Cast, but wider – with too many live eyes open to count. Some of the worlds are outside – running, roaring, searching, climbing – and they aren’t like mine at all. They’re surface worlds. And I think I might want to reach up and take one of those as my own, but not yet. Not now.
I look around at the other worlds and they are dark tunnels tumbling into nothingness – and I don’t think I want them, either.
But in between. Inside a black panel that flits and twitches and changes as I look at it. Are people. Typing.
Welcome to Stream Cast Public
Search by hashtag to find your people.
You are now viewing the Main Chatroom.
otterish767: welcome to the party, Alice.
teemo: Alice!
x_julie_x: hello hello!
CaB1n-: stream in the sewers – lmfao ☺
squisheroo: has anyone seen Dave?
The messages come and come and they’re talking, fast. Some of them welcoming me into their world. But I don’t know what to say or how to exist here, or even if I really belong.
At the top of the screen, it says I should search by hashtag to find my people. But who are they?
First I try searching for #sea and #ocean, but nothing but old links and images pop up. I try #painting, #goldfish, #familylife – but none of them seems like me, and I can feel my energy dropping in spoons.
And then I type that.
#spoons.
spoonie-girl: 2 hours and 300 #spoons later, I actually have make-up on.
>barefacebear: @spoonie-girl #spoonielife
>0_0: @spoonie-girl feeling this today
>8jackson8: @spoonie-girl save some #spoons for leaving the house, bro!
Spoons. Spoons.
And these people aren’t talking about them like they belong in a cutlery drawer. They’re counting them. Using them. Saving them.
I click on the hashtag #spoonielife, and the other chatter dissolves.
#spoonielife
Search by hashtag to find your people.
You are now viewing the chatroom #spoonielife.
barefacebear: bad pain day today >_< #spoonielife
>0_0: @barefacebear I’m with you
>spoonie-girl: @barefacebear This was me last week, but now I’m baking cookies. CAKE IS WAITING.
>barefacebear: @spoonie-girl this is keeping me going rn
My fingers are shaking.
I’ve read about other people counting spoons when I’ve been researching online, but the posts always felt impossibly far from me. Other people with Illnesses like mine were like the Loch Ness monster – something you read about, but never really see. Because how could I, when I’m bound to my bed and they’re bound to theirs?
I click on the names of each of the people I see talking and read their profiles. Listed on each of their accounts are hashtags about spoons, or diagnoses I’ve had before, too, or thoughts I’ve had that have never quite surfaced.
I reach out my fingers.
Are there any live streams about us? #spoonielife
I barely have to wait a moment.
>barefacebear: @Alice well volunteered.
>8jackson8: @Alice nope!
>0_0: @Alice please make this happen.
I’m breathing too heavily, so I snap my laptop shut and stare around at my walls.
These people. These people are in the in-between with me. They count spoons. They drift.
And – like me – they exist.
81
Alice and Rowan
I’m just dozing off when I hear the doorbell go downstairs. I shake the sleep from my eyes and listen.
Mum, walking towards the door. Her hand on the door handle. The creak of the hinges.
‘Rowan! Finally come for your review session, have you?’
‘Um, yeah, sorry about – Is it okay if –?’
‘I’m only kidding. Come in, come in. She’s been looking forward to seeing you.’
I die a little bit as I hear the shuffle of him taking off his shoes and I try to tidy my fringe and wipe my face without a mirror.
‘So I’ll just go up, shall I?’
‘You know where it is,’ Mum says.
And then footsteps. His footsteps. Coming up to my room. And even though I know that he must have been here before to paint the walls, him being in my room feels big.
The footsteps stop. There’s a pause. A breath.
She’s in there.
Behind that door.
And I don’t know what I’m going to see.
What
D A M A G E
she did
just to help me.
I knock quietly.
‘Come in!’
My voice squeaks and then he’s coming into the room and he’s here. Right in front of me. And I have enough spoons to see now how tall he is. How his hair sits on his shoulders, finger-combed and mahogany brown. The way his clothes fit loosely on him, how he holds himself awkwardly to the side, and the way he plays with the cords of his hoodie as he looks at me, too, and sees me, in this bed.
Me. Alice.
It’s Alice.
Her eyes are open and
W I D E,
gulping me in.
And I kind of want to
hide away.
But then I also want to
gulp her in right back.
‘Um … hi.’
I smile and he smiles back and something inside me flips.
There’s a beat of silence and panic hiccups in my chest, making my hand lift up of its own accord and stretch over to him.
‘Hello,’ I say in a mock-serious voice. ‘I’m Alice. Pleased to meet you, sir.’
She bites her lip.
‘Alice,’ I smile.
I stride forward,
take her hand in mine.
Shake it.
‘Rowan.’
He looks at me. Not at the strange mechanical bed, or the fact I’m lying in it while he’s standing, but at Me. Into my eyes. Deep down inside.
‘Sit,’ I say, moving my leg a little.
I feel a wave of panic because
I’m sitting on her BED.
And I’m so busy thinking about what that means,
I forget to let go of her hand
So we’re frozen, mid-shake.
We look at each other and laugh – our hands held together between us like we’re afraid to let go.
Instead, I twist my hand out of his – spinning my skin against his until our palms are flat against each other, joined in the middle.
I suck in a breath as she
looks at me.
‘Sort of feels a bit
impossible,
this, doesn’t it?
Like I already know you.’
I bite my lip. ‘You do know me.’
His hands are on my hands and I can feel his skin and it’s making my heart beat out of my chest.
‘You’ve been okay?’ I squeak.
I know what she’s asking.
She’s asking about the
last time she saw me.
When nothing was okay.
I swallow.
‘I did what you said.
I called Dad.
Told him what’s been going on.’
‘Oh,’ I say, hooking my fingers round his. ‘And?’
Her eyes are like oceans.
And telling her is harder
than I thought it would be.
For a girl
I’ve only really met
once.
‘What did he say?’
I grip his hand. Pull myself forward slightly towards him, so I can smell the mint on his breath.
I look at her.
Take a breath.
‘He was pretty upset.
I thought he’d be mad at me for not telling him
about Mam leaving,
but he was more angry with himself.
So he came up with this idea
for Jonah and me to stay together.
For me to get some
help
looking after him …’
Her eyes.
Her eyes.
He looks afraid, but I don’t know why. I shake him.
‘But this is great news! So great, Rowan. You can go to art school. You can –’
I clear my throat.
‘He says he’s got room for Jonah and me.
At his.’
‘But …’ I still don’t know why it looks like he’s breaking.
He takes his other hand and sandwiches mine between his.
‘His. In …
In Australia,
Alice.’
And – oh. I remember now.
My gut wrenches like I’m falling.
I want to push him away. I want to cling on to him. I want to rip and scream and dance and shout up to the sky that I don’t want him to go. Not there. Not that far away. Not when I’ve finally got him here with me, Living inside my own lines.
He looks at me and I can feel all of the same words breaking inside of him like waves and –
And I don’t think.
For once – for once – I just listen to my body.
I grab his collar –
Push myself forward –
And –
Lips.
Her lips.
Her lips are on mine and
she’s kissing me.
And it’s unexpected.
And sudden.
But …
He kisses me back.
And it feels like we’re hurtling towards something huge. Like we’re drowning. Like we’re falling down down down.
Like anything – anything – is possible.
I pull her towards me
and there’s something
quick.
Hungry.
And her hands are in my hair.
And my hands are wrapped round her.
And we’re sinking into something that could be
something.
Really something.
But …
I pull my head away, but we keep our hands together.
‘You’re going to live in Australia.’
I could stay for her.
I could keep my stupid job at the golf.
I could try.
‘I don’t have to go,
you know.’
I spit out an impossible smile and our foreheads meet in the middle.
‘Yes, you do.’ My heart. Aches.
‘But – what about you?’
I squeeze her hands.
I crack a laugh. Pull back. Look at him worrying about me. And I use a spoon to lift my thumb and iron out that crease above his eyes.
‘Don’t you know? All sorts of adventures can be had from a bed, Rowan.’
I nod.
‘I’ll stream for you
from Australia.
I’ll learn how to dive.
I’ll –’
I run my finger along the edge of his jaw. My body is screaming at me to shut up talking and run my lips along his lines instead.
But.
But.
‘You’ll do whatever you want to do,’ I whisper. ‘You don’t need me to tell you what to do.’
His frown lines are back, so I let go of his hands and pull my arms out – wide – like I’m flying.
‘I met you. I kissed you. And I did all of that without leaving my bed. And if I can do that …’
She leans close to me
and I wonder if
she’s going to kiss me again.
‘Imagine what else I can do.’
I swallow.
Our lips dance centimetres apart.
‘I’ve got tomorrow.
One day before I leave.
Just – can we just forget for one day
that I’m leaving
and you’re Ill?
Just for one day,
can’t we just Live?’
I hold the cuffs of his sleeves.
Forgetting sounds magnificent. But I know enough about fog to know what’s left when it’s lifted.
‘You’re leaving,’ I whisper. ‘I’m Ill.’
He goes to turn away from me and I reach out to hold him back, my fingers brushing through his hair.
‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t Live.’
