Air (12 page)

When I woke up even my eyelids felt depressed, and I couldn't seem to bring myself to open them, because once I did, I'd have to face up to what had happened.

I was still wearing my vest and damp shorts, Zeke had his arms around me and I could tell he was fast asleep, his chest rising and falling against my back. Morning was a long way off and my head was still hot and thumping from too much alcohol.

Not moving a muscle in case I woke him, I lay there, turning it all over.

Why had I immediately thought the worst?

Why had I been so completely melodramatic?

What was wrong with me?

I swore I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears
ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.
Even worse, my mind kept offering me all these flashes of Zeke with Inga, of those gross jocks feeling me up, of me handing over my business card to Seb, of Zeke looking frantic with worry and overwhelmed with relief when I told him I was all right.

Please sleep
, I begged my own brain.

Suddenly I felt my phone vibrating under my pillow.

Kelly.

I weighed up my options, pressed Answer, whispered, “Hang on,” and extracted myself from Zeke and snuck on to the breezeway outside.

“Can you talk? Or you out on the lash with Ken?”

“Kel, don't call him that you know I hate it.”

“Come on, he does look a bit like the Surfer Ken doll, you've gotta admit it. So, anyway, how's the trip going?”

“Not great. Being away from you sucks. I miss you so much.”

“Are you hammered? You sound hammered.”

“I had a massive row with Zeke tonight.”

“Oh no. What'd he do?”

I didn't want to tell Kelly about Zeke and Inga, as even if he did have an explanation, I knew Kelly would think it was well dodgy and I didn't want her to think badly of my boyfriend, no matter how annoyed I was with him.

“It's just hard out here. Harder than I thought. Sometimes it feels so claustrophobic being with Zeke all the time. Maybe we've overdosed on each other.”

“Well, it's bound to be tricky. You've gone from being strangers to basically living together in no time at all.”

She was right. Reality had set in, and no amount of picking our way across palm-edged beaches for dawn surfs on deserted coral reefs could change the fact that I now saw him at his worst; he saw me at mine.

“How are things going with Garrett?” I asked, deliberately changing the subject. Kelly had been so excited for me to travel
the world, surf its best breaks, and play out some epic romance with Zeke. I didn't have the heart to tell her the truth; that it had all gone to ratshit.

“Don't ask,” she replied, her voice sounding tense.

“Why not?”

The idea of Kelly and Garrett having problems actually made me feel a bit better. At least it wasn't just me and Zeke who were struggling. I felt seriously bad for this thought when Kelly took a deep breath and said, “Garrett's poorly.”

My heart sank.

“What do you mean? Like, seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“I know.”

“Oh God, Kel. I'm so sorry. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“He should tell Zeke though. Zeke has a right to know if something's wrong with his brother.”

“Nothing's wrong.”

“Well, you just said there was.”

“God, judgey much? Poorly is a legitimate lifestyle choice.”

“Being
ill
is a lifestyle choice?”

We were both silent and suddenly Kelly laughed.

“I said POLY not POORLY.”

“Oh. Well, what the hell is
poly
supposed to mean?”

“God, Iris. Haven't you ever read a sex blog?”

“Um, no.” As if I could spend time reading sex blogs with millions of events in my diary and Zeke constantly three feet away.

“Poly is short for polyamorous.”

I searched the memory banks and came up empty.

“Not a clue.”

“It's the opposite of monogamous.”

“So, wait a minute,” I said, trying to get my inebriated brain around what she was telling me. “Garrett just goes around cheating on his girlfriends. Cheating on you?”

“No, because it's not cheating. Everyone is honest from the start, so there's no lying.”

“And you're cool with that?”

“Yeah. I think I am. I mean, monogamy is so full-on and controlly. When you love someone, you want the maximum possible happiness for them, don't you? You want them to make the most of every great opportunity that comes their way, and maybe a great opportunity is a person.”

This all seemed very unlike Kelly.

“You love Garrett?”

“Christ, no. What am I stupid?”

I imagined Kelly head-over-heels in love with Zeke's brother. Something told me that would not end well for her, that the power dynamic had to be tipped toward Kelly for the relationship to have any chance at all. Kelly's natural tendency to play it as cool as possible, something that had jinxed her other relationships, would probably be a good thing with Garrett.

“But I suppose I could love him, one day.” She said this as if it had only just occurred to her. “If he plays his cards right.”

“I don't get it. This poly thing just sounds like a good excuse for someone to treat their girlfriend like shit.”

“Or boyfriend. I'm trying it out too.”

“Sleeping around?”

“No, neither of us actually are, yet. But if we meet the right people, we will.”

“Aren't you worried it's gonna get weird?”

“Life with Garrett is already weird. So, is that the end of the interrogation?”

“Sorry, Kel. As long as you're cool with it, that's all I care about.”

Kelly's revelation made me feel even more childish for going nuts at Zeke for a photo kiss. She seemed to be in some properly grown-up relationship based on trust and honesty rather than jealousy.

“Iris, I have to go now, but don't worry about the row with Zeke. You're gonna have times where you hate each other's guts. That's all part of it. Like my mum says, ‘If you don't want to leave him or murder him at least once a day, it's not a real relationship.'”

“Thanks, Kel,” I said, laughing and wishing for the millionth time that she could be on tour with me.

I padded silently into the room and lay back down next to Zeke.

He turned and kissed me on the forehead, and his alcohol breath could've stripped paint.

“Kelly says hi,” I said, as gently as I could.

“You miss her.”

I groaned. “So much.”

“It gets less, with time.”

“Do you miss anyone?”

Silence.

“Zeke?”

“Sorry. I was thinking. Yeah, I miss a lot of folks.”

“What were you thinking? That you don't want to be with me anymore, probably.”

He shook his head. “I do wanna be with you, but . . . this is still new for me. Spending so much time with a girl. I guess we both have to get used to it.”

“I wouldn't blame you if you did want to bail. But . . . I really care about you. More than I've ever cared about anyone.”

“Even that Daniel guy?”

“Yeah, course. I can't believe you'd even ask me that. I hate him. When I think about him hurting you like that, I want to rip his head off.” And I hated myself for phoning him.

“Hey, it wasn't all one way I got in a couple licks.”

The sight of Zeke and Daniel fighting was one of my all-time worst memories. If I let myself think about it, which I didn't often, I remembered the vibration of the punches and kicks, the sound of expelled breath. Wet jeans and pooling blood. So much blood.

“Iris, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you tonight. I was worried, but that's no excuse and I feel lousy about it. You forgive me?”

“No, it was me I behaved like a complete idiot. I don't know what I was thinking. I obviously
wasn't
thinking.”

“It's just one of those situations that a guy hopes will never happen.”

“Being kissed by a pretty girl is so awful?”

“Being kissed by a girl when you have a girlfriend is. Especially when you feel like I do about you.”

I stayed there, my head against his chest, our breathing settling into a joint rhythm.

“I can't believe I went off like that.”

“I would probably have freaked out if I saw another guy kissing you. It's bad enough imagining you with Daniel. I hate the idea of him putting a hand on you. I mean, I'm cool with it in theory, because I'm not a nutjob, but if I let myself imagine it? Man, that shit
hurts
.”

“So imagine how I feel then. Because I don't even know how many girls you've slept with. You never told me your number. Maybe you should. You know, just get it out there? So we're both on the same page.”

“I get that, but the thing is, I don't actually know how to answer that question. After a certain point I lost track.”

I let that sink in. “So it's more than a hundred?”

“I guess, but I was high for a lot of the time, so it's mostly a big blur. I can barely remember faces, let alone names.”

“Terrific. When did you stop counting?”

“Pretty early on. But I wasn't going home with chicks every night. Maybe one out of three nights.”

“That's still ten girls a month. Bloody hell, Zeke.”

He put his hand over his eyes and ran it over his forehead, sweeping loose strands of hair from his face. “Yeah.”

“And this went on for how long?”

“Maybe two years.”

He'd slept with over two hundred girls. I tried to picture them standing in one long row and me walking past them all. How long would that take? What would they have told me about Zeke if I'd asked them?

“Please don't tell my mom,” he said. “That is not the way she raised me.”

“I won't say anything,” I said, thinking that Sephy probably wouldn't be as shocked as Zeke thought. She seemed open-minded about everything. Still, talking to Zeke's mother about his sexual history was not on my to-do list. I'd pretty much rather grate off my own tongue than have that conversation.

“Does Garrett know?” I asked.

If Garrett knew, then Kelly would know.

“Most of the time he wasn't around. He did a year of college before he flunked out to go on this road trip across the mainland. He had a personal challenge thing going on. He was traveling alone, and the idea was to swim in every river he came to.”

“That's so Garrett.”

“I know, right? But after a few months he got some ear infection that kept him out of the water, so the mission changed from swimming in every river to drinking in every bar. That went on until he got into a motorcycle accident, broke his foot and took the next flight to Oahu. You know, I think if Garrett hadn't been away so long, I wouldn't have gone so far down Route Meth, because if he'd seen what I was getting into, he'd have beaten me about the head and hauled my ass back home.” He looked away, remembering things he would never be able to fully share with me.

“What was I saying? What did you ask?” he said, looking up.

“About the girls. If Garrett knows.”

“He probably has an idea.”

“What about Wes?”

“Wes doesn't ask me about stuff like that. He minds his business. And you gotta remember, the drugs were a big part of it. Everything was a blur, out of control. I wasn't exactly writing a daily journal.”

“So no one knows except me?”

“Right. I wouldn't just go tossing out that kind of information, even to my brothers.”

I could understand that. It wasn't as if I'd ever opted to have a deep and meaningful conversation with my sister. Lily was the last person I'd confide in.

The next question I had to ask was beyond awkward, and there was no polite way of phrasing it.

“Could you have got any of those girls pregnant?”

Zeke recoiled a little at this. I didn't see how he could be surprised though. It was surely something he had to have considered.

“Not that I know. I was . . . careful.”

Careful. The idea brought images into my mind that I could have done without.

“Always?”

“I think so. Mostly.”

“But you're not sure cos you were high so often?”

“Right. I think I'm in the clear, because if I were that gone, I wouldn't be able to, um, you know, but I can't be one hundred percent.”

“But in theory it's possible that there could be a bunch of little Zekes running around out there?”

“I sure hope not, and, you know, I think I'd have heard by now if there were.”

Not necessarily, I thought, and definitely not if Anders had anything to do with it.

“Man, I'm sorry, Iris. I regret it, like, so much. I wish I didn't have to put all this BS on you and I wish I could go back and do things better.”

I knew that feeling so well. Wanting to go back and reverse all the terrible decisions I'd made, but there came a point where you just had to swallow shit and hope to keep it down.

“You were going through stuff. And anyway, you were doing what loads of people would have done in your circumstances. I mean, I'm not stoked to think of so many girls getting it on with my boyfriend, but we were both different people back then.”

“I'm glad you know, even though I'm sad too. Is that the way you feel?”

“I'm glad you were honest with me. Don't freak out when I tell you I'm getting an STI test, but I'm not doing it to make a point. I just need to know.”

“I get it. I'll come get one with you, even though those things are like
terrible
for guys.”

“They're no picnic for girls either, by the way.”

“Iris?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, looking up into his face.