How To Save A Life (7 page)

Why
is someone trying to call me at five something in the
—

I grab for my phone. "Hello?"

Silence
.

Oh yeah. Alarm. Not incoming call.

"Frick," I whisper, and throw the piece of metal on the pillow beside me. What a night. No wonder I feel as if I've been hit by a bus. Less than four hours sleep will do that to a person.

I wrap a robe around me then creep over to the bathroom, showering in record speed before tiptoeing downstairs to face the carnage.

Carnage is right
. Empty glasses are all over the room, most with some form of liquid still in the bottom of them. The ashtray is overflowing, and the stench of used smoke and what I am ninety per cent sure is someone's spew makes my stomach churn.

On the couch, Julietta is sprawled, her shirt unbuttoned, boobs on display. They're saggy and loose, hanging out on our couch. Where I
sit
sometimes. Ew.

"Get a good look?"

I jump and drop my cell. "Smith." The word is on a whisper, so I don't wake Julietta. I turn to face him. Purple shadows his eyes, and I wonder how much sleep he’s had. If he went to bed at all. "I wasn't looking ..."

"Nothin' wrong with it if you were." He raises his arm to give my hair a mussing, and I duck down to grab my phone and avoid his style-ruining, skin-crawling action.

"I'm off to work. See you." I give a half wave. It takes everything in me to walk to the door instead of running.

Outside, the world is fresh, new, and the sheen of early morning mist covers the streets. It feels and smells so much cleaner out here, away from the destruction that is my house. I strip off my cardigan, letting the cool spring air wash my skin clean.

"Lia."

I spin to face the road in surprise. "Kat." She smiles and strides toward me, hands in the pockets of her jeans.

"Put a jumper on, you dag. It's freezing."

"It's not that bad." I shrug, but I pull the cardigan back on anyway. Kat is a textbook good friend. She has an easy way with words, is always quick to supply a laugh, and as for fun? She can do fun. Kat doesn't do anything by halves—she is all in or nothing.

Once more, a wave of remorse washes over me.
I have what she wants
.

"Didn't you go to a party last night? Why are you even awake?" I ask, a smile curving my lips.

Kat shrugs, and hands me a bottle of something red and kind of fizzy looking. "Yeah, but it wasn't that raging. I thought you could use a pick-me-up."

I narrow my eyes at her offering. "Why and what?"

"You've been really tired and stressed recently," she says. As soon as the words leave her mouth, I feel it. She's right. With exams fast approaching and the performance of my life hot on their heels, I have been getting a little uptight. Add the nightmares to the mix ...

And that things with Mum have been getting worse.

Not that Kat knows that. She might know where I live, but she's never been inside.

We start walking, turning left at the cul-de-sac and onto the grassy path by the lake.

"Is she getting sicker?" Kat chews on her lip, and guilt rushes through me again at the mention of yet another little white lie I've told. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—parents who were 'sick' didn't want their kids to have friends over. They had an all-time excuse for not showing up at student-teacher nights, at school functions and events.

And she did have an illness.

Just probably not the kind Kat was imagining.

"I can't tell," I reply honestly. "The other day, it seemed as if she were a little better? But y'know ... it's ..." I let the sentence hang, because the thing is, Kat doesn't. And even if I told her, I don't know that she would. How do you explain to someone close to you that your mother is basically incapable of keeping her shit together?

She links her arm through mine. "Berocca." She nods to the drink now in my hands. "It's Berocca."

I grin and give her arm a squeeze. She gets it. Sometimes, saying nothing is the easiest lie of all.

We stop out front of The View, and a crowd of around thirty women are there, clad in the usual designer lycra, sunglasses perched atop of their heads. They mill around the register, and Ana rushes past me, shoving an apron around her waist and frantically attempting to connect the ties at her back.

"Looks like I gotta—" Words seize in my throat. Because
she's
here again.

Early.

"Thanks so much for walking me in, Kat," I say, giving her a quick hug. "I'll see you later."

"No worries." Kat smiles, but I'm not looking at her, because Ellie’s pushing off the telegraph pole she was leaning against and walking this way. Toward us. Toward
my new life.

"What time do you get off again?" Kat asks, and then it happens.

Step.

Crash.

Collide.

"Lia."

I press my eyes tightly shut and hope she'll go away, and that this is all a dream.

"Who's this?" Kat asks. I prise my eyes open in time to see her grin. "Hi, I'm Kat, Lia's—"

"Four. I finish at four," I interrupt, standing in the way of Kat's gaze and blocking Ellie completely.

Kat frowns. "Lee Lee, what are you do—"

"I gotta run, but I'll see you at Duke's then, yeah?" I ask, and I hope that she can read the message in my eyes, the message that I'm fairly sure is screaming
get the hell out of here, now.

"Ooookay," Kat says slowly. She bunches her forehead. "I'll see you around four."

Kat walks away without further question, and I release the breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding, then I spin on my heel, heading for the machine. I stow my bag beneath the counter and grab my apron from the hook, tying it around my waist and giving Ana a small hip bump by way of greeting.

But Ellie doesn't leave. I can feel her eyes drilling into me from where I left her standing, even through the crowd of wannabe walkers. They're laughing and bitching about the fact I haven't even started making coffee yet, but I can still hear her voice through the din.

"You can't do this forever, Lia."

I don't tell her that I don't have to.

Only for the next 145 days.

***

The morning rush dies down, but she doesn't leave. She just sits there at the table, ordering chai latte after chai latte, till I worry that she's going to spew all over our silverware, because dear God, that's far too much sugar, milk and cinnamon for one girl to have in a four-hour sitting. Still, she doesn't relent, and even though I desperately want to ignore her and not fulfil her order requests, Tim's eyes are on me, and he's on the warpath today.

"You look like shit, Lia," he says as he walks over to us. With shaky hands, I pour the milk into the cup in front of me and smile. "Could you at least put on some makeup before you come in, if you're gonna go out partying the night before your shift?"

"Sorry, Ti—
shoot
!" My attention on Tim combined with my lack-of-sleep shakes has meant I've accidentally hit the cup with my milk jug, sending the cup skidding over the counter and falling toward me. It hits the ground and breaks, porcelain shards underneath the counter, hot milk covering my apron.

"Sorry, Tim." I drop to my knees and grab the dustpan from the shelf behind me, sweeping up the fragments. I wring my apron out over the sink, trying to give it a rinse but knowing that there's no escaping it—I'll be smelling like stale milk for the rest of the day.

When I turn back to the machine, Tim is still there. I wonder if he ever left, and if I've become so good at ignoring his rants that I didn't realise he was still persisting with one.

"Have respect for other people's property, Lia. You might be able to make a coffee, but if you're damn well wearing it, what bloody good does that do me?" he hisses to avoid the crowds at tables only a few feet away witnessing his abuse.

"Sorry again, Tim."

"Sorry? Sorry's not going to fix my—"

"I should make a new coffee for the customer."

"Damn straight you should! And for me, while you're at it. You know how patient I am with you."

I bite my tongue, smile sweetly and turn the grinder on, letting the angry noise of blades dicing up beans do the talking for me.

Tim mouths some other words at me, then shoots me a look and walks away.

"He's mean today," Ana mutters as she brushes past me, a plate of haloumi salad in one hand, the house burger in the other.

"Right?" I shoot her a look. We share a smile of solidarity as she heads off to table three and I'm left alone at the counter.

I let my gaze roam over the busy cafe. Everyone is seated, enjoying their meals or enjoying basking in the midday sun. The beach murmurs as the waves lap at the shore, and gulls cry overhead, looking for the next tourist to work.

I close my eyes for just one moment, letting the warmth of this beautiful spring day sink in. After the sleepless night I've had, those seconds of shut-eye mean everything.

"You can't ignore me forever."

My eyes snap open.

Shit
.

She's standing right in front of me, two hands knuckle-down on the counter, leaning close.

"One day, you're going to have to speak to me again, Lia."

I glance left and right, searching desperately for Ana, but Ms Haloumi Salad is pointing to different leaves on her plate and asking questions, no doubt about the bloody eco origins of her food—it's a presumption, but she looks the type to source lettuce leaf information—and I know that my save is a long way away. I bite my lip, my heart pounding in my chest, and—

That.

As my gaze flicks back from Ana at table three to the girl in front of me, I see someone in the distance.

Someones.

"Table for one, two ... five."

No.

No, no, no.

"Right this way." Tim leads them to a table right in the middle of the outdoor cafe space, so they are surrounded by other diners. Mum trips over a chair and almost collides with someone’s designer dog as she makes her way through the crowd. Julietta's laughter is abrasively loud, and from the way quite a few people wrinkle their noses as the group walks past, I can't help but imagine the stench.

"Isn't that your mum?" Ellie snaps me back to the present, and the real gravity of the situation kicks in.

This could not get any worse.

"Can I get you anything to start?" Tim's asking, and Mum and her friends laugh, as if it's the funniest question they've heard in their lives.

"Well we ain't gonna finish, are we?" a man roars, and I can't for the life of me remember his name. At least I remember Elmo. There's no forgetting that.

"Coffees, all round." Smith takes charge, then grabs the red wine list from the centre of the table. "And a bottle of ... ah, why not sparkling, 'ey?" He slaps Elmo on the back. "Bit of a breakfast beverage."

Tim scuttles off to serve them, Ms Haloumi Salad raises her eyebrows at Ana, and I duck behind the coffee machine, trying not to be seen. Of course Mum knows I'm here, but perhaps if I just manage to keep out of her line of vision ...

"I'm going to say hi."

No.

"Ellie, wait!"

"Really?" She spins to face me, her arms folded across her chest. "You don't speak to me for eighteen months, and the thought of me saying hello to your mother is bad enough to get you to open up?"

"I ..." I open and shut my mouth, racking my brain for an excuse that isn't just STOP.

"Figures." Ellie turns around again and marches through the seats, making her way to Mum's table.

My tongue feels swollen in my mouth, and I know I have to stop this. I cannot let it happen.

I dart out and around the counter, dancing my way through the crowds.

"Lia! Is that coffee machine unattended?"

Ignoring Tim, I keep going, but my legs seem to be made of lead and they're slow, so much slower than I need to be. So much slower than Ellie is.

"Hi, Mrs Stanton. It's—"

"Ellie!" Mum cries, and it's like nails down a chalkboard meets women fighting at a clearance sale.

Everything seems to happen in slow motion. Mum, reaching up to hug my childhood best friend.

Smith, standing and yelling across the cafe. "Oy, Lia! Get us some wine, yeah?"

Julietta, reapplying her lipstick while swinging back on her chair.

Into the backs of Ana's legs.

Sending Ms Haloumi Salad's salad ... all over Ms Haloumi Salad.

Snap
.

"I'm so sorry," Ana says, leaning over the table to grab some napkins and awkwardly dabbing them toward the woman's ample chest.

"Let me." Elmo grabs some napkins from his table and also reaches around to try and clean Ms Haloumi Salad, although the leer on his face makes it clear that cleaning isn't exactly his first priority.