rock (5 page)

peridotite

I went to Mum’s this morning for my fourteenth birthday but I’m at Dad’s for the evening. We order fish and chips at the wharf, then stuff our individually-wrapped scoops of chips under our pullovers to warm us. We pull out chips from under our collars and pop them into our mouths. They’re warm and deliciously salty-hot.

We head for the beach, where I crumple into the soft sand. Even Annie is with us, though she avoids Lila to sit at my side. Jace is perched on the stone wall behind us with Dad.

“We have gifts,” Lila says. She rests a basket in front of my feet.

I unwrap two game-store vouchers, plus a new top-of-the-line magnifying glass from Dad. I thank them and pull out the last gift, wrapped as if someone fought with the wrapping paper and tape. “Yours, Jace?”

He groans. Sand squeaks under his feet as he crouches behind me. “I had no idea what to get you. It sucks.”

It’s a mug engraved with
I’m a Rock Whisperer
.

“I thought . . . you drink a lot of tea . . .”

I grin at him over my shoulder. “Cheers, Jace.” He shrugs, and I say it again, quietly. “Thanks.”

* * *

Nine months later, middle of summer, I’m scowling at my plate.

Capsicum. I hate it. Something about the tangy-burnt taste makes me want to retch. Unfortunately, the last time I didn’t eat my capsicum, Dad served it to me for breakfast and every meal thereafter until I ate it.

I poke at my stir-fry, shoving the long strips of capsicum to the side of the plate. At times like these I wish I had a dog.

Dad and Lila are lost in a boring discussion, and Annie has inhaled her food so she can excuse herself. I scowl at her as she leaves the table, racing toward the capsicum-free zone of her bedroom to talk on the phone all night.

Jace has almost finished his dinner. Judging by his expression, he doesn’t hate the dinner but he doesn’t love it either. He shovels a few more vegetable bits onto his fork and glances over at me. Specifically, at the mountain of capsicum collecting on the side of my plate.

He shakes his head and mouths “breakfast,” to which I groan and reluctantly stab one of the strips of disgustingness. Jace chuckles, glances at his mum and my dad still talking, and quickly pinches my plate from under my nose. In one swift scoop, he piles my capsicum onto his plate and slides my dinner back to me.

He shrugs, but it feels more like a wink. My smile is forged from somewhere deep as I tackle the rest of my food—

“Where’s Annie?” Dad asks me. I jump, afraid we’ve been caught.

“Oh, Annie? She excused herself. You half nodded at her.”

His mouth sets in a thin line as he takes in her empty place. Lila rests her hand next to his, their pinkies touching.

“No matter,” she says. “We’ll tell the boys first—”

“Annie!” Dad yells, pushing back from the chair. “Come back down here.” He moves toward the stairs.

A few moments later Annie stomps back into the kitchen, sighing loudly. She hovers in the arched doorway, staring toward the patio instead of us. “What?”

Lila smiles brightly. “For our second family trip, we’ve decided to trek across part of Abel Tasman National Park.”

* * *

Another year rolls by. Annie and I combine our money to buy Jace a ticket to the Symphony Orchestra to see a famous pianist. A Christmas gift; the first Christmas we’ve spent at Dad’s.

He accepts the ticket with a frown. “Thanks,” he says. It’s a soft thanks that follows me all day.

I get every gift I hoped for, including a new phone, a
To the Center of the Earth
board game, and a documentary on fossils. “Let’s check it out!”

But Dad and Lila bow out, making up a quick excuse about getting up early.

Annie and Jace look at each other, excuses dancing unspoken between them.

“You don’t have to,” I say, shrugging and heading up the stairs. “I’ll watch it on my own.”

Annie races up the stairs and flings her arm around my neck. Her tightly-curled hair bumps on my chin. “Okay. I’ll watch it.”

I roll my eyes. She’s playing nice, and I don’t want that. “Nah, I’m good. Actually, now I think about it, I’m kinda tired. I’m going to bed.”

“You sure?”

I drop her off at her room. “Of course. We can watch it this weekend.” By then she’ll forget about it anyway.

“Okay,” she says and ruffles my hair. “Promise.”

Her door shuts with a puff of wind, and I slink toward my room.

At my bedroom door, my foot brushes against something hard. Six stones are placed in the doorway at equal distances. I slip the documentary DVD under my arm to crouch down and pick up the stones. Limestone. Quartz. Granite. Amethyst. Aquamarine. And—I laugh out loud as Jace’s padded steps clunk down the hall—a moonstone.

“Did you put these here?”

Jace stops a few feet away and leans against the wall. “Nope.” Out of the corner of my eye, though, I detect a grin.

“They’re beautiful.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Are they?”

“I love how they’re squared. But if you didn’t put them here, who did?”

“Someone who wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.” Jace meanders closer, then pulls the documentary out from under my arm. “I mean, I’m not tired. I was gonna watch TV anyway. Why not this?”

He ducks into the gaming room.

I pocket the stones and follow him.

part two: sedimentary

sedimentary: matter that settles

sandstone

With pursed lips, Lila throws a wet, moldy-smelling load back into the washing machine. She’s pissed, but I can tell she’s trying to hold it in. Like me, she hasn’t figured out her boundaries or how far she can push into the parental role. The clothes make a loud slapping sound as she throws them into the barrel.

I stand with my thumbs in my pockets trying to cough up an apology, but it won’t come. It really was a mistake. Completely unintentional. Besides, Lila always asks me to do work, never Annie. My sister hates her but I don’t, so I get all the menial tasks? That sucks.

“I need you to be more proactive around the house,” she says. “Use your initiative for once. Look around, see what needs doing and do it. Don’t wait to be asked all the time.”

She has a point, which makes it worse. I want her to be wrong so I don’t have to swallow the urge to tell her to shut up.
She can’t tell me what to do. She’s not my mother!

I’m shaking and my teeth are clenched. I’m about to yank the clothes from her grasp and tell her to have a break, have a fucking Kit Kat, when Jace strolls in.

He steals up to his mum and says, “Good afternoon, beautiful.” He follows up his deviously-timed congeniality with a kiss on her cheek.

Lila’s cool stare has melted. Before she can speak, Jace picks up the last of the clothes and throws them in the machine. “Darn,” he says, “I meant to hang these out this morning.”

Lila says, “No, that was Cooper’s job.”

Jace laughs this off. “Yeah, except he bet a week’s worth of chores that he’d score higher than I did last year on the end-of-year exams.” This is a lie—not the beating him part—that’s true—but the betting part. We never made such an agreement. I want to catch his eye and ask what he’s doing, but he refuses to look my way.

“You can’t bet your chores away, Jace,” Lila says, and her tone is soft now. Maybe she sees this falsified bet as us bonding. In any case, she sighs and claps Jace lightly around the head. “Next time tell me so I don’t go picking on Cooper.”

Lila gives me an apologetic smile. Then she says, “Since you’re taking over Cooper’s chores for the week, you can start chopping the vegetables for dinner.”

Jace groans. I hope for his sake no onions are required. I’ve seen him cutting onions, and the colorful language that escapes his mouth as he dices is not pretty. He hates onions. He claims he can smell them for days afterward, and that it makes the piano keys stink when he practices.

When Lila leaves I slink up to Jace. He is concentrating on pouring in the washing powder but he twitches when I stand next to him.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say softly.

“Yeah, I did,” He shuts the lid of the washing machine. “You were about to get really mad at my mum. She already has a hard enough time with Annie.” He starts the machine and turns around.

He was doing this for her, not me? I back away, hitting my hip against the sink. I’m embarrassed about how I acted toward Lila.

Jace rests against the machine and stares at me. Heat races to my cheeks, and I stammer, wishing to God I’d hung the stupid clothes out to dry this morning. “Sorry,” I mumble as I spin for the door.

In two steps, Jace has my arm. “Don’t get like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ll avoid me for the rest of the week now.”

I’d like to lick my wounds in private, thank you. “Avoid you? Hardly possible.”

“You won’t hole yourself away in your room the whole evening?”

Yes, yes, I’d like to do that very much. “Of course not.”

Dammit.

Jace’s grip loosens, and his fingers slip off me one by one. “Good. Because if I’m doing your chores all week, I want you at my beck and call.”

“Your beck and call?”

Mischief lights his blue eyes. He may as well start rubbing his hands together the way he’s looking at me. I can hear the maniacal laughter. “Yeah. I might have a few chores of my own that need doing.”

I shake my head but I’m grinning. How can he have this effect on me? “You’re going to milk this, aren’t you?”

“Like a cow.”

“Jace,” Lila calls from the kitchen. “Start with the onions.”

* * *

The entire meal, Jace stares at me with an evil, I’m-going-to-punish-you stare.

Dad taps his fork against his wine glass. “Listen up, kids.”

I elbow Annie in the side when she mutters something about not being a kid anymore. After what Jace told me about his mum, enough is enough. It’s time Annie accepts our new life.

“Lila and I have thought this over,” Dad continues, smiling warmly at Lila. His eyes dance with joy. “This weekend we’re taking our third family trip.”

Annie’s chair squeaks, but other than that she says nothing.

“What? Where?” I ask. I kind of hope we might go hiking again like we did last year. Abel Tasman rocked. I smother a chuckle at my wit.

“We decided on something outdoorsy—”

“White-water rafting!” Lila bursts out.

Dad squeezes her hand. “It’s a two-day trip. Our gear will be transported to our camping site for us. So we’ll be tenting.”

“Tenting?” Annie asks. “Like, all together?”

“Well, no,” Dad says. “We have two double tents and a single. We thought the boys could share a tent, and you could have your own.”

Lila says, “Unless you want to share with your dad. I’m happy to have the single one to myself.” She tries to engage Annie with a smile.

Annie shrugs. “I’m good with the single.”

It’s quiet for a moment. I fork a piece of broccoli and pop it into my mouth. The onion-garlic taste makes me smirk. I glance toward Jace’s hands curled around his knife and fork. He’s glaring at Annie, and I know exactly what he’s thinking.

“I think it sounds awesome,” I say cheerily. I mean it, even though I’m cheering more boisterously than I normally would.

I excuse myself after we finish eating, but I don’t make it up three stairs before Jace calls my name.

He dries his hands on the tea towel thrown over his shoulder. “Since I have to slave in the kitchen,” he says, “you have to do the same in my room.”

“Your room?”

“It’s a bit of a mess. Clean it up, would you?” He flashes a wide, mocking smile before returning to the kitchen.

For a second I contemplate ignoring his command, but I don’t.

His room isn’t bad. The bed is unmade and some clothes and shoes are lying around, but his desk is orderly. It’s dark in here even though I switched the light on when I came in. His dark grey room features one turquoise wall. Cozy. I fight the desire to nestle into his blankets and curl up to sleep.

I get to work cleaning. With every breath, I inhale more of Jace. It’s a slightly-sweet citrus smell, like oranges. His bedclothes feel softer than mine, well worn. I bring the cover up to my chin and nuzzle against it—but I instantly realize how weird of me that is to do.

I stop nuzzling and start making the bed.

The white splotches on his sheets make me blush. I try not to think too much about what a sixteen-year-old boy does up here, but the more I force the thought from my mind, the more elaborate is the imagery.

Bed made, I stuff his clothes into the hamper and straighten his shoes. I yank out one of his Chucks that’s wedged halfway under the bed, and a few magazines slide out with it.

I blink at the porn in front of me.

It’s the standard stuff that Ernie and Bert like to laugh at and get kinky with. I want to laugh but it’s not funny. It’s almost—enraging. I don’t understand why this discovery angers me so deeply.
Not true, Cooper. And you know it.

My throat tightens; I shake my head and grit my teeth against that voice in my mind—

Jace clears his throat behind me. “I changed my mind,” he says. “I don’t want you to clean my room.”

I can’t pull away from the magazines. Big-breasted women in slutty bikinis wink at me like they know exactly what I want. Bitches don’t have a clue!

And why is that?

Shut up!

Jace crouches next to me and pries a magazine I didn’t even know I’d picked up from my hand. He frowns and shifts. “I mean, if you want to borrow one—”

“No! Fuck off.”

I stand abruptly. I can’t look at him. Can’t look at his bed. Can’t breathe his citrusy air anymore. I stumble out of his room, shove on a pair of shoes, and hurry outside. I need . . . I need . . . I need a
stone
.

But I’m too close to the house. Its lights are illuminated as though it’s watching me. Judging me.

I can’t stand it. I have to get away. I jog along the stream through the pines, toward the cave. The wind sluices over my recently cut hair and tunnels down the arms of my green Koru T-shirt—the one Dad bought me for Christmas. The one that Annie said brings out my eyes in a wicked cool way and had Jace staring extra hard at me.

A stupid tear hovers in the corner of my eye, but I swipe it away as I duck into the cave.

The glowworms are extremely bright, but their magic takes a while to settle over me. When it finally does, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of that cliff again, about to fall. Thrills zip up my middle, stirring my cock.

I raise my arms and stand on my tippy toes to imagine the rush of falling into the stars.

Every inch of my skin tickles with shivers just like the last time I came here when Jace was at the creek, singing . . .

I drop my arms and snap out of the memory. It doesn’t matter anyway. He didn’t even know I was listening.

I sit on the floor of the cave, pick up a smooth stone, and hug my knees, willing the glowworms to rearrange themselves into an answer. An answer to my questions.
How do I stop feeling like this? How do I stop that voice in my head that lies to me and tries to confuse me all the time?

The worms don’t move. Neither do I.
Not for a long time. I feel the heat of Jace’s whisper before I hear it. “You’re supposed to be at my beck and call.”

I don’t turn around. “What do you want?”

“Why are you hiding?”

“I’m not.” I grip my stone harder.

He settles next to me, hugging his knees too. His arm bumps against mine, but I continue staring at the glowing green walls. “Why aren’t we friends?” he asks. “Why do we pretend we don’t like each other?”

“You give me a dirty look every morning. You tell me.”

I hear him shrug. “I don’t know. It’s easier.” He turns to look at me. His hot gaze on my cheek pulls me to face him, but I resist. “I know we were forced into each other’s lives, but, I mean, I would have chosen you if I’d had the chance.”

My breath hitches, and a shy smile stretches his lips.

“I mean, if I hadn’t known you,” he says, “and you stopped to talk to me that first time at school? I would’ve tried harder to hang out with you. I mean, you were odd.” At this, he laughs softly. “I was surprised by the nose butt to my knee, but I liked you. And the
Music Rocks
T-shirt you wore is sort of funny now that I know you.”

“I don’t remember the T-shirt.” The stone falls from my sweaty grip and I fumble for it again.

I would have chosen you.

My heart races as his words skate over every inch of my skin.

“What do you say, Cooper?”

I’m too fast to grab the hand he offers, and I hold it too tightly. I’m scared he can somehow hear that traitorous, whispering voice through my touch and he will quickly let me go. “Can we keep the dirty looks?” I ask.

He laughs. “With you, I think it’d be hard not to.”