Return to sender, p.22
Return to Sender, page 22
Light floods the loft. The sheer brightness of it burns my eyes and I jolt up, flinging one arm over my face and using the other to shove Levi down. When we aren’t immediately shot, I dare to squint between splayed fingers and find myself looking down at a supremely pissed-off Dwight.
‘Brodie fuckin’ McKellon,’ he says. ‘Shoulda known.’
I want to be clear that, once again, I was not technically arrested. Detained is not arrested. Though the semantics of police involvement aren’t exactly doing me much good right now, since Dwight seems to be delighting in spontaneously yelling, ‘Throw her in the slammer!’ as he works through the report.
‘She robbed me! Again!’
Detective Sawyer sighs, and his eyes drift halfway closed as he silently mouths one, two, three . . .
‘They haven’t taken anything, Dwight. It’s a trespassing charge at best.’
Dwight spits tobacco into a nearby bin, a metallic clang echoing through the police station. ‘Like hell. She’s a thief! A THIEF,’ he yells, spinning around on his swivel chair. ‘Bet she took a car again. Have you checked they’re all there?’
I lean between the bars of the cell, rolling my eyes. ‘Where would I have put a car, Dwight? Under my dress? Let me look, maybe the Hadron Collider is in here too.’
The detective grits his teeth, taking a steadying breath. ‘Ms McKellon,’ he bites out. ‘You do, in fact, have the right to remain silent. I would advise you to utilise it.’
I give him the finger when he turns away, and Levi swats my hand. ‘Hey! He’s still my dad.’
‘He arrested us!’
‘Detained,’ Levi corrects.
‘Oh, whatever. Where’s Barbara?’
He shrugs.
‘Why are you not bothered by this?’
He shrugs again.
‘You are a terrible accomplice.’
One arm starts to lift.
‘Do not shrug at me,’ I hiss.
He scrubs a hand through his hair, taking a seat on the bench. ‘Look, it’s fine. You’re still a minor, Dwight’s still an idiot. You didn’t get charged last time, did you?’
‘Well, no, but –’
‘It’s more paperwork than it’s worth. Dad will fix it.’
I grudgingly take a seat beside him, only because I’ve been half hanging through the cell bars for the last thirty minutes and my adrenaline levels are slowly waning. Apparently, heckling a police officer for their inferior office supplies can be considered ‘interfering with an investigation’, but I’m pretty sure Detective Dick made that up. Either way, I’ve hardly spoken to Levi since his dad came and hauled us away in a police wagon. The most insulting part is that Levi got to sit in the front seat, and I had to sit in the back, behind the cage.
We sit in silence, at opposite ends of the bench seat, studiously avoiding each other’s gaze. God, why did I say yes to this stupid dare? Why did Levi look like he was going to kiss me and why did I touch him like a massive creep? Seriously, I felt him up. There are no other words. It cannot be phrased politely. I’m going to have to move. Skip town, not speak for three years, come back and try again. That seems to be the only way to salvage our friendship.
‘McKellon!’
I jump, surprised to find myself half dozing on Levi’s shoulder. I discreetly wipe the drool out of the corner of my mouth and squint up at the detective. He looks sweaty and tired and disappointed, and his eyes linger a little too long at the spot on Levi’s shoulder that I’d been sleeping on. He clears his throat, hooking thumbs through his belt. ‘Misdemeanour charge, sealed and wiped on your eighteenth, penalty fine only. Best I can do.’
Levi’s spine straightens, and I see him scowling from the corner of my eye. ‘That’s bullshit.’
‘That’s trespassing,’ his dad says, sounding tired.
‘And me?’
Detective Sawyer hesitates for a second. ‘You’re off. He won’t charge.’
Levi blinks up at him for a long moment, then strides across the cell and grips the bars. ‘Hey, Dwight! Remember when someone filled the crush cars with lake water and hermit crabs? That was me!’
The indignation is immediate. ‘You sonofa–’
Levi rockets back, and I realise suddenly that he no longer has to look up at his dad. They’re the same height, shoulder to shoulder, glaring at each other. ‘Do better,’ Levi says, then drops down beside me.
The detective mutters something that sounds like ‘Getting too old for this shit,’ then saunters back to his desk. ‘Dwight, let’s take a walk. You like cigars? Thought so . . .’
Footsteps fade as they walk down the corridor, leaving us alone. I whirl on Levi, looking at him for the first time since the loft. ‘You’re so stupid, why would you do that –’
I grab a fistful of his shirt, intending to shove him, but somehow end up pulling him closer. And I’m so angry at him, for making that ridiculous dare, and then for getting himself in more trouble for thinking I took the Adder Stone, and for not talking to me for three years because he’s an idiot – and mostly, because I can’t seem to get Levi Sawyer out of my head, and I think I’ve dreamed this before, the two of us standing like this, because it feels so easy, so familiar. I’ve seen his face tilted down like this, his brows pulled close and his lips parted in surprise. I’ve seen him turn toward me exactly like this, and I hate the way my body hums when he looks at me, like he’s the sun and I’m the last stars in the sky, and the freckles on his nose are a constellation I’d like to explore with my mouth and –
I am kissing Levi Sawyer.
It’s an accident, I think. I wanted to tell him I hated him, but I somehow end up shoving my lips on his instead, the words lost when he opens his mouth and says Oh and then Levi is kissing me back. His hands are in my hair and on my waist, raking up my sides, and I shudder without meaning to, pressing myself closer, wanting to crawl inside his skin and claim it as mine.
He pushes me against the back wall, and Levi is still kissing me. It’s all wrong for a moment, not the kiss I remember, which was quick and awkward: back then, I had to duck a little bit, and it was just lips pressed against lips, and I think I sort of spit on him accidentally. But now, now.
I tilt my head up and open my mouth, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. There’s a rhythm to this kiss, and it takes me a minute to catch up, my brain emptying of all thoughts except this: we must look obscene, two criminals pressed against each other in a jail cell. I can feel my cheeks burning, the hem of my dress lifting as I reach up, but I don’t care – and then my feet aren’t on the ground at all. Levi lifts me up until I’m standing on the bench seat, placing us nearly eye to eye. ‘Much better,’ he mutters, and I’m about to say something but I can’t remember what because his lips are on my neck. He kisses a trail to my shoulder and it burns; I am burning, my skin is on fire. He mutters my name, and it’s both cool dousing water and fresh flame. Damnation and salvation, all at once.
My eyes drift open for a second, bleary and blissed. And then I blink.
‘August.’
Levi leans back, hand coming to rest under my chin. He frowns, puzzled. ‘What?’
I shake my head, forgetting how to make words. I point over his shoulder, at the poster my eyes had snagged on. ‘No, look. I remember now, where I knew him from.’
Levi turns, shoulders sagging the moment his eyes land on that crumpled old poster, still tacked on the very back wall, the edges curled and yellow.
Nearly twenty years old, the kid they never found and no one had the heart to take down.
Missing: presumed dead.
‘It’s him. It’s August.’
CHAPTER 12
Dear August,
I made so many plans, all laid out in neat, lined books. We used to play that game, where will you be in five weeks, five months, five years. And for a long time, the answer was: Warwick, Warwick, Warwick. But for the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer. Where will we be, August?
‘Brodie McKellon!’
I bolt awake in bed just as my bedroom door bounces off the wall, bits of plaster cascading to the floor.
Nan fills half the frame with her silk-dressing-gowned body, hair in hot rollers, cat on her shoulder, and she’s still more terrifying than a Texas chainsaw-wielding psychopath. ‘Why was Detective Sawyer just in my living room explaining to me that you were arrested last night?’
I stumble out of bed, feeling the need to be upright for this conversation. ‘Uh . . . detained, actually –’
Nan just stares at me for a full minute, then harrumphs. ‘Is this why you snuck in after midnight?’
I hold a finger up, pausing. ‘Technically, I snuck in because I lost my key. I was late because of the whole . . . detaining thing.’
Nan sighs. Mabel mews. ‘No pancakes for you,’ she says, then closes the door. It opens again a second later. ‘And the next time you come home stumbling in after midnight from the police station, remember to take your makeup off. Terrible for the complexion, darling. And you’re grounded! Until lunchtime, at least!’
The door closes again.
I collapse on the bed, throwing an arm over my eyes. Last night feels like a fever dream, ripped from the throes of a strange delusion. The dance and Dwight’s loft and I kissed Levi.
All of it blurs together, and then I feel my breath catch.
August.
His poster, there all along. And I saw it, the very first night I came back to Warwick. I didn’t pay much attention at the time – had assumed it had only remained after all this time because no one could bear to pull it down and put it in the bin. So old and sun-bleached it was barely legible, his surname lost in a torn corner. And I’d hardly even caught a glimpse last night – there was no time to analyse it between the detaining and the kissing and Dwight eventually drinking himself into a near coma before being convinced to drop the charges.
Of all people, it was Quinn who’d come to collect me.
The doors blew open, and she stormed in with fury on her face and soft pink slippers on her feet, Elliot sheepishly lurking behind her. Guess they’d figured out the whole dare went to shit when no one could actually contact us – plus, I’d used my phone to text Elliot from the back of the police cruiser, begging him not to let Nan find out if it could be avoided, right before Detective Dick saw it and snatched it off me.
I’ve never seen Quinn like that. Her face set, no tremble of hesitation in her voice. She stood in the glow of the exit sign, eyes bright with fury. ‘I will be taking Brodie home. Now.’
Detective Sawyer opened his mouth to protest, but she didn’t even let him speak.
‘Now, Richard.’
If she was surprised to find Levi in the cell with me, she didn’t let it show. She waited for both of us to scurry out and drove us home in silence. Levi and I sat in the back seat together, hands splayed in the middle seat, fingers nearly touching but not. I’d hesitated when she pulled up at the post office, and eventually just murmured my thanks to Quinn. She surprised me by letting out a sharp laugh. ‘Ah, kid, it’s not the first time I’ve picked up a McKellon from the station.’
I yank a pillow over my head, screaming into the feathers. What is wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just go to the dance and have a nice time – spike the punch like a normal delinquent?
Maybe I can stay in here forever. Join the ghost in the attic, the memory of a girl who was brave enough to break into private property but not brave enough to face a boy she liked.
But August.
If not for that poster, I would have spent the day wallowing in bed. Instead, I force myself to shower and dress and eat, and work in the post office until Nan sighs and declares me un-grounded.
She holds my chin, and smiles. ‘Too much like your mother, sometimes.’
And although she’s forgiven me, I still see the tight lines of stress around her eyes. I wrap my arms around her shoulders, breathing her tea-leaf-and-talcum-powder smell. ‘Sorry, Nan.’
She shakes her head, patting my back. ‘So long as you always come home when you’re done.’ She steps back, sweeping an arm across the post office. ‘Now, do you think you can get this place cleaned up before tomorrow? Alas, love must wait another year . . .’
I groan, looking at the red-and-pink sea of hearts. I bite down a complaint, figuring I deserved it. Nan is halfway up the stairs when I call out, ‘Hey, Nan . . . did you know that kid who went missing?’
Nan halts on the staircase, peering over the top of her half-rim glasses. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘His name was August. He was one of the letter writers – I saw his poster last night.’
‘Oh.’
Importantly, oh is not no. I frown, wondering if perhaps Nan has known more than she had let on all along. ‘Do you know what happened to him?’
Nan hesitates a moment, and I wonder if she’s really trying to remember or trying to settle on a version of the truth. ‘It rained,’ she says eventually.
‘What?’
‘I remember the day he went missing. It rained.’
‘Is that – is that all?’
She shrugs, and Mabel curls around her feet. Nan flaps a hand and recommences her shuffle toward the kitchen. ‘I’m old, poppet. It was a long time ago.’
And I think, as she walks away, that her answer still wasn’t no.
*
I want to thank Quinn again for bailing us out last night, so I pick some flowers from Nan’s garden and bike across town to the library. I find her tucked away in a dusty corner, picking through old newspapers and occasionally setting some to the side to be labelled and stored. I remember that I’m supposed to ask about August, but right now, all I want is forgiveness.
She’s so focused on her work, squinting in the dim light, that she doesn’t see me coming until I’m standing right in front of her.
‘Good morning, jailbird,’ she says with a smile. ‘Are those for me?’
I nod, handing them over, feeling like a chastised child even though she’s been more gracious about the whole situation than I really deserve. ‘Sorry again,’ I say, feeling my cheeks turn pink. ‘About last night. It was really stupid.’
She sighs, picking up the flowers to admire. ‘Just don’t go making it a weekly occurrence. Do I want to know what you were doing in that junkyard?’
I feel my cheeks turn an even deeper shade of pink. ‘It was dumb. It was a dare, and we got a bit carried away. I’m really, really sorry.’
‘Just glad you called,’ she says.
‘Well, technically, I called Elliot and swore him to secrecy, but I guess he’s always been the smart one,’ I joke. ‘You should be proud.’
Quinn smiles at me, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. Mum used to do that too. ‘You call me, anytime, okay? I’ll never be angry, not if you need help.’
I nod, feeling tears prick behind my eyes. ‘Thanks, Quinn.’
She pulls me into a hug and holds on tight. ‘Love you, kid.’
‘Love you too,’ I mumble. It reminds me of Nan this morning, and I can’t help but think back to RAGs, when I accidentally burned that hole in the gym roof and everyone voiced their disappointment at me for two days straight, occasionally interspersed with all-out yelling. The loneliness shrinks a little more – and I think it’s been shrinking for a while now, and maybe I just hadn’t noticed as it was slowly patched over with the people who’d made themselves part of this new little world. Nan and Quinn, Elliot, Emiko and Claire, and Levi . . . Levi. But that will have to wait.
Quinn finally releases me and invites me to her office for a cup of tea. ‘I have something for you,’ she says, with a sparkle in her eye.
I follow her through the stacks, and wave hello at the people she introduces me to. They all light up when she says my name, as if they’ve heard it before. She beams at me as she holds open her office door, looking sheepish. ‘Did I embarrass you? Sorry, I brag about you kids a lot.’
Her office, as she explains, is not so much an office per se, but a carrel tucked along a row of similar desks, all laden with mountains of paper and a few occupied by harried-looking librarians.
‘Here, make some space. Just watch those photos, they’re hanging on by a hope and a prayer.’
I leaf through some of the more stable collections while she fetches the teapot – it reminds me of the Dead Letter Office, these pieces of history. There are newspapers and photographs and a few Kodak slides I have to hold up to the light to see. I pick through a row, finding tiny negatives with old Warwick preserved: the arcade back when it first opened, a couple of kids in skates and kneepads, the flooded lake and the ruined library, roof collapsed from the rain. There’s even one of the post office that makes me smile. I hold it up to the light, squinting at the negative.
‘Those things are the bane of my life,’ Quinn says, hustling back. ‘I spend half my time scanning them into the archive. Is that the post office?’
I nod and she smiles, holding out a hand so she can look at it herself. ‘That’s a good one, but actually not what I wanted to show you.’
She reaches into the bottom drawer, carefully pulling out a leather-bound book. It’s large and square, and for a moment I think it’s a photo album until I see the gold-foiled lettering on the front.
‘Is that . . .?’
Quinn runs a hand over the cover, tracing the letters. ‘Your mum’s yearbook – well, not hers, exactly, so you can’t keep it, I’m afraid – but it’s her year. Someone donated it, to replace the ones we lost,’ she explains, tapping the photos from the flood. She flips through, clearly looking for something, then turns the book to face me, opened to a black-and-white spread. But Quinn’s not looking at the photo: she’s watching me, gently pressing the book into my open hands, smiling still, but a little sadder now.
I recognise the girl on the left immediately as Quinn: she looks remarkably the same, with short, cropped hair and a self-conscious half-smile. The photographer has caught them mid-conversation, arms slung around shoulders, crowded on a single seat.
