The Law of Inertia Read online

  See, James felt that boys who liked girls had an easy time of things. He couldn’t for the life of him ascertain why I didn’t spend my time hopping from girl to girl like a bee perusing flowers, taking samples from each.

  It made sense to an extent. If James had been interested, he would’ve had no shortage of girls queuing for his attention. He was one of those unfairly good-looking people. Having inherited the best features of both his parents, he’d burst into life with the universe’s most mathematically symmetrical face, an adorable smile, and steel metabolism. As it was, he drew the “small town” card in the lottery of life, suffering from a drought of potential partners as a result.

  Then there was me. My appearance wasn’t an issue, even if I didn’t belong in front of a camera the way James did. My standoffishness was the issue. Gemma had been a rarity; she’d snaked her way into my life so gradually I didn’t realise what was happening in time to put my guard up. By the time I thought to erect any barriers, she knew me too well to care.

  James, frustrated by my refusal to explore every fish in my vast sea when all he had to work with was an empty fish bowl, had adored her at first. Now, it seemed, he couldn’t stand her. James might have been loyal, but he prioritised his loyalty. I’d been at the top of his hierarchy of companions since we were kids, so I was safe. With those unlucky enough to have a lower rank, he could be alarmingly fickle. Apparently Gemma was now on the bottom rung of the ladder.

  The creek was growing wider now, the water rushing and crashing over the natural slope of the land in an imitation of white rapids. I stood on my tiptoes and grabbed a handful of leaves from the nearest tree, shredding them while we walked.

  “Let’s go to the beach soon,” James said out of nowhere.

  “What for? It’s too cold to swim.”

  And even if it hadn’t been too cold, I needed to invest in a pair of swimming trunks long enough to cover the full length of my thighs before we went anywhere near the water.

  James shrugged. “We can chill there without swimming, can’t we?”

  We reached the spot where the creek rushed downhill in a mini waterfall to join the river. Here, you could either follow the path to the footbridge that crossed over—the recommended walking trail—or you could break the law like James and me, walking uphill and parallel to the river to cross the tracks on this side.

  The station was on the far end of town, and not serviced often. Not many people wished to visit Rokewood Bend. We were merely a piece of pleasant scenery between more important destinations. Still, it wasn’t wise to walk too close to the tracks. The trains along here travelled at high speed, shooting past every half-hour.

  James and I were attuned to the sound of an approaching train due to many years of taking this route home. Today, the subtle vibrations on the ground alerted me that one was on its way. We cleared the tracks by several metres, treading along the overgrown grass instead.

  “Tomorrow?” James suggested.

  “Don’t you have football?”

  “Nah, it was cancelled.”

  That explained it. A night off was rare for James. No wonder he wanted to mix things up a little. “You want to go that badly?”

  “I wanna go that badly.”

  “Well in that case,” I said, hitching up my school bag, “Let’s do it. Just for you.”

  “You’re so generous,” James said, placing a hand over his heart and falling to his knees in the grass.

  I rolled my eyes and reached out a hand. He grabbed onto it and stayed on the ground, pulling me until I stumbled forwards. “Get up, the train’s coming,” I laughed, clasping onto him with both hands now.

  He rose to his feet and I stepped backwards into an uneven patch of earth as I let go of him. Off-balance, I over-corrected, staggering sideways in the direction of the tracks.

  At that moment, the train powered by. A sudden rush of air whipped me sideways like an undertow. The carriages flashed past too rapidly to see their contents. A blur of crimson, ochres and browns. The roaring vibrated in my veins, stunning me into stillness. It was barely a few feet from me.

  I was far closer than I should have been, but not in any danger, so I wasn’t expecting it when James grabbed my wrist and yanked me hard enough to jolt my arm from its socket. I fell backwards, and he caught me around the shoulders.

  “Ow,” I protested, barely able to hear myself over the rattling of metal against metal.

  “Jesus Christ, Ash!” James yelled. His fingers dug into my upper arms like a bear trap, hard enough to bruise. I tried to shake him off, but he held me in place, pulling me into his chest.

  All at once, the train passed, and we were thrown into silence. James, breathing heavily behind me, relaxed his grip. I wrestled free and swung around.

  His eyes were wide with fury. “The hell was that?”

  I shook my head, bewildered. I couldn’t see why he was so upset. Trains are limited to their tracks, after all. It wasn’t likely to swerve unexpectedly and bowl me down. “Settle down,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, scanning my face. “Normal people step backwards if they’re that close to a train,” he said. “I swear you get off on this stuff or something.”

  We both knew what was upsetting him, even if he couldn’t bring himself to verbalise the thought. James had been anxious and uneasy regarding my state of mind over these past couple of years, ever since my attempt. He tended to scrutinise me for signs that I wanted to harm myself, like a storm chaser tracking patterns in the darkening clouds.

  When I simply shrugged in response, he whipped away from me and stalked across the tracks, muttering something about “goddamn self-preservation.” I sighed and hurried after him. He pushed on without looking back until I called out an apology, at which point he finally relented and hung back until I reached him. Even still, he spent the remainder of the walk sulking in silence.

  James lived only one street over from me. It was one of the few perks of moving in with Sue and Dom. Sure, it was further from school than I was used to, and I’d stayed with more welcoming families in my time, but the benefit of living three minutes away from my best friend outweighed all of the above and then some.

  As we turned onto my street, James stole a glance at me. “Are you okay?”

  I laughed. “Honestly, yes. Are you okay?”

  Of all things, he turned red. Embarrassment seemed like a strange reaction to the question, but I’d take it over anger.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I just . . .”

  He trailed off, searching for the right words. I allowed him to struggle for a few moments, then bumped my shoulder against his. “It’s good to know you care,” I said, only somewhat teasing.

  James crossed his arms tight across his chest, unsmiling. “Hey, Ash, do you . . . do you want—” He broke off, squinting into the distance. “What’s Elliot doing home already?”

  I followed his gaze. Elliot was standing on the porch, watching us approach. I’d forgotten to call him back.

  “Hi,” I greeted him as James and I grew closer. “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I took the afternoon off,” Elliot said, hopping over the fence to meet us. “Had to sort something out. Are you free right now?”

  I glanced at James, who shrugged, looking disappointed. “Go for it. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

  “All right,” I said. I might have asked him to stay with Elliot and me, but something told me whatever Elliot had planned was out of the ordinary.

  Intrigued, I joined my brother. Usually I’d be irritated by him taking additional time off work. He missed enough shifts due to hangovers as it was, and he could hardly afford to worsen his attendance rate. But something about his expression told me he might have a good reason for it today.

  “We have to drive,” he said, nodding towards his car.

  “Where are we going?” I climbed straight into the passenger seat.

&nbsp
; “Surprise.”

  “Is this the part where you take me to a dark alley to hack me into pieces?”

  Elliot gave me a crooked smile, biting onto his lip piercing. The smile girls tended to lose their wits over. Sometimes I became jealous of Elliot’s gene pool victory. We each possessed Dad’s colouring—thick dark hair and blue eyes, although Elliot’s were a darker, richer blue than mine. But facially, Elliot was the image of our mother, with high cheekbones, thick lips, and sharp, defined edges. I, on the other hand, resembled Dad. A heart shaped face, larger eyes than Elliot but thinner everything else. The similarities between Dad and me became quite pronounced when my hair was slicked back. Which was largely the reason why I wore it wavy and shaggy.

  “All I’m saying is Sue and Dom will notice if I mysteriously disappear,” I added.

  He scoffed. “Yeah, give them a week and they might catch on.”

  Elliot and I had been in foster care for two years. Two terrible years, but not nearly as terrible as the years preceding them. In all fairness, it had its pros and cons. It all depended on the family you ended up with. Elliot and I had worked our way through quite a few. Too many foster parents gave up on Elliot’s extra-curricular activities and palmed the pair of us onto someone else.

  Our current carers, Sue and Dom, had requested to be taken off the register about a month before they took us in. They were too busy living their lives. But Alice called in a favour and begged them to have us anyway. She’d been at her wits end trying to find somewhere for us. Thanks to Elliot, we’d burned bridges with every available family in town already. There wasn’t anyone else who could take us.

  Sue and Dom minded their own business, as long as we stayed alive. This suited Elliot fine. And as long as Elliot was happy, I—well, I was okay, if nothing else.

  We pulled over in a street I didn’t recognise. I followed Elliot out of the car, and we stopped outside a small, dark grey house. Bewildered, I waited for an explanation.

  “Okay, so,” he said, spreading his arms out in a grand gesture. “This house behind me is for rent. And I applied for it.”

  “Oh.” I was taken aback, but pleasantly so. Elliot recently celebrated his eighteenth birthday, and he wasn’t required by law to stay in foster care anymore. He had a three-year leeway, until he was twenty-one, to leave, but neither of us was particularly invested in that idea. He’d been working full time at the supermarket stocking shelves for a year, saving everything he could to move out. The plan was for him to apply for guardianship of me first, in order to bring me with him. We had no intention of being separated. “Excellent. It’s a lovely house.”

  “I got accepted.”

  “Wait, what?”

  He grinned at the house, folded his arms, and shifted his centre of gravity to one side. “Better get used to the place. You’ll be living there soon.”

  “Elliot!”

  “Are you surprised?”

  I took a step closer to the house and leaned on the concrete fence. “Am I surprised?” I asked, incredulous. “How could you possibly hide this? You need to apply for the CIA or something.”

  “I didn’t want to get you excited until I knew for sure.”

  “When does the lease start?”

  “Not for two months. But that works out for us anyway.”

  “Yeah. I guess there’s a lot to organise,” I said.

  “We’ll have to speak to Sue and Dom.”

  “Do they know you applied?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not like they can stop me,” Elliot said. “I can do what I want.”

  “They can stop me though.”

  “They won’t.” Elliot was so confident in his reply that I couldn’t help but feel at ease. “Alice knows I want guardianship. She’s gonna help me with it. Don’t even stress.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be the one bringing it up with Sue,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll take this one. Don’t worry your pretty little head, mon poussin.”

  Elliot, who remembered a lot more about our mum than I did, liked to use the French pet names he’d grown up hearing on me. I’d never developed that habit myself—only the French would be sappy enough to think calling people things like ‘my chick’ was adorable, and I wanted nothing to do with it. “Call me that again and I might stay with Sue and Dom, branleur,” I said.

  Elliot grinned. “Wash your fucking mouth out with soap, mon poussin.”

  “Suck my dick,” I shot back without hesitation. At the beginning of the year, when Gemma had first met Elliot, she’d told me I acted like a different person with him. I think she was mostly shocked at some of the things that came out of my mouth around him. Hearing her say that made me conscious of it, but it didn’t affect my behaviour. Despite not being a child anymore, I suppose a part of me still wished to convince my big brother that I was his equal.

  “Ta mère est une pute,” Elliot said.

  I rolled my eyes. “We have the same mother.”

  He gave up at this, clearly in too good a mood to invest himself in an argument. We climbed back in the car, wearing matching smiles, and I sent our cousin, Bea, a text.

  We have a house!

  She responded within the minute.

  Where is it? When do you move in? Do you have a spare bed for when I visit?

  I shared the message with Elliot, and he dictated a response to me with contagious excitement.

  Finally, things were falling into place. Finally.

  THREE

  LOUISE

  September 2018

  ELLIOT BUZZED AROUND THE table by the window, laughing with the couple sitting there. Another guaranteed generous tip, courtesy of Bruno’s resident charmer.

  If our waiters pocketed our own tips I bet Elliot’s talent would’ve gotten him some resentment. Lucky for him, and even luckier for the rest of us, we pooled them, so his efforts won him countless brownie points night after night. It was probably why Joe’d promoted him to full-time almost straight away. The kid did me proud. Even though it wasn’t me smashing the tips every night, he was my best friend, so it looked good on me by extension.

  Even though he was able to turn on the charisma like a light switch around the customers, he hadn’t spoken to me or Saras all night. Saras, who was bustling around preparing drinks, didn’t seem to notice anything weird. I guessed all the little quirks Elliot had when he was bothered by something were only obvious to me. I’d known him long enough to catch onto them now. The way he was sucking on his small silver lip ring, and fiddling with his earlobe plugs, and running his fingers through the shortened hair on the sides of his head all screamed something’s wrong. Like a language only Elliot and I could speak.

  “Hey, Louise, I need to count the register,” Saras said, shoving me aside with her hip. “Out the way.”

  “Yes, your majesty, right away, your majesty.”

  “You’re such a cheeky shit,” Saras smiled, grabbing out a handful of fifties while I stood guard. For what, exactly, it was hard to say; if a customer did decide to rob the register, I wasn’t about to fight them. Not for a five-pounds-an-hour job.

  “Ten,” I said in response. “Six. Fifteen. Two-hundred-and-twenty-five.”

  Saras slammed down the half-counted wad of notes. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

  I raised my eyebrows and set about sorting through the receipts.

  “That’s what I thought. Watch it or I’ll make you count it.”

  “No, thank you,” I said sweetly.

  Saras went to school with me, and she’d started at Bruno’s about a year ago, a while after I did. She was a regular Michelle Obama, taking everything she did seriously, even a cash-in-hand, casual secondary school job. I respected that. If someone tried to rob the register with her in charge of it, she’d defend it to the death. Which was probably one of the reasons Saras was a supervisor and I wasn’t. Eh. Que sera, sera.

/>   I leaned across the counter to tap Elliot on the shoulder as he passed. “Hey you. Cheer up. You look like you have two days left to live. It’s dragging down the mood.”

  Elliot pushed past me to dump the pile of plates in the kitchen, then poked his head out. “And the mood is usually so bright and upbeat,” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “I do apologise.”

  Like I said, the sass on that guy. He was the president of Sass Island, situated in Smartass Bay.

  “Lovebirds,” Saras said, “you’re cute and all, but if you make me lose count one more time I’m telling Joe it didn’t add up and blaming it on Louise.”

  Elliot didn’t even crack a smile before he disappeared back into the kitchen. Saras finally cottoned on that he was acting weird, and she lowered the bundle of notes. “He okay?”

  “Right? He’s acting weird, isn’t he?”

  “Slightly more so than usual,” Saras said. “Want to go find out if everything’s all good?”

  “Actually,” I said, lowering my voice, “I think I already know what the problem is. He was over at mine this afternoon, and—”

  I had Saras’s full attention now, the register count forgotten. “What did you two do?”

  “What?” I asked. “Nothing. But remember when you—”

  “Tell me you didn’t have sex with Elliot, Louise.”

  Oh, ew. Because that was likely. It’d be practically incest. “Would you shut the hell up and let me finish?” I asked, balling up a receipt and throwing it at her face.

  Elliot chose that moment to come back out of the kitchen, and I went silent. Saras nodded towards him. “Hey, Elliot, what’s this I hear about you and Louise catching up without me? Where was my invite?”

  She was only teasing, but he went totally white. “Louise, don’t,” he said, slowing to a stop. “Don’t. Okay?”

  Saras and I exchanged a glance as he stalked off to greet a new table. “Tell me,” she whispered.

  She didn’t have to beg. “Remember that Facebook video you tagged me in? The ‘Elliot Taylor’ one?”