This Is Yr Life

Chapter Fifteen

Tonight was the night.

Earlier in the week, Kyle received a notification as he lay in bed. He had forgotten what it sounded like to hear that somebody wanted to talk to him, and at first, the ding-ding-ding that echoed around his room and bounced off the walls and vibrated his bed and flashed red and yellow light, something Kyle was unfamiliar with, made him think something far worse was happening; a police raid, a nuclear bomb attack, aliens. It was not, of course, and he realised this when his ceiling illuminated in dark blues and light blues and bouncing orange bubbles and a small off-white box in the middle that said YOU HAVE ONE (1) NEW MESSAGE.

It was from Jessica Barnes. She asked if he was ignoring her and that she had looked for him sitting by his friend’s grave the last couple of times she had visited her sister. She said that she guessed he was busy, but maybe, maybe, she stressed, maybe she would see him again soon.

At the end of the message, she left an X and then an x, followed by a third X.

Again, Kyle was unsure how to react. But he typed anyway, three times, attempting to

formulate some response until he eventually settled on saying merely that they should meet for coffee again, or maybe a drink. He said he knew a place near where his place, but that he wasn’t sure if it was anywhere near hers.

He too suffixed the message with three x’s.

He did not hear anything back from Jessica for two days. He got back from work and stepped into his living room where Finn and Lewis were sitting in silence with virtual reality headsets over their eyes; their mouths were hanging open and it around their mouths was glazed with dry saliva. Kyle knew they had been there a while, at least, and they might have not even gone to work at all today. They were dressed in their pyjamas and there were bowls of soup with the surface congealed into a dull cream skin on top. As he walked into the kitchen, the dishes were still piled up from the night before. They were not his, he knew this. He had eaten a cheeseburger, his first in nearly six years, at a small restaurant on the way home and watched as the snow fell outside and covered the streets, blanketing the asphalt with pure white that the cars without drivers still drove along.

As he finished the last bite of his burger and slurped up the last of his drink with the ice still rattling around in the bottom everyone in the restaurant heard a noise outside and they stopped and peered out, some not making the effort to move from their seats, instead craning their necks to see if there was anything worth looking at. Kyle watched a group of teenagers race towards the door with a thump as their hands and knees and noses collided with the glass and their breath steamed and dissolved and steamed and dissolved on the panes.

They turned around and pointed their stubby fingers across the road and a couple of the adults in the restaurant climbed from their seats and joined the kids.

Kyle paid for his food and wrapped himself in his layers and more layers and stepped around the people with their faces to the window and when he got outside he saw what was causing all of the interest: two, three cars that had spun out on the treacherous roads and collided into each other. By the side of the road, there was one person sitting on a nearby wall and wringing their hands, blowing on them. They were not wearing gloves or even a coat and they had trouble balancing.

Kyle assumed they were drunk.

He walked into his bedroom and logged onto his social pages and he saw that orange bubble again.

Jessica Barnes three hours ago

Finally! A drink would be great! Let me know where, I might know it. X x X

                                                                                                                                                                               Kyle Edwards just now

                                                                                                                                  Cool, cool. It’s this place on Forest Road. Xxx

                                                                                                                                                                  I’ll send you the address. Xxx

He sent her the address and while he waited for her response he made dinner. As he ate, he scrolled through articles on his phone. He saw one about the car crash and it reported that the manufacturers were claiming it was technical difficulties.

Jessica responded as he was falling to sleep. Before putting his phone down, he returned to his and Chloe’s conversation. He checked to see if she had responded, even though he knew she wouldn’t have done.

                                                                                                                                                                         Kyle Edwards just now

Hey, hope you’re good. Realise we haven’t chatted on her much in a while. I guess we’ve been busy. Do you know if Summer and the rest are going to the pub on Friday? Might swing by. Xxx

They met at the bus stop down the road from the pub. Jessica was wrapped in a purple ski jacket that had an ash-white fake-fur trim around the hood. She was wearing brown leather boots and black tights and her hair was curled at the ends. Her lips were red and shone under the streetlights.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Kyle said. ‘My roommates have been on that VR thing all week. I’m not sure they ate, I had to try waking them up.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ She was shivering, slightly. She blew on her hands even though she was wearing gloves, mittens, really, with only the thumb as the free digit.

‘Have you been waiting long?’

‘No, no. I got off like five minutes ago or something,’ she said, looking at her wrist even though Kyle could not see a watch. ‘What were your friends doing?’

‘They were on that VR thing. I think they were travelling, I don’t know where to, they said something about Egypt the other day.’

‘Oh,’ Jessica smiled and pulled a cigarette from her purse. Kyle cupped his hands around her lighter as she sparked the flame and she puffed smoke from the corners of her mouth and sucked it down before blowing it from her nose. ‘Egypt’s meant to be amazing. My friend did it last month.’

‘Well they’ve been on it pretty much all week, so I guess it must be.’

They stood in the cold after this as Jessica puffed on her cigarette. She offered Kyle one and he shook his head. The snow had since disappeared but last night it had rained and then frozen over in the morning so the roads were slicked with ice. Cars moved cautiously down the streets and people stepped with timidly over the pavements. The wind blew and cut into Kyle’s face that he turned away and faced away from Jessica. He stared down the dark streets before him and looked at lights in the windows and silhouettes of people talking and eating dinner and watching TV.

‘So, it is up there?’ Jessica said. She finished her cigarette and dropped it and stamped on it and then, with a flick of her heel, kicked it out of view and under a bush by the side of the path.

‘Yeah, about a couple of minutes walk. You been there before?’

They started to walk. Jessica stayed close. Her hands in her pockets and her shoulder brushing against Kyle’s.

‘I might have been. I’m not sure. The whole city is so different. But I guess you get that more than I do. I bet it was a total shock coming home with all this change in the last decade or so.’

Kyle didn’t reply but he nodded. They arrived at the pub and he led the way inside. It was already busy. Wall to wall there were people standing around talking, aching and stretching their voices to be heard over the music.

The music was coming from speakers that lined the ceiling three at a time before a gap where, instead of more speakers, there were small half-spherical bulbs that watched the movements of everybody in the room. When it was dark, like it was now, you could see a small red light winking at the people surrounding the floors.

The music was old, from before Kyle was born. He remembered his parents playing them as they sat stoned in the living room and shared stories that they already knew with each other and even though they had told these stories so many times that even Kyle could have finished them if he wanted to, and sometimes, when they got distracted by any random stimulant that might arise during their story, he would, they would laugh all the same and then sigh and stay silent for a few minutes after, remembering how things used to be.

Kyle tapped his foot. Jessica looked around the pub. She had taken her coat off. Underneath, she was wearing a long-sleeved dress the same colour as red wine which draped down just above her knee. Around her waist was a gold belt that pinched in above her hips that reflected what little light shone around the room.

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Sure, is there anywhere to sit?’ Kyle said, standing on his tiptoes and canvassing the room. In the corner, just like last time, Summer, Shaun, Rebecca, and the rest sat laughing around a table that was cluttered with half-finished pitchers of fluorescent drinks. Some of the steamed in from the rim and created a haze that hung above them before evaporating into the light.

Jessica said something to him just as the next song came on. It was so loud that he couldn’t hear it all he saw was her lips move, her eyebrows rise and fall. She was asking a question, he thought.

‘What? Oh. Yeah. Sure,’ he said and looked over again towards Chloe’s friends. Two of them walked towards the bar and stood on the fringes of the queue, counting on their fingers. Kyle watched them until they were lost behind the crowd.

‘Let’s go over here,’ Jessica said, grabbing Kyle’s hand and dragging him to the other side. There, they found a table where no one was sat but was littered with half-finished drinks.

‘Are you sure no one’s sat here?’ he asked as he spun the seat around on its podium and took a seat. Jessica shrugged.

‘You know what they say; get to your feet,’ she stopped. Kyle looked at her. She stared back at him.

‘Lose your seat? Come on Ky, did you even go to school. Have you ever hung out with people before?’ She giggled and tipped one of the drinks towards her, inspecting what remained. She licked her thumb and wiped it around the rim of the glass and then finished it off.

Jessica retched.

‘I don’t know what was in there, but I hope I never have to drink it again.’

‘Why did you drink it in the first place?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I want to get a buzz going. Shall we get this drink then?’ She looked at the now empty glass before her. ‘One that isn’t disgusting.’

‘Shall one of us stay here? You know, save the table,’ Kyle said. Jessica nodded. She stayed sitting.’

‘I’ll have a rum and lemonade, please.’

Kyle climbed from his seat and pushed through the throng of people dancing with only their feet towards the bar. He waited behind a girl with pink hair who was talking to someone who wasn’t looking at her. When the barman came over, she ordered a drink and looked at the person beside her and asked, ‘What do you want?’ but he shook his head, said don’t worry about it, and walked away.

After she left, Kyle stood on the pole than ran along the bottom of the bar and tried to get the barman’s attention. Across the bar, he saw Chloe’s friends. They chanted something and raised their glasses into the air before knocking them three times on the surface of the bar, some of them spilling their drinks and then downed them in one go. They cheered, stacked their glasses inside one another, and most of them went back to their seats.

‘Hey there bud, what can I get for you?’