This Is Yr Life

Chapter Twelve

Kyle waited for ten minutes to make sure that Finn wasn’t going to come back out. He sat staring at Chloe’s picture listening to the silence. He didn’t move for so long that the lights above him started to dim.

Back in his bedroom he laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Over the absolute nothingness that echoed through his room and through the flat and even outside where the streets were now empty and everyone was in their homes either asleep or watching TV or playing games or talking, hugging, kissing, Kyle could hear his heart thumping against his ribcage and the blood pumping through his ears at towards the tips of his fingers. He struggled to breathe, every breath felt tighter and tighter.

He sat up, holding his head in his hands and dragging them down his face, staring at the bedroom door. The time on the wall said it was four minutes past four. He knew he would not be able to get to sleep tonight. Instead of trying to get to sleep, he decided to wait for sunrise and sleep through Sunday.

His phone buzzed and the ceiling was again illuminated by social pages. At the top of the screen, his inbox showed one new message. A small orange balloon with a number one in the centre. It bounced seeking his attention. He tapped on it and the message opened. The name at the top read Jessica Barnes. Her profile picture smiling wide next to someone who looked identical to her, only with blonde hair instead of black.

Jessica Barnes just now

Kyle! I had no idea who it was when you added me. I can’t even remember if you told me your name. Great chat the other day. Want to meet me same place tomorrow?

Also, how was your friends’ party? You should have messaged me sooner. I was so bored last night. Nothing to do. Wah.

Kyle stared at the second message and then back to the first. He clicked off the chat and marked it as unread. He would deal with it tomorrow. As he looked around his room, he saw nothing but a slight blue glow reflecting off his bed.

Kyle watched the sunrise. He did not remember the last time he had seen the sunrise but he knew it had not been since he was a teenager, when he first started to drink. There were weekends every other month where he and Jake and Buzz and Mike and Hammy had gotten alcohol from Jake’s parents; a couple of crates of beer as well as whatever else they could pilfer from the cupboard that was supposedly locked at all times except Christmas and birthdays and also, really, any Saturday Jake’s dad had felt like forgetting about the week before and even the week ahead.

The four boys drank until they ran out of alcohol. That’s what they were at the time, boys, barely fifteen. Too young to be going to parties on the weekend but old enough that their parents didn’t care what time they came home at night, if they came home at all.

And on some of these weekends where they would drink the beer given to them for free, they would sit in the back garden on plastic chairs and on fake turf that never grew nor died, only got scuffed when they had drunk perhaps one too many and tumbled over, falling face first onto what they expected to be mud but was instead something else.

Kyle could still taste the plastic black-brown sludge sometimes whenever he remembered what he could.

They had often drunk well into the night and early into the morning. Sometimes, they would go for walks about the neighbourhood and along the farm's paths behind houses and they would share cigarettes and cough and take one open beer and another one for the road, just in case. Kyle remembered Buzz would always fret and worry about running into the police or someone else, something worse. Jake and Mike and Hammy had laughed at him and Kyle had, too, but secretly, Kyle had shared this panic.

One night that faded into morning seemingly out of nowhere he remembered most was when they had spent over two hours traipsing through these farm roads and over the fields that he had spent so much of his youth running across and climbed the trees and could navigate in the darkest of nights. Where they had heard police sirens that they believed were coming for them. Where they had heard smashing glasses and smelled boys and girls older than them smoking weed by the water tower and fights outside the Adelaide, a pub that was off the main road and frequented only by locals. Nobody outside of the area knew about it and it was populated by local farmers during the day and early evening, and then at night by everyone on drugs. Kyle and the others had known about it, but never ventured inside. They had only ever heard stories from parents and others in their year whose parents either knew to avoid it or were those who revelled well into the night, breaking into the weekend, at the end of a stressful week.

And he remembered the sun cresting over the horizon that looked like they would fall over the edge if they had walked too close and the darkness had completely dissipated and there were no clouds or aeroplanes gliding over and the whole world was silent. The four of them found a grassy knoll and sat along it side by side and shared the last beer any of them had between the four of them.

They sat there for a while as the sun inched higher into the sky and then, when they saw the first dog walker of the day, they decided it was time to go back. When they got back to Jake’s, his dad was still asleep and his mother was at church and they sat in the living room staring at the Sunday morning TV laughing and delirious at the kid’s programmes and Jake’s younger brother offered to make them a breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast and baked beans and they devoured it, topping it off with a cup of tea, before going home and sleeping as the world outside went on and then eventually night fell and the next day they walked into school and spent every minute they could discussing it.

They had tried to recreate that night a few times during following gatherings but it was never the same. They had peaked on that night and it was impossible to capture that same magic of an empty blue sky, half-lost in a field that seemed alien yet was a place they could navigate during the darkest of nights.

As he watched the sunrise from his bedroom, Kyle noticed how still the city remained. Only when the Sunday morning buses glided past, empty, not even with a driver, and automated street cleaners swept along the curbs, cleaning up empty beer bottles, dropped cigarettes, fast-food boxes and the remnants of Saturday night, did Kyle realise there was still life outside.

Kyle stared from the window as the sun rose and migrated across the sky. The reflection shone into his eyes and so he shielded them until clouds formed and obstructed the glare. He felt, finally, like he could do something today. There was only one thing that he wanted to do.

He knew the cemetery opened at eight AM. On the way, he picked up breakfast for two; sausage cobs with packets of ketchup and brown sauce as well as two steaming coffees that he knew, even if he didn’t drink his, Chloe would have most of it.

The streets were mostly empty but there were some who walked passed and who he overtook as he strolled through the city streets. The hangover had been well and truly conquered. The clouds that had earlier engulfed the rising sun had since split apart like drifting continents, and now the rays warmed the icy ground. People took their dogs for walks, stopping every other lamp post to sniff and piss on, their heads twisting and turning at every person stepping past them.

It took him nearly half an hour to walk to the cemetery and when he got there, the groundsman was only just unlocking the gates. He checked his watch, it was seventeen minutes past eight. The groundsman nodded at him as he passed and he nodded in return, smiling.

Kyle was the only one in the cemetery. He arrived at Chloe’s grave where she was leaning over, hands on her knees and dressed in running gear. Pink and purple patterned, with neon streaked across the seam. Her hair was damp with sweat and her face was flushed, without makeup. She was panting but smiling. There was a number stapled to her stomach. Two thousand eight hundred and nine. Around her neck hung a gold medal.

‘You should be number one,’ Kyle said. ‘Here, I got us some breakfast.’

On the screen before him, Chloe mouthed thank you. But she wasn’t talking to Kyle, instead, she was thanking someone behind the camera who Kyle didn’t know. She took a water bottle and poured it over her head. It soaked into her running gear and dripped from rogue strands of hair onto her shoulders. Chloe passed the water bottle back, nodded at something and then pointed off camera before disappearing from view.

‘It’ll get cold,’ Kyle said, raising his voice as if she was walking away from him. He pulled his sandwich from its box, wrapped in foil that was still warm. He placed the cardboard box to his side and ate quietly, waiting for Chloe to return.

Later, Chloe was sitting on a sofa in a living room that was dim. The light from the television in front of her shone onto her face but she wasn’t looking at it. Instead, she looked towards the camera. She was knitting slowly, holding the half-finished garment up over her face. She mouthed ‘Got it?’ She smiled.

Kyle sipped at his coffee, but only once. He placed it beside her gravestone and pointed to the one he had brought for Chloe.

‘You can have both if you want. I’m still not massively keen on coffee. Maybe I just need to try the stuff that you liked.’ He poured Chloe’s coffee onto the ground beneath them and as it fell onto and washed into the grass it melted the remaining frost that tipped the leaves that had remained shadowed, undisturbed by the sun.

A video came onto the screen that Kyle had not seen before. Chloe had shrunk, her hair was curly and hung down far past her shoulders. Her cheeks had swelled and she was wearing a princess outfit. Around her, other children in costumes of vampires, astronauts, zombies, cartoon characters moved in and out of frame carrying bags that dragged along the floor, heavy with sweets and treats. Chloe held a sceptre and used it to tap the boy next to her on the shoulder. This boy was wearing a mask of a superhero Kyle remembered watching and was once obsessed with as a child. The boy turned and gestured with his hands, shooting imaginary beams of light and energy towards her. Chloe giggled and the video ended with the two of them walking away from the camera, down the street to the next house and the adults following not far behind. The camera stayed focused on the two children walking farther down the street, a street that Kyle recognised. He had known kids from school who lived near there when he was younger. He knew it didn’t look like what he saw on the screen any longer. He watched until the video faded to black and he poured the rest of their coffees out onto the ground.

‘I’ll see you soon, Chlo.’

He pushed himself up from the ground and wiped dampness from the back of his trousers, blowing a kiss towards the screen where Chloe was diving into a swimming pool. He left Chloe’s breakfast box unopened beside her grave.