Mend

When I wake, Lance is gone. His absence is a little startling, which is strange, for a moment. But I can smell the shadow of chlorine in my room, lingering, and I smile sleepily as if he is still here.

A tinny voice calls out at me, and I sigh. Mum talks at me through the walkie talkie til I respond, and then asks if I need help getting dressed.

"No, I'm ok. I'm feeling strong today," I tell her. I can practically hear the smile in her voice when she says she'll be making breakfast, and it makes me happier, too.

I glance at the clock, and for a moment I am confused: eight am, it reads. But Lance was here in the early afternoon; how can it be eight? And then I realise that I slept the day away, and that must be why mum is happy; I have always been a restless sleeper, and the uninterrupted sleep is good for me, apparently.

I sigh and get out of bed, slowly, carefully. Breaking a bone is not on my agenda; not again, at least. I wash my face and tie back my hair, taking a quick shower and pulling on a pair of tracksuit pants and a tank top. I leave my room, my hand on the rail along the wall to steady myself. Slowly, carefully. This is my life. It is slow and careful. I have learned not to mind.

Mum is waiting in the kitchen with a plate of toast, lightly browned with butter on it; after years, she still doesn't know I don't like it like that, dad does. But I haven't the heart to tell her, and she looks so happy when I lower myself into a chair.

I smile and eat the toast. Dad practically bounces into the room, his gangly body somehow all over the place, endearingly uncoordinated. It's strange, that he is like this, because I have seen him fight, once, and he was so agile and quick that I was so startled, I lost my breath. And then pride hit me, because that was my dad on the TV, on that video, and he smiled to see me so proud.

Now I watch him take a somewhat roundabout way to make his morning coffee; it is a strange sort of dance that he and mum do, he darting around her, she ducking beneath his arm to get the milk, then passing it to him, then ducking beneath his arm again as he passes her to go back to the fridge. It is something that makes me smile as I eat my toast that I don't like; something that has taken years to accomplish, but it is perfect, and they don't even realise it. They are so in tune with each other. So perfect. So beautiful.

Dad grabs the spoon from mum's cup of coffee and mixes the sugar into his before putting the spoon back in her mug. He absently kisses her cheek as he darts around her and flops into a chair beside me, at our little table. "What?" he asks, ducking his head to blow into his mug, hands cupped around it, eyes on me. The steam wafts from the top, and the scent of coffee hits me, and I breathe it in; I've always liked the smell, but the taste is horrible.

I shake my head. "Nothing," I tell him, and he raises an eyebrow and takes a sip from the very edge of the mug. I don't tell him what I think, because if I did, my parents would think me stranger than they already believe I am. And I am pretty strange. But it is easier to be odd if you keep it to yourself.

"So... Linda called me, last night," mum says.

I stare down at my toast as I tear off the crust, glaring at it. Why does his mother have to be involved?

Mum sighs and sits down on my other side. "Syl, how long have you and Marc not been talking?"

I roll my eyes. "Mum, he hasn't been here for ages. How could you not notice?"

She raises her eyebrows in that way she always does, and, sometimes, I think she could hold that look forever and be perpetually surprised. The thought makes me want to smile, but I push it away and scowl at my toast.

"Has your toast offended you, love?" dad asks. I can see him eyeing it, and I sigh and push the plate over to him; he smiles and takes a bite from the crust I tore away.

Mum puts her hand over mine on the table. "Is this something we can help with?" she asks. So concerned. Always concerned. I wish she wouldn't be; I'm here. Isn't that enough? But, no, it will never be enough. Because soon I will be gone, and they will be here. And I wonder if, when I leave them, they will do their morning dance through the kitchen and sit at the table, and dad will eat the toast for me, like always. Except I won't be there, because I won't exist. I will be a memory in that empty chair between them.

I shake my head and try to smile for her. "No, it's fine. He's just being an idiot, like always."

"You'll fix it, then? Because Linda says he's been miserable."

Good, I almost say. But then I realise what I was thinking, and am ashamed. Because Marcus didn't want to hurt me; maybe he knew how I felt, or thought I felt. Maybe he thought I'd be jealous that he was spending so much time with someone else. But I'm not. I'm not.

"I'll fix it. In fact, I'll fix it today."

Mum smiles brightly. "Oh, that's good, sweetheart. Because I called him, before. He's coming over now."

I open my mouth, and then close it. "Mum!" I say, finally.

She shrugs, and then the doorbell rings, and her smile widens. "Oh, look. He's here!" she says happily.

Dad laughs into his coffee. I roll my eyes. "Stop laughing." He only laughs harder, and I smile grudgingly. "You're like a little boy," I tell him, ruffling his hair as I stand. He's going to work after he finishes his coffee, and his hair is standing up all over the place, but he doesn't show a sign of caring even a little. I fix his hair with a weariness that amuses me, and then walk down the hallway to my room, my hands at my sides, nothing to lean on. I am fine. I am perfect. I have been without Marcus for so long, now, that I am stable. I am not as fragile as I thought I was. I can stand on my own. This is what Lance has taught me.

But then I hear his voice, as mum opens the door. And she talks to him, but all I can hear is the echo of his voice, still, and he sounded sad, like he did when we used to stand in his garden and look at the trees, Olive too frightened of spiders to join us on our walks. We were young and naive and he was so sad at the waste of a life, at the trees that his father felled every day. It was contradictory, how he wanted to be so like his father, like the man who destroyed lives for no apparent reason. If I walked, now, to Marcus's house, and looked into the backyard, it would be a graveyard for trees, for what were once mighty sentinels, watching over us as we walked, but now are relics of a dead age. Ancient things destroyed in one fell swoop.

His voice sounds like it did, then. Even though it is deeper, it holds that same sadness. It makes me hurt. And I forget that I am stronger than I thought, because he is my friend, and I have missed his voice, have missed him. I hold onto the pole attached to the wall and make myself walk to my room. Sit on the edge of my bed. And I wait, like I always do. Because he'll come, like he always does.

Feet in the corridor. Outside my door. A hand against the wood. Waiting. Hesitating. I want to say something, but I don't. I should, but I can't. I needn't have worried.

He opens the door, slowly, and stands in the doorway. He is the same as he's always been; sharp yet soft, when he looks at me. Like Lance, in that way, except that Lance is always sharp as a blade, and the only softness is in his eyes. His hair has grown longer, and there is stubble on his cheeks and along his jaw. I breathe in, drink in the sight of him. I didn't realise how much I missed him til now, til the hole he left comes back, aching and ragged and needing him, so much, to fill the gaps.

He looks at me for a moment. "How are you?" he asks. His voice is soft and careful.

"The same as usual," I murmur. "These bones are frail." An age-old joke, so used and dry and brittle, like my smile. Regardless, he grins, his lips curving up at the corner. That smile, lopsided and familiar, brings tears to my eyes. "I missed you," I say. Past tense, because there is no doubt that he is here, now, and we are better, we are fixed.

He sees the tears in my eyes, and he comes to me and kneels in front of me, on the floor, holding my face between his palms and brushing the tears from my cheeks. I blink, and see him smile through my tears. "What are you smiling about?" I ask him, my voice choked, but my hands are over his, feeling his skin, the scar on his knuckle that he got, falling from a tree, when we were both nine years old.

"It's good to know you missed me, is all," he says.

"Of course I missed you, you idiot!" I tell him. And then we are laughing, and he pulls me carefully into his lap and wraps his arms around me, and I laugh til it hurts, until I cannot tell the distinction between laughter and tears, because it all sounds like noisy sobbing.

The laughter dies away. He smooths his hand over my hair and tangles his fingers in the ends, and then pulls back a little, and looks at me closely. "What?" I ask, after a moment. I wipe the tears from my face, and he smiles and pulls gently on the ends of my hair.

"Let's never do this again, alright?" he says. It's as if we both have no idea what really happened; it was not a fight, or a disagreement. But it was something, and we are both glad that it is over.

I smile, because it is so easy to do so, with him here. He is my friend, and he makes me happy. "Deal," I say, and he grins. Slowly, I move out of his lap, and, immediately, his hands go to help me; to assist me in settling back against my bed. It comes so easily, almost as if we were never apart.

I thank him, and he leans back, stretches his legs to the side and looks at me from beneath the chocolate shadow of his hair. "So," I say, stretching out the word. "Tell me about this girl. Is she the one who inspired this... new look?" I gesture at his stubble, and he lifts a hand to rub at his jaw self-consciously.

He laughs, and the sound is heartening. "I think I look good," he says.

"You look like a hobo," I state, bluntly.

His smile widens. "An attractive hobo."

"A conceited, attractive hobo," I agree, and he laughs once more, looking a little sheepish, as if he can't help it. "Fix it," I say.

And he carries me into the bathroom and closes the toilet lid, lowering me onto it. And I sit while he shaves the hair from his cheeks and jaw, standing in front of the mirror, and we talk about nonsense and then important things, and then nonsense again. And I learn about a girl called Hannah, with bright red hair, who loves everything that is red red red and is just as fiery. I learn that she has a hot temper, and gets into many fights -verbal, of course -but she'll just as easily fight with someone as she'll defend them. That was how they met, Marc tells me, the razor paused by his jaw, his hand steady, a fond smile on his face. He may have disagreed with something she said in English class, and she may have fought so hard that he wasn't willing to give up, and they may have been screaming at each other across the classroom about how one character was better than another, or something along those lines. And they may have both been sent to the principle. But, though she may have glared at him as they waited, once they got into the office, her words were in defence of him rather than in condemnation. His surprise had outweighed his anger. They'd gotten out. He'd apologised. She'd glared. And that was where it began.

"With her stalking away from me," he says. He smiles into the mirror, holding my eyes before dropping them to the sink. He runs water over the razor and lays it on the edge of the sink, patting his face dry with a towel. He is quiet for a moment.

"Marc?" I ask. "What's up?"

"I missed you, that's all," he says.

"I missed you, too," I respond.

He smiles. And my world feels more complete as the tear inside of me mends.

My room feels small, today. Marcus lies on the bed beside me, both of us on our backs, staring up at the ceiling. Olivia lies across the end of the bed, her feet over Marc's, mine too short to reach her, but almost touching her shoulder. Tom sits on the floor, beside the bed, his head tilted back. Olivia's hair brushes his face, and he puffs up his cheeks and blows at it. It flutters around his face and falls back against his skin, and he smiles in a rather hopeless, bemused way.

Lance sits at my desk, in the chair, slowly spinning around. I wonder how the room looks to him, as he spins, because, to me, it looks wonderfully crowded. I watch his motion from the corner of my eye. Around and around and around. He slows, and a lazy tap of his foot against the floor sends him spinning again.

"What's in there?" Tom asks.

"For the fiftieth time, Tom, you are not allowed in my wardrobe."

"Got something to hide?" he asks.

"Only a few bodies."

He turns his head to look at me and regards me seriously for a moment. I sigh heavily; Olivia laughs; Marc is still; and Lance continues to spin.

Round and round and round he goes, and I can't help but feel like I'm spinning with him. I close my eyes, because I know that he is there, and Marc is here, and Olivia and Tom are here, too; and, with them around, it's a little easier to breathe than it usually is.

I smile. Marc's fingers find mine. Gentle, careful, like they always are. And, in this room filled with my friends, I can't help but feel complete.