You Again Read online

  Then the 45 minutes were up.

  “Time to head back to class now, Lennox,” said Mrs Martel.

  “We’re not going to talk?”

  “Next time. Thanks for letting me get on. I’m back up to speed with work.”

  Suited me. I walked out of her office and straight into Angie’s friend – the one with the lips, the hips and the black beehive hair.

  “Vivienne Lee,” she said, officially introducing herself with a theatrical handshake.

  “Lennox Jones.”

  “See you in class,” she said. Then she was gone.

  I considered going after her and asking about Angie but I let it go. I had a feeling it would be much more rewarding going straight to the source.

  I had no trouble settling in. When you move around as much as me, you learn to live by your own rules. First day at a new school, go in like you own it. You can never be too confident. Seek out friendlies, male and female, to help cross-pollinate your popularity. Never, ever show weakness. Don’t look lost or ask for directions; figure it out no matter what. Share a secret or promise to keep a secret in order to break down antitrust issues. Bring the happy to the party and make out that life is good. Fake it until you make it.

  The headaches were getting worse. I could just about handle the pain but the high-definition flashbacks were getting harder to deal with. I said so to Mrs Martel. I told her that I used to be able to just go to bed and crash out but if I got infected with a bad bout of insomnia, game over. I suffered big time.

  It was me, not the parents, who suggested a therapist in San Fran, but that was just before we packed up for London. That’s how desperate I’d become. I thought I was going mad; that expression “going out of your mind” took on new meaning – hell, man, I wanted to get out of my mind. I wanted to get as far away from it as possible – my mind was no place for a 15 year old. From the outside, of course, no one would have noticed a thing. I had everything going for me. Lennox Jones ticked all the boxes.

  Surfing used to work. Then it didn’t – blame it on the new location. I used to be able to head out into the ocean from Santa Cruz and ride with the pros or watch the proper diehards dance on a pretty big swell at Mavericks off Pillar Point. I’ve been riding all my life and have wiped out more times than I can remember. It taught me well: get wiped out, get back up again. The ocean chased out the demons. No one gets special treatment in the water; it runs the show through sheer volume and power. I experienced no flashbacks on a surfboard, I was safe. It was just me inside the barrel of a wave – protected, super confident that I would come out the other side.

  There was one significant problem with this scenario: I couldn’t stay out at sea for the rest of my life.

  “Can you talk me through the flashbacks?” asked Mrs Martel. It was our second session. No Pokémon 2 this time. Shame.

  I shrugged. “The same, never different.”

  She made no attempt to disguise what she was writing down. I read the words: repetitive and consistent.

  “How often?”

  “More often.”

  “Now that you are in London?”

  I nodded and explained how surfing in Santa Cruz had helped to minimise the damage. Now I was high and dry in London. I didn’t use this expression but Mrs Martel honed in on the obvious.

  “Are you taking drugs?”

  “No I’m not. I don’t. The flashbacks are not related to mind-altering substances,” I drawled as though reading out a small-print disclaimer. Hell, I wish. If drugs brought out the worst in me, then I could just stop taking drugs. Sorted.

  “Solvents?”

  “Never.”

  “Alcohol?” she pressed.

  “Vodka.”

  “How much?”

  “Not enough.” It was true. I tried to kill brain cells through excessive consumption of alcohol but it didn’t tame the flashbacks and just gave me an even worse headache the following morning – hard as that was to believe.

  “How much now?”

  “Barely enough. There’s no point.” I explained about how it made killer headaches even worse.

  She wrote down a few more words: no solvents.

  “What about sleeping pills?”

  “Good then bad.”

  “Can you explain further?”

  “I had a few good months. Then I guess I built up a resistance to them – the flashbacks seemed to have learned to swim in the dark.”

  “So what is it that keeps you awake at night?” she asked.

  “Gunshots,” I replied.

  I didn’t do the running this time. She sent me a message. Inbox: no subject matter. Sender: Angie Anderson.

  I exhaled. It felt good to breathe again.

  Free diving is all about control. I can hold my breath under water for about four minutes before coming up for air. The hours of practice and a drop in heart rate kick in naturally when you go into the zone. When I’m around Angie, however, I find I’m going deeper without an awareness of distance, which can be fatal. It is essential to have sufficient oxygen reserves to get back to the top. What goes down, must come up – not out the other side.

  Earlier that day, epic disaster. I freaked out at school; that has never happened before. It’s like the session with Mrs Martel brought out a warm-weather front that hit cool air the minute I stepped out into the school grounds. There was a storm just about to erupt in my head so I dodged the crowds and headed around the back of the school where I knew no one would go, unless it was kitchen staff or deliveries.

  This time my head was hearing an audio recording on loop: what keeps you awake at night… gunshots… what keeps you awake at night… gunshots… what keeps you awake at night… gunshots…

  I covered my ears with my arms and hunkered down on the ground where I hoped there might be more oxygen. This might have saved me in a fire but I wasn’t sure it would save me from myself.

  “Lennox Jones?”

  I heard her voice, which seemed to cut through the repetition.

  “Earth to Jones.”

  The repetition was fading but I was pissed she’d found me like this. Never show weakness. But she wouldn’t go even when I insisted. Then out of nowhere she swung her skateboard like a baseball bat and battered it against the trash can inches above my head. I’m used to the sound of gunshots but that noise carried vibrations right through me – a proper 4D experience.

  I was through the air like the ejector seat had been triggered. It took me a second to get back down to the level again but the silence gave me an intense, euphoric buzz.

  She was mortified. She had acted on impulse, I don’t think she ever expected such a dramatic impact.

  I was on a high. The headache was starting to clear; it was though I’d been given an injection of adrenaline. Without thinking I reached out and touched her beautiful face. As soon as I made the connection, I relaxed. She had a sedative effect on me. I needed her.

  I expected her to shake me off but she just stood there. We just stood there. I wasn’t someone who was looking for a relationship. Girls come and go. But there was something about Angie Anderson. I felt protective towards her – I guess it was the caveman side in me coming out. I just didn’t want her to get hurt. It was almost as though I didn’t want to hurt her but knew I was capable of doing just that.

  I was distracted until I met her again at a disused train station in north London. Right up to the wire I thought I was going to have to cancel because I’d started to feel like shit again. I managed to push on through and as soon as I saw her, it was as though the smoke had cleared. I was in a pollution-free environment.

  It didn’t quite go to plan. She seemed pissed that I didn’t bring a skateboard. Did we even have a discussion that I skateboarded? I don’t know. I just wanted to go somewhere we could talk. There were other skateboarders around, crawling over the concrete.

  So she left. I wanted to go after her but I clawed back some of the old me – bring the happy to the party and make out that l
ife is good. I also happen to have another rule: sometimes you have to let them go to set them free.

  4

  Lennox: velvet

  We were cool at school the next time we met. The uneventful night at the train station had been and gone. Angie said hello. I was back on form. It was great to feel less demonic, less lost. I was now a hurricane downgraded to storm status. I wasn’t on a home run though – I still wasn’t sleeping well but at least I was getting breathing space between the flashbacks. I made the most of the situation and took in as much oxygen as possible, so I could hold my breath for longer.

  After our brief hello, Angie strode down the corridor, athletic and strong. I watched her weave in and out of the randomly-moving crowd like a dancer. I had to hand it to her, she had the survivor look nailed. Yeah, I knew what had happened in her past. I’d asked around – it’s what you do when you get hooked on someone. You need details, right down to what that person ate for breakfast. It helps create a visual foundation, a timeline when you’re thinking about someone every second of the day.

  I wanted to know more about the murder. The best friend, Vivienne Lee, wasn’t open to interrogation despite my best efforts. She indulged me with titbits (Angie loves the Southbank; Angie listens to synthpop, folk music, death metal) but Vivienne sidestepped the stuff that mattered, the gutsy stuff, the personal file was a closed book to outsiders. I guess even water-boarding wouldn’t break the bond between those two.

  I didn’t back off though. I approached a less-than-reliable source – some girl in Angie’s drama class called Anastasia who seemed super keen to exchange information. Like all good gossips, she embellished, paused, danced around the facts and fudged the details before finally whispering that Angie Anderson had lost her parents. Lost not murdered, I noted. It sounded as though they were still wandering around a theme park after all these years, unable to figure a way out.

  “Lost?” I played dumb.

  Anastasia laid a hand on my forearm. “Her parents are dead.”

  I let silence communicate the shock. I was confident the expression on my face would pass her drama-class standards.

  “She was there,” added Anastasia.

  “Where?” Now she had my attention.

  “There. When her parents were killed.”

  We’d moved on from “lost”. We’d done “dead”. Now we’d arrived at “killed”. Finally, getting somewhere, although no mention of murder. I paused a beat. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more. This deeply personal stuff belonged to Angie alone – she owned the copyright and we were infringing on content. Oblivious to privacy matters, however, Anastasia was determined to continue and I didn’t stop her. I couldn’t stop her.

  “Angie was a baby at the time, no more than four months old. She was in her pram. Can you believe?” squeaked Anastasia as though these unpalatable facts had deprived her of oxygen.

  “Holy shit,” I said, genuinely shocked – no theatrical dramatics needed. I pictured the scene and actually felt a physical punch to the gut. Angie as a baby, innocent, defenceless, none the wiser that she had lost the two people who were supposed to protect her.

  Anastasia tightened her grip on my arm and pressed her body against me, whispering directly into my ear: “A junkie did it.”

  According to my father, human wants can never be satisfied. It doesn’t matter how rich people are or how much they own, they always want more. Boats, jets, homes, jewels – it has to get bigger, faster and shinier. “Wealthy people? They are just people, like the rest of us, who don’t know how to stop wanting something,” he told us.

  I wanted more. I needed more. The abridged version of Angie’s life to date was not enough. I wanted to know more but amateur-dramatic Anastasia couldn’t deliver stage directions. What’s more, she soon realised that I was more interested in Angie than her, which kinda killed our conversation dead. She pulled her best “disappointed” face and sighed, expressing the message without the need for dialogue: she was going to take her curves and press them against someone else.

  Back at Mrs Martel’s. Third session. I got a bit more gaming done and discovered that she was a gamer too.

  “You are?” I didn’t mean to sound quite so incredulous.

  “Are 45-year-old women not allowed to have an interest in a popular culture, computer-generated world?”

  “Sure, yeah,” I replied, grinning. She was something else, Mrs Martel.

  “Are you taking anything for the headaches?” she asked. Our conversations were like that. One minute we were in Super Mario mode and the next she just threw out a question that drilled into stuff that I figured was best kept buried way down deep.

  “I think I have a paracetamol-resistant problem.”

  “I want to talk more about the flashbacks.”

  “You know about the flashbacks.”

  “Yes. I do. I want to know more.”

  “Gunshots. Screaming. Silence. That’s pretty much it on a continual, repetitive loop.”

  “You never mentioned the screaming before.”

  I chewed at the side of my thumb. This was true. Until now the gunshots had overshadowed any other background noises.

  “Who is screaming?”

  Reluctant to revisit the scene I hesitated, running a hand over my head. I do this when I’m nervous but you wouldn’t know. I closed my eyes and physically jumped in my seat at the first crack of gunfire.

  “Who is screaming?” repeated Mrs Martel in a soothing tone as though to remind me that she was still there.

  The noise was insane, ear-drum-ripping loud. Gunfire, at close range. I could physically feel the pressure waves. Then I could hear the screaming, growing louder and louder until I had to put my hands over my head to shut out the hellish sound.

  “It’s me,” I whispered, opening my eyes. “The person screaming is me.”

  The internal audio faded when I looked at Mrs Martel. We sat in silence for moment as she wrote a few notes. I’d come out in a cold sweat; hands, back, all over. It was a breakthrough revelation to me but I had no idea what it meant.

  “Have you ever thought about killing yourself?” she asked, pen still moving across her page. This enormous question so lightly delivered.

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “Good.”

  A beat passed.

  “Good?” I leaned forward to make sure I hadn’t misinterpreted her. Lost in transatlantic translation.

  “People who never think about killing themselves can prove to be more cause for concern. We call it ‘spontaneous perfection’ syndrome. It means the person acts on impulse and gets it right first time.”

  I wasn’t sure how to react but I think I was supposed to take a positive from this.

  “Whereas you, you’ve thought about it but didn’t act on it, which is a normal, human reaction,” added Mrs Martel. “We tend to over-think situations, which can sometimes save our lives.”

  “Normal? That will be a first.” I smiled.

  Mrs Martel looked at the clock. Session over.

  “I think that covers the questions for now,” she concluded.

  I begged to differ but didn’t let on. She had asked me if I’d ever thought about killing myself. She hadn’t asked if I’d ever thought about killing someone else.

  The truth was, I didn’t know how to stop.

  No one could count the night at the old train station with Angie as a first date. It had barely lasted more than 15 minutes. When you’re counting down every single second until you see someone again, this would be considered an extremely poor investment on your return.

  You wipe out, you get back up again.

  I figured Angie had made the first move so I would suggest the time and place this time.

  I wasn’t quite up to speed on London so I had to make sure I didn’t fall into the tourist trap. Southbank was an obvious choice but maybe too familiar? Angie’s regular turf. Maybe. Skateboarding along the Serpentine? Nah, too predictable. In the end, I discovered that what I
was looking for was right on our doorstep: the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill. Yeah, I would have preferred a pub but it wasn’t about me. It was about someone who wanted to “just be” without a conversation soundtrack.

  It was impossible to talk to her at school. Strike that, not impossible but I knew she wouldn’t appreciate a personal conversation in a public arena. Not where we would be looked at. Not where there would be speculation and then gossip. Angie took privacy to another level; an alien concept in an over-sharing world. She had to be the only 15-year-old I knew who didn’t have a prolific online presence. No Twitter, no photo sharing, neglected social-networking pages, probably only recently activated when she sent me an email. I couldn’t find a photo of her, not one, not even a single selfie taken with best mate Vivienne Lee.

  I messaged her back: no frills just straight and to the point. Date, time, Electric Cinema.

  To be honest, I had no great expectations. Angie Anderson called the shots for sure. I just had to ride it out. I predicted that she would keep me waiting before she bombed me out – and then there would be no cute excuses to make me feel better about myself. Angie Anderson, however, was full of surprises. Confirmation came less than two hours later: “Yup,” she wrote.

  That was it. That was enough.

  We met on Portobello Road outside a diner and it was weird to see her without her skateboard. The baseball cap had changed – this time it was a distressed one with “Fernie” written across the front. She was waiting for me. “You’re late,” she said.

  I looked at my watch.

  “47 seconds late,” she confirmed without looking at hers.

  “Better late than dead on time,” I said, hoping to make her smile.

  “Is that so?” she crossed her arms, defensive position.

  “I’ve got a time zone issue going on, remember?” I danced about in front of her, shifting from foot to foot, too much adrenaline flowing to act smooth.

  “You gonna manage to sit still for two hours and not talk?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.