Forever Geek

  His friends all look at each other, and I can feel something unspoken passing between them.

  “Nope,” Noah says, more kindly than I was expecting. “’Fraid not. We haven’t seen or heard from him since his last diving trip. Maybe he’s at home?”

  “I …” I swallow in humiliation. “I’ve already tried there.”

  There’s another gale of good-natured laughter. “She’s already been to his house,” Tod chuckles. “Course she has.”

  “Oh, I’d love to have seen Keiko’s face.”

  “And Ralph’s. A-mazing.”

  Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the Hobbit, was a type of early human, recently discovered to have once inhabited the Indonesian island of Flores. It stood at just over three feet tall and scientists believe it probably shrank over time to adapt to its environment.

  Maybe I shouldn’t stand here too long: I’m getting permanently tinier by the second.

  “Have you come to win Nicholas back, crazy girl?” Jake grins. “Are you going to, like, go on one knee and propose?”

  “Do we need to get our violins out?”

  “I need a hat, man. British people wear hats at weddings, right?”

  Seriously: just throw me to a panther now.

  “I’m not trying to get him back,” I explain, grateful I’m not in a long white dress for this particular exchange. “I’m just … trying to be a good friend, that’s all.”

  They start laughing again.

  And it’s slowly starting to hit me how ridiculous I sound.

  I’m trying to be a friend.

  When he’s got four, literally sitting in front of me, and a whole family who clearly adore him at home.

  When he already has a full life, without me in it.

  Oh my God, what the sugar cookies have I been thinking?

  “That’s sweet of you,” Tod says, standing up and stretching. “But I think he’ll be OK.”

  “Yeah,” Jake nods with his eyebrows raised. “We’ve got our boy’s back.”

  “Always.”

  “We have always got Nick’s back.”

  Then they look at me pointedly.

  “Umm …” I say, taking a few jittery steps backwards. “That’s great. So …”

  One more try, Harriet.

  “I don’t suppose you have any ideas where he could have gone?”

  “Nope,” Liam says with a small, flat shrug. “None.”

  I take another step back, because he’s clearly lying. “OK.”

  “Back to the diving, maybe?” Noah suggests, looking at me narrowly. “He’s been really happy there.”

  “Yeah. Happier than he’s been in ages.”

  “Back to being himself again. It’s great to see.”

  The heat feels like it’s slipping from my cheeks into my chest until there’s a little roaring furnace in there. Because I know exactly what it is they’re trying to tell me and I don’t want to hear it.

  Correction: I cannot bear to hear it.

  “Cool,” I whisper, taking another few desperate lunges backwards and scrabbling for the exit.

  Go, Harriet. Go go go –

  “Thanks.”

  Except it’s a push door, not a pull door, and I’m tugging at an escape route that will never ever open.

  Get out get out get out get out –

  “To be honest, Harriet,” Jake adds just as I launch myself desperately out into the street. “Even if we did know where Nick was, we definitely wouldn’t tell you.”

  manage to get out of sight before I start crying.

  I stagger down the street at a run, turn the corner, turn another corner, find a random park and curl up under a tree microseconds before the tears come.

  Which they do: in uncontrollable streams.

  A few years ago a photographer called Rose-Lynn Fisher conducted an experiment called The Topography of Tears.

  Each time, after crying for different reasons, she collected her tears, dried them on small glass slides and then photographed them under a microscope. She found that they all looked very different: that the chemicals and salt levels present in tears of joy, of anger, of heartbreak, of sadness, of shame, of frustration and happiness gave each tear a unique landscape.

  Some looked shattered like broken glass.

  Others were like snowflakes or plants; some were wiry and empty, others were wide and splodged like lakes. But each of them was beautiful, each of them was hers, and each of them was totally unrepeatable.

  Because if no two snowflakes are ever exactly the same, it stands to reason that no two tears ever really are either. They all come from different places: composed from different memories, different thoughts, different emotions.

  They all make different shapes.

  And they all have different parts of you inside them.

  As I sit, sobbing quietly with my forehead on my knees until my legs are wet and shiny, I can’t work out what these specific tears are made out of.

  I just know they’re hot, and they hurt, and they won’t stop.

  I’m suddenly certain that of all the things I should be doing and all the places in the world I should be right now, crying in a park outside my ex-boyfriend’s childhood home is definitely not among them.

  Yesterday, this plan made so much sense.

  Yesterday, I was a hero, sweeping in to save the world.

  I was a prince; a knight in shining armour.

  Now I just feel like a delusional, emotional teenage girl – a crazy ex-girlfriend, verging on stalker – sobbing on the ground next to an empty crisp packet, a bottle of murky water and a steadily melting gummy sweet.

  Nick’s friends and family have made it very clear I’m not wanted.

  He’s happier now I’m not around.

  And to make this ridiculous futile gesture, I fought with my best friend, dragged my ancient grandmother on a fourteen-hour bus ride and encouraged my friends to lie for me.

  Because I’m not telling Jasper the truth, am I?

  And somehow this whole mission doesn’t feel brave or strong or smart: I don’t feel like a hero or a polar bear.

  I just feel … sad.

  In every single possible definition of that word.

  I cry until there’s nothing left to cry with. That’s the only good thing about sobbing intensely in a public place: there’s only so much available liquid in the body, and once it’s gone there’s no other option.

  Plus it’s really hot, and I haven’t had a drink for hours so I don’t think my body has that much fluid to spare.

  Sniffling, I wait a few extra minutes for the hiccups to go away.

  Then I stand up and wipe my eyes.

  I should go back to Sydney.

  I should say sorry to Nat; apologise to Bunty for dragging her here; send Toby and Rin an expensively regretful text message. I should outline the situation to my parents and somehow – somehow – try to tell Jasper what I’ve just done.

  Basically, I should dust off my usual apologies and get ready to offer them all up on a big old silver platter.

  As per freaking usual.

  Except – as I pick the rubbish up and take it over to the bin before a gallah tries to eat it – a memory suddenly sweeps over me.

  Of another time I cried on the ground of a foreign country.

  And it’s so strong, so intense, so real, it almost feels like I’ve been hit by a bike on a zebra crossing again. As if I’m curled up under my jumper in Shibuya.

  Heartbroken and sobbing my heart out in Tokyo.

  I don’t know how long I cry for.

  In fairness, people don’t normally time themselves. All I know is that I cry long enough for my face to get all swollen and weird-shaped, and not quite long enough to forget what it is I’m crying about.

  Not one person stops to ask if I’m OK. Not a single stranger asks if they can help. Not a human soul interrupts to offer poignant words of wisdom and kindness and—

  “Are you OK?”

  I sniffle and wipe
my nose on my jumper. All right. Maybe I should have been a bit more patient before I attacked the entire human race. I nod.

  “Are you sure?”

  The voice is muffled and indistinct. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Because,” it continues, “for somebody who thinks they’re OK, you spend a hell of a lot of time rolling around on pavements.”

  Slowly I remove the jumper and wipe my eyes.

  “Hey,” Lion Boy says with a small smile. “There’s my girl.”

  And I know I’m not going home.

  Because – as I post the bottle into the bin, rub my eyes with my wrist and straighten my shoulders – it suddenly hits me that maybe being the hero isn’t always easy.

  It’s not always fun or cute or romantic.

  Maybe saving someone doesn’t always feel comfortable, or triumphant, or even very pretty. Maybe princes and knights get tired too, and feel embarrassed or humiliated. Maybe, sometimes, saving someone hurts and it’s scary and risky and all you want to do is give up and go home.

  Especially when everyone is telling you to do exactly that.

  But Lion Boy has lifted me off the ground too many times for me to just leave him lying there. Somehow, I have to find the strength to lift him back.

  And now I know where Nick has gone.

  June, last year

  don’t really get sad,” Nick said, staring at the ceiling. “I’m just one of those cool, aloof guys who stays chilled at all times. You know the type. We’re everywhere in fiction.”

  We’d been dating for six months and were lying on my bed, talking, with the door open.

  Or trying to, anyway.

  Every three minutes my dad would poke his head through the door and ask if I had any laundry to do or whether I wanted a cup of tea, or tell us how the next-door neighbours were mowing their lawn again, and it was getting quite difficult to focus on our dialogue.

  I’d never seen my father so keen to discuss housework repeatedly.

  Smiling, I nestled into Nick’s shoulder.

  “Oh, right,” I said with a wry grin. “You know, scientists have discovered that there are eight primary innate emotions that everyone experiences. Are there any others you’re missing too?”

  “At least six,” Nick said thoughtfully, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe seven. But what are they again? Go ahead and remind me, Manners.”

  “Sadness,” I repeated obediently, holding one finger up and then another. “Disgust.”

  “I really hate it when people pick their noses and then wipe them on public transport as if sitting on somebody else’s bogey is some kind of travel bonus,” Nick admitted.

  “Tick,” I smiled. “Fear?”

  “Seagulls,” he said immediately. “They’re the bird versions of the head witch in Witches. Who I also am not a fan of.” He laughed. “Please don’t make me watch it again.”

  “That’s two down. Surprise?”

  “This girl crawled beneath a table I was under once, totally unexpectedly. That was rather discombobulating.”

  I laughed. “Discombobulating? Where did that word come from?”

  “I might have stolen it from you.”

  “You can have it on loan.”

  “Thanks. I’ll check it back in when I don’t need it any more.” Nick leant down and kissed my forehead. “What else? Maybe I’m more emotionally dynamic than I initially thought.”

  I held my fingers back up. “Anger.”

  “I generally only yell when I’m scared. Oh, and at my brother, Josh. He goes into my room while I’m away and takes things and breaks them and puts them back and when I ask him if he did it he says no and I want to physically smash something—”

  Nick took a deep breath. “Yeah, OK. Anger. Tick. Next?”

  “Anticipation?”

  He rolled over so he wasn’t looking at the ceiling any more and I could see all of his face. It was weird: the longer I knew Lion Boy, the less overtly handsome he seemed to me. The model-perfect cheekbones, the pretty ski-slope nose, the long eyelashes, the black, almond eyes: they were all there but I stopped really seeing them.

  All I saw when I looked at Nick now was … him.

  As if his face was made of glass and I could see straight through to the core of him.

  “It’s very confusing,” he said, studying me back with the quirk of a smile. “When I’m about to see you, I get this … jumping. Here.” He put my hand on his stomach and my hand suddenly didn’t feel like a hand any more.

  “As if there are lots of tiny insects inside there, but nice ones?”

  “That’s it. And I get a … tingle here.”

  Nick moved his hand to my shoulder, then along my arm, until he was holding my hand and his fingers were laced between mine tightly.

  “As if you’re full of fire?”

  He leant back, closed his eyes and gave that abrupt laugh: the one that sounded like a shout. “That sounds really dangerous,” he said. “Blimey, Harriet. Do we need to start carrying an extinguisher around for you?”

  And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I loved him.

  For the first time, I just … knew.

  “Shut up,” I grinned, squeezing his fingers. “That means there’s only two left. Are you ready?”

  “Hit me with it, Harriet Manners.”

  “Joy.”

  There was a silence as Nick looked at my face. I could feel him taking it all in: every freckle, every crease, every pore. The grease on the end of my nose and the line between my eyebrows from too much frowning.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “Joy.”

  We each have one and a half gallons of blood in our bodies, but for that moment I swear mine became something else: something shiny and bright and golden.

  As if I was full of light and heat instead.

  Or – I’m just going to say it – fire.

  “So the final one,” I said when I could bring myself to speak again. “Is acceptance. Taking somebody for all they are and all they want to be and everything they’ve ever been. The strong bits, the amazing bits, and the broken bits too.”

  Nick grinned and brought his face close to mine.

  “Acceptance,” he said quietly. “Tick.”

  And as he leant forward to kiss me – as I heard my father start vacuuming loudly in the hallway – I realised that I didn’t just love Nick because he was beautiful. I didn’t just love him because he was kind and calm, thoughtful and funny. I didn’t even just love him because he made me so happy, wherever he was.

  I loved all of this boy: the good bits and the bad.

  And I knew that, when it came, I would love his sadness too.

  ick’s sitting on his surfboard.

  As I turn a corner and a breathtakingly beautiful beach stretches out in front of me – bright white sand, turquoise water, palm trees, exactly like a computer screensaver – I see him immediately.

  His dark head is bent low, he’s perched with his back to me on the end of a yellow board some distance away, and he’s repeatedly jamming a piece of driftwood into the sand as if it’s a sword and he’s trying to fight four billion years of geological evolution singlehandedly.

  Nick Hidaka is nearly eighteen years old. He’s an ex-international supermodel, he’s travelled the world: he’s been to more parties, more fashion shows, more high-profile photo shoots, more countries, more airports, than anyone I’ve ever met.

  But suddenly all I can see is a little kid.

  An angry eight-year-old boy who’s throwing rocks at other rocks, kicking trees, jumping on his tiny bicycle and yelling “I hate you” at seagulls before riding off precariously down the street.

  I mean, isn’t that what we all are deep down?

  Although my inner eight-year-old never rode bikes: she was more into reading books, then accidentally spoiling the plot points for other people.

  Quietly, I watch the rest of the scene buzz around him. The sunshine is at full pelt and the beach is packed: people are playing volleyball, l
aughing, swimming, shouting, running into the sea. But he seems oblivious to them all, seated on his plastic island with his big curls matted and sticking out.

  It’s just Nick, his surfboard and his stick.

  And I’m certain I’m doing the right thing, because I’ve never seen anyone look sadder in my entire life.

  Straightening my shoulders, I take my purple rubber flip-flops off. Carefully I hook them in one hand and start awkwardly shuffling across the soft, white sand.

  I’m trying to work out exactly how to approach him without alerting him beforehand – maybe in short, jerky movements, like Victor trying to catch a sparrow – when the Brick starts ringing.

  Quickly, I grab it before Nick looks up.

  Although frankly this phone is so incredibly loud and analogue I’d be surprised if there were aliens in outer space who didn’t react to its deafening ring ring.

  “Hello?” I whisper, still looking at the back of Nick’s head from some way off.

  “It’s me,” Nat says briskly.

  “Hello y—” I start, but she cuts me off.

  “Just let me speak, Harriet. I may not agree with what you’re doing but I should have got on that bus and come with you. I’m your best friend, I had one job and I didn’t do it.”

  I blink in surprise. Unlike mine, Nat’s apologies are few and far between. In fact, when we were younger I used to keep an Excel spreadsheet to prove how sparsely distributed they were.

  She didn’t like it very much so I stopped (and said sorry).

  “Thank y—”

  “I’m not finished,” she continues. “You might be a puppy, Harriet, and you might keep running at that wall. But I shouldn’t stand in the way, and I shouldn’t get out of the way either. I should be your crash helmet. So when you do it, it doesn’t hurt so much.”

  I turn round and laugh. “Nat, have you ever seen a puppy wearing a crash helmet?”

  “Well … no. But I’m sure they do them. They do everything these days.”

  “Like a teensy pink one?”

  “I’d quite like to be a blue helmet with stars on it, please,” Nat laughs. “And maybe with a little glow-in-the dark light on the back.”