She waves a dismissive hand. ‘Right. And the fact that you’re sitting way over there like I’m going to implode if you get closer?’
I baulk. I drop onto the seat beside her, careful to not let our shoulders bump. ‘You don’t like people in your space. That isn’t a crime.’
She shakes her head with a sigh. ‘So it’s obvious even to a casual observer? Excellent.’ She peeks hesitantly at me. ‘It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just … I’m not good with people. I’m hopeless at figuring out what they want or expect. Sometimes it’s just too much to unravel, and it’s not always … comfortable. The not knowing, I mean. Other people can be very … intense.’ She shakes her head, like she’s being thwarted by the words themselves.
I stare out over the road. The last of the school pick-ups is pulling out of the gate, red tail-lights bouncing off the drizzly bitumen. It’s not like I hadn’t guessed that she has some – well, issues with social stuff. But even though my observations have been slightly more concerted than casual, I’m starting to wonder just how much I’ve actually been allowed to see.
‘Then I really don’t understand why they stuck you in Drama,’ I blurt. ‘It’s not completely bizarre to want to keep to yourself, to not want other people in your face. It seems kind of mean that they’d put you through that.’
‘It’s my own fault,’ she says with a shrug. ‘It was just a suggestion. For a moment there I actually thought it mightn’t be a totally bad idea.’ She shrugs again. ‘It’s not like I protested.’
I swallow down my words, caught by the blank tone in her voice. ‘Your parents must have, like, crazy high expectations?’ I say carefully.
She looks at me incredulously. ‘What? No, not at all. I mean, it’s not like they wanted me to get a PhD at twelve. They didn’t even want me to skip grades, no matter how many times it was suggested.’ She looks out over the grey road. ‘I don’t think my mum and dad ever really knew what to do with me,’ she says, almost as if she’s talking to herself. ‘I remember lots of closed-door conversations when I was a kid, always right before I ended up enrolled in junior softball or Girl Guides or something.’
‘Really? You were a Girl Guide?’ I say, ferreting this new information away in my ever-expanding Sophia file.
‘Briefly. When I was seven.’ The corners of her lips turn up as she peers at me again. I’m startled by this new smile, enigmatic and verging on cheeky. ‘I might have used some ping-pong balls and, ah, unsupervised cleaning supplies to build a few … concussion grenades at winter jamboree. It’s not like I blew anything up. Well, a couple of sleeping bags, but that was an accident. I wasn’t invited back, though.’
I burst out laughing. ‘Wow. I may have a totally wrong picture of you in my head.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, I have this image of little you, y’know, sketching formulas on your windows with crayons – I never pictured you taking inspiration from the Anarchist Cookbook.’
She crosses her arms, but doesn’t look displeased. ‘Any idiot can make napalm in a toilet. It doesn’t exactly qualify you for a Nobel.’
Bloody hell, what was I doing at seven? Probably trying to master a shoddy overhand shuffle, and stockpiling my words for what would soon become an ambitious bout of silence.
I’m treated to another one of those brief, shrewd glances. ‘It’s not that impressive. And … I believe I’m talking to the guy who can make his own spontaneously igniting flash paper. Right?’
It’s my turn to blush. For some reason it’s not something we’ve talked about, not directly, anyway. I dunno why. Suddenly, I’m struck with this awful realisation – like I’ve dangled my heart on a parlour rope, and she hasn’t even noticed that it’s out there swinging. Why won’t she acknowledge it? Maybe cos she sees my stupid feats for what they are: harebrained and insignificant.
Luckily it’s almost fully dark now, and I doubt she can see my flaming skin. The dark makes it harder to see what her face is doing, too, though she’s still pondering me closely.
Sophia averts her eyes. ‘Anyway. The other kids seemed to think it was cool. And my Den Mother said I wasn’t going to win friends with my “sparkling personality”, so I worked with what I had.’ She seems to shake herself out of nostalgia-mode. ‘After that my parents stopped trying to enforce the social stuff as much. But I still think they wish I’d just try and be normal.’
‘Normal?’
She shrugs. ‘Sure – a regular paste-eating, Drama-class attending, party-going kid. You know. Normal.’
‘No. I don’t know what that means,’ I say flatly.
She looks at me quizzically. And then she chuckles. ‘Well if that’s true, you’re the only person I know who doesn’t have a definition for it.’
She stands up. The drizzle has started again, so light I can barely feel it, but I can see it tumbling in the streetlights behind her. The damp has made her hair look impossibly thicker, raven pieces curling around her face. Sophia pulls her jacket hood over her head. ‘I have to go. Sorry for … sorry.’ She gives me a wave and walks away before I can unglue my stupid, worthless tongue.
I shove my hands into my jacket pockets, realising through my clearing brain-haze that I’ve been drumming them like crazy on my thighs.
I wonder if she can feel my eyes on her as she disappears into the dark, if my longing is transmitting in waves through the dank carpark. It’s an effort to keep my legs still, but I force myself to lock every muscle and sinew in place to avoid running after her. It wouldn’t do any good, I’ve got nothing useful to do or say. I need to think. I need to plan. I need to do … something. But I can still see her face, gloomy and defeated, and nothing, no matter how big, feels like it could possibly be enough.
CHAPTER TEN
The causality principle
I think I’m coming down with something. I seem to have amassed a collection of physiological symptoms, which some frantic googling indicates could be either a mitral valve prolapse, or the early stages of dysentery. My skin is clammy all the time, my stomach permanently in knots. The glimpses I catch of my brother as he skulks around our house send my insides plummeting. Being stuck in the Biology lab beside a silent Elsie makes my chest constrict. And even approaching the Visual and Performing Arts Centre is enough to make swallowing difficult. Maybe I have developed an ulcer? Trust my body to inflict some old-man ailment upon me, on top of everything else.