I scowl. ‘Tobias, how is it that we both emerged from the same uterus, and yet you have not managed to glean even the vaguest Who knowledge?’
Toby rolls his eyes. ‘I’ve been busy retaining useful information. Or trying to. Not all of us have unlimited capacity to squander on angst and dudes –’
I shove him in the shoulder and he stumbles sideways into the fridge. His face is neutral, but I think he might actually have been trying to crack a joke.
‘Hey, Sophia?’ he calls out. I pause in the kitchen doorway and turn around. Toby clears his throat again. ‘You’ll be okay. You know that, right?’
Statistically, no, I don’t know that at all. There is every possibility that I will graduate with sweeping aces like everyone expects, but then stumble into my adult life and meet a sliding series of failures and disappointments. There is more than a slim probability that everything that is exceptional about me now will turn out to be redundant. Fact: If you throw a group of geniuses in a room, someone has to be the dumb-arse.
‘Sure, Toby,’ I say with a conviction I’m not sure I’ll ever truly feel. ‘I’ll be fine.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The potential of free particles
I have never wagged school in my life. It’s not that I’ve feared the wrath of my teachers, I’ve just always had this vague suspicion that some unknown catastrophe will befall me if I break the rules. The strange thing is, I return to school, and not one person comments. Life seems have continued apace without me, and a week passes without any side-eyes or questions. I suppose I should feel insulted, but instead, I’m oddly comforted. No-one notices me or cares what I do, and the realisation is strangely liberating.
Of course, no amount of epiphanies can assuage the fact that there are still six weeks of school to go, and my problems have not miraculously solved themselves.
I’m standing in the swirl of lunchtime chaos, trying to decide which way to go. I’ve been spending most of my lunch breaks in the new library, having discovered this really great documentary on Hilbert’s Tenth Problem, which Mr Simpson, our librarian, has been letting me watch in one of the AV rooms. Today, though, it’s sunny outside, and I’m feeling particularly antsy.
I glance to my left, my eyes drawn through the crowds. Joshua is at the far end of the corridor, wrestling with his bag. Damien is beside him, as he always seems to be lately, nattering something that makes Joshua smile.
By now I should be used to the erratic heartbeat every time I catch a glimpse of him. I don’t know why it hasn’t gone away yet – logically, lack of proximity should have diminished it. But the ache is still there, novel and raw.
I turn away. There’s some sort of commotion happening near me, but I register only the hum of it. Way down the other end of the corridor, on my right, is Elsie. She’s looking at one of the hallway noticeboards, her black topknot neat and severe. Elsie has still not spoken to me; I have not worked up the courage to speak to her, either. The few times I have ventured to the old library at lunch, she hasn’t been there, but I have seen her a couple of times near the basketball courts with Nina and Marcus and their friends, looking blank and bored. Once, when the rain let up, I saw her sitting alone on her blazer on the edge of the East Lawn, her head buried in a textbook.
My feet are locked in place between these two people, as essential as charged electrons circling around me. But no, that’s not accurate, or fair. I am not the centre here. And I want no-one’s energy to revolve around me.
I glance at Elsie again. She’s still staring at the noticeboard, but even from here, I can tell she’s not really reading it. I square my shoulders. I need to step up to the plate, to grab the bull by the horns, to … well, I’m sure there are a thousand sports metaphors. I need to do something. I need Elsie to be my friend again. Anything else is unthinkable.
Someone jostles me, snapping me out of my fugue. The year-eleven boys’ soccer team is hurtling through the corridors on the way to practice, pushing through the crowd in a blue-and-white, Dencorub-scented herd. They’re trying to manoeuvre some giant mesh bags of equipment, and apparently lack both coordination and spatial awareness. They seem unaware that there are other people here, and the entire team seems to be trying to fit through at once.
It’s too crowded for me to move anywhere. A booted foot steps on my toe, and my face becomes jammed in a fragrant armpit. I try to stumble backwards, but the owner of the armpit grabs my arm and yanks me to one side. I find myself shoved against the corridor wall, eighty-odd kilos of soccer-guy pressed against me.
‘Let me go,’ I yelp.
‘Yeah, hang on,’ he says distractedly, his eyes on his teammates and their ineffectual activity. His bare thigh in barely-there shorts is pressed against mine, and his hand is clammy, and he smells like Gatorade. My lungs are trapped behind him, squashed against his back. I try to move but my legs have become liquid. Panic, blind and choking, rises from the depths of my belly. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
Oh Christ, this is how I’m going to die. In the shitty school hallway, with a squashed egg sandwich in my pocket, asphyxiated by armpit sweat and without even a Cole Prize to my name –
‘Oi! Dude, did you not hear her? Or have too many kicks to the head turned your temporal lobe to mush?’
I force open an eye. Elsie is standing just beyond the wall of boy, her hands on her hips. She scowls, gesturing impatiently. ‘Come on, dickhead. Move.’
The guy turns, and almost seems startled when he sees me behind him. He lets go of my arm quickly. I stumble towards Elsie, my breathing ragged, my heart pounding like it’s about to burst through my skin. Elsie all but scoops me behind her.
‘Get some peripheral vision, a-hole,’ she snaps.
The guy – who I now see is one of the clarinet players in the school band – looks briefly sheepish, before he is caught in the tide of the rest of the team and swept down the corridor.
I suck in a few desperate mouthfuls of air. A sheen of sweat covers my skin, slick and cold, but I keep breathing, until the panic ebbs into a quiet, woozy murmur.
Eventually I look up. But Elsie’s eyes aren’t on me. Joshua has materialised just a few feet away, his school bag discarded at the other end of the corridor. He glances at me, and at Elsie, and then back at me, his expression all twisted and torn. But then he looks at Elsie again, and something passes between them. Whatever it is makes his face relax. He smiles, just the slightest lift at the corners of his mouth. Then he turns and walks away.
My voice seems to have lost all volume. ‘Elsie,’ I croak.
Elsie shakes her head. ‘You need air. Come on.’
She walks ahead, sneaking looks over her shoulder as I follow behind. I inhale giant mouthfuls of the fresh, cool breeze as we push through the double doors.
Elsie turns with a flourish. ‘Are you okay?’