Gillian snorts. ‘You may have convinced yourself of that, big brother. You may even have convinced Dad – I haven’t seen him look this chuffed with you since you mastered a left-handed spring shuffle. Who knew you could make him so smiley just by cracking open a couple of uni course guides at the kitchen table?’
I can’t help but chuckle. Dad’s been looking at me with that nostalgia-glow thing he gets periodically; it’s typically followed by montagey reminiscences about the day I was born. I’ve been trying my best to dodge these moments, but as the year winds down, they feel a bit inescapable. It’s pretty disturbing how immune my father is to my best efforts at misdirection. Though, I dunno. I guess there could be worse things to deal with than the shine of his spotlight.
‘Yeah, you may have convinced everyone else that you’re a-okay,’ Gillian says, tracing a random pattern in the stars on my rug. ‘But you’ve been pulling off a pretty impressive melty-Olaf impression these last few weeks. Trying to smile while your arms and face slowly fall off.’
I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. ‘Oh, for a day with no Frozen analogies.’ I sit up. ‘Okay, maybe I’ve been a bit … blue. But really, Gilly, I’m fine. Or, I will be.’
She pulls herself up on my desk, short legs swinging. ‘Well, I know that. But the question remains – have you really given up on the girl?’
‘Gillian. That’s not … she made it clear she doesn’t have room for me. I have to be okay with that. What choice do I have?’
Gillian shrugs. ‘Maybe no choice. But, you know, I reckon there’s some unfinished business there, Joshie. You gotta deal with that stuff. Say what you mean, and then you can move on. Don’t let things fester. It’s not healthy.’
I laugh. ‘TED talks?’
‘Nah,’ she says sheepishly. ‘Might have been something Mum said.’
My eyes drift to my dark ceiling. I think about all the things I wish I could have said to Sophia. All the things I wanted to tell her but didn’t, because they somehow seemed too bare, too small and ordinary.
‘Gilly. I think I already talk way too much.’
She punches me in the arm. ‘Joshua, you are awesome. Why are you being such an arsecrack about this?’
I burst out laughing. The crappy thing is, even though I’ve got no hope left of anything happening between Sophia and me, I hate how unfinished everything feels. I miss talking to her, even though I know that words were never enough. I can talk a good game, but my patter is mostly meaningless. And Sophia doesn’t trust words. It’s proof that she’s looking for, always facts and evidence. Maybe I went about it all wrong. But if I had my time again, all I’d want to say to her is that I think she’s extraordinary. I may have bugger-all faith in myself, but I have faith in her.
Bammo.
‘I see her. That’s what I’d want to tell her,’ I say slowly. ‘I won’t pretend that I see all of her, but … I think I see what she’s afraid of. And I know I can’t make it better – well, I know that now,’ I say in answer to Gillian’s sharp stare.
Gilly’s face relaxes. It’s not even her usual cynical face. It fills me with the weirdest sense of hope.
Gilly leaps down from my desk and drops a quick kiss on my cheek. ‘I hope you get the chance, Josh.’
I lie down again as the door snicks shut behind her. Narda walks around my head in a semicircle, her purrs a soothing rumble.
Proof.
Proof that I understand. Sophia never really needed my help, at least, not in the way I thought she did. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t – don’t – want to try. But mostly, if I had my chance again, I’d want to tell her that I know it was never fair of me to hide in her shadows, relying on her amazingness, so I could keep being safe and small.
I sit up, dislodging the protesting cat. What I need is hidden behind a Philip Pullman box set, way up on my highest shelf. I drag the stepladder out from under my bed and scramble up, tunnelling through the junk. My hands grab for an overflowing folder of diagrams and carefully sourced printouts.
I fall into my chair, pushing aside the pieces of a Comtoise clock that a dozen YouTube videos have not helped me fix. I flick madly through the folder till I find what I need – a schematic, formulated with Amy on the back of a Houdini’s Appendix invoice one particularly slow Sunday and discarded soon after in irritation and resentment. With a notebook and pen in hand I open Google street view on my laptop, searching for Earth, Australia, Melbourne. I scribble a hasty version of the schematic on a blank double page, crossing out the bits that look unworkable and adding in my own switches and modifications. Crazy, jittery exhilaration builds in my gut as the impossible takes shape before my eyes.
I stare at my sketches. I stare at the map. Crap on a stick, I think I can do this.
I reach for my phone.
‘Blerg. Tell me this isn’t another cry for help,’ says a sleepy voice. ‘Cos if you’re drowning in sad ballads again, I might have to send Adrian over to stage that intervention he’s been gunning for. It’ll involve chocolate, and probably a Klingon war song.’
‘Sam, are you sleeping? It’s four o’clock in the afternoon – what are you, a toddler? Wake up, man! I need your help.’
A giant yawn rumbles through the phone. ‘Dude, I was napping. What do you need?’
‘Lights,’ I answer.
‘Lights?’
‘Lights, Sam – I need lights. This isn’t a complicated request. You have access to that sort of stuff, right? I need lights. Big ones, and lots of them. Jasper and those guys, they can get those, yeah?’
There is silence on the other end of the phone.
‘Josh, unless you are shoring up your house against a vampire attack, I’m gonna need a little more information.’
I take a deep breath. I know exactly how big a git I’m being, and exactly how douchey I’m going to sound. But I stare at my notepad and open my mouth, and my plan, unwittingly, pours out.
I run out of breath, tapering into a silence that’s echoed on Sam’s end. It’s practically filled with the clunking sounds of his brain.
I stare at my watch. The silence lasts for what feels like an epoch.
And then laughter echoes through my phone, so loud I have to hold it away from my ear.
‘Lights. Gotcha. You’re going to have to give me some time.’
‘So you’ll help me?’
I can hear Sam struggling to can the laughter. ‘Josh,’ he chokes. ‘There is no way in hell I am missing out on this. You are, objectively, insane. This sounds like the worst plan in the history of everything. Worse than the time Adrian tried to ask Annie Curtis out by sending his mum over to her house with a pot roast.’
‘That’s not what this is about –’
‘Yeah, whatever. Dude, I need to see this. Yes, I will help you.’
I leap up, boosted by a sudden surge of adrenaline and gratefulness. ‘Sam – thank you. Um, I’m gonna call Amy too, but I think I might need a few more hands –’
‘Guess you’re lucky our crew is full of hopeless romantics,’ he says dryly. ‘I’ll make some calls. But hey, Joshua?’
‘Yes?’
He bursts out laughing again. ‘Dude, you are so gonna end up as a character in one of my movies.’