And Off He Goes
Air tore into his lungs. Damian woke as if he’d surfaced from deep water. His heart slammed against his ribs with a violence that made him see stars. He could feel the bedsheets tangled around his legs as he jolted upright, his skin slick with sweat that didn’t cool in the room’s stillness. He looked around his bedroom and felt the weight of older bones. Muscles that were worn out.
“Hale …” the word ripped his throat raw.
Damian raised his hands back up in front of his face to rub the sleep away. The cracked and wrinkled hands signalled his return to the present. He pressed his fingers all around his body, looking for damage. Deep into his ribs, hard, searching for scratches, wounds or even fractures. Nothing. His breathing slowed despite himself. Too quickly. It was almost as if his body had decided he was safe now, without even consulting him. That it was okay. Blood could flow a little easier, and the beating of his chest could slow itself down.
“No,” he whispered. “That’s not right.”
He swung his legs out of bed. His bare feet thudding against the floorboards. They were solid and warm. Recently cleaned, by the looks of them. The bedroom looked … better. It appeared lived-in, not just existing. Damian staggered over to the mirror. Fifty-five stared back.
He scanned his bare skin, searching for any sign of injury, but found none. Damian swallowed hard, wondering what would come of his fifteen-year-old self when he woke up the next morning? He also wondered where he would wake up. If Hale found his body or …
“Hale,” Damian said to his reflection.
A lawn mower revved to life outside the bedroom window as Damian threw on some jeans and a grey shirt before making his way through the immaculately clean house. Remembering he had hired a cleaner the day before and admiring the cleanliness of it all. The contrast to what it was a few weeks prior. Once he had made it to the living room and walked onto the fresh carpet, he yelled out as loud as he could.
“Hale!”
Only the ticking of the grandfather clock answered back. That absence pressed on his chest like a weight. Worse than a threat. Worse than some kind of mockery. A cruel sense of irony swept over him. How he was the mess again, and how the house was the tidy one. He eyed his Celica car keys in the bowl by the door and grabbed them. As he swung out the front door, Kaleb, who was meticulously trimming the dense shrubbery, intercepted him. He gave him a little wave, and Damian waved back, swinging the door open to the Celica and hitting the road.
The radio was off when he hit the arterial and it remained off when he hit the old estate and turned into Cradle Street. The windows were down. Hot air rushed through the car, carrying the smell of bitumen and cut grass. Damian detailed how time had jumped and moved along, the look of houses slightly altered, the trees becoming taller, but the smell. The smell was the same. Both the past and the present. He was so preoccupied with that thought that he barely registered the turns until the road curved and the hill rose ahead of him.
At the back of the estate, Damian was relieved to see that the hill was still there, Ryan’s hill. However, it was now occupied. Through a little less bush, A mobile phone tower spread into the sky where scrub and stone used to lie. Thick cables webbed outward. Floodlights sat dormant but watchful, attached to the thick poles surrounding it. A chain-link fence wrapped the base like a warning to anyone thinking of climbing it.
The sight had changed, but the smell hadn’t, funnily enough.
Damian laughed.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Leave it to time to ruin things.”
He shut the car door, ensured he locked it, and crunched his way along the gravel to the gate. Someone locked it, Damian shook it as much as he could, but it would not budge. So, he decided to just climb it, the pole was enough leverage for his old frame. He somehow managed to get his feet hooked into the fence links. The metal bruised his palms at first, then chilled them as he gained some height. Luckily, the top of the fence had a long pole; Damian got his footing and launched himself over, landing gracefully on the gravel.
He braced for a moment, half expecting an alarm of some sort or a man with a nightstick to come out from somewhere and yell at him. Perhaps Detective Gunn was waiting in the bush to ambush him . But he was alone. And when he thought the appropriate time had passed, he made his way to the base of the tower and climbed the ladder.
It seemed to be six parts of a ladder up; each partition had a small, grated landing on it. The tower vibrated faintly beneath his sneakers, a constant hum thrumming up through his bones. Wind tore at his grey shirt, tugged at his balance, whispered and flicked against his ears.
The ground dropped away faster than he expected. But with every step, his stomach didn’t flip. He thought that maybe that was a problem? He realized he wasn’t afraid anymore, seeing death as an escape from his endless, nightmarish cycle. And so, Damian climbed higher. Because it was stupid. Because it was dangerous. Because he knew Hale would come if he pushed himself this close to danger.
At the top, the city sprawled below him. Cars crawled along the arterial like ants heading back to the nest. Houses sat nearly aligned in the new sections of the estate and a sporadic mess in the old. Life carried on. The shell of Knife Point also cast a shadow in the distance.
Damian spread out his arms, almost looking up to the sky as if he were expecting some kind of divine intervention.
“Well?” he shouted into the clouds high above. “Is this reckless enough for you?”
The wind gusted hard, rattling the tower and making it groan. A warning sign clanged against the gate all the way down below. Damian stayed put with his arms as far apart as he could manage and waited. Long enough for his legs to ache. Long enough for the sun to bead down on the back of his neck, sending it red and sweat forming under his pits.
Long enough, Damian thought, to understand that he wasn’t coming.
Long enough to panic.
That perhaps this was all over.
To wonder if this is what he actually wanted?
*
The ceiling fan rattled unevenly above him. Clicking on every third rotation. Damian knew he was back. That air again, stale and thick. When he went to sleep, he thought he would just dream and wake up in the present. But alas, the loop continues. Somewhere down the hallway, a cupboard door slammed. Followed by the dull thud of a drawer shoved shut too hard.
Damian’s body reacted before his mind caught up; his heart raced and his breathing was shallow, his muscles tensing as if bracing for some kind of impact. He pushed himself upright too fast again. This time, the room tilted slightly. The familiar rush of young adolescent blood pressure reminded him of the body he was in again.
He inspected his body again, looking for scratches, wounds, or fractures. Nothing. He even felt clean and washed. Wearing his singlet and boxer shorts. His Nokia, on charge on his bedside table. The plastic felt light in his palm as he held the power button in, waiting for it to light up with a green glow. It creaked as it warmed up, the time of eight AM coming on the screen after the opening logo.
He didn’t hesitate. Asher first, the number dialled, and the phone vibrated as it rang out. Straight to voicemail.
Damian frowned, his jaw tightened. Asher would never sleep through his phone. It was also eight in the morning; he would have been up for hours already by now. He tried again. Same result. The recorded voice sounded annoyingly calm, as if nothing in the world bothered it.
Damian pushed his hair back, feeling a little sick, mostly sweat.
Noah next. The phone rang longer this time. Damian held it close to his ear; every unanswered second ticked louder and made his heart sink further.
Nothing.
Shit.
The silence slid up his spine. His thumb just sat there. Hovered over the screen. Hesitating for the first time. He knew who he could try next, but it was the voice in the back of his head that was making him double-think the decision. Don’t overthink. Just check. He dialled the number. The phone rang. It vibrated.
Ryan answered on the second ring.
“Howdy,” Ryan said. His voice was thick with sleep, his words sounded a little blurred. Damian could picture him exactly. Hair sticking up, one arm probably across his face. “You okay?”
Damian pressed his teeth together. His mouth tasted like metal, as if he’d bitten his tongue in his sleep and slurped on the blood.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan said groggily. “What’s up?”
“Knife point,” he said, skipping everything else. “Last night. Did anything happen?”
There was a pause. Fabric rustled on the other end, Ryan must have been getting out of bed.
Then a yawn.
“I mean, something happened,” Ryan said. “It was boring after a while. I bailed when you guys did. Funny watching you pull Andy out mid-macarena so you could leave.”
Damian’s chest seemed to relax, but his throat tightened. A pressure was blooming.
“Nothing weird?” he asked, carefully choosing his words. “No accident?”
“What accident?” Ryan sounded genuinely confused now. “Nothing happened, Dove. Why?”
Damian stared at the wall opposite his bed. At the faint crack running from the ceiling corner down toward the doorframe. Reminding him of the conservatory the night before. The glass panels all blowing into pieces. Asher’s head spilling blood. The noise. Wind and fear. He’d never noticed the crack in the wall before. Or maybe he had years ago and forgotten. Slight discolouration marked the surrounding wallpaper.
“No reason,” Damian said. That’s all he could say. His voice came out flatter than ever. “Just checking.”
“You sound weird again,” Ryan said. Concern edging its way in. “Do you feel better?”
“Feel better?”
“Yeah,” Ryan confirmed. “You left early last night with Noah and that, they all said you were feeling a little second-hand.”
“Oh,” Damian closed his eyes.
“Must have just needed sleep?” Ryan laughed.
“Must have,” Damian giggled back. He could hear the fan clicking. The house breathing. Life carried on outside his bedroom window.
“So,” Ryan continued. “What are you up to today? If you feel better?”
“Um,” Damian began. “Actually, I could use your help with something.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you any good at MSN?”
*
Damian’s mum opened the door just as Damian made it to the living room to bear witness. She had a brightness in her smile that felt almost rehearsed. “Oh, hello there, Ryan,” she began, “how nice to see ya again!”
Ryan froze on the doorstep, posture stiff, shoulders pulled in as if he were trying not to take up too much space and stop his cheeks from going rosy. In typical Ryan fashion, he awkwardly looked down at his thick black watch to fiddle with the dial.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. His nervous giggle came out in full strength.
“Well, come in,” his mum said, stepping aside. “Shoes wherever. Damian will be moping later anyway.”
“I will be?Damian looked at his mother, and her stern look told him the decision was made.
But then she winked after taking another look at Ryan. Damian felt his face heat instantly, as if someone had flicked a switch under his skin. There was more to that wink than just the casual nod toward ‘moping’.
“Alrighty,” Damian nodded.
Ryan smiled. “Hi, Mrs Dove.”
“What are you two up to today?” she said warmly, with a look that told Damian she was already filing him into some mental drawer labelled boy with good influence and intentions.
Damian shot her a warning glance. She completely ignored it.
“Any friend of Damian’s is welcome here.”
They retreated, finally, to Damian’s room with the door left half open. An unspoken rule in the house.
“Hey, you have an Xbox!” Ryan announced to the entire bedroom. Damian smiled.
“Yeah,” he offered Ryan a seat on a small beanbag. “You play?”
“Only at the shops in EB Games when we come into town, they have them there. I like Spyro!”
Damian flopped onto the bed, the springs groaned in protest. Ryan found the beanbag and took a seat, using it against the back of the bed frame. The Xbox whined to life. The TV flickered, washing the room in blue light. Damian un-paused the game he had been playing, Grand Theft Auto. Ryan didn’t protest.
“We’ve got time to kill,” Damian said, tossing Ryan a second controller. “Sophie’s leaving soon.”
Ryan caught it one-handed. “Oh, we’re scheduling crime now?”
“Only minor,” Damian replied. “She always heads out with her girlfriends around midday. So, it’s a perfect time to go in unnoticed.”
They got stuck into the game. Ryan drove straight into walls. Damian fell off ledges and blamed the lag that very clearly didn’t exist. Ryan said his controller wasn’t working properly. They both laughed at one another. Their shoulders brushed now and then when Ryan leant forward and Damian tried to distract Ryan’s hands by snatching his controller away whenever he got ahead in a race. It felt normal and innocent.
Eventually, a door slammed down the hallway, and Sophie’s voice carried through the house, loud and theatrical. “I’m going!”
“Don’t forget your Keys!” their mum called back.
Damian kept the TV muted on purpose, listening in on every interaction happening outside of the bedroom. Ryan didn’t ask. He just watched Damian’s face, the way his jaw tightened, the way his foot bounced on the carpet like it had a mind of its own.
“Now?” Ryan asked softly.
Damian nodded, and they crept down the hall in socks, moving like burglars who didn’t quite believe in what they were doing. Sophie’s room felt smaller than Damian remembered. It smelled like shampoo and lip gloss, something sweet and artificial that clung to the air. Posters of bands like ‘Steps’ were alligned perfectly on her purple and yellow walls, and Hannah Montana. Clothes hung over the chair as if she had dropped them mid-thought, knowing Mum would swoop in to clean them on the weekend.
“This feels wrong,” Ryan muttered.
Damian shrugged lightly. “The truth always does.”
They sat on the floor, backs against her metal bed. Sophie’s ‘brick’ Dell laptop balanced awkwardly between them. The keypad had remnants of all kinds of food and was sticky from the abundance of magazine stickers all over the case. Damian’s fingers hovered uselessly until Ryan took over, his movements quick but careful, but clearly knowing what they were doing. Evidence being checked. Found.
“If I were a twelve-year-old with secrets,” Ryan muttered, “I’d be terrible at hiding them, I reckon.”
He was right; it didn’t take long at all. Ryan’s hand stilled on the trackpad. Damian absorbed every word, the truth of it all resonated deep within him.
“Ah,” Ryan said. “Here we are, there be more.”
Damian leaned closer. Lines of messages scrolled past with bright blocks of information that felt more like warning lights than casual chat. Names he recognised from Sophie’s friend groups and social circles flashed again and again, each one chiming in with the same sharp, sinister tone. Group chats layered on top of each other, sarcasm hardening into something colder, meaner. They almost all aimed their words at Maggie, criticizing how boyish she came across, her short hair, and that these things made her seem like a Dyke. That she did a boy’s sport and couldn’t get any if she tried.
Damian’s stomach dropped out from under him.
“Oh,” echoed Ryan. Of whom said nothing for a long moment. There was no impulse for him to rush in to soften it. Instead, he just let it sit there, ugly and undeniable.
