My Best Friend Is a Goddess Page 21

  His voice started out joking, but by the end of the sentence it was serious, the ‘there’ so soft and quiet it was mostly just breath.

  All I could focus on was how close his face was, how his eyes were the colour of dark honeycomb. Right now, looking at him, all my limbs were liquefied.

  Dylan wasn’t smiling any more; instead he looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. His right hand pushed down on my left, and my body knew from the shift in weight that he was leaning towards me.

  Right then, Oscar started barking like mad and Dylan jumped up and went to the window.

  ‘Cat,’ he said, turning back to me and rolling his eyes.

  He returned to the couch and pressed play on the movie. I loved Up but I couldn’t concentrate on it any more.

  That was when it started: when I realised that if someone has the power to heal you, then it would be just as easy for them to hurt you. Dylan didn’t prove me wrong — because a few months down the line, he pulled away all the stitches and opened the gash in my chest even wider.

  18

  ADRIANA

  Theo and I stand in the garage, watching Dad’s car pull out. Both of us wanted to go with Em, but Dad shook his head.

  ‘I need you to stay and keep an eye on the party, Adriana.’ He looked from me to Theo. ‘Help her out with this one, please.’

  Though the headlights are blinding, I can see Em’s face through the windscreen. It’s pinched with pain. I feel horrible about the whole afternoon, floating around on my swan with the Tens instead of hanging with Emily. I knew she felt uncomfortable in the pool, and I saw her get out early, so why hadn’t I followed her?

  Because you were enjoying feeling popular, and you were worried that if you got out and walked away, that moment would never happen again.

  So I bobbed around in the pool, proud that I was fooling everyone into thinking I’m cool, and meanwhile my best friend sat in the shadows, feeling awkward, and wound up slicing open her hand. I’m a rubbish friend.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Theo says. He still looks as upset as he did when he first reached Em. ‘I should have realised how dark it was and gone first, but I was going on about all my crap as usual.’

  He pushes his hands into his pockets and stares at the ground. I don’t know what to say. It’s not your fault is the obvious, but as I know from Mum’s death, that phrase never makes anyone feel better.

  The music inside the house goes up a level.

  Theo sighs. ‘I want to call a taxi and meet them down there, but I know your dad asked me to stay here.’

  He makes ‘here’ sound like a prison, and I feel hurt. I thought he was coming to the party to get to know me? He’s not even looking at me, I realise.

  ‘I’d better get them to turn the music down a bit,’ he says, and dashes inside.

  It’s crazy loud inside the house. I look around at the throngs of people, none of whom are my friends, and all I want to do is disappear up to my room.

  As I’m about to give in to temptation, Chanel and the other Tens come in the door. They’re wearing bodycon dresses and heels instead of the shorts and cropped shirts from earlier.

  ‘We went to I Hearts Squats’ place to get changed.’ Lana smirks.

  Chanel glares at her. ‘If we were at the top of the stairs not the bottom, you’d be in trouble.’

  ‘Come on, take ownership of the ass page!’ Lana slaps Chanel on the butt.

  ‘You can kiss my ass,’ Chanel says, and shakes her bum at Lana.

  Ally and Maddy giggle. Two guys passing by stop and stare, their mouths open.

  ‘Follow I Heart Squats already and quit staring,’ Lana says to them. She waves her hand in a ‘move along’ gesture and all the Tens start laughing.

  I know I should be laughing too, but as always I feel like something’s wrong with me and I can’t relax or be lighthearted.

  ‘So can we come upstairs with you?’ Chanel asks. ‘We want to see the rest of your place.’

  The Tens give me an expectant look.

  Even though I know Dad would kill me, I nod my head and we all traipse upstairs.

  Lana peers around. ‘So, where’s your room, A?’

  I hate it when people reduce me to a single letter. I’m invisible and unimportant already, and ‘A’ makes me feel even more so. I don’t want to show them my room, because I’m worried that how uncool I am will be written all over the walls, but I have no choice. All I want right now is Emily. This whole night feels wrong without her, like I’ve slipped into a weird Alice in Wonderland world, where everything I come in contact with is menacing. Now I’m just waiting for a Ten to shout, ‘Cut her head off!’

  ‘Not bad,’ Lana says, looking around the room. ‘It’s bigger than my bedroom.’ She wanders out onto my deck. ‘You can see the whole party from here. Even the messy Ashley/William make-out session.’

  ‘Too much tongue!’ Chanel shouts down, and Maddy and Ally collapse laughing.

  I join them on the deck, wondering what it would feel like to be brave enough to say anything to anyone. To shout things to whole parties of people. If I was ever able to do that, I swear I would feel invincible.

  ‘So, you and Theo, hey?’ Maddy says, giggling.

  All of the Tens look at me. I try and make my face neutral, because I’m terrified that if I admit anything they’ll shout about it to the whole party.

  Chanel playfully bats me on the arm. ‘It’s obvious it’s going to happen.’

  ‘He’s the only one cute enough for you,’ Ally says. ‘I mean, who else would either of you date?’

  ‘Adriana, what do you think?’

  Lana’s looking at me like she’s a teacher waiting for me to answer a question in class. That’s what scares me most about her: I can never predict what answer she wants, and what would seriously irritate her.

  ‘A?’ She sounds impatient.

  I think of Theo’s face in the garage, how he preferred to stare at the cement floor than look at me.

  ‘I don’t think he likes me.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m asking,’ Lana says. ‘You’re a Ten, so he’ll go for you if you want him to. Do you want him to?’

  You’re a Ten. It’s like I’m living a case of mistaken identity, because here is a Ten telling me I’m one of them, and I don’t feel anything like these girls who act like nothing in the world could intimidate them.

  I avoid the question. ‘I don’t think it works like that.’

  For some reason they find this hilarious and fall around laughing.

  Chanel puts an arm round me. ‘You have so much to learn.’

  ‘We’ll teach you,’ Maddy says. ‘You know — what to say to him, when to be flirty and when to pull back. It’s easy once you know the rules.’

  ‘I’m guessing you don’t have much experience. You know, besides Dylan.’ Lana nods her head towards the yard. ‘Did you invite him? That’s pretty generous of you.’

  I follow her eyes — and see Dylan standing by the pool.

  ‘No, I didn’t invite him.’

  I’m surprised the words come out, my jaw is so clenched with anger. He knew he wasn’t invited. He knew, and he still showed up.

  ‘Well, we know why he’s here.’ Lana rolls her eyes. ‘Tatiana fully played him, and now that you’re back and you’re way hotter than she is, he’s kicking himself for rejecting you. I’ve been watching him stare at you — it’s hilarious.’

  ‘He’ll die if you start flirting with Theo,’ Chanel says.

  ‘I say we find you the hottest outfit, and you start dancing with Theo right in front of Dylan,’ Ally says.

  ‘It’ll be so easy that it’s bordering on cruel.’ Lana’s words seem like they should be sympathetic, but they’re almost gleeful.

  The Tens run for my walk-in wardrobe.

  Anger is the only thing that gives me the courage to head downstairs in a dress that shows too much cleavage and with my mouth painted with a lipstick, borrowed from Lana, that’s way mor
e sultry than I’d ever choose. The things the Tens have told me to do are so far out of my comfort zone that it’s like telling a fish it can breathe out of water: I don’t think I can do this and survive. But the Tens are taking photos of me on my phone, going on about how hot I look, and determination takes over.

  I want to see Dylan feel uncomfortable.

  So when we head outside, I walk close enough by him that my arm nearly touches his.

  ‘Adriana!’ he says. ‘I’ve been looking for you for an hour.’

  I look straight at him, then turn my head and keep walking. I cross the yard like someone I don’t recognise, someone with confidence. As boys turn and stare, complimenting me with half-smirks on their faces, I pretend that each one is a brick stacking up my ego.

  Who cares what Dylan once thought? They think you’re a Ten.

  I stop in front of Theo and say, ‘I want you to dance with me’, like the Tens made me repeat twenty times upstairs, with emphasis on ‘I want you’.

  ‘Of course, we should get in some practice for class,’ Theo says.

  He takes my outstretched hand, which is trembling, and I lead him to the makeshift dance floor on the deck, right near Dylan.

  ‘That guy from our dance class, the one paired with Emily, he keeps staring at us,’ Theo murmurs in my ear after he’s spun me round.

  I shrug, but something in my face must give it away because Theo’s looking at me intently.

  ‘Am I right in guessing there’s history?’ he asks.

  Maybe it’s the high of pulling off the ‘brush by Dylan’ move because suddenly words are spilling out of me.

  ‘History doesn’t cover it. You know when you don’t want to care about something but you can’t help it?’

  Theo spins me round again and when I’m facing him, he nods. ‘Yup. I had a break-up last year. For months I smiled like I was fine because everyone was watching and waiting to see me look otherwise.’ He shrugs sheepishly. ‘So when did you guys break up?’

  ‘We didn’t.’ I let out a laugh that I hoped would sound blasé, but is as awkward as I feel. ‘We were never together, we were only friends. I’m the idiot who thought we could be more.’

  I should stop talking, but Theo is nodding like he wants me to continue. Amazingly, there’s not a single line of judgement on his face.

  ‘I thought I saw all these signs, you know — he’d compliment me, and he comforted me when I was sad about my mum …’ I realise Theo won’t know about that. ‘My mum … she died two years ago.’ I’m trying to keep my voice from wavering dangerously towards grief. ‘Dylan was one of the few things that made me feel okay. That’s probably why I read the situation all wrong.’

  I feel sick telling the story, but I can’t stop now. The whole plan to seem cool and in control is a train wreck.

  ‘I went to his house on Valentine’s Day and confessed a bunch of stuff, tried to kiss him, and … and he … he didn’t kiss me back. I cried … A girl who hated me filmed it, so the whole school saw me get rejected.’

  ‘That is messed up.’ For a minute I think Theo means me, before he shakes his head. ‘Sorry, I mean the other girl, not you. You were brave enough to put yourself on the line — that’s something to be proud of.’

  ‘No.’ I can’t look at him. ‘I’m not brave at all. I left the freaking country because I couldn’t face anyone at school.’

  ‘But you came back.’ He squeezes my hand. ‘That is epic bravery. Listen, I know this probably doesn’t mean much as I don’t know you that well, but you seem like a great person. What you need to do to get over him is see it like I see it. If he didn’t realise your worth, then he’s an idiot, and you don’t want to date an idiot. Or I hope you don’t want to date an idiot — you don’t have serious self-esteem issues, do you?’ He winks at me.

  And then I start laughing, because I feel like I do and it seems so ridiculously stupid, and then he starts laughing too, but in a nice way. For a second it feels like I’ve been talking to Emily instead of a guy I hardly know. I can see why they’re friends. They’re not afraid to be real, and they don’t judge other people for it either.

  And then I stop laughing, because Dylan is heading towards us.

  Theo has spotted him too. ‘You definitely don’t want him cutting in?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Then let’s make it a no-go zone for him.’

  The track we’re dancing to has transitioned into a slow R&B, and Theo pulls me towards him, putting my arms around his neck.

  ‘I won’t let him bother you, don’t worry,’ he says.

  I know everyone’s staring at us.

  As I look over Theo’s shoulder, my eyes meet Dylan’s and all of a sudden I’m not at the party, I’m back on his doorstep and I’m pulling him in to kiss me.

  Dylan’s staring back at me, and even though his expression is one I’ve never seen before, I swear I can read his mind and he’s thinking of the kiss as well, and I can’t bear it.

  I put my head on Theo’s shoulder and close my eyes. To anyone watching, it would look like I’m lost in the moment — I’m anything but.

  Emily’s Diary

  Not long after Ade and Daniel left for Borneo, Mum went to Adelaide to meet with an artist to plan an exhibition of his work at the Jefferson gallery. Mum booked flights for me as well, which I was so excited about because normally money was too tight for interstate holidays, but I knew she wanted to get me out of the permanent funk I’d slipped into the moment Ade boarded that plane.

  I was studying the Pre-Raphaelites as part of our Year Nine art unit, and the South Australian gallery has a decent collection of paintings by John William Waterhouse, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and a few other members of the brotherhood. I love the Pre-Raphaelites because so many of their paintings were inspired by classical myths and Arthurian legends, and I was dying to see some of the pieces for real.

  The second we got to the gallery, I dragged Mum straight to the Pre-Raphaelite section. My favourite painting there was John William Waterhouse’s Circe Invidiosa. At first it was the colours that I was obsessed with — the blues and greens were like stained glass, and standing in front of them made me feel like I was enveloped in the coolness of that watery world. The woman in the painting stood in the middle of a pool, balanced on a shadowy blue monster that seemed part-fish. That alone was eerie, but it was the expression on the woman’s face that I kept coming back to. She was staring intently at a glass bowl in her hands, and pouring the contents — a liquid that was a similar green to Adriana’s eyes — in a stream into the water below.

  Mum stared at the painting as long as I did. ‘Did I ever tell you about Circe?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m guessing it’s a Greek myth?’ I’d read so many over the years, but they felt like galaxies — beyond one was another, and another, seemingly infinite.

  ‘Circe is from the Odyssey,’ Mum said. ‘She was the goddess of magic and knew everything about potions and herbs, especially how to transform one thing into another. Homer wrote about how she invited Odysseus’s men to feast at her mansion — she laced the food with one of her potions and the soldiers all morphed into pigs.’

  I laughed. ‘They were probably as annoying as the guys in my class, so I don’t blame her.’ I looked at the painting again. ‘She’s obviously pouring some magical potion into the water here too, but I wonder why?’

  ‘I can’t remember any more myths about her, so let’s try Google.’ Mum pulled out her phone and read aloud: ‘Circe Invidiosa, a painting by John William Waterhouse, depicts Circe enchanting the water to transform her rival, the beautiful Scylla, into a sea monster. Scylla was loved by Glaucus, who was half-man, half-fish. Glaucus asked Circe for a love potion that would make Scylla love him back, but Circe was in love with Glaucus too. She refused to give him the potion and instead offered herself to him. He rejected her, and Circe was overcome by such powerful envy that she turned on Scylla.’

  ‘What does Invidiosa mea
n?’

  Mum googled again. ‘It’s a Latin word meaning “to look too closely”, or “to have an evil eye”, or “to envy another”. Invidia is the Roman equivalent of Nemesis, and Ovid described her as “lean and wasted, with a sickly pale face, a squinted eye, and a tongue that drips venom”. There’s a quote from him that describes Invidia “gnawing at others and being gnawed, she was herself her own torment”.’

  ‘So she’s being eaten up by jealousy,’ I said.

  I thought of the feeling I got when I saw my classmates’ dads picking them up after school, or when they came to watch our end-of-year presentations. It felt like I was starving, and there was nothing on earth that could fill me up.

  ‘Envy, not jealousy,’ Mum said.

  I shrugged. ‘But they’re the same thing, right?’

  ‘They’re very similar, but there’s a key difference. Jealousy is usually about a third party — a fear of losing something or someone, like a lover, to a rival. Envy is when you want something that someone else has, usually a personal quality that you feel you don’t have yourself. You might be envious that someone else can sing, or has a better house, or is more beautiful than you are. It’s looking at someone with an evil eye and thinking Why isn’t that me? Why does she have it, and I don’t?’

  ‘So technically Circe is jealous, not envious?’ I said.

  ‘I think it’s a little of both,’ Mum said, looking at Circe’s expression. ‘She’s jealous of course, because it’s a love triangle. But she’s probably envious of Scylla’s beauty too, which is why she’s turning her into a monster. Her envy has become poisonous, just like the potion she’s pouring into the grotto.’

  I bought a postcard of the painting to put on my bedroom wall back home, like I do with any piece of art I fall head over heels for. Whenever the father-envy started to take hold, I’d look at Circe’s face as a warning that feeling this way is like having a wolf latch onto your side and, instead of fighting him off, you encourage him to feast.

  Now I know it’s not that simple. Sometimes envy is insidious, rather than overtaking you all at once. It can start with a thought here and another thought there, a slight niggle that leaves you feeling down but you don’t know why.