Page 41 of Seven Letters

‘Can you narrow it down a bit?’ Shocko never remembered anyone’s name. He was like a young person with Alzheimer’s, and Riley was not in the mood for a guessing game. She felt like she was going to puke whenever she thought of Sarahbeing carried into the ambulance on the stretcher – so grey and lifeless. And her mum’s face – Riley would never forget it. Mia had looked terrified. She kept opening her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Riley had never seen her like that.

She had stayed calm only because of Izzy. Riley knew she had to make sure Izzy wasn’t terrified. The image of Sarah on the stretcher kept coming into her mind all the time. She had looked like … Riley closed her eyes and swallowed bile. She’d looked dead.

‘That song, you know – something, something ne ne ne ne ne ne,’ Shocko sang.

‘Nirvana?’

‘Yes. Ken? Kobie?’

‘Kurt Cobain.’

‘Yes, him. He was a heroin addict and he was all right.’

Riley sighed. ‘Kurt Cobain committed suicide!’

‘Did he? I thought his wife did.’

‘He did, and the wife is still going strong.’

‘Well, she was into heroin, too, so there you go.’

‘There I go? What are you actually talking about? Why are we talking about these people anyway? What has heroin got to do with my aunt’s coma?’

Shocko plucked tunelessly at his guitar. ‘I dunno. You started it.’

‘No, I didn’t. You just went off on one of your crazy-arse tangents that go nowhere and have no meaning or purpose.’

‘Jeez, no need to rip my head off.’

Riley bit down hard on her nail and tasted blood. It felt good. The sharp pain cleared her head. She thumbed through her phone absentmindedly and then saw it.

‘WTF?’

‘What?’

Riley turned her phone to face Shocko. He leaned forward. ‘Is that Zach and Zoë?’

‘Yes, it bloody is.’ Riley fought back tears. Could her life get any worse? Zach and Zoë had their arms around each other. She was wearing the Superdry top that Riley had bought Zach for his birthday last month. It had cost her almost all of the money she’d made helping to paint the school during the Christmas holidays. Her mum had got her the job because Riley had said she wanted to earn her own money. She hadn’t told Mia what it was for. How dare Zach let that cow wear it? It was Riley’s present to him. She wanted to weep.

Shocko plucked a string and sang, ‘He’s not worth it. You’re a cool chick who deserves to be with not a dick. You should be with someone who adores you.’

It was so off-key and awful that Riley laughed. She threw a pillow at Shocko. ‘You need to focus more on schoolwork. You have zero musical ability.’

‘Way to crush a guy!’ Shocko put down his guitar.

‘Sorry – you know you’re rubbish.’

‘Yeah, but I’m trying to get better so a little encouragement from my best mate would be nice.’

Riley stared at the photo of Zach and Zoë. She felt raw fury rise inside her. Her last conversation with Sarah had been about Zach and bloody Zoë. Sarah had got it, how the whole thing made Riley feel. The idea that she couldn’t talk to her now made her feel sick. She needed to get outside her head, her memories before she went mad. ‘Hey, do you want to do something to make this day less shitty?’

‘My day was fine until you showed up and put a downer on everything,’ Shocko said.

‘I’ll make it up to you.’

A plan was forming in Riley’s head, one that would distract her and enable her to take her revenge on Zach.

Riley climbed up onto the garage roof and crawled over to her bedroom window, which she always left open a crack in case she needed to sneak in and out. Her mum was like a prison officer, but she hadn’t copped on to this little trick yet. Riley had messed around with the lock until she was able to make it look like it was down but was still able to wriggle it up using her penknife. In the room and outside, the window looked closed, but she could still open it. It was her foolproof escape hatch.

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