Everyone Says Hi

Everyone Says Hi

 

I excuse myself from the discussion my uncle’s are having about which way was quickest to get here, because, in the short history of my life, motorway stories don’t go anywhere. Pun, right?

Weaving through my family members, here to celebrate on New Year’s, I head to my room, and shut the door. I call my best friend, Sarah, to tell her, that yet again, I was caught in a mid-collision between uncles. I sit on my desk with my feet on the chair, because it looks cool.

Hi, this is Sarah Matthews. Sorry I can’t make your call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, pronto.

‘”Make your call” sounds too American; you’ve been using my Netflix again. And pronto is too Costa Coffee. Anyway, look, I need a favour, call me back will you? I’m stuck at the world’s worst New Year party. Please for fucks sake call me back and make me love life again.’

I click my phone shut; dangle my legs from the desk. I last saw Sarah two weeks ago; we had an argument over something stupid. And I never properly apologised. Stupid, stupid, boy my sister says.

+

I go back downstairs. My family regularly host New Years parties despite the fact that they hate New Year. They talk about people who died the last year:

Doug: aneurysm at fifty-two whilst on a plane.

Wendy: Glioma, was out walking and just couldn’t walk or talk.

Be us next.

One of my uncles (I think his name is Don) grabs my shoulder and pivots me round to face his beefy son, squeezed into a blue suit.

Ol’ Don has been on the red wine.

‘Now look at your cousin’

He waves at the beef guy.

‘He’s just finished his graduate diploma in Law, and is about to start work at Herbert Smith’s in the Claims department.’ He swigs some more wine.

‘This, young man, is what you should be aiming for.’ He chuckles and it sounds like he’s gagging on a Yorkshire pudding.

‘So, what are you going to do with yourself?’

He and my populist cousin stare me down.

Me, oh, well I like playing with myself - three times a day if I’m lucky. I watch the same porn video over and over.

‘Ugh, I don’t know’.

My cousin gets his iPhone out and stares vacantly at the screen; my uncle tells me about a lad he knows, just like me, who’d make a very good office worker.

I walk into the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge and drink it alone outside.

+

Hi, this is Sarah Matthews. Sorry I can’t make your call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, pronto.

‘Hi, you must be busy, but hear me out on this one. Remember at Kate Walker’s seventeenth birthday party? You and I spent the night on the garage roof sharing an earphone from my iPod and we played each other our top ten favourite songs? And when we got to your eighth: Hungry Heart? You said you liked it because it was about life taking wrong turns and how we don’t like to admit that the wrong turns excite us? Can we do that tonight? Take a wrong turn and get as far away from reality and the future as possible?

That’d be great, pencil me in if you could.

I’m making a smiley face.’

+

I sneak out of the backdoor into the frosty garden and go to the shed. Inside I find my normal cousin, Pete and sister, Jess. They’re smoking a joint. When they see me, they shit a brick.

‘Fuck, Theo, we thought you were Dad.’

‘He’s stuck talking to Uncle Paul and Uncle Gordon; I think he’d be happy for a toke. No offence, Pete’.

‘None taken’ says the son of Gordon.

I sit down next to them and take the joint from Jess.

Breathe in and out.

‘Got a girlfriend?’ Pete asks.

I shake my head.

‘What about that girl, in your Facebook pictures?’

Head shake. I assume Jess pulled a face as Pete whips out his baccy and goes quiet.

Jess puts her arm round me whilst Pete rolls another.  She nuzzles her face into my shoulder whispering

‘My brother. Poor baby brother.’

She turns to Pete.

‘Did you hear what happened to him, Pete?’

I feel my heart beat start to race.

Pete looks up ‘?’

‘Baby brother’s sad’ she brushes my hair behind my ear.

‘He needs more green, pronto’.

I have to call her.

I excuse myself, handing Pete the joint; I don’t want my sister getting any more stoned.

‘Bye’.

‘She’s not calling back, baby brother’.

But I’m already dialling.

+

Hi, this is Sarah Matthews. Sorry I can’t make your call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, pronto.

‘I know you’re pissed. Sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m a boy. Boys are stupid. I’m sorry I didn’t listen more. I’m sorry I didn’t like you’re boyfriend. I’m sorry I ignored you when you needed me. I’m sorry I wasn’t with you to hold your hand. Fuck, Sarah. Just call me.’

+

A few weeks ago, I told her I thought her boyfriend, Dan, was an idiot. He’d ignore her, make her feel like shit; would make fun of her. She didn’t like it. She showed me the cuts on her arm, that Dan understood her, that Dan made her feel beautiful. I told her to grow up. And she told me to fuck off. So I did.

We haven’t spoken since. A lot of my family ask after her, though. I tell them she’s okay. She’s fine.

+

Hi, this is Sarah Matthews. Sorry I can’t make your call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, pronto.

I need to talk about something good. Here it is:

We were once talking about your disco-dance-fit illness, as you called it. We were sat on your bed, and I said

‘Do you ever wish you could just evaporate?’

‘What?’

‘Disappear?’

‘Why?’

I showed you my rejection letter from Southampton.

‘Oh please, Theo. Don’t so be dramatic’.

‘I’m serious’.

You took my hand

‘Where are we going?’

And you whispered in my ear: ‘Evaporating’.

You led me up onto the roof, past your brothers lost Footballs, and said ‘look up’.

‘Yeah?’

‘What do you see?’

‘Grey’.

‘Exactly, it’s much more fun down here than up there, silly’.

You kissed my cheek.

‘Don’t piss off because of something that small, Theo’.

Why did you piss off?

+

At the top of the landing, I hear my mum talking to a family friend.

‘It’s been hard on Theo. He blames himself, I don’t know why.

There’s a muffle.

‘She was alone in her room, she was found in bed’.

I run to the bathroom and vomit.

+

Hi, this is Sarah Matthews. Sorry I can’t make your call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, pronto.

I demand you come back.

Come back, Sarah.

Please.

Don’t evaporate.

+

Sarah suffered from epilepsy. Never awfully; in all the years I’d known her she’d only had two fits. That’s not bad going. But it only takes one fit. One fit to cancel everything out. One fit to make you evaporate and take that wrong turn.

I walk out into the garden and lie on the wet grass.

I know you’re there I whisper

I know you think I’m silly.

Just let me go back and leave it with you with a hug.

+

Hi, this is Sarah Matthews. Sorry I can’t make your call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you, pronto.

You said it was silly to wish to evaporate, wrong to leave over something so small. I can’t hug you, or kiss you, or poke you. But I can talk to you like this. I can leave you these messages until the fucking phone bursts. Because I refuse to leave you like this.

I’ll always call.

I don’t know where you are, or what you’re doing.

But, if you want, you can always come home.  

If not, I hope it’s wonderful wherever you are

Everyone says Hi’.

+

I hang up and watch a plane full of people glide across the sky.

I hear in my ear: Don’t evaporate, Theo.

I won’t, Sarah.

I won’t.