I turn in my seat, shifting away from her so that I’m closer to the window. I know wot Megan means, tho, cause I didn’t see it coming, either, but I don’t wanna talk about it. Not with some random that I don’t even know. Not on a bus with loads of people listening.
‘Anyway,’ she says, sighing and leaning back in her seat, ‘I wanted to do something to remember Al by. I’ve set up a memorial page on Facebook,’ she blurts out. ‘I just thought people could post stuff. It might help.’
I stare at her and she smiles. I feel like shouting down the whole bus, telling her to just jog on, and asking how it’s supposed to help. How a bunch of people going on about how much they miss Al will make things better?
‘I don’t need some stupid page,’ I say. ‘He’s my brother. I’ll always remember him.’
Megan blushes. ‘I know that,’ she says. ‘It’s just . . . I was trying to do something nice.’ She pauses. ‘Well, you can at least have a look. See how many people have posted things already.’ I don’t say anything, and she looks like she’s getting a bit annoyed. ‘Or not,’ she shrugs.
I dunno if she expects me to say thank you, or wot, but I don’t. She must be able to tell that I want her to clear off cause she stands up. I just keep staring out the window as she walks off to join her mates upstairs. The bus carries on. Outside, it’s starting to rain. Like, properly. Loads of it, just lashing down. Al was always going on about how crap the weather was – another reason he couldn’t wait to get outta Manchester.
I’m so busy staring out the window that I almost miss my stop. I press down on the bell just as I see the large uni building. I jump up, tripping as the bus throws me forward. As I step out on to the pavement, the rain pummels into me so I pull my hood up over my head and hold on to the straps of my rucksack.
I glance up as the bus drives off. Megan and her mates stare out from the top deck. Megan holds her hand up towards the window, like she’s about to wave. I know that she ain’t done nothing, not really, but I don’t feel like pretending to be nice, so I just turn away and head towards the museum.
Sometimes me and Megan would sit in the art room for hours. Talking about space, or Van Gogh, or all the things we wanted to do once we’d both left school. The exhibitions we’d go and see, or maybe the galleries our work would be on display at. And I never wanted our time in that art room to end. Because I knew that, as soon as we both walked out of that door, things would change. Things between us would shift. I’d go back to being alone, and Megan would just walk right past me in the corridor.
I stand there, holding my hand up towards Nathan from the other side of the grubby bus window and I feel like a right idiot. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to wave, not when he was so rude, but I do it anyway. At first, I think he’s going to wave back cos that’s what normal people do, but he just scrunches up his face and pulls up the hood of his tracksuit.
Then he’s gone. A grey blur disappearing into the rain and the traffic. Part of me is pissed off at how he acted, but the other part can’t really blame him.
When my dad died, I was angry at everyone for such a long time. Maybe cos it was easier that way. When you’re angry, it takes you away from the pain somehow. Stops it from tearing into you. There was one time when I even lost it with this old woman in the pound shop. She wasn’t doing anything really, just taking her time, counting out her change at the till. I started shouting and kicking off. Then I threw down the drink or whatever it was I was buying and stormed off. Tara was with me and found it hilarious, but I just felt proper bad afterwards. It wasn’t this old woman’s fault that my dad was dead. It wasn’t anyone’s.
It was actually a bit weird seeing Nathan. I’ve seen his picture loads of times. He’s all over Al’s Facebook and tagged in some of his Insta posts, and I’ve seen him around school, too, but I never really thought much about him. But when I walked on that bus it was almost like I was looking at Al. That I’d gone back in time or something. And it wasn’t just cos they looked alike. It was in . . . everything. The way he was sitting, the way he kept looking around, even the way he frowned.
And I liked it. That sense of the familiar.
I lean back against the bus seat and Tara looks up at me from her phone. She’s been so busy scrolling through Eli’s Instagram page that she hasn’t said a word since. Eli’s in our year at school. Him and Tara have kind of been on and off for, like, two years. But recently they’ve started to get even closer. I spent most of the summer hanging around with Tara, Eli and his mates in the park. Eli and his mates are mostly idiots, apart from Lewi who was always all right.
Tara runs her fingers through her ponytail. She dyes her hair this bright red colour and I notice that the dark roots are starting to show.
‘No way! Did he just blank you, Megs?’ she says. ‘Proper rude that. He could at least let on. Especially after everything you’ve done.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ve not really done anything.’
‘Erm, you set up that page for his brother. Look how many likes it’s got as well. He should be kissing your feet for that. Trust me, it’s more than most people would’ve done.’
I nod, but I feel like telling her that Al would’ve done it for me. He would’ve done more than just set up a page. He would’ve found another way for me to be remembered. I want to tell Tara how much I care . . . cared about Al. How even though we passed each other in the corridor at school and barely said ‘hi’, it was only cos I didn’t want people knowing he was really important to me.
Something inside me would light up whenever I’d walk into art and see Al. He’d smile and stop sketching in his notebook. ‘Megs,’ he’d say. ‘Look at this! Come and see what I’ve found . . .’ and he’d bring up a Van Gogh painting on his phone, or some YouTube video of a meteor shower, and I’d do the same. I’d show him a photo of an exhibition at the museum. Or a video of a star being born, of it exploding in on itself, then burning brightly through this outer layer of gas, and into the night.
I breathe out slowly. I don’t want to be on this bus any more. I feel Tara staring at me. She must be able to tell that something’s wrong cos she gets up, and sits down next to me. I don’t want her to see how upset I am. She won’t understand. How can she? When I kept the fact that me and Al were such good friends hidden. Hidden from her, hidden from everyone really.
‘Hey,’ Tara says. ‘You all right?’ She rests her head on my shoulder, but carries on scrolling through her phone. I nod, although part of me feels numb. Tara’s my best mate. She always has been. We only live a few streets away from each other and we went to the same primary school and everything. Sometimes we stay at each other’s houses for three or four days, and we talk almost every night. But recently . . . I dunno, things just feels different. Like there’s something missing between us. I could be imagining it cos nothing’s really changed. I still go round Tara’s after school, or hang out in town with her and the others. But there’s small moments when it’s almost like I’m not part of them any more. When I’m on the outside, just looking in, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what version of myself is the right one. The one who used to share paint jokes with Al, or the Megan I’ve always been. But it’s only for a split second. Then it goes and everything feels normal again. I’m probably just being stupid.