Page 32 of Yearning Difficulties

‘Good to know, when you’re allegedly dating my twin.’

‘That’s just a rumour!’ I laughed, assuming that the dry note I could hear in his voice was because he knew our real secret. ‘It’s early days for me and your brother, Chris. Don’t start working me into your family Christmas card yet.’

‘Too late, Zella. Kill and I are going to be the two turtle doves and you’re the partridge in a pear tree.’

He was funny, too. A kinder humour than his brother, though. ‘Are there matching pyjama sets? I never get why people do that.’

‘What, pose for a family picture in their sleepwear? With everyone wearing the exact same thing? That’s not weird, Zella. That’s unity. That’s the dream of every young man. To one day grow up, get married and wear the same outfit as his father-in-law in an immortal tableau.’

I choked on a laugh and leaned back in my chair.

‘Hypothetically, if your brother and I are going out, I’m sure he’ll get bored of me soon and then I’ll be right back to my love-doesn’t-happen-until-your-frontal-lobe-develops theory.’

Chris made a snorting sound of disbelief. ‘That’s so cynical!’

‘Let’s talk about you, caller,’ I challenged. ‘You said you’ve found the real thing. Enlighten us mere mortals.’

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. ‘My person . . . doesn’t know what they mean to me. Not really. My ship is deep in the unrequited love doldrums. It’s not seeing safe harbour any time soon.’

I frowned, leaning forward in my chair. I was careful not to sigh into the microphone. ‘Maybe they’re listening to this.’

‘I happen to know they’re decidedly not one of the many Lake Pristine students sat listening to this broadcast right now.’

I smiled wistfully. ‘Do it anyway.’ I was dying for some poetry. ‘Please. To me, love sometimes feels like a concept made inside a boardroom by a company trying to sell teddy bears. Or maybe it’s like the dodo. Maybe it’s extinct. Maybe we’ve killed it by poisoning the environment where love can grow. Maybe we’ve forced it to die out.’

I knew somewhere in the back of my brain that this was oversharing, even for a radio show that was supposed to be about daily life at school. I was probably being mocked by students all over campus for being too earnest. But I didn’t care. I didn’t have any friends. Max was far away.

I found myself desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.

‘My . . . person,’ Chris said, ‘keeps me from getting negative. In a world full of pretence, they’re so true. Sometimes it feels like they have the whole universe inside them. And when I’m with them, I have to remind myself to see other people. To remember that the stars and planets and the sun aren’t actually gathered inside this one person’s ribcage, under their heart. They’re in the sky. I have to force myself to remember that.’

I couldn’t breathe. It was like something from a play.

‘They must be very beautiful.’ I sounded so wistful.

‘They are. But it’s more than that. I can acknowledge beauty the way you can admire a sunset. They have so much more than – um – that in them.’

He paused and then cleared his throat.

‘Sorry, I’m stumbling on my words here, but that’s because talking about them is both the easiest and the hardest thing in the world.’

‘Funny,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m not hearing that problem. I have a thousand things to say. It’s weirdly easy, this job, all of a sudden.’

‘You’re high up in the radio waves. My words have to work to fly to reach you.’

I shook my head. No one spoke like this. No one I knew spoke like this. Not Dave, with his terror of ever seeming uncool. Not my father, with his blunt sincerity. Not Max, who had never been one to dress up her words. Certainly not Killian, whose talents only extended to wounding people with his sharp tongue.

Radio Panache was in a small studio at the far end of the school building, and it had a tiny balcony that overlooked the grounds. I cast a glance over to the balcony doors and wondered where Chris was phoning from.

‘Come up to the studio then,’ I said. ‘Talk into the mic. You’re great at it.’

A pause.

‘No, I prefer this,’ Chris said gently. ‘I like the anonymity. I can’t speak from the heart when I’m . . . distracted. The truth only comes out when I know people can’t laugh at me.’

‘You think people will laugh at you?’

‘They are laughing at me. Right now. I promise you. Our classmates have all been groomed to reject any form of real emotion, trust me. It’s apathy or nothing.’