Free Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

hurt so much; I could barely remember my unbroken self.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘We’re going to climb a tree,’ I answered.
    ‘I don’t do heights,’ she said.
    ‘It’s easy.’ My feet were white and pinched. I rubbed them and flexed my toes like a dancer.
    I chose a drooping willow that arced across the river. Its bark was serrated and tore at the soles of my feet, but Bree was watching, so I scooted up, up, until the branches levelled out. I saw abandoned birds’ nests hidden in the canopy, a deflated balloon on a string, trapped, carved initials and declarations of love etched in the bark. There was no view up there, only a sea of hazy green. And the churning river below.
    I faltered. My foot slipped.
    I felt it then, the fear of that unpredictable river. Like a dog you’ve known all your life that suddenly bares its teeth and you see that it was always wild, never tame; how easily it could turn.
    I froze. That had never happened to me before.
    I didn’t want to be dangling over that water. I knew then that Vivienne’s legacies weren’t all good, that this one was starting to eat away at me from the inside.
    ‘Come down. You’re freaking me out,’ Bree called. ‘You’ll fall and land on your head.’
    I’ve never fallen , I thought. ‘Come up,’ I called back, but my voice was small.
    ‘I’m going,’ she said. And went.
    I edged down slowly. When I dropped onto the footpath she was out of sight. I felt awkward, as if I’d been caught dancing by myself.
    I shouldn’t have showed off. What bloody use was it there, in the city, to be able to climb a tree? I ran my hand over my bare neck and I felt like crying again.
    A few weeks before she died, Vivienne woke me with her stare. I felt its burn as I dozed in the chair next to her bed. That sudden scrutiny, her stuttering breath, it made me realise that this was it. She was going. And instead of holding her outstretched hand and taking her as far as I could, I backed away.
    She felt it. And she didn’t blame me, not really.
    Beautiful girl , her eyes told me, though they were sunken and yellow.
    She had become a shadow that slept all the time. The morphine was a steady drip and it kept her from talking. When she did she made no sense. I can’t remember the last thing she said to me. Or the last thing I said to her.
    I put my boots back on and thought about trying to find Silence. My stomach whined and I realised I hadn’t eaten since the night before. A man walked past with a chocolate doughnut and a steaming coffee. He took three quick bites and tossed the last of the doughnut, minus icing, to the ducks. I nearly dived for it but it rolled into the river and the ducks got there first.
    I walked. I didn’t know where I was going—but I was used to that. I found a few green, unripe apples that hung over a fence and stuffed them into my pockets. I ate one slowly, pulling a face as the sour juice ran down my chin.
    I knew I was getting to the heart of the city as traffic slowed and grew congested. There was a rhythmic beat to the footsteps, the tooting horns, the clanging trams. It seemed like everyone was travelling in one direction and I was moving in the other, in slow motion, like a badly shot music video, mouthing words to a song I didn’t know.
    I ended up near the entrance to the train station where Silence had found me. There was a portable newsagent stand and dozens of copies of my face in black and white. I was front-page news, except I didn’t look like that anymore.
    I stopped and stared.
    The old guy shoved a newspaper at me and held out his hand for change. He didn’t look twice at my face, or the picture.
    I shook my head and he lost interest. That was how easily you could disappear.
    I wandered for hours.
    After a few laps of what seemed to be the hub of the city, I started to find my bearings. I followed a gaggle of people from a tour bus into a skyscraper with a viewing deck on the forty-third floor. Up there, I could see