Free Afterlight by Rebecca Lim

top of Gran’s head since like, uh, 2012.
    ‘Gran,’ I mumbled. ‘This is Jordan Haig, a…a guy from my year. We’re just going out…for
a while.’
    The words for a while came out sounding funny because the sudden look of hope on
Gran’s face before she quickly swallowed it down was painful to see. She’d looked
the way I was feeling. I’d have to have a quiet talk with her later, let her down
gently.
    But Jordan didn’t help things by saying, ‘Being away from Soph, not being able to
see her…has almost killed me, Mrs Teague.’
    I think Gran’s breath caught in her throat the same instant mine did. It wasn’t what
he’d just said, which my short-term auditory memory was having trouble processing
because it was the smoothest-sounding lie I’d ever heard. It was that he hadn’t called
me Storkie or Stork the way everyone else did around Gran when they were asking for
me. He’d called me by my real name. I didn’t think he’d even known it.
    He was good. So good, I almost believed him.
    ‘It’s an honour, Mrs Teague,’ Jordan added, politely sticking out his right hand,
silver jangling. ‘I’ve been asking to meet you, but you know how she is.’ He rolled
his eyes.
    Gran grasped Jordan’s hand, glaring up into his face as they shook firmly. As she
looked him over, her expression softened. I could tell she liked him, even though
her gaze narrowed momentarily when she clocked the edge of the thin, dark tattoo
winding around his right wrist, still visible under all the leather and silver and
stone.
    But Dad had had one himself. A big Asian dragon with claws and bulging eyes that
had worked its way down between his shoulder blades and seemed to blur at the edges,
fading as he grew older. The Teagues were no strangers to tattooed men.
    ‘Well, Soph,’ Gran said, too cheerfully and loudly after a moment in which I caught
her remembering, too, ‘you might finally have found yourself a keeper. Enjoy yourselves,
darlings, you deserve a bit of time out.’
    She ushered us protectively down the back stairs and through the kitchen past Cook
before I’d even realised I was moving. At the fire exit, she pushed down on the panic
bar securing the fire exit from the inside and propped the door open with her hip.
    For a moment, she just stared up at me, looking like she wanted to say something.
Instead, she reached up and pushed my impossible hair back from my forehead then
hastily swatted Jordan and me out onto the garbage-slick bluestone cobbles of Sancerre
Lane before Jordan could change his mind about taking me out.
    As she slammed the fire door shut, I could hear her bellowing at someone to Get the
bleeding hell in line . All class, all the time; that was my Gran.
    ‘Your Gran treat all your boyfriends this way?’ Jordan asked, amusement in his deep
voice.
    My face burned as he pointed in the direction of an old blue Commodore parked fifty
metres away, its faded paintwork riddled with rust, a P-plate jammed into the lower
corner of the rear window.
    Jordan moved before I did, walking towards the front passenger door and holding it
open, one dark eyebrow cocked in my direction. Shivering, I pulled the zip of my
hoodie higher, the icy wind making my already scarlet nose run again. As I slid into
the seat and dabbed self-consciously at my nose with the back of one hand, Jordan
slammed the heavy car door shut and went around to the driver’s side.
    He jumped in behind the wheel and the cuff of his shirt slipped back for a moment.
Something weird happened again in the vicinity of my heart, like it was falling from
a great height. I could see the word jymaux engraved in black upon his skin in tiny
letters. It formed part of the dark rim of the tattoo winding around the outer edge
of Jordan’s wrist. When he caught me staring, he tugged the cuff back up and fired
up the engine.
    ‘It means twin in Norman French,’ he said curtly as he steered up Sancerre Lane and
into the stretch of Sancerre Street just