Free Run to Me by Erin Golding Page B

dark
side of love. That perhaps popular opinion, or storybook love, isn’t so clear
cut. A love that totally consumes can bring not only beauty into our awareness
but also the violent nature of humanity as well. If love is the grandest high
any of us can experience surely the awful low, its diametric opposite, must
exist also. For how would we know love as a high if we hadn’t felt true
darkness?’
    ‘You mean that saying? Like to get rainbows you
have to have the rain. Or something like that?’
    I nod at Melanie. ‘Yes,’ I say, starting to
laugh. ‘I think Dolly Parton said that.’
    The whole class laughs with me. I let my eyes
stray over to Paul. He runs a hand through his hair to get it off his face and
pulls out a giant smile directed just to me. I have to turn away to stop myself
from smiling back.

Six
     
     
    After school Matt and I walk back across the
deserted paddock to my place. As usual, we take the long way round to avoid the
skate park. No point seeking out McFadden. He’s given me a wide birth in the
month since school started back but I know it’s only a matter of time. He’ll
find me. He always does. As we trudge along I pull out my pack of smokes and attempt
to light one with the autumn wind whipping at my face. Finally, it catches.
    ‘How long before I have to deal with McFadden,
you reckon?’ I ask, taking a drag on my cig.
    Matt shakes his head when I offer him the pack.
He’s never really gotten into smoking. Neither has Reggie. I had my first one a
couple years back; stole it out of Tara’s handbag. She’s my mum’s best friend
and she’s always round our place, sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee and
smoking. She’s the only one allowed to smoke in the house, and definitely not
if The Chief’s around.
    I remember I’d had a huge fight with The Chief
over some stupid failed maths exam or something. He’d done the usual; clenching
his fists and telling me just how useless I am. Like passing a maths test is
the frigging be all and end all. But I suppose to The Chief it was yet another
sign that his dopey son isn’t going to amount to anything.
    I came home fuming. He’d cornered me after
school, driven past me on my way home and turned back to yell at me through the
window. He’d pulled over in front of me, blocking the road, so I had nowhere to
go. Then he was straight on to me about the stinking exam. Don’t even know how
he’d found out. Guess the school rang him or something. I let him scream at me
for a few minutes, then I bolted.
    The first thing I saw when I came barrelling
through our front door was Tara’s open bag. She’d left it in the hallway, next
to her shoes. The smoke packet was jammed down one side, a little flattened by
the rest of her crap. Checking they were busy in the kitchen I bent down and,
lifting the packet’s lid, pulled a couple of cigs out.
    I knew Bianca had a lighter; she was always
burning that incense stuff in her room. So I stole it off her dresser and
hooked it over to the paddock. I sat down in the long grass, lit up, took a
drag, almost lost my guts, then settled into it. Probably bum puffed most of
it, can’t remember. But it was a fucking load off I know that much.
    ‘I dunno. If we stay clear of the skate park
you’ll be right,’ says Matt. ‘He’s not allowed back near the school so...’  
    ‘Yeah. That’ll give me a few more weeks I suppose.’
    We walk along in silence. I take drags on my cig
and blow a few smoke rings. The paddock is covered in long grass. It reaches
above our knees and its tough like straw. Our feet trample it, making a
scrunching noise, and some bits even snap clean in half under our weight. I
bend down and yank one long blade from the dirt. Holding my cig between my lips
I break the blade into little pieces as I walk, dropping them back onto the
ground.
    ‘So what’s the go with Mrs Fox?’ asks Matt.
    I’ve only broken up half the blade but I dump
the rest and pull the cig from my mouth so I