Free The Boundless Sublime by Lili Wilkinson

crude subtext. He almost looked like he felt sorry for Ali. ‘Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do?’ he asked. ‘Fill each other up with love? What’s the point of feeling love, if we can’t share it with others?’
    I didn’t think I could be strong like Fox. I couldn’t be brave and vulnerable and try to see the good in everyone. That wasn’t who I was.
    ‘So, Fox,’ said Ali, leaning forward. ‘How many people would you say you’ve filled up with your love?’
    ‘Ali, cut it out,’ said Minah. ‘It’s not worth it.’
    Minah. Thank goodness for Minah. Minah, who was braver and stronger than me.
    Fox turned to her, the furrows on his brow deeper than ever. ‘Minah, everyone is worth it. Every human being on this planet is worth everything . Worth whole oceans. Worth galaxies.’
    Minah rolled her eyes, then looked back at her phone. ‘Sure, whatever.’
    Fox tilted his head to one side. ‘Don’t you think you’re worth it, Minah?’ he asked gently. ‘Don’t you think you’re worth a whole galaxy of stars?’
    Minah’s detached expression faltered for a moment. She slipped her phone in the back pocket of her jeans, one eyebrow raised. ‘You know, Fox, you’re very pretty. I’ll give you that. But you sure do talk a lot of bullshit.’
    I expected him to flinch, but Fox just gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes I think I’d like to be normal,’ he said. ‘To go to school. To have a birthday. To live in a normal house with a normal family. But then I meet people like you, and I realise that Daddy is right. You have everything, right at your fingertips. And you’re wasting it all. You’re not even really alive.’
    ‘ Daddy ?’ Flick’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her fringe.
    Fox ignored her and turned to me. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
    I stumbled to my feet.
    ‘Nice meeting you, Fox,’ Flick called after us, her voice dripping with scorn. ‘Come back soon.’
    ‘Are you okay?’ I asked, as we walked away.
    Fox looked at me, pity in his eyes. ‘How do you do it?’ he said, shaking his head slightly.
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘Be like that. Every day.’
    ‘Be like what?’
    ‘Like them. Shutting your heart away and letting bitterness and emptiness rule. Pretending that decay is to be celebrated, and ignoring everything that really matters. Don’t you feel yourself disintegrating when you’re around them? Feel as if you’re getting sucked into their swamp of narcissism and hatred?’
    My skin prickled defensively, but Fox was right. They were shallow and bitter. I was shallow and bitter.
    Fox took my hand. ‘You’re worth it too, you know,’ he said quietly. ‘Worth a million galaxies.’
    I wasn’t.
    ‘Don’t you feel it? That there’s more to be? That you’re on the edge of something astonishing? Something so vast and beautiful that every cell in your body is aching to be a part of it?’
    I’d felt that way, before Anton. Not anymore. I plunged into blackness, wrapping myself up in it, but I couldn’t block Fox out. His words penetrated the dark tide like beams of golden light. I could feel his living warmth against my palm.
    ‘I’ve seen the other side, Ruby. I know what’s out there. It’s … it’s everything. It’s joy. It’s peace. Don’t you want to feel peace?’
    Peace .
    ‘Ruby.’ Every time Fox said my name, a little piece of the darkness evaporated, rising like wisps and whisking awayinto nothingness. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to be healed. I wanted to be healthy and pure and full of peace and joy and wonder.
    But I couldn’t.
    ‘Ruby.’
    Could I?
    Fox leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine, and I was undone.

6
    ‘I have to go back to the Institute,’ Fox told me, as we wandered through the park the next morning. ‘We’re only allowed to be away for two weeks at a time.’
    My stomach felt suddenly hollow. Was it because he’d met my friends? Had he realised the kind of person I really was? That he’d