IRREVERSIBLE
A MEMORY
I sit on my bed, surrounded by colourful paper, ribbon and a roll of sticky tape. With a song by Kelly Rowland playing from my top hits CD in the Radio CD player I'd gotten for Christmas, I sing along trying to drown out the sounds of the muffled yelling coming from downstairs.
With a felt tip marker, I use my best handwriting to inscribe the sentence onto the piece of pink paper. Mum and dad had been downstairs arguing and fighting since dinnertime, forty-five minutes ago. I don't even know how you could fight for that long without getting bored or just repeating yourself over and over again.
Making my origami bird, I use a piece of white ribbon, hole punching between the wings and tying the ribbon in a neat bow. Jumping off my bed, I leave my room, heading down to study. In the hallway, I meet up with Noah. I swear every time I see him he's taller. He smiles when he sees me.
"Hey Lu, wanna come for a ride with me? Get away from all this ruckus?" he asks. I look back to my room where my music still blares and then back to Noah. Suddenly the sounds of mum and dad downstairs drift up the staircase and my mind is made up.
"Sure," I say with a shrug.
"Okay. We'll play a game where we have to sneak out of the house without mum or dad realising, alright?" he asks. I roll my eyes at my big brother.
"I'm twelve years old now Noah, you don't have to play that game with me anymore," I say, using a bit of attitude in my tone.
He gives me a crooked smile and we proceed to leave the house. Mum and dad are arguing in the kitchen, so the two of us easily scoot across from the staircase, across the hall, through the living room and to the garage door. We get into Noah's new car and he drives us down the driveway and out into the night.
Mum and dad hadn’t fought in months and months, in fact, it had felt nice to be a real family again. But something had irked them at the dinner table and once Noah and I had seen the signs, we'd escaped the ground floor faster than lightning.
"So where are we going?" I ask Noah as we travel through the tiny country roads. Noah shrugs beside me and I smile.
Eventually he pulls into the driveway of an abandoned house and we lie down on the tray of the Ute, and look up at the sky on the summer night. There's a slight chill to the air, and I feel my arm and leg hair stand on end. I wiggle closer to Noah to try and keep warm in my t-shirt.
"If mum and dad split, we'll still be together right?" I ask him.
"What do ya mean?" he asks.
"Like, we won't let them separate us," I explain.
"Of course we'll stay together, Lu. And if they don't let us, well, I'm eighteen so I'll get a job and you can live with me in London," he says. I smile at the thought of living in London.
"But on the other side, so Dedree can't bug us," he adds and I giggle.
"That sounds nice. Lucy and Noah's house in London... Do you sometimes wish we had different parents?" I ask and I feel Noah's muscles stiffen up a bit next to me. He suddenly sits up and I prop myself up on my elbows.
"No way. I know that they fight sometimes, but you still have fun with them, don't you?" he asks, sounding concerned. I look at him before lying back down, staring up at the clouded sky.
"I guess so."
* * *
White knuckled, I hold the steering wheel with both hands, foot on the accelerator listening at the engine revs. My nose runs and I have to continually wipe away the tears streaming down the cheeks and blurring my vision. I don't know how to drive the car and one of the mirrors are out while I continually hear crunches as I attempt to work out the gears. Somehow I managed to get to fourth gear which meant that I could go faster than 50km/h.
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