SHAWN
31st of December, 2013.
I haven't left my house in 21 days.
My phone sits in my hand, the apple logo glowing amongst a black phone that I haven't used in 21 days. It charges, it illuminates, the notifications come through.
And, shit, there are a lot of them.
The texts come first, frantic questions from the Magcon boys and repeated calls from Bart. They're continuous for four days, and then, suddenly they stop.
There are texts from Brian, asking if I'll be coming to the parade tonight. He says he's disappointed in me, but I'm still his friend.
And then I'm mad.
I delete it, along with the texts from friends of friends asking if they'd like to hang out with me over the Christmas break.
Then there are the emails. There are hundreds of them, from Andrew and businesses and stupid subscriptions that I've yet to unsubscribe from, and I wonder if perhaps I'd be better off without a phone. I look beside me, to where my bedroom window lays open, and I kid you not, I'm extremely close to throwing it.
But then I remember the recordings I have on here and the phone call this morning from Andrew telling me specifically not to forget it, amongst other things like my passport and myself.
He jokes about the last one, but I don't laugh - these days it seems more likely than ever. Instead, I tell him to come an hour earlier.
And I'm waiting now, my suitcase packed, my passport in my hand, tucked under my phone - which is turned off. It's 5 pm.
I wait and write in my diary until Andrew's silver Volvo pulls into the driveway. He pops the trunk open and gestures for me to join him in the passenger's seat, a face of confusion as he wonders why I want to be so early. I put down my diary.
I haven't left my house in 21 days.
"Want to see the planes?" Gerty asks, "We might catch some Airbus A380's,"
I shake my head, sliding my suitcase in the back beside his. He continues to look at me through the rear view mirror. "Then why am I here an hour early? We gonna grab dinner?"
I shake my head again, holding my silence as I point to my bike leant against the side of our garage. It's flouresant green, a putrid colour that Grade 6 me thought would make the perfect Birthday present. I almost sold it last summer, but my God, I'm thankful I didn't. Somehow, I think, this bike is my only way of getting to New York.
"I'm riding my bike to the airport," I smile at Andrew, closing the trunk before removing the helmet that hangs from the handlebars, placing it on my head. "It's good for the old triceps."
"You're mental." Andrew scoffs, "Shawn, I love both you and your crazy fitness motives, but the roads are covered in ice."
I crane my neck to the side of the road, where driveways and footpaths have been cleared and snow sits in neat piles beside. The paths look wet but they're safe, safer than the road and safer from Andrew's car.
You're mental, I want to say, for even thinking I'd take the roads.
HANNAH
We'd made a deal. Chloe got the bigger room, I got the balcony.
She thought she'd won, the extra space giving her just enough room to twirl until she either passed out in a fit of giggles or passed out altogether. She hadn't won, though, because when I stood on the tips of my toes in the right-hand corner of my balcony, I could see over the neighboring roofs, past the elementary school and catch clear glimpses of the sea.
Funny, how a girl who'd spent the first 15 years of her life living on a freaking island had never seen the sea until she moved half-way across the world to Canada. This week had been full of firsts for me- snow and sea and Tim Hortons and milk in a...bag? By the time it got to New Years, it took me a while to realize fireworks would be another first too. Well, fireworks that weren't home-made.
From the tiny square inch spot in the far right of my tiny second story balcony, I had an almost perfect view of the New Year's fireworks on the beach - enough space for just one person, but one person was all the balcony required for the time being - my obvious lack of friends something I didn't want to think about.
The sky exploded with teal, a loud eruption of gunpowder as people cheered, including my family from the garden below who held their heads toward the sky, catching embers with their beady eyes. Noah looked up at me, the reflection in his eyes glimmering - though fear overrode awe.
A new year. A completely new country.
What did that mean?
It meant new people, but it also meant a new way of life. I'd be going to an actual school, a place where I would arrive, no matter how sleep deprived, at 8 am each morning. No more home-school. I'd spend all day in a building with strangers, no similarities whatsoever other than the shared longing for a final bell that would lead us all scrambling through a set of double doors and onto a football field, with cheerleaders and jocks and nerds- or was that just the movies?
I wasn't sure how school would go and the curiosity kicked at my brain as I watched another set of mesmerizing explosions blow from the sky- this time orange.
I stayed up on the balcony long after the fireworks had finished, my mind too busy to put to sleep. I wanted to venture, to explore, not caring about the lack of sunlight nor the fact that I wasn't usually the type to adventure.
New Year, new Me, right?
I slipped on a pair of shoes, throwing a tracksuit over my pajama pants, the bitterly cold evening reminding me once again just how far from home I was. Did I need a torch? How far was I going to go?
I decided to bring one, just in case. Small, cylindrical and flaming pink, to anyone else it would just look like a standard torch. But as I tiptoed delicately down the stairs and out through the front door I was reminded of the sleepness nights Nico and I would spend with our friend, Amy, sheets pulled over our faces, the pink torch lighting our faces as we took it in turns reading Harry Potter.
For every word one of us couldn't pronounce, the other two got a piece of chocolate.
I always won.
The memories seemed to consume everything I owned, and momentarily I found myself wishing I could have sold everything I'd brought with me and started completely and utterly new. But I knew deep down that I'd regret it, 15 years of memories not being something you can just simply toss.
The road, despite being plowed, was covered in a thin layer of ice. It stuck to the tarmac as if it had no intentions of leaving, and it was the same all the way until my half-frozen feet reached a small cafe.
At first, it looked sketchy, located at the end of a road with a broken street light in front of it. With my torch, I could see that beyond it was a clearing, a plateau of grass the size of half a soccer pitch. There was a deck, a small area just outside the cafe with lights strung along the awnings for alfresco dining. Although the fairy lights were off, a small light from within the cafe gave me the reassurance that it wasn't deserted, instead somewhere that suddenly felt inviting.
I followed a path up to the plateau, my feet stepping carefully as the half-soccer-pitched area of grass ended, and was instead replaced by a stream, the flow of water little but consistent. A delicate bridge lingered over it, small but sturdily built. Along it hung what looked like left-over fairy lights from the cafe, the same bulbs with the same yellow filament.
I sat for a while on the bridge, watching as snow covered sticks made their way down the stream, catching themselves in rocks and currents as they floated out of sight. I imagined having a friend, someone to dangle my feet into the water with in summer, someone to play Pooh Sticks with in Spring.
I wondered about Shawn. He hadn't replied to my Christmas text, and, 6 days later there was still nothing. Surely someone mildly famous was always on their phone?
I wanted to believe that maybe he was having a phone detox, a winter break away from his hectic life. I knew it was more likely he just hadn't seen it.
But these were the hopeful thoughts, the optimistic 2 am Hannah as she sat by herself with the tips of her toes in freezing cold water wishing for a friend to wince at the pain with.
The logical Hannah knew he probably gave her a fake number.