The Australian summer hits hard. Without school, the days have started to blend together. On one of those hot days, some time after the funeral, the six of us meet in the park with the train. There are children playing in the playground. It is strange that life goes on around us. We sit in a circle on the grass and we share stories, because we've all agreed that the stifling heat of the church and the rigid posture of Julian's father, and the sobbing figure of his mother, did nothing to celebrate Julian's life. So now we sit and talk about everything. For Ainsley, Lucas and I, the stories go back as far as we remember, to when we were children and played together every day. For Harrison, his stories start later, when he first started making friends with Julian, and for Watson they start when we all began our high school life.
Watson tells us about one of his first memories of Julian, something that has stuck with him for so long because it struck him. I imagine little Julian, who as a thirteen-year-old had shaggy black hair and smooth olive skin that made girls jealous. He had those milky green-blue eyes and dark, thick eyebrows and lashes. Watson tells us how despite the fact that Julian was always little for his age, and Lucas and Watson were much bigger than him, he dragged them both aside and made them both swear they would never ask little Emily out on a date, or kiss her. And they'd sworn, because that was the power that Julian Whitney had over them. It had all been for nothing, and that little pact may have ruined everything, but at the time Julian had been firm on his word.
Then Ainsley says, 'I just realised something. Dime's the Limit had a song called "Rose Garden", remember?'
I know the song, but I don't know why she has brought it up. Lucas speaks the lyrics, and when he gets to the second verse Ainsley stops him.
'She brings me a dowry of red roses
And tells me they need water and sun
She says our love is the garden
The flowers will die when we're done.
So I promise to tend to our love
And bring our garden to life
But all the water and sun I give
Can't protect our garden from strife.'
'The roses are the band,' Ainsley says. Nicoletta brought George the band. But "the flowers will die when we're done". If Nicoletta and George broke up, the band would die. And it did, didn't it?'
'So Nicoletta made George promise to care for their relationship, for the sake of the band,' I say.
'So Julian made us promise never to fight over Em, because he knew it would ruin our friendship,' Lucas says, looking at Watson. 'And his own mother made George promise to look after their relationship, because otherwise it would ruin the band.'
'And neither of those promises worked,' I say. 'The band broke up, and look at us. We're broken, too. Just not in the way Julian thought. We're broken in the same way our parents were.'
I pluck blades of grass out of the ground and scrunch them into balls, frustrated.
'Luke, can you please tell a story?' I ask after a while, because I'd rather listen to the good times again.
Lucas tells stories of when they were on the soccer team together as kids, and Julian was always the best at soccer, and he made Lucas cry once because he accidentally kicked him in the shin.
'Do you remember when you boys decided you wanted to learn to skate?' I say. 'And you bought cheap skateboards, and they had crappy designs, and Julian hated the way his board looked. So he unscrewed the wheels and he painted this amazing mural of a punk mermaid and this huge sea dragon thing wrapped around her. And then you guys all wanted skate boards painted like that too, and he charged ten dollars.'
'How come you girls didn't get one?' Watson asks.
'At that stage Ainsley and I were going through a very girly stage. We decided we hated hanging around boys all the time and we wanted to get into pink things and dresses and make up.'
Ainsley laughs. 'That only lasted for a few months.'
'Yeah, we couldn't keep it up for too long. But by then Jules had stopped painting skate boards and moved on to painting his bedroom wall.'
Lucas wraps his arm around me and I lean back into him.
'I wonder what his parents are going to do with his bedroom,' I say. 'There's so much art in there. And all of his music that he wrote and everything. All his paintings and drawings and that huge wall covered in paint. They won't cover that up, will they? Or what about all the paintings he never finished?' I swallow hard and close my eyes.
'You know Julian wouldn't want us to just lock up his artwork to never be seen,' Harrison says. 'He was so proud of the stuff he made. He'd hate it if it just stayed in his bedroom forever, locked away, because we were all scared to touch it.'
'We could sell it to raise money for the dog shelter,' Ainsley mumbles.
I look at her, because there's something so painful about the idea of selling Julian's artwork, but at the same time, it's an act that would give his art another life.
'Let's do that,' Harrison says, but he doesn't sound quite convince. 'But... can we look at his stuff first? And maybe, I just think there might be some stuff in there that we shouldn't sell.'
'I'm sure there is some stuff in there that he would love you to have, Harry,' I say. 'You're his best friend. You can have whatever you want.'
Lucas murmurs an agreement, and Ainsley nods, and Harrison lets out a sigh.
We've spent a lot of time recently just sitting and listening to music and not talking much. There seems to be a lot to say but no way to say it. One summer night Lucas and I sit on the back deck and watch my brother swim laps in the pool. We listening to old Two Soap Dolls and talk about the concert and how Julian had gone out of his way to get Findlay a ticket, to make up for everything that had happened.
George visits. He comes over a lot nowadays. Dad has welcomed him back with open arms, whereas some of the band members are a bit hesitant about rekindling the old friendship, as if they're worried it might burn out again. I can't blame them. I am living through the loss of a friend, and I would never wish this pain upon anyone. For Karen and Ivan, Ainsley's parents, they are keeping their distance from George. And Nicoletta is too busy mourning the death of her son to have time for her ex-boyfriend.
I have to apologise to George for screaming at him on the phone, but he tells me it's fine, and he deserved it. I'm glad he can accept that, because he made my parents feel so much pain and anguish, needlessly.
George and Dad join us on the deck with a bottle of wine. Mum stays in her study. They tell us stories from the band, and it reminds me of the stories we told about Julian in the park. The Dime's the Limit band lost their lead singer, and we lost Julian. But Julian is never coming back.
The night after we sort through Julian's bedroom, Harrison and I drink a bottle of Irish whiskey that we found in Julian's cupboard. We sit on the floor of his bedroom and lean against his bed. Deep into the bottle of whiskey, Harrison cries and tells me he can't stop thinking about Julian's body. And he tells me that he wished he'd never stepped over that barricade, and he feels guilty for wishing it, because he needed to see his friend one last time, but not like that. He says that in the movies death is always so neat. A car accident means a beautifully unharmed corpse lying in a blossoming pool of blood. But death isn't so pretty. He tells me he can't stop picturing the way Julian's head was lying at such a wrong angle – the way his neck was broken. And when he says those words I close my eyes and sob, because Harrison has opened up a wound in me that I never wanted, but in sharing his pain with me I might help to heal his.
We decide that night that this summer is the only opportunity we'll have to be together to truly mourn our friend, so drive to the beach and rent a little apartment on the water. We spend our days lying in the sand, not talking, and we spend our nights drinking and getting angry and crying, but by the end of it we start smiling again at jokes and laughing at stupid things. For brief moments we can imagine that Julian hasn't gone forever, but he has just left the room for a second – to refill his glass, or smoke on the balcony. And maybe he has. When I think about the way George disappeared and came back, it makes me think that death is temporary. And although I know that Julian is gone, permanently, forever, I know also that he really isn't. He's just there, just a little out of my reach, just out of the room, just on the horizon. But he always comes back to us. In the paintings that I have hanging up in my room. In the love that Harrison has for all of us. In the roiling waves on the beach as a storm moves in. And the tendrils of smoke that we blow out into the ocean from Julian's last packet of cigarettes – stale, making us splutter and cough, but remembering him, again, and again.
In January, Lucas and I book a flight to Melbourne. I can't bear the idea of trying to continue the journey I was supposed to have with Julian, but Lucas knows I want to get out of this city, so we follow Watson to Melbourne and help him move into his new apartment, and then we explore the city and drink a lot of coffee. I shop for clothes and Lucas and Watson get tired of it and they do a tour of a sports stadium together, and I realise that they're actually friends now. It's painful to realise that it wasn't me that brought them together so much as the loss of Julian, but it's bittersweet.
Later I catch myself taking photos of street art that Julian would like, and I think I should send it to him. It hurts when I realise in a rush that I can never show him, but then Lucas and Watson each take my hand, and Lucas presses his thumb into my palm, and I imagine that it hurts less.
The end.
.
Thanks for reading! This novel means a lot to me, so it means loads that you've read it, and I really hope you enjoy it! If you did, please let me know in the comments what your overall thought of the novel is. I also have more stories available on my Wattpad to check out! And you can read more of my writing on my blog at ellekirks.com. And if you want to catch up with my IRL life follow me on Instagram @ellekirks
elle xx