PROLOGUE

Jack was holding his hand out to me.

‘Are you ready for this?‘ he asked. I looked at him, taking in his trusting smile and his beautiful eyes that betrayed his complete faith in me.

I looked at him, trying to keep my smile from wavering, my fingers from shaking as they reached out towards him of their own accord.

The object clenched in my fist rattled slightly but the sound was masked by the orchestral music that was sounding around us. Or maybe it was just in my head. Even after a year I still wasn’t really sure how things worked around here. My fingers brushed his tentatively and our hands laced themselves together, fitting together comfortably, like they’d been so many times before.

‘Yes,’ I breathed, taking a step towards him.

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

To completely understand my situation I’d have to tell the story from the start. And the start of my story actually begins with my death. Yeah, I know. Pretty morbid, isn’t it? But, as depressing as this sounds, the important things in my life didn’t really happen until I’d carked it. So in order for you to know how the story of my life unfolded, you’d first have to know how it ended. And this is how I died:

‘My mum is going to kill me.’ I moaned. I glanced at my watch again. 10:43pm. Seventeen minutes to get home and convince my mother I was not breaking curfew. I was so dead.

I was sixteen. Sweet sixteen and never been, my sister used to tease me. She wasn’t actually too far from the truth. I was what most people would term a ‘good girl’. Good grades, pretty sporty, not bad looking. I went to an all-girls school so there weren’t many boys in the picture. No boys except Luke.

‘Do you want to take a taxi then?’ Luke, the ever practical, asked.

Luke was one of those guys who was friends with everyone. And by everyone, I mean everyone. I could never go anywhere with Luke without running into someone from his soccer team or a guy from school or one of his friends from work. My best friend Bailey always said he was too nice for his own good. I guess, in the end- or well, my end, he was.

‘That would probably be a good idea,’ I answered, flipping my consistently buzzing mobile shut. “10 NEW MESSAGES” the tiny screen read, all text messages all proclaiming “WHER R U?” from my paranoid mother.

We were at the movies. Me and Bailey and Luke. It was Thursday night and my mum had finally relented enough to let me go out on a school night because I was dying to see this new movie that was based on one of my favourite books. The movie was spectacular. I don’t actually remember much of it now, time tends to dim your memory, but I do remember that I loved it.

‘I don‘t know. Do we have enough money to get home?’ I asked, emptying out my pockets to reveal a five and a couple of twenty cent coins. Bailey unearthed four dollars fifty.

‘I could get my brother to pick us up?’ Bailey suggested, hand already dipping into her coat pocket, but Luke shook his head.

‘And face his wrath at being torn away from his precious Buffy marathon? I don’t think so,’ Luke smiled and I restrained the giggle that threatened to escape my lips as he plucked a crumpled ten from his jeans.

‘That should be enough to get us home,’ he said with his charming grin. I think I might have swooned if Bailey hadn’t pinched me.

I should tell you now that at this point, I’d already developed an enormous crush on Luke. He was everything I could ever want in a guy. Funny, smart, sweet and incredibly good looking. The epitome of tall dark and handsome. Form Prefect. Centre forward on his soccer team. An all round nice-guy. I was still wondering why he’d chosen to be friends with me in the first place. But that’s beside the point. I was falling hard and fast and the only reason Bailey had come along to the movies with us was because I couldn’t trust myself not to hyperventilate every time he brushed my arm or casually slung his arm around me. Oh, I had it bad.

‘We’ll get a taxi to drop us all off at your place then Steph? Bailey’s just two houses down and I can walk home.’ Luke was already waving down a taxi before I could say anything.

We got in the taxi, laughing and shoving at each other. The taxi driver was a nice middle-aged guy who chuckled at our antics.

‘Ugly people first,’ I’d said to Luke when we were choosing seats. Rolling his eyes, he pushed me ahead of him and took the seat in the middle, saying he needed to check out his reflection in the rear view mirror. I laughed but I knew it was because I‘d once told him I detested sitting in the middle.

There are a lot of things I don’t remember now. I can’t tell you what my Kindergarten teacher’s name was or what I had for breakfast that morning. I don’t know what room I had Roll Call in or the colour of my toothbrush. I can barely even recall what the last thing I said to my mother was. I think it might have been ‘Yeah, whatever.’

We were two streets away from my house. The light was green. Luke was still holding my hand from when he’d helped me into the car.

But I can distinctly remember the smell of Bailey’s perfume that night and how her fringe curled to the right, instead of the left like she’d wanted it to. I remember Luke’s shirt was blue and his belt buckle had a funny cartoon mushroom on it. I remember the Taxi driver’s name was Bill.

We were in the middle of the intersection when we felt the impact.

I remember the exact moment that the other car hit us. It was champagne coloured and there was a middle aged woman at the wheel. I know because I looked her right in the eye as her car ploughed into the tail end of the passenger side, my side, of the taxi.

The car crunched into the side of our vehicle but didn’t slow. It rammed us halfway down the empty street before the engine gave out and crumbled. The front of her car was totalled. The side of ours was completely destroyed.

I remember we were mid laugh.

We were all unconscious when the police and ambulance arrived on the scene. Five people were pulled out of the wreck and transferred onto stretchers. They were whisked off to memorial hospital for immediate treatment.

I remember…

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

The woman had fainted after we’d finally skidded to a stop. She’d walk out of the hospital later that night with several bruises and a couple of stitches. She was too afraid to ever drive again.

The taxi driver, Bill, was treated for a mild concussion and a bruised rib. After the emotional trauma of the accident he moved to Perth and, as far as I know, is living a happy life from the taxi’s insurance payout.

Luke broke an arm, fractured three ribs and had to have several large shards of glass removed from the side of his face. He has a wicked scar, just underneath his jaw. When people ask about it , he tells them he was mauled by a lion. Some of them believe him.

Bailey suffered a large concussion. Her head hit the glass so hard it caused a tiny fracture to her skull and gave her mild amnesia for about two days. She cried when she finally got all the memories back.

I was pronounced dead on arrival.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

So there you have it. Another attempt at a chaptered fic. Title and poem extracts taken from the poem Naming the Stars by Joyce Sutphen. Comments and criticism please?