Chain Reaction Read online

  “You know how bad it will be, Dillan. And every second is just making it worse.” Her voice is back to being “concerned”. She’s in control again. Playing her favourite game. “Four.”

  I try to sing the song again, I try to make time stop, but the magic is gone.

  “Five.”

  I pull the pillow from my head. I sit up on the bed. I look around my room.

  “Six.”

  This is my life. There is no escape.

  “Seven.”

  I stand up. My body does not feel like my own.

  “Eight”

  I walk to the door. My feet move, and I look down at them, pretend they’re someone else’s feet.

  “Nine.”

  Now my hands are moving. They are turning the lock. They are opening the door.

  And then the door is open, and I am looking at my sister. Her eyes are the eyes of a tiger: cold and cruel and strangely, horribly joyful.

  I know I should be afraid. But I don’t feel anything.

  This is my life.

  Second Link

  There is a good chance that in earlier, darker times, Krystle Thomas would have been burned as a witch.

  It is not that Krystle was evil (she wasn’t), or that she practised magic (she didn’t), or that she rode a broomstick (nope), or that she danced naked in the moonlight (definitely not). She wasn’t really a witch, in other words: she was just a girl who had been blessed by a beauty so extreme that people found it magical, almost unnatural and just a little bit frightening. Now because we live in a world that values physical beauty so highly, there are many who would, no doubt, view Krystle as particulary fortunate for having been so genetically blessed. And indeed her peers often regarded her as incredibly lucky and unfairly privileged.

  But it certainly never seemed that way to Krystle.

  The problem was this: Krystle’s looks were so extraordinary that you could not take an unflattering picture of her, or catch her at a bad angle, or overlook her once she’d entered a room. Her beauty was robust and confident, virtually indestructible.

  Her personality, however, was not.

  Krystle, in fact, was really a shy and timid girl, with a soul almost too gentle for the world she’d been born into. Her shyness made it difficult for her to make friends (especially since it was usually mistaken for pride), and her oversensitive nature meant that she had no idea how to handle the levels of envy, admiration and sheer fascination that her appearance caused on a daily basis. An isolated, deeply insecure girl, her greatest wish, for as long as she could remember, was to become invisible, unexceptional, one of the crowd.

  But for her, that was impossible.

  (Once, for example, she tried to destroy her looks by grabbing the kitchen scissors and hacking off all her glossy, long black hair. She ended up half-bald and bleeding, but even that disastrous hairstyle looked so good on her that she unknowingly started a trend in her school which lasted for months – and which many a more normal-looking girl would later curse her for.)

  Because Krystle did not look like the kind of person she was inside, she had very little confidence, and she mostly felt awkward and uncertain in social situations. Surrounded by other people, she would feel at once horribly exposed and completely invisible, simply because the person everybody stared at wasn’t her.

  “You should be a model,” people told her, time and time again. “You were made to be a model!” Some of the people who kept saying this to her were her mother’s friends, some of them were strangers. A few of them were even serious: agents who pressed business cards into her hand and who wanted to speak to her parents.

  But Krystle was never in the least bit interested. She would smile politely, and then bury those cards in the bottom drawer of her desk. The truth was that she found the idea of posing before the critical eyes of strangers bizarre and rather depressing. Why on earth would anyone want to expose themselves like that?

  In her own dreams about the future, Krystle never saw herself as a model, or an actress, or in any of those glamorous careers people were always trying to push her towards. Instead she saw herself as a bookkeeper, or perhaps a statistician. She loved working with numbers: the predictable nature of all those figures on a page appealed to her on some deep level. Numbers were safe, they were soothing, they never caught you by surprise. She could see herself in a little office one day, happily surrounded by rhythmical rows of numbers, secure in a predictable, happy world of order and clear boundaries.

  But this is not a perfect world, and things seldom work out the way we want them to.

  And so, when Krystle did need serious money for the first time in her life, she gave in to what had become, at that stage, an almost constant pressure. She called one of the agents who had given her his card, wheels were put in motion, and within a fortnight she had finished her first photo shoot: a five-page fashion spread for a national women’s magazine.

  For many girls this would have been a dream come true, but Krystle spent the weekend of the magazine’s appearance in a dull haze of depression. She found absolutely no pleasure in those glossy pictures, because she knew that the images were false: a cheap and glittering lie. The smiling girl on those pages was a mirage, a mockery – nothing like the person she was inside.

  She also spent that weekend in fear, a sick kind of anticipation churning in her stomach, because she knew what was coming.

  The girls at school were sure to see the magazine.

  And they were going to make her pay.

  Now it is, unfortunately, a sad fact of life that bullies often pick on children who look different from their peers. Generally speaking, it is therefore a bad idea to be overweight (Fatty!), underweight (Wimp!), unusually short (Frodo!) or unusually tall (Bigfoot!). It is also not advisable to have bad skin (Pizza face!), red hair (Ginger!) or be part of a minority group (add appropriate racial slur here).

  Looking different makes you stand out. And standing out makes you a target.

  Krystle stood out because of her extraordinary looks, but also because of her shyness, and especially because of her lack of friends. She was also an easy target because her difficult home life made her more vulnerable than most to gossip and spite.

  And so, when she arrived at school on that fateful Mon­day morning to see the school bully, Stephanie Adolphus, waiting for her at the gate, Krystle had a pretty good idea of what she could expect.

  The unfunny jokes. The snide remarks. The cruel laughter. The barely concealed hate.

  And she certainly wasn’t wrong.

  “Oooh, I’m so beautiful, look at meeee . . .”

  “You might be famous now, but you still stink!”

  “You’re too stupid to do anything except look pretty!”

  “It’s a good thing nobody can smell these photos . . .”

  Now, those of us lucky enough to have never been bullied ­might wonder why anyone would get upset by these (let’s face it, rather unimaginative) insults. Why not just shake it off? Sticks and stones can break my bones, and all that.

  But such a view underestimates the sheer cumulative weight this kind of viciousness builds up over years and years. The way it slowly grinds away at your confidence, bit by bit, like an ocean eroding an enormous piece of rock into mere grains of sand. The way it drains your energy and destroys your hope, making you somehow smaller, weaker, more vulnerable, less yourself.

  Because of the magazine pictures (in which Krystle looked haughtily, intimidatingly beautiful), Stephanie Adolphus was not the only girl who felt envious of Krystle that morning, and a lot of other girls (who should really have known better) joined in the teasing. All day long there were sniggers, pointed fingers and half-whispered conversations that Krystle desperately pretended not to hear.

  “. . . thinks she’s someone special, but we all know . . .”

  “. . . so stuck up and snobbish . . .”

  “. . . always feeling sorry for herself; it’s so pathetic . . .”

  “. . .everyb
ody knows what goes on at her house . . .”

  When she got home that afternoon Krystle was therefore ready to crawl in under her duvet and stay there forever. She was hurt and tired and depressed, and she needed a safe place where she could hide and lick her wounds in peace.

  But Krystle’s home had never been such a place.

  She opened the back door to be greeted by chaos. Empty bottles. Overflowing ashtrays. Broken glasses. Half-eaten pieces of pizza. The stench of hopelessness and drunken desperation. A stranger was passed out in the study, she saw – a youngish guy with a beard. Upstairs she found her mother snoring on the floor next to her bed, a thin line of drool hanging from her open mouth.

  Krystle looked down at her mother for a long time, suppressing a shudder, before she turned around and walked out. She had learnt long ago that it was better not to disturb her in this state. As she walked down the stairs, she pointedly did not look at the photos against the wall. All this was far more bearable if she didn’t remember how different things used to be. If she didn’t remember how pretty her mom once was, and how hopeful.

  Krystle swallowed the despair that threatened to overwhelm her, and went to look for her younger sister, Alexis. She found her in the back garden, eating a packet of Niknaks for lunch. Krystle realised that she was quite hungry and leant over to take one, ruffling her sister’s hair affectionately.

  And then her heart almost stopped.

  Oh no. Oh dear God, no.

  For years other girls – and Stephanie Adolphus in particular – had tormented Krystle by calling her smelly. Stinky. Disgusting. Krystle had tried not to take too much notice, to see it for the pathetic bullying tactic it was. But now, for the first time, the terrible realisation dawned that they might have had a point all along.

  Because even here in the fresh air, her sister’s clothes smelt vaguely of stale alcohol and cigarettes.

  Just like everything else in their house.

  Just like Krystle herself.

  For a dizzy moment Krystle felt as if she might faint. Could it be true? Could Stephanie have been telling the truth all these years? Did she actually stink?

  Oh no.

  Please. No.

  It’s strange, but there’s something about having your worst fears realised that can be almost liberating. Beyond the misery, beyond the sheer awful horror of the moment, there often hides a tiny nugget of relief, based on the certainty that things cannot get any worse.

  This is it. I cannot sink any lower.

  It might have been for this very reason that Krystle felt strangely numb as she made her way back into the house. It was all such a mess. Such an utter bloody mess.

  Once inside her room Krystle closed the door behind her, and then she lay down on top of her unmade bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn’t cry. Crying wouldn’t help anyway. This was her life.

  A bee buzzed outside her window, trying to get into her room. The bee could smell the sweetness of a half-empty can of Fanta standing on her window sill, and kept flying into the glass in an effort to reach it. It’s sad, she thought looking at that bee, how life’s sweetness can sometimes be so close, and yet so impossibly far away.

  After a while she lost interest in the bee. But she didn’t get up, didn’t start her homework, didn’t get something to eat. Instead she just lay there, looking at the ceiling and listening to her clock ticking against the wall. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Krystle stayed like that for a long time. But eventually there was a loud knock on her bedroom door and she stood up to open it. Alexis always knew how to make her feel better.

  Except it wasn’t her sister.

  She opened the door to the guy who had been sleeping in the study. A man in his twenties with dark blue eyes and a neatly trimmed goatee.

  “What do you want?” She did not even try to be polite.

  He lifted his hands, as if surrendering.

  “Easy sweetheart. No need to be so aggro, okay? I’m just dropping off a little delivery for your mother.” He took a small, clear plastic bag out of his back pocket. There were three pills inside. “This is bought and paid for, so tell her to enjoy.”

  The man pressed the little bag into Krystle’s hand and turned around to walk away. But then he stopped, grinned broadly, and gave her a friendly wink.

  “Try one, why don’t you. You might just like it.”

  Krystle threw the bag away in disgust and flopped down on her bed again. But for some reason the guy’s smile stayed with her after he’d gone. It had been so open and warm and cheerful.

  The first friendly face she’d seen all day.

  She looked over at the little bag in the corner and began to wonder. It was only some pills after all. People took pills all the time, for all kinds of reasons. And her mother always seemed so much calmer after taking them. So much happier, and more loving.

  After a while Krystle retrieved the little bag from the corner in which it had landed and dropped the three little pills into her hand. They were light pink, with a thin line running across the middle of each one, and they looked strangely innocent, almost childish.

  And suddenly, for the first time in her life, she couldn’t think of one good reason not to take one.

  A long time ago Krystle and her sister had made a pact, sealed in blood under the light of the moon. It was a vow made in desperation: a promise to one another that they would never take drugs, never get drunk, never let themselves be treated badly by men, never lose their self-respect.

  Never become like their mother.

  They promised one another that they would be different. Completely and utterly different. When they grew up they would be women who stood up for themselves. Women who did something with their lives. Women who lived soberly and bravely and proudly.

  But tonight, for the first time, Krystle began to accept that she would never be that kind of woman. She simply did not have the courage. She just wasn’t that clever, or that powerful, or that brave.

  She simply wasn’t that clean.

  She was nothing. A person without a core. A pretty surface with only emptiness underneath.

  Her mother’s daughter.

  She swallowed the first pill dry, out of defeat rather than rebellion. What was there to fight for, after all?

  For a long time she didn’t feel anything. Time ticked by slowly. Tick. Tick, Tick. And instead of being disappointed, Krystle found herself strangely relieved: maybe nothing would happen after all. She had the odd sense of a bullet being dodged, a disaster avoided.

  But then she was struck by a sudden, intense feeling of nausea, so overwhelming that she started retching – dry, painful gags that brought her to her knees on her bedroom floor.

  The panic followed: an overwhelming sense of something being profoundly wrong. She could not breathe. She could not breathe!

  “Please,” she whispered to a God she had long stopped believing in. “Please, please, help me!”

  Krystle wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, but she did know that this was bad. She could not breathe, and her heart was racing so fast that she honestly feared a heart attack. This was very bad. She did not want to die. She was too young to die. Dear God, she could not breathe.

  There were a few moments of perfect white silence. She heard the clock on her wall ticking loudly. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  And then she realised that she was going to be fine.

  Just fine.

  Of course she could breathe. She’d been breathing all her life! In and out, in and out. It was easy.

  Some time passed. Or perhaps not. But Krystle suddenly found herself smiling as she realised something for the first time, right there, kneeling on her own bedroom floor.

  There was nothing wrong with her.

  She was fresh and young and beautiful. The whole world was fresh and young and beautiful. So incredibly beautiful. So incredibly fresh.

  She smiled as her body melted onto the floor and into the happiness all around her. And then she was flying, laughing, spi
nning, lighter than air.

  Why have I never tried this before? Krystle asked herself as she stared at the beautiful shadows the setting sun created on her bedroom wall. Why have I never realised that the world can be such a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place?

  Her limbs suddenly felt strangely heavy and pleasantly weak, and she relaxed, flat on her back on the floor, smiling widely as she remembered a young man’s dark blue eyes and his friendly grin.

  This was going to be fine.

  From now on, everything was going to be just fine.

  Third Link

  Sunday, 10 May

  9.07am

  Am SO TIRED of being K’s sister!! The same thing happened again last night – when I got to the party it turned out JD had only invited me because he was hoping I’d bring my sister along. Like K would ever go to a grade 9 boy’s party?! Honestly.

  But anyway, what’s wrong with guys? Sure, K is beautiful, but she also has the personality of a goldfish! Why can’t anyone see that? And why can’t anyone ever like me for me?

  4.03pm

  Okay, have just read what I wrote this morning and now I feel mean. K isn’t a goldfish – she’s actually super nice and she can’t help the way she looks. But. BUT! The way guys act around her is just so DEPRESSING. It’s like watching evolution in reverse: they start out intelligent human beings and within minutes – minutes! – they change into a bunch of slobbering, knuckle-scraping, half-brained apes! It’s pathetic, honestly.

  Also, why don’t they ever act that way about me???

  8.12 pm

  Mom isn’t back yet – must’ve been some party all right. I just hope they don’t have the after-party at our house tomorrow morning as usual.

  Not looking forward to tomorrow in any case – there’s bound to be drama about K’s stupid Fairlady shoot. Also an algebra test in the morning, and then First Aid after school for a whole hour! Ugh. Stupid extra-curriculars.

  Monday, 11 May

  1.11pm

  Everybody’s hassling me about K’s modelling thing in Fairlady. Jessica Odendaal, as usual, was being such a b#tch that I had to “accidentally” spill my Coke Zero all over her English essay. That shut her up all right, but now I’ve missed my morning caffeine kick.