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Chapter Four

To my surprise, Anna’s mystery man is back at the library again, and this time I have his name. It’s Byron. Like the bay, I suppose, but it sounds so weird to me. I finally get a close look at him, too. He looks like the awkward bookworm type, with a stubbly beard and dark framed glasses. His hair is swept to the left of his face and he’s wearing his button up shirt with every button done. He’s a hipster, I draw my conclusion, but that isn’t to say that he doesn’t pass as being a decent guy. On the contrary, he’s practically made for Anna, so we invite him out for lunch and I’m glad that Anna’s paying and not me. He doesn’t order pretentiously though, or scoff at the menu with some comment that makes you wonder if he sits at home reading thesauruses all day. Zachariah Thorpe is like that. He’s practically our school’s resident hipster and in denial of it all, but you can’t even dare to call him Zach, because nicknames are too mainstream.

Byron eats fish and chips with Anna and I and we sit down by the waterfront throwing what we don’t want at seagulls. I’m starting to think that if Tina protected Toby from me, she might be able to protect other people from me too. I still haven’t quite worked out the process yet, but I figure if I distance myself from Byron it shouldn’t affect him, and besides, Anna needs a friend that isn’t also my friend. Anna gets up to put our rubbish in the bin, and while she’s gone I quickly swoop in and invite him to Anna’s birthday dinner, and give him my number so he can text me because I know Anna will kill me if she knows I invited him. He smirks at my scheming but I don’t mind. I’ve just set Anna up on her first date in eight years. Also, the best part is, he’s forty-two, so Anna doesn’t have to feel old.

Monday is when things start to get better. Rumours of my ambiguous sexuality have dissipated, being replaced by news that Brianna Simpson threw up all over a guy she was making out with at a party, and nobody knows who the guy was. Admittedly, it makes me feel a little better, no longer being in the spotlight like that, but I can’t help but feel bad for poor little Brianna. Stories about her making out with unknown boys at parties are common, but this one is the kind of story this school loves. Even Rose is going mad trying to pinpoint exactly who the boy is, cross referencing all of the photos of that night with every guy on Brianna’s friend list, but for pretty obvious reasons, he wasn’t friends with her anymore.

I still have no idea what to do about being a siren. Do I just go through school, steering clear of any guys who might like me, then move to some far away island? Maybe I’ll end up being one of those sirens who sits on the rocky shores leading sailors to their death. Maybe the best place for me is in a dungeon somewhere far away, because the last thing I want to do is to hurt anyone. Perhaps if I could pull of something like Brianna Simpson I could just repel guys from ever being attracted to me – but who would I even consider doing that to? Sometimes I liked it better when I just thought it was me being superstitious. Rose’s mother is going to visit my mother this Wednesday, and she has a whole list of questions which she couldn’t answer for me. The first question; why did you feel the need to tell me now?

Anna has turned into a giggly teenage girl when it comes to Byron. Whenever she isn’t at the hospital she’s daydreaming, smiling or telling me about him – they’re going out for dinner on Thursday at six, and considering Anna starts work at nine p.m., I can’t imagine she’ll be very happy on Friday. Then, the weirdest thing happened on Wednesday afternoon. It wasn’t just that Anna shaved her legs, because she does that occasionally. Anna was wearing a dress. It was a floral print dress, which cut off just above her knees and at it buttoned up past the waist with a low-cut neckline. Her mousy brown hair was out and resting carelessly over her shoulders, and for the first time ever, you could see how petite and slender Anna is. She was humming and singing as she twirled around the house, and I couldn’t help but beam off her happiness. Of all the confusing things going on in my life right now, she is still perfect.

I finish my book on Thursday while Anna is out on her date with Byron, wearing another dress, which I have never seen in her wardrobe before, and borrowing one of my cardigans to go with it. Once I’m finished with my library book I decide to start reading my siren book, but I’m still waiting to get my mother’s answers to my questions. After struggling to read more of the siren book, I decide to check Facebook, something I’ve been avoiding for a while, and as expected I’m bombarded with statuses I’ve been tagged in from almost three weeks ago. I ignore all of them and then check my messages, where I have one right at the top of my inbox from Hunter, almost two weeks ago.

“I know you don’t date, but can we still be friends?”

I don’t know what to think of the message. On one hand I’m happy that he isn’t entirely torn apart by my rejecting him – on the other hand, however, that little voice in my head is telling me it’s because he can’t resist me. I’m irresistible and I’m leading him to his death. Then I get an idea, I call Tina, but just as she picks up, Anna comes home, smiling like an idiot. She kicks her shoes down the hall and rings out a very cheery “I’m home.” I want to ask her how the date went, but she’s rushing around to get ready for work and then she’s out the door, smiling as if her life depended on it.

I know Anna’s not going to be home until almost six in the morning but I wait out on the couch anyway, and when I wake up, it’s a quarter past nine and Anna’s put a blanket on me, while I lay outstretched on the couch, my long legs scrunched up at the end. I turn on one of those morning talk shows where I could swear they feed their hosts four times the recommended serving of caffeine. They’re all talking about some shopping tip to help you save money when you’re shopping for things you don’t need, then I notice something really weird in the window behind where they’re filming. Thank the lord for TiVo because I have to pause it and look closer and I see something peculiar. A blonde woman in a white gown, and from the looks of it, she has no face. I take a photo with my phone, then press play again and watch as she disappears off-screen, travelling to I don’t know where. I send the photo to Tina, who sends a message back, asking what she’s supposed to be looking at. I look again, she’s definitely there, with one arrow in her quiver. The fact that she’s so accurate terrifies me. I know Tina said to run if I see her, but if she’s never missed a target, how can I escape?

I get up and I’m so preoccupied by what I saw that I have to check the clock on the kitchen counter and I realise that it’s still only Friday, and that I was meant to be at school half an hour ago. I rush around, throw an apple and bottle of water in my bag, pull out my chemistry text book because I don’t need it today and I race to school, with my teeth hardly brushed, my hair in a messy bun and only half of the buttons on my uniform done up. I catch the first bus I can, which never seems to move fast enough for me, and after one hour and thirteen minutes of lateness, I arrive at school where the attendance office lady is less than pleased with my efforts, scowling and asking where my note is. I forgot to ask Anna for a note, but I didn’t want to wake her, so now I’m stuck with lunchtime detention.

I take the opportunity I have at recess to ask Rose if I can come over and talk to her mum later that afternoon. I know it seems bad, that I’ve been spending more time with Rose’s mum than with Rose, but right now, this is important. I make a promise that we’ll go to some concert she likes and she isn’t even mad at me. She just hugs me, her thick, olive coloured arms squeezing around my tiny waist, and she squeals with joy. Even now, I can’t forget that she is my best friend and that I can’t lose her.

I’ve had detentions before, and they usually fly by, but this one is possibly the longest detention I’ve ever had to endure. I was a few minutes late getting out of English, and when I walk up to the detention room it’s almost full, that is, except for one seat next to Hunter Phillips, while everyone around him stares spitefully at me, like it never stopped being a hot topic. Even Hunter’s friends have left him there, sitting together a few rows behind him. I quietly sit down, and I’m glared at once more by the teacher running detention. He looks familiar, but I’ve never bothered to learn his name. I want to talk to Hunter and ask him about his message to me, but anything we say will be school news again, so he just sits in his seat, scribbling things on a piece of paper, and then I notice – amongst all of his scribbles, he managed to draw a Galloway sword.

“That’s really cool,” I tell him, and he looks at me funny, as if he knows what it means and doesn’t think that I do.

“I was just wasting time,” he explains, a hint of anger in his voice. “It’s not an actual drawing.”

“Guess so,” I surrender. “It still looks cool.” Just like that, we don’t speak anymore and we’re left to sit in our own agonising awkwardness for the next half an hour.