Night fell again, after a day which had felt like it would never end.


    Maika had read somewhere that people steeped in Te Ao Māori - those who spoke it every day, those who grew up in that context - thought about time differently. They''d heard about it at roughly the same time as they''d watch the film Arrival, and could never quite separate the two ideas out in their head. To them, the idea took on the significance of a superpower in speculative fiction. When really, logically, they knew it referred instead to a simple linguistic reversal in contrast to English ways of thinking.


    In te reo Ingarihi, one looked forward in time, in a kind of questing manner, not knowing what was ahead. One who spoke of time in English spoke of looking back at the past, turning, regarding it over one''s shoulder like a shade stalking up behind.


    In te reo Māori, one looked forward to the past. The past was known, spoken of, passed down, so it could be seen more clearly. When one walked, one looked where one was going. The steps then, that someone Māori took (properly Māori, Maika would think, not themself, but someone who didn''t have impostor syndrome about their own ethnicity), would be steps into known territory; I do this because my ancestors also did this, and it is the right and true way of things, tika, pono. The wisdom of those who had forged these paths was there to light the way. Even in times one might consider unprecendented, there would exist some guidance of some sort, which just had to be applied cleverly to the context at hand.


    There were the times when Maika thought both perspectives were wrong. In the darkness of that perspectivelessness, that loss of any meaningful language, they would lie for whole afternoons and post-midnights in a stupor of existential dread.


    Both were wrong. One did not look back at the past, or forward to it. The past was at least as unknown as the future; tainted by the foibles of memory, twisted by consecutive retellings, penned by the victors, written in that most biased and coagulating of inks - blood. When Maika tried to regard the past - to remember her voice, her smile, the feel of being in her presence - it was all fake, and they knew it. Being with Tessa before her death was nothing particularly special. It was in death that everything about her had transmorphed into tragic poetry, into something that must be remembered reverently.


    It was in such a mood that they partook of the last recreational drugs left in the house. Thanks a lot, Chad.


    They lay back, letting the feeling move past something consumed, to something seeping into the bloodstream, becoming a part of them. They hadn''t wanted this, but with everything that happened, and now the added pressure of having to stay here longer when escape had been so tantalisingly close... if there was ever a time to indulge, it was now. Despite what Kirsten thought of them. Fuck her judgement.


    There was something up with her. Something more than the obvious. But Maika was blowed if they knew what the hell it was.


    The looseness set in, and their mind drifted away from Kirsten, back to the last time they had ever known a moment''s true peace.


    ---


    "Michael!"


    Michael. The way she says his name, like it''s a prayer. In her mouth, his name sounds almost right to him, or at least, he stops hating it so much.


    Tessa ran up the driveway to him, wrapping an arm in his. "Hey." She dragged him down on the one side, grinning up at him, cheeks dimpling.


    He pulled against her playful weight, crushing his lips to her forehead. "Hey babe." He glanced behind and waved with his free arm. "Hey Vince!" Vince, for his part, waved with his head angled down, a bit of a smile on his lips.


    "Have you got...?" Tess murmured, and started patting Michael''s pockets.


    "Shh, shh, let''s get off the driveway, but yeah, I''ve got it. Just wait until sundown, yeah? The neighbours might see."


    That was perhaps too cautious of him, but it paid to be so. The bach they''d rented for their graduation celebration stood alone atop the west coast cliff, the nearest house down a steep embankment of flaxes and stunted seaside trees. The sight of them toking up would be telegraphed for miles, and the smell would drift down to the neighbours unless that sea breeze picked up again.


    He led the twins up to the house atop the driveway, its jagged dark-grey weatherboard stabbing the fading sky, all angles, and a lemony glare of large windows reflecting the sunset.


    Chad and Kirsten were already inside heating up the oven pizzas. Kirsten had driven the two of them in earlier, from their houses via the supermarket where she stocked up on everything anyone could possibly need, and more. Michael, dozing in the backseat, had put up with all their banter the whole hour''s drive out here. Maybe tonight the two of them would finally admit they were into each other. It seemed even more likely as, when Michael and the twins entered, the two of them stopped laughing abruptly and looked sidelong at each other for a long moment.


    "Vince, Tess! You made it!" Kirsten came around the kitchen island and gave them each a hug. Michael winced at the way Vince hugged Kirsten, and clung on for a second too long as she tried to break away. Guy had been nursing a crush on Lee the entire time they''d known each other. It was painful to see.


    "Help yourselves," Chad said, gesturing with his elbow at all the beers and RTDs lined up on the huge kitchen windowsill, while his hands sliced up the first pizza out of the oven. "And take a plate and a slice."


    Soon enough, they were all sat at the huge glass and wicker table. "A toast!" Chad held his beer up, and everyone followed. "Here''s to the successful completion of our Bachelors - well, for four out of the five of us." Tessa nodded, chuckling along.


    "Here''s to Chad getting a scholarship for his Honours year!" Kirsten added amidst the clinking of bottles. Chad grinned, and tipped his head as always to get the too-long floppy fringe out of his eyes.


    Michael raised his bottle one more time. "Here''s to getting shitfaced!"


    They cheered, and another round of bottle clinking ensued.


    ---


    Michael went with the flow of the evening as he always did, never one to take the lead. Once the pizzas were cooked and mostly consumed, and the oven was safely turned off, the five of them found their way down into the large garden, down the steep slope with bright paths of crushed seashells lit with little footlights. It was one of those fancy modern gardens where everything was all rocks and succulents, and the outdoor furniture was dark and attractively uncomfortable. Covered in insect repellent thanks to Kirsten''s insistence, they all sat there getting drunk, munching on chips and dip, and shooting the shit, until the sun was well below the horizon.


    The girls made their way inside when it got too cold, and the boys stayed outside. The timbre of the conversation got stupider and cruder, as it always did when the company was solely male, Michael had noticed. Well actually, it was mostly Chad''s fault for that. Vince was mostly quiet, only occasionally nodding and laughing, a haunted look in his eyes whenever Chad said something particularly borderline.


    He left Chad and Vince to it, stumbling off to take a slash in the bush. The bathroom seemed so far away right now. It was only after he was done that guilt set in. He looked down at his hands, then up at the house, so far up the hill. But fuck, was he really going to touch Tessa with these hands? Nah.


    So up the hill he went.


    Coming out of the bathroom with hands that smelt of some fancy coconut and orange peel soap, he followed the grey and silver abstract art on the walls until he heard voices. Kirsten and Tess, in the lounge, chatting. The sound of his name gave him pause.


    "Yeah, but Michael? You could do so much better." Kirsten. He found it hard to be angry at her saying that. It was true.


    "Kirsten!" Tess cried out, her tone of voice suggesting she was in the act of nudging Kirsten in the arm. "Don''t say that. You don''t say that about any human being."


    "Ugh, you''re such a psych major sometimes."


    "It''s true though. No one is a waste of space."


    "You can''t seriously tell me that, Tessa. Michael has so much talent, and it''s all going to just go down the drain when he dies of alcohol poisoning at age twenty-seven."


    There was a pause, and then Tess said, "I can save him. I can help him overcome his addiction."


    "Um... isn''t that explicitly what you can''t do? Isn''t it established fact that people can only save themselves?"


    "I mean..." Her voice quavered with emotion, and a smidge of drunkenness. Michael leaned against the wall, his ears and cheeks burning. "Yes, people have to want to change themselves, it''s true. But you have to understand... Michael has such a beautiful, sensitive soul. This drunkenness, carrying on like he''s an Irish transplant, it''s all... he''s trying to escape pain in his past, you know? It''s all a cover for that. So I''ll help him resolve his past, and then he can recover in the future."


    Kirsten''s tone was brassy. Without seeing her face, Michael couldn''t tell if it was teasing or insistent. "Oh my God, Tess. Give it up. You can''t change people."


    "Maybe not, but you can help people. It''s true, you know. Just ask Vince. He had some... episodes when we were in high school. I helped him through them. I mean, I don''t want to take all the credit. He''s had to really work on his shyness and stuff. But he told me himself, I helped him turn his life around. He''s kinda the whole reason why I''m doing psych."


    "Yeah, you''re not wrong, Vince did say something like that to me."


    "And well... that''s not entirely true I''m doing because of him. I mean, it is true, but... I have just as much reason to study it for myself, as for wanting to help others."


    "What do you mean?"


    "I''m my own sort of mess."


    "Oh. Tess. You want to talk about it?"


    "Um... not right now. But maybe in time."


    "I''ll be here when you need me." There was a pause, full of warm sounds from the two of them, as if a particularly performative hug was happening. Then Kirsten broke the silence. "So how many more years are you in for?"


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "I need to do another two years at least, and honestly, I''ll probably go straight into my masters from there."


    "Bet you''re pissed at us Bachelor of Arts wankers, huh?"


    Tessa chuckled, and another pause followed, in which Michael sank further back against the wall, his hand against his heart.


    She believed in him so much more then he believed in himself. Kirsten was right, he didn''t deserve Tessa. But he would try to do better. With her help, maybe he could confront some of the things which haunted him from his past. The estrangement from his Dad''s side of the family, that wasn''t helping. The doubts about his identity, the turn to alcohol and drugs at fourteen to tamp down the pain of everything... He had no illusions. It wouldn''t be easy. He''d tried to face these things before, but always ended up relapsing into bad habits. With Tessa''s help, maybe; with her psychology training applied to the mess of his life; maybe there was hope for him yet.


    And at the very least, she thought so. That made it easier for him to believe too.


    "Ladies," he addressed them jovially as he stumbled past, on his way to reheat a slice of pizza.


    "Hey babe!" Tessa leapt up to follow him. His body rocked as she hugged him from behind. Once he''d slipped the plate into the microwave and pressed a few buttons, he spun around to encompass her with his arms. He kissed her on the top of her head, Kirsten''s eye roll across the room visible even from here past the thick waves of Tessa''s brown hair. Tess pulled away to look up into his face. "Hey, is it time?" she poked at the pockets of his trousers, and his jacket, still not finding the stash.


    "I dunno, maybe we don''t need to have any to have a good time, right?"


    Tess tilted her head at him, then reached past to open the microwave. She pulled out his hissing slice of overheated pizza and handed it to him. "We don''t need it, sure, but this is a celebration."


    He couldn''t blame her for the little bit of hypocrisy. What was it, making her suffer in silence? It wouldn''t be right to pry. But he wanted to help her too, like she wanted to help him. "I was just thinking about cutting down, you know?"


    "Sure. I''ll join you in that. After tonight though."


    He blew on the sizzling cheese before biting, then dug around in his chest pocket - the one Tessa always forgot to check because apparently chicks'' clothing didn''t have chest pockets usually - and brought out the baggie. "Aight, babe. Best do this out on the deck, with the lights off so the neighbours can''t see."


    They took a blanket out. Michael cuddled up with her, facing the stars, and they passed the joint between the two of them, talking about nothing much, laughing and sharing a kiss or two when the slow mood took them. He didn''t feel bad for leaving the others out: Kirsten never partook because she was judgy and stuck-up; Vince abstained for fear drugs would interfere with his anti-depressants; and Michael didn''t feel like cramping his and Tessa''s style by adding Chad to the mix.


    "Babe?" Tessa''s voice was higher than usual.


    "Yeah babe?"


    "You''re not going to break up with me, eh?"


    "Eh? Why would I do that?"


    "Cos I''m still at uni and you''re moving on."


    "You know I''m not going to do that. Babe, what put that in your head?"


    "Ha. It''s nothing."


    The stars stared down throughout the pause, compelling Michael to keep her speaking. "Nah, what is it?"


    "It''s just... it''s the funniest thing. Sometimes when I look at you, I feel like... like we''re not going to get all that long together." She looked up at him, her head lower than his where they lay. "You don''t think I''m being to clingy, do you?"


    "Pffft, no. I''d be a dick to say that." He pulled her closer. It was all his drinking and the drugs that made her feel insecure like this. Stuff like what Kirsten had said, like how he''d be dead at twenty seven. No, he wouldn''t keep scaring her like this. He''d cut it all out, show her that he''d be here for the long haul. "Babe, I''m here to stay, all right?"


    She smiled at him again, but her smile was hollowed out by the wideness of her eyes. What insecurities was she harbouring? For a second, under the light of stars so far away and long ago, it hit Michael - as it did from time to time - that she was just as distant as those stars, in some ways. He would never know what was truly in her head. Was she as sweet as the words she had said about him to Kirsten? Would she grow to resent him, if they did stay together and he didn''t stick to his word, like he''d seen time and time again in his own family? She was about as close as she could ever be to him, and yet... that was where it stopped.


    "I promise," he said, rubbing her shoulder. "After tonight, I''m going to cut out the drinking and the drugs, okay?"


    "Okay. Me too." She nudged him in the ribs. "The joint''s done. Have you got anymore?"


    "Geez," he laughed, "I thought we were giving up."


    "Yeah, tomorrow. Might as well live it up today. Although actually... I''ve never taken LSD. Maybe we can have that as a free pass, for if we ever get the chance, right? I''ve always wanted to like, transcend, or whatever."


    She stared at Michael, waiting with a smile for his assent. "Yeah, sure, why not?"


    Tessa stood, brushing down her clothes. "But for right now, I bet Chad''s got something. I''ll go ask him."


    Michael sat up. "Whatever he''s got, it''s probably uppers."


    Tessa shrugged. "I''m not ready to sleep yet. Joint made me too sleepy." She wandered back into the house, into the indoor lights which obliterated his night vision for a few seconds.


    He didn''t want to get up. Unlike her, he was perfectly happy to lay here and feel sleepy. Only one thing kept him holding onto consciousness a little longer. She never used to be into drugs, before him. Perhaps he ought to feel more guilt for that.


    But she was also going to join him on the climb up out of this hole his life was in. So maybe this wasn''t the terrible sin part of him insisted it was. Maybe it was just the story of their lives, a charming anecdote to share at the rest home in sixty years time. Yeah, we used to get stoned together. What of it? Didn''t you?


    ---


    Michael woke to yelling. He sat up, head hazy.


    "Help her!" Kirsten''s voice. "Someone call the ambulance."


    "No, don''t call." Chad''s. "Hey, that''s my tin - what the fuck?"


    "Your stash did this to her? What the fuck did you give her?"


    "I didn''t give her anything! She must have stolen it out of my jacket. I left it on my chair."


    "What is it? How do we help her?"


    "I don''t know how much she took - oh, fuck, is that powder on her nose?"


    "Yeah? Why?"


    "She wasn''t supposed to sniff it! It''s not... fuck, man! Haven''t any of you guys seen Pulp Fiction?"


    "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"


    Michael stumbled off the porch, down the seashell path bouncing back the moonlight, down to the jumble of four bodies further down the path. Kirsten knelt - Chad paced with his hands in his hair - Vince stood apart, hands cupped over his mouth - and between the three of them lay Tessa, like someone had poured her out of a bottle.


    "Pulp Fiction?" Michael murmured.


    "Fuck, she''s going to OD," Chad muttered.


    Michael dropped to his knees beside Tessa, and touched her neck, then held his ears close to her nose and mouth. In his copacetic chemical mood, it was all so far away. The chill of the nighttime sea breeze had cooled her already. Nothing would warm her again. "She''s not breathing." His voice was far too calm for the shattering present.


    "We need to call the ambulance!" Kirsten shrieked.


    Chad fell down beside Michael, feeling for a pulse too, putting the back of his hand beside her airways. Michael wanted to push him over the side of the path, down the hard and spiky garden. How dare he fucking touch her. It was only the delay of the drugs in Michael''s system that saved Chad, as he stood up and backed away. "It''s too late. She''s gone."


    Next it was Kirsten beside Michael, invading Tessa''s space. Unlike Chad stumbling away from the horror of Tessa''s body, Kirsten stayed touching her, holding her hands, as sobs started in her throat, then rocked through her whole body. "Tessa," she cried, her voice muted. She covered her mouth and backed away on her seat.


    "What are we going to do?" Chad asked.


    Kirsten glared at him, then gathered up a handful of pebbles from the garden and threw them at him. Chad backed away, covering his head. Still, Vince stood downhill of them all, tears streaming down his face.


    "We should report you to the cops!" Kirsten hissed.


    "Please, no," Chad moaned, falling to his knees out of Kirsten''s pebble-throwing range. "My scholarship..."


    "Fuck your scholarship," Michael said, his voice low but hard.


    Kirsten wiped her face, then stood up. "No... No, he''s right, Michael. Fuck, but he''s right. If we call the cops, we''re all fucked by this. You''re high right now, and Chad was the one who had the drugs, even if she stole them from him. Tessa''s system will be full of the evidence. I don''t know if Vince or I would get in trouble too or not, but my parents would fucking disown me if I got caught up in this."


    "So what the fuck are you saying?" He gripped onto Tessa''s fallen hand, where Kirsten had dropped it. Her skin, so soft, lay against the dirt and grit of the seashell path. He picked it up, brushed the hard particulate off her skin. Cold. So cold.


    "We do something to cover it up."


    "How the hell would we even -"


    "I don''t know! Let me think!"


    ---


    It was all a haze then, and no amount of distance from the events would help clarify them. At some point while Kirsten staggered around the grounds, Chad and Michael had carried Tessa up to the house, Vince following at a distance like he was already chief mourner. Michael kept touching Tessa''s cheek, as if he expected to find warmth returning, breath stirring. She looked as if she were only asleep.


    By the time Kirsten had come up with her plan, they were all mostly sober again. The night had entered a thirteenth hour which never ended, the sky its darkest. Shadows cut across the moon and stars, obliterating them with no warning as the wind whipped the heavy dark clouds forward at a fair clip. Over the eastern mountains, the lights of the city cast an ominous glow. In the darkness of the unlit lounge, three boys sat around the corpse of one girl, unspeaking.


    "Here''s what we''ll do," Kirsten announced to the darkness. "We''ll hide all the evidence we had drugs here. All the alcohol evidence is fine: in fact, the more the merrier, to support our cover story. But we''ll burn citronella candles out on the porch where you were smoking. Wash the blanket and clothes you were in at the time to get rid of the smell, throw it in the dryer. And we''ll get rid of any other physical evidence in the car."


    "What car -?" Chad asked, but Kirsten steamrolled over him.


    She explained the rest of the plan. Vince burst into howling tears. Kirsten went over to him and wrapped herself around him, holding him hard, pulling him away from Tessa when he clung to her.


    "We have to do this. I''m sorry, Vince." She looked at Michael. "When the cops come, you admit that you had a fight with her, all right. In her drunken state, she wanted to break up with you, and wanted to get well away from you immediately. We all tried to stop her from drunk driving. But she wouldn''t listen. She was too upset with you. If you''re crying while you''re lying, all the better. We need to sell this, if we want to get away with it. If we all want to stay free."


    She stared each of them down until they were nodding, even Vince, who said not a thing but finally gave one jerk of a nod before dissolving into a puddle of tears. Kirsten stood, hands shaking. "I''ll get Tessa''s car ready."


    Her absence was glacially slow in passing; her return was all too soon. "Come on. Pick her up", she directed Michael and Chad. They carried Tessa out at Kirsten''s direction, to where the car sat in the near-dawn gloom, idling in park, angled oddly on the deserted coastal road. "Quickly now, we don''t want to be spotted."


    They put Tessa in the front seat. Michael strapped her in - she always insisted he wear his belt, it seemed only fitting - and kissed her cold cheek one last time. Her head slumped forward, long hair obscuring her face from view. Then Michael and Chad backed away.


    Kirsten popped her top half in through the door past Tessa. Two wrenches of the mechanisms within, and she was out again, slamming the door shut as the car began its roll down the steep road.


    The Tasman Sea waited, the choppy whitecaps already visible in the first light of dawn. As the little silver second-hand car careened off the cliff towards it, Kirsten put her hands on her head and screamed, "Tessa, no!"


    Michael roared out his impotent pain into the ever-present hush of the ocean, and ran down the road as if to look over the cliff, as if to hope against hope that the girl he knew was dead had somehow survived the manufactured tragedy.


    Neither car nor body were ever recovered.


    ---


    Their fault. Even fifteen years later, in the haze of the last drugs in the house, Maika couldn''t shake the idea that it wasn''t the drugs which had killed her, but the inaction. If they had called an ambulance, maybe they could have made it in time. It was impossible to know, but impossible too to ever let the idea go.


    Chad carrying the drugs? Couldn''t be mad at him for it. Tess took the drugs without asking. Kirsten''s insane plan? Saved them all probably. Couldn''t blame her for trying. Ginny''s inaction? Completely fair. Maika didn''t blame her for going catatonic in the face of her twin''s death.


    But Maika''s part? Getting her into drugs in the first place? Maika would always know, deep down, it was their influence that had killed her. As much as she said they were trying to run away from things in their life by using, so was she. Whatever it was - just some nasty little insecurity maybe, that she let peek through from time to time - it was eating her up inside, just like they felt. And instead of helping her, they had dragged her down to their level.


    And not just her. They''d fucked up everyone''s life. Their own most of all, but still, you just had to look at the lot of them. All of them singletons, unable to love each other, unable to love anyone else. Their shared secret was way too heavy to allow a genuine connection to ever spring up. How could you ever trust another human being, after doing something like that to one so dear? Maika had never been able to get close to a partner again, and they were sure the others feel the same.


    They tried to lift a limb, but the heaviness of it was all too much. Eyes staying open, that was too much too. Their grief was a heavy stone statue, shaped like a loathsome toad, sitting on their chest, pinning them down to the bed. It hurt to try too hard to breathe, so they just exhaled, and waited for the next breath, then the next, then the next.


    Each one more than they felt they deserved.