Soul Beach

face in the crowd. More than a face. An entire destiny revealed in a single glimpse. Though I never imagined death would be such a part of the way our lives would intertwine forever.
    Much later, I did ask her about that first time, but she couldn’t even remember seeing me that night, and then tried to laugh off my hurt. She was never a deep thinker. If she had been, perhaps things would have been different. I might have been different. More tender, less quick to anger? At the end, I did see understanding dawn in those pale, perfect eyes, but by then it was too late for her to make up a story that would satisfy me. In any case, the pillow was pressed against her nose and mouth, and it was too risky to let go. That famous voice that could have told me what I wanted to hear, could also have screamed for help. She knew how to project as well as how to whisper.
    Ah, there is no point trying to rewrite the past. What’s done is done. In the end, what matters is what I believe, and I believe she loved me, no matter what.

13
    Seven days of hell. A week has never felt this long, not at Christmas, not birthdays, not ever.
    I’m jumpy and foul-tempered and feverish. Mum thought I was sick, but when the Digital Thermometer wouldn’t budge from Normal, she lost sympathy. She’s still pissed off that I won’t join Olav’s Teens in Tears sessions, and it doesn’t help that Dad thinks I’m siding with him, so now no one’s really talking to each other .
    Sometimes I feel like the only adult in the house.
    Except I haven’t been very adult this week. I skulk around, checking my email even more often than usual, but there’s been nothing from the Soul Beach Management Team. Assuming they even exist. In between refreshing my account over and over again, my days pass in the usual jumbled way – lessons, canteen, homework, more homework, inane chatter from Cara about men, intense questions from Robbie about university choices. I can’t focus on any of it. Soul Beach might not be a computer virus, but it’s infected my head. Where is Meggie? Is she happy? And will I ever hear her voice again?
    When I lost her the first time, it hurt like hell, but I swear this is worse.
    ‘What is your problem?’ Cara finally asks me when we’re walking home. It’s too hot for the last day of September, and my school shirt sticks to my back.
    ‘What do you think?’
    She raises her eyebrows. We keep walking. After a bit, she says, ‘I don’t get why you’ve suddenly gone downhill again. I thought you were getting better.’
    Yet again I consider telling her about getting onto the site. But she won’t understand. ‘Oh, I’m sorry . I didn’t realise that you’d get bored with such a mopey best friend. Better find yourself a more cheerful one, eh, Cara?’
    ‘Come on, Alice, I didn’t mean—’
    But I don’t want to listen. I hear the rush of blood, or the ocean, or whatever it is. I run and I don’t stop till I’m home. All I can think about is that at eleven forty-five, it will be exactly seven days since I was blocked by the site. So I must get an answer by then. Surely?
    I shower. I eat three rounds of toast spread with too much Marmite, but I can’t taste it. I sneak some vodka from the freezer but spit out the first sip. I try to do my homework on the laptop, checking email every couple of words . . .
    Maybe I’m being too stupid to live by believing this could still turn out OK, that the people behind the site will play fair. This isn’t Apple or Microsoft or the BBC or—
    I click again and for a moment I don’t believe what I’m seeing.
    There’s an email.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: September 30 2009
Subject: RESULTS OF REVIEW OF REGULATIONS BREACH, SOUL BEACH
Dear Alice,
Following the review of your serious breach of the regulations of Soul Beach, the management has reached the following decision:
1. As a new Visitor on the site, you may not have had a chance to grasp the rules and regulations, specifically Regulation 4f vvii:
It is forbidden for Visitors to elicit or attempt to elicit information regarding the offline status or history of Guests on Soul Beach, unless the Guest initiates the conversation.
2. Although this breach is serious, the management has decided to allow you back onto the site, on the understanding that any further breach will result in immediate and permanent exclusion from the site.
3. No further correspondence will be entered