Remix by Non Pratt Page A

as they walk past, Pilates mats rolled up under their arms. We aren’t exactly an attractive bunch: Dongle’s sweating through the grey vest he put on; Anna and Parvati are still looking peaky despite the shower, their meal punctuated by the occasional sigh as if eating is tiring. Of the two of us who aren’t hungover, I’m blotchy and miserable and Owen just looks plain miserable.
    I don’t know what Owen’s excuse is, but every bite of my hash brown is a battle against the rising sickness I feel at the thought of Tom’s hands on another girl’s skin, him kissing her the way he kissed me last night…
    When I look down, the hash brown I’m holding has turned into a potatoey mush between my fingers.
    Back at the campsite, I stop off to collect my phone from the charging tent – I’ll have to remind Ruby to do hers later. It’s exactly the sort of thing she’ll leave until it’s too late. There’s a new message from Mum.
    Someone’s written FLEAS!!! on the kitchen calendar. Am I supposed to know why? Do I have fleas? Do you? I can’t think it’s your sister
.
    I message back telling her that Morag’s flea treatment is under the sink, signing off by reminding her to wash her hands afterwards and telling her that I love her. What I want to do is ring her and cry down the phone, confessing what I’ve done, but I’m not sure that will help. Mum is pretty hard-hearted when it comes to relationships – she was happier when I told her I’d broken up with Tom than when I told her I was in love with him and I envisage words of comfort that can be translated into the English language as “I told you so”.
    Then, because I obviously have a masochistic streak a mile wide, I reread Tom’s messages that were waiting for me when I turned my phone back on first thing this morning, before I’d even unzipped my sleeping bag.
    Kaz, I want you to know that the only mistake I’ve made was to break up with you in the first place. I want to be with you. Give me the weekend to make things right, OK?
    The next message is shorter:
Please don’t hate me
.
    The problem is that I don’t hate
him
– I hate myself …
    His last message is shorter still:
I love you
.
    … because I love him too. Still.
RUBY
    The others get back just as I’m finishing my make-up. Ruffling my fingers through the back of the hair that I hate, I figure I’ll do. As I’ve told Kaz a thousand times, it isn’t what you’ve got that matters, it’s how you work it.
    The thought of facing Kaz jabs at my insides like someone’s out there working a Ruby Kalinski voodoo doll. I can’t stop thinking about how we left things last night –
jab
 
– after I took my rage at myself out on the person I love the most –
jab, jab, jab
– how I made my best friend cry because I couldn’t –
carving knife of guilt straight to the heart
.
    I have
got
to make this right.
KAZ
    Ruby emerges from the tent dressed in her ubiquitous cut-offs and the string vest she bought last week from the Army & Navy Store, bright purple bra contrasting beneath. She’s wearing a sweep of khaki eyeliner to match the vest, but it looks fresher, cleaner than yesterday’s. When she sees me, she repositions the two kirby grips she’s holding in her lips to look like fangs then gives me a vampire smile as she twists her hair away from her face.
    This is the Ruby I’m used to.
    “Present for you.” I hold out a crumpled brown bag that she falls on like a starving seagull, ripping the paper in her haste to get to what’s inside. It’s not a pretty sight, but it’s a welcome one – my plan for today is to make sure Ruby eats more than she drinks. I’m not making any excuses for her, but I don’t think yesterday’s alcohol consumption helped matters.
    “How are you feeling?” I ask, sitting next to her on the grass in front of our tent.
    “A bajillionty times better thanks to you.” Ruby looks around, as if checking we’re alone. We’re not, but the others are