Three Times Dead by D C Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

couple of overs, such was the force and speed of my overarm.
    So all in all, not the greatest time in my life, but looking back now, at least I was protected from myself, which was not the case when I got out.

 
    Chapter 11
     
    Back to the highlights:
    Josh came to visit me while I was in hospital. I didn’t expect that. We didn’t have good history. When he’d criticized the way I surfed, I’d beaten him up so bad that he’d had to go to A&E. Then Gina and I had a fight and she’d gone off with Josh, just for spite, I reckoned. I sorted that out but then she headed off back to the city and I was left at Piha with Mitch and Scott. After all that I never really could understand why Josh hadn’t let me drown. I guessed there were better people out there than me.
    “I came down with my Dad,” Josh said. “He’s here on business.”
    “He’s working then?” I asked. Josh’s dad had gone bankrupt the previous year and he’d lost the business.
    “Yes, he’s working for a construction company. He’s finding it hard after being his own boss for so long, but at least he has a job.”
    “And I saw your house sold.”
    “Yeah and now we’re renting, which is ok, I guess. Not too far from the old house either. Life goes on.”
    Conversation ground to halt then as he glanced down towards the end of my non-existent leg. Yes, life went on, but not as we knew it.
    “Hayden came out of hospital last week,” Josh said eventually.
    “How’s he doing?” I asked, as if I cared. Josh had been teaching Hayden how to surf at Piha over the New Year, but that came to a halt when Hayden was hit by a car.
    Josh shrugged. “He’s ok.” I knew Josh felt guilty because it was him that had stepped out into the road and Hayden had pushed him out of the way taking the impact instead. But that was their issue, not mine. “When do you get out?” Josh asked.
    “Not sure, they want to make sure the wound is healing well and that I can cope moving around on crutches. Then they’ll transfer my records to Auckland Hospital and I’ll go there as an outpatient. They also have to fix an appointment with the Artificial Limb Centre.”
    “Oh,” was all Josh could find to say to that. He stared into the distance for a while, obviously thinking about what to say next. This was the reason I got so few visitors – it just got awkward. “So, are you coming back to school this year?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never been that good at school. Not sure why. Rhys and Katie are the brains of the family; I got left out of that particular gene pool. Did you know I had to repeat a year?”
    “I didn’t think that happened any more.”
    “Happened to me, last year of intermediate school when the teachers said I wasn’t ready for high school and my parents agreed, so I stayed another year. I was real angry. That’s when I started to take it out on people. It didn’t help me learn anything, repeating that year, just made me mad and bad. By the time I got to high school, I had quite a rep.”
    “I noticed.”
    I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with Josh. We’d not had much to do with each other since Piha and I knew that he’d been sucked in by Gina, so I couldn’t blame him for what she’d done. I had to admit that I missed Gina though; she hadn’t been back since she walked out on me. “Have you got Gina’s number?” I asked.
    “Gina?” Josh looked at me like it was a trick question. “No, I erased it from my phone. Don’t you have it?”
    I picked up the iPhone that Mum had got me. “New phone – mine was smashed in the accident, numbers smashed with it.”
    “But hasn’t Gina been in to see you?”
    I looked out of the window, remembering the disaster that her visit had been. “I was a bit of an arsehole when she came.”
    “I thought you were going to go easy on her.”
    “It’s been … difficult,” I said. “After Piha I hadn’t wanted to be with her in case it all went wrong again and then,