What Does Blue Feel Like? (14 page)

Jubilant,

she calls her mother and says she's found
the
dress.

Her mother, sitting in a nearby coffee shop,

awaiting the call,

credit card at the ready,

gasps,

and says,

‘It's
how
much?'

The shrink says to me,

after listening to my

particularly vicious self-berating,

‘Would you talk like that to one of your friends if

they'd screwed up?'

I'm horrified. ‘Of course not — that's so nasty and crushing

and hateful. Everyone fucks up.

I would never be like that to them.'

‘So why, Char,

why

do you treat yourself like that?

Why is it okay to treat yourself in a manner that you

wouldn't anyone else?

Why are you your harshest critic and worst enemy?'

 

The stress is evident

In faces —

black under eyes

pinched looks

mouths tightly turned down

On hands —

white-knuckled grips on rulers and calculators,

gnawed-down nails,

fingers that constantly twist and turn

On bodies —

shoulders tense and unrelenting.

For the first time all year,

uniforms are scruffy and no one cares.

 

Tick

Tick

Tick

‘You may start perusal.'

 

Flip

Flip

Flip

‘You may commence.'

 

Scribble

Scribble

Scribble

‘Pens down.'

 

In the grand scheme of things,

it's just another fucking day.

a swear jar for me,

thinks I swear too much.

Every time I say a bad word

I put in a dollar.

At the end of the first week

I have eighty-one dollars.

Jim smiles,

laughs,

his even white teeth flashing with light,

and

hands over the coins.

They spill into my outstretched palms,

fill them up,

and bounce, noisily,

on the floor.

I take most of them

to buy jeans,

and on the way see a guy collecting money for a charity.

I put the coins in the tin,

and walk away,

feeling lighter.

 

I take the rest of the money

and get a haircut.

I get my wild tangles chopped out.

I feel sleeker.

More in

control.

We're at a party,

and I'm watching

Jim

Kiss

Me.

His eyes are closed,

drunkenly tasting my mouth.

I'm watching the shape of his lips,

feeling the tenderness of his whole body,

his tenderness towards me

conveyed

in a single

Kiss.

about Schoolies.

Drugs, of course.

Alcohol.

Sex.

Even though I haven't been to the shrink's in ages,

she sends me back.

While I wait, I think about how I walked in the first day.

Hair dishevelled,

wearing jeans because Mum wouldn't let me

shave my legs,

puffy eyes and no make-up because I'd cried it all off.

I sit,

now,

gelled hair,

shimmery eyes and cheeks and dewy make-up,

sparkling studs in my ears and chin,

diamond on my right hand,

car in the carpark.

I'm still wearing jeans though.

The door opens

and

Vivian ushers me in.

Why do you have to get blotto at Schoolies?

Who decided?

And why do you have to follow the trend?

 

Maybe I want to,

I say,

sounding like a sulky child.

Maybe I want to get trashed and watch people dare each

other to jump off balconies into pools and get so drunk I

have to hold on to the ground because I feel like I'll fall off

if I don't.

 

Maybe I want to be predictable.

It's almost the end of class and

Ol' Yapper is going on again.

As we pack up to leave

he says,

‘Remember —

you haven't achieved anything today unless you've done

something for someone who can never repay you.'

At yet another party,

this one to celebrate the last exam,

the girls preen in the mirror,

like birds.

They chatter animatedly as they

apply lip gloss

fix unruly strands of hair

run their tongues over their teeth to remove lippy stains

adjust their strapless bras as they head ever south.

Then they

Emerge.

 

A friend of a friend takes an interest in Bronwyn.

They dance,

share small talk,

laugh.

Several hours

and shots of tequila

later

he whispers to her,

‘You'd be really pretty

if you weren't so thin.'

 

Fuck you,

she thinks,

but

she knows those nine words will stay with her for a long time.

 

Lee gets drunk and disappears with a guy.

Later,

he stumbles back into the party

clutching a beer and

fumbling to do up the zipper on his jeans.

 

Char is splayed on Jim's lap,

almost like an ornamental piece,

but it's obvious she's drunk.

They occasionally kiss,

interlink their fingers.

Char nestles into his shoulder

And looks up at the low-slung moon,

thin and yellow.

 

At school,

the party is the topic of conversation.

Bronwyn blushes, and shyly giggles,

when she admits that she might,

just might,

have a boyfriend — worth keeping.

 

Lee slinks into school

looking gaunt

huge sunnies on her face

jumper pulled down over her hands

hair hanging over her ears

to block out the whispers and giggles about her.

 

During Maths,

Char asks if she can go to the toilets.

She finds Lee,

splotchy-eyed,

huddling.

 

‘I'm not a slut, Char. I'm not.'

I stay in the toilets with Lee

until the bell goes for lunch.

And tell her about when Jim and I first met.

 

I tell her

the whispers

giggles

sly looks

will fade.

Next weekend

there will be new gossip,

and she will be

glossed over.

 

Luckily for her,

she doesn't have to wait that long.

Some stupid kid got caught smoking pot in the toilets.

News moves fast around here.

I feel

Used

Discarded

like a soggy tissue

flung into the bin.

I doodle on my folder

swirls

over and over

hypnotic.

But I can't stop thinking

that I'm

used goods.

Lee and I

are meant to be going shopping together

on Saturday morning.

(I'm finally forgiven.)

I wait,

impatiently,

drink three coffees,

check my watch twenty times.

She isn't answering her phone.

I know

she had a date last night

and she's probably sleeping.

Bitch.

I've been

stood up.

 

When I get home,

muttering under my breath like a petulant child,

Mum's waiting at the door for me.

Instantly

I know she's got

bad news.

that Lee went on her date last night.

They went out to a party after the movies

and both got drunk.

The guy she was with

swore he was okay to drive,

and Lee didn't want to ring her parents

because it was so late

so she said okay.

 

Turns out

the guy she was with

wasn't okay to drive

and he drove into a tree

and Lee was in the car

and she isn't okay.

I'm apprehensive

walking into the hospital

my arms loaded with

chocolates

flowers

magazines.

 

Lee has stitches down her cheek

a cast on her arm

and another on her leg

and bruises everywhere.

 

There's a tube connecting her to a drip

and two others connecting her to machines.

 

She's doped up on painkillers,

but smiles weakly as I come in,

full of

false cheer

that falters and stalls as slowly,

but deliberately,

she tells me

what happened.

It was horrible, Char.

The last thing I remember was heading towards a tree,

Nick saying ‘Oh fuck',

and hearing glass shatter.

Then I woke up in emergency

and I remember not being able to move.

They had me in a neck brace.

Thank god I haven't broken my spine.

Mum and Dad were there in their dressing gowns,

and they were both crying.

They said to me,

‘Any time of the day or night

you can call us

any time,

do you understand?

We'd rather be woken up and you be okay

than to get a call from the police or hospital

in the middle of the night.

Don't you ever

do that again.'

 

I start crying,

and say,

‘Look at the back of my head.'

It's a struggle to manoeuvre my body

and lift my head from the pillows,

and when Char looks

I can hear her gasp.

From the front,

my hair looks normal.

But at the back,

my hair has been

shorn

and replaced

with a long, snakelike row

of stitches,

precise and careful.

 

I can hear my voice, pitiful

as I say,

‘They shaved my hair, Char.

They shaved my hair.'

At the coffee machine

I see her parents,

still in their woolly dressing gowns and slippers,

looking every one of their years.

They're buying what must be their hundredth

crappy machine coffee of the day,

but it's hot, and wet, and has caffeine in it.

 

Her mum tells me

they're pressing charges against the guy.

Her eyes well over

as she says,

‘Look how lucky we were.

I don't know what I'd do

if Lee had been . . .'

 

I know that she can't finish the sentence.

I tell them to go home,

have a shower,

a sleep,

some food.

 

They smile indulgently at me,

take their coffees

and walk back towards the ward.

The school formal is on Friday

but I don't really feel like going.

Lee tells me not to be ridiculous,

she wants to hear all of the gossip.

I decide to duck into the hospital with Jim

before we go to the formal

so she can see us all dressed up.

That's something nice I can do.

Char and Jim visit me before going to the formal.

Char looks so pretty.

And Jim looks really cute in a tux and top hat.

 

I smile bravely at them

and try to be excited

but

inside

I'm jealous

that I'm not going too.

 

Char knows that something is wrong

but I just tell her I'm tired,

and soon after,

she leaves,

full of vigour and excitement.

 

I want to go

and it's not fair

that I'm stuck in this hospital bed

scarred and broken.

 

Mum and Dad keep telling me how lucky I am

but I don't feel lucky tonight, not at all.

 

I turn on my side

and cry quietly

so the nurses don't hear.

I think

that my latest boyfriend, Jack,

is lovely.

 

Char giggles at me,

makes kissing sounds,

and sings that old song about

‘Sitting in a tree

k-i-s-s-i-n-g'.

What she doesn't know

is that he

warms me up inside

the whole way through.

Some of the boys are caught with hipflasks and

get suspended and

Mick turns up in a yellow suit and

the girls tell him he looks weird.

Two of the girls turn up in the same dresses and

bitch about each other all night and

there are about five teachers brave enough to get on the