What Does Blue Feel Like? (15 page)

dance floor and the cool kids laugh at them and

the speeches go for a really long time and

one of the girls turns up in an ultra-revealing dress

and her boobs pop out halfway through the night and

she gets suspended and

it passes by

so fast.

In the girls' toilets,

Char is in a cubicle

when some of the girls from the self-proclaimed

‘cool group' come in.

She listens for a few minutes as they gossip, meanly

about this girl's dress

or that girl's hair.

She comes out,

irate,

and says,

‘You know who the real losers are?

It's you lot.

You don't do anything except laugh at other people

so you can feel better about yourselves.

You're not brave enough to do anything

in case someone laughs at you.

Just get a life.'

They bitch about her from their table all night,

but she doesn't care.

You can't be hurt by people you don't care about.

what I want to be when I grow up

and it scares me a little.

I'm thinking about this in class,

not really listening to Ol' Yapper

until he says,

‘Nelson Mandela said that it isn't our darkness we're afraid of.

It's our light.

We think,

Who am I to achieve my dreams?

Who am I to be successful?

Why do I deserve that kind of happiness?

But the truth is,

ladies and gents,

the truth is

that you do.

You don't make dark corners darker

by letting your own light fully shine.'

 

that I had some sleeping pills left

to get me through the agonising hours

until dawn.

I feel

so tired

but I can't sleep.

I gnaw at my fingernails

until they're bitten-down, bleeding stubs.

I pace the room

like a caged rat.

I draw tatts on my arm

until my pens have run out of ink.

I visit the fridge for midnight snacking

even though it's finally about three am.

The shrink warned me

that the insomnia

might stick around

and that I will still have ‘down days'.

But she didn't remind me

that it's always worse

at night.

Char sits,

snacking on a cheese and potato chip sandwich,

interspersed with a glass of milk.

Her hair is matted,

and curls have formed at the nape of her neck from the

friction on the pillow as she tossed and turned.

She's staring,

hypnotically,

at the knife block in the kitchen.

Sandwich finished,

she rises,

puts her plate and glass into the sink

and pads back up the stairs.

I have a shadow

that follows me

everywhere I go.

It shadows my thoughts

and makes them dark

on the sunniest of days.

 

I have a shadow

that mostly hides

coming out at the strangest of times.

It cannot be shushed

and it won't be ignored

and it makes me want to cry.

 

I have a shadow

that makes me feel blue

even on happy days.

I ask, and I beg, and I plead with my shadow

but sometimes it won't go away.

Mum says, with concern in her eyes,

that I can go back to the shrink if I want.

But I don't.

I just want to be

left the fuck alone.

 

I have a bath that night

sinking into the steamy water

down

down

down

until I'm lying flat on the bathtub

holding my breath.

Eventually

I resurface

gasping air.

 

Another night

and I can't sleep.

I count imaginary sheep.

They mock me,

laughing,

taunting.

I find my headphones,

jam them in my ears,

and turn them up loud.

I go to Bronwyn's house on a Friday night.

We drink tequila

and walk the streets.

I bum a smoke off someone

and suck it down

out of control

and unable to stop.

I'm about to go to Jim's, and Bronwyn to her boyfriend's,

when

she looks at me drunkenly, sadly, tiredly.

‘When are you going to stop relying on other people

to save you, Char?

When are you going to save yourself?'

that everyone needs help, sometimes

but

ultimately

you can't rely on other people all the time,

maybe because life's a bitch

and people will let you down,

or maybe because

just maybe because

they can't control how you feel and what you do.

I tell him

that sometimes I feel like

I can't control how I feel and what I do.

Jack wants to go out for burgers and chips,

washed down with milkshakes.

I tell him no way,

there's like 40 grams of fat right there.

He tells me that guys don't like girls who are

scrawny and bony,

they like girls who look healthy,

with boobs and bums,

women who look like women,

not like their little brothers.

Girls who don't obsess over every little thing

they put in their mouths.

‘What'd you like me for then?' I grouch.

He laughs, kisses me, and gives me a bite of his burger.

Lee is out of hospital.

Her hair is growing back

slowly.

The bruises have faded to a yellowy-green

and the guy who was driving has been charged,

although her father spits,

‘Slap on the wrist it was, Char, slap on the wrist.'

I wonder if he knows

the damage he's done,

wonder if he cares.

 

When we're alone in her room,

Lee says,

‘We get mad in this family now.

We yell

scream

feel like punching things

cry with rage.

It's great —

too bad it took this to make it happen.'

Her mouth twitches,

and she says,

‘I'm still mad at you for telling my mum about me cutting

but I understand why you did.

Thanks.'

 

Her eyes are soft

mirroring mine.

Today is a Good Day.

I've been

pissed off at Tim for reading my diary

shitty at my broken shoelace

had a fight with Mum about getting a tongue ring

cried because I damn well felt like it

(although it could be PMT)

and yet

today is a Good Day.

Perhaps tomorrow will be too.

I get offered a job after school

working as a secretary

in an office as big as a shopping centre.

It's not so bad,

it means I have money,

and I now know I don't want to be a secretary

for the rest of my life.

I blow my first pay cheque

on new jeans,

jewellery,

a new stud for my piercing.

Mum looks

disapprovingly

over my purchases

and says dryly,

‘Enjoy it while you can, Char.'

It's Saturday

and it's raining.

I curl up in my trackies

and sit with a Milo at my bedroom window

watching the rain

fall.

It's pouring —

loud

throbbing

raindrops

that splatter onto the path

and run down the drain.

Compelled,

I let my feet lead me out the door,

peeling off my trackie jacket as I go.

I stand

in the middle of the driveway

face upturned

arms splayed out

eyes squinshed shut against the rain.

Within seconds

my hair is drenched

and my singlet is see-through.

Dad yells from the doorway, ‘Are you mad, Char?'

I grin

and yell back,

‘It's very cleansing actually.'

And begin to laugh.

that afternoon

walking through the shops

hands shoved in the pockets of his baggy jeans

cap jammed down on his head.

I smile,

tentatively,

and say, ‘Hey.'

He smiles back,

albeit guardedly,

and says, ‘Hey you.'

I guess time doesn't always

heal

but it can

ease the pain.

I will have finished Year Twelve

and be a student

no more.

This time when we sing,

‘No more homework

no more books

no more teachers' dirty looks'

it will be

for real.

 

Ol' Yapper says

not to get too excited

because you are always a student

at life,

always learning.

It's our last lesson with him

and I'm not too sure

that I'm ready to leave the familiarity of this class.

But whether I'm ready or not,

the bell rings,

and with a lump in my throat

I pick up my books

and head towards the door.

As I'm stepping over the threshold

he gives me a nod,

and just as resolutely

I nod back,

understanding everything he was conveying.

We lock eyes for a minute,

until I'm hustled out the door

to my next class.

It seems eons ago

when we booked for Schoolies.

The place is a little fibro shack

right on the beach,

but,

says Jim optimistically,

‘It's got great potential.'

I crack up laughing,

throw my pen at his head.

Trust him to say something like that.

 

I lie in bed that night

thinking about

that word —

potential.

How do you know

when you reach your potential?

 

The next day

I do an internet search

and come across a site

that talks about setting goals,

not comparing yourself to other people.

It's pretty clever,

really.

I add it to my favourites list.

Mum cries

when I walk on the stage to get my certificate,

and my teachers look proud.

I shake hands with the principal,

and walk over to the other side of the stage

feeling

pretty damn proud myself.

 

Afterwards,

everyone is hugging.

Teachers,

students,

parents,

I guess they all feel like they've accomplished something.

I know that's how I feel.

Inside.

how this might've turned out.

I could be six months pregnant.

Dunno if I would've finished school.

Dunno what would've happened . . .

That night,

after the celebrating has ended

and I'm tucked up in bed,

I begin to cry.

 

Some feelings you can't run away from

no matter how hard you try.

Some memories hunt you down

when you least expect it,

stinging

burning

opening the wound

and making you cry.

 

I ask Jim

if he ever thinks about it

if he ever wonders.

He ruffles my hair

and is quiet for a long time

before he says gruffly,

‘Sometimes —

but I can never think about it

without being appalled

at the way I acted.

Tell me this, Char —

if I hadn't been so supportive of you having an abortion,

would you still have done it?'

 

Then it's my turn for silence.

we get drunk

eat cold pizza for breakfast,

well,

breakfast at two pm anyway, when we've woken up.

 

Jim has an ecstasy tablet

and decides he loves everyone and everything.

When he's coming down

his teeth chatter for ages

and eventually he goes to sleep.

 

Mum rings me constantly

to check that I wasn't

the kid on the news jumping off the balcony

or in the group of girls abusing the police.

 

Lee comes for a couple of days