Actually, it was over fast. I know people are talking about me, but thanks anyway for the warning.
I don’t want to know the rumours. And they can’t be worse than the truth. So I don’t ask.
I slouch against the bus window. Not enough fuel in the Colorado to drive myself to school. I did consider driving anyway, letting the car run out of fuel. Missing a day. But then there’s tomorrow, isn’t there? And the next day. And the next.
My face reflects back at me from the window, dark shadows under my eyes. I had a fitful sleep. The man’s voice hijacked my dreams. I wanted desperately to hate it, but his tone was too beautiful. It opened a chasm into the deepest, most painful parts of my soul. And it wasn’t only his voice that stole my sleep. It was their music. Those unfamiliar songs they knew by heart.
When I finally did sleep, I dreamed of falling from a great height. The rush of air, my stomach in my mouth. Waking as I hit the ground. Jerking awake, my heart pounding.
It takes a long time to come down from a dream like that.
I close my eyes as the bus rumbles along. I don’t want to see anyone, don’t want to talk to anyone.
But I make the mistake of opening my eyes at the last stop before school. Praying Lukas won’t be there.
He is.
He hitches his bag over one shoulder as he mounts the bus steps. His hair is neatly spiked, shirt pulled tight across his chest, tie hanging loose. His eyes lock on mine and he smiles, his entire face lighting up. He is handsome. I can see that. What’s wrong with me that I can’t feel it?
Anyway it’s irrelevant now. I shut my eyes to make him invisible. Show that I’m tired. Not up for talking. That I don’t care what he thinks of me.
The cushioned seat lifts me with someone’s weight, and I smell overdosed deodorant, the sweetness of hair gel. I don’t open my eyes, but wedge my trembling hands between my knees so Lukas won’t see them.
Think calming thoughts. Mum playing Beethoven, the way the notes would soothe me to sleep when I was small.
A hand on my thigh, a firm squeeze. I draw a breath and my eyes snap open.
‘Now you’re looking at me.’
He smiles. He sounds friendly, but my heart pounds irregularly. It doesn’t feel friendly.
‘Don’t worry babe, I’ll look after you today,’ he says in a low voice. ‘I don’t care what happened with Joey. You were both drunk.’
He’s offering me his forgiveness. Acting like he’s being generous about it. I want to say, I don’t need your forgiveness. Instead I say, ‘I don’t need looking after.’
But that’s a lie. We all need looking after.
I just don’t want it from him.
‘Suit yourself.’
The bus hisses to a stop. He releases my leg and turns away. My thigh feels uncomfortable where his thumb dug in.
He slides out of the seat, not looking back as he pushes through the crowd to get off.
The bus spews me out with the last of the kids, shuts its doors and takes off. I wish I was still on it. I put my head down and seek safety in numbers with the group headed for the school gate.
But then someone shoots out in front of me and my foot catches on theirs. I land hard on my knees on the asphalt, and people part around me.
Kyle leans over me. He grins. ‘So you give it on your knees now?’
The kids around me laugh. I make eye contact with a couple of people from my English class, hoping they’ll stop. They keep walking. No one moves to help me.
I give Kyle a look of pure disgust.
He extends a mocking hand. ‘You’re not my type anyway.’
Then Kyle is pushed aside. He takes a few steps back and Lukas is before me, lifting me to my feet.
He’s breathing hard. ‘You all right?’
I nod, sweeping the hair off my face. I dust my gritty hands against my skirt.
‘I said you need looking after.’
But before I can say anything, he turns and storms towards Kyle.
‘Disrespect her again, fuckwit,’ he jabs a finger at Kyle’s chest, ‘you won’t be able to walk for a week.’
The crowd closes in around the boys.
‘What’s it to you?’ Kyle scoffs.
Lukas raises himself to his full height. ‘Leave it alone, Kyle. She’s with me.’
‘Looks like she missed the memo, mate.’ Kyle spits onto the asphalt. ‘Ask Joey.’
Lukas shoves Kyle, and he stumbles back a step before throwing himself at Lukas’s chest. Lukas gets him in a headlock, and the crowd of kids starts chanting, ‘Fight, fight, fight.’
Everyone seems to have forgotten about me, yet this entire fight is apparently about me. I feel sick. The shame of Saturday night stabs me a fresh wound.
Through the crowd, I catch glimpses of the boys circling each other.
‘Say it again,’ Lukas says, as he closes in.
‘You know it already. Give it up, mate.’
But Lukas is clearly beyond listening. He throws a punch, and gets Kyle in the stomach. Kyle doubles over.
I hear an oooooh from the crowd.
Lukas steps forward and shoves Kyle backwards. There’s a sudden silence from the crowd as he hits the ground.
‘Consider that your warning,’ Lukas says. ‘Get up.’
I realise I’m holding my breath as Kyle picks himself up.
‘Just lost your mates,’ he says, voice cracking. ‘Hope the slut’s worth it!’
Suddenly I feel like the one who’s been punched. How do you defend yourself against that?
I’m not even going to try.
As I walk away, I realise the fight wasn’t about me, regardless of what Kyle or Joey say. It was about ownership, or territory or dominance. Or something.
But not about me.
Except now, Lukas thinks I owe him.
When I get to English, my knee is bleeding. A crooked red dribble of blood runs down my shin. I can feel the wound throbbing out of sync with my heart.
There are only a few spare seats, so I choose one towards the back of the class as I pull a tissue from my bag to mop up the blood.
Lukas arrives a few minutes later and finds a vacant seat diagonally behind me. I stiffen as he drags his chair back along the lino. My pen shakes in my grasp. I can hear him breathing behind me. Nobody else seems to notice.
Finally, Kyle pauses in the doorway. Sneers at me, looks at Lukas, then takes his usual spot in the back row.
I try to pay attention to Mrs Salustio as she breaks down our essay topic: Discuss the different gender roles of men and women in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Are these differences still prevalent today?
A voice behind me whispers, ‘Oh, so many nights have I dreamed of you. And other nights, I dream of Lukas too . . .’
It’s Kyle. The right tune, but drawing out the notes of my song to make them whiney. A murmur from the other boys in the back row, hand slaps of camaraderie. I look back to see Lukas clenching his fists, his face crimson.
Mrs Salustio doesn’t notice.
There’s nothing I can threaten them with. I can’t tell the teacher like we’re in primary school.
There’s a tug on my ponytail. My head snaps back.
I spin around. Joey’s mate Dominic raises his arms to protest his innocence.
Should I tell them Lukas will get them? I didn’t ask him to punch Kyle. I’ve never seen anyone get hit before. It was sickening. Makes me wonder what else Lukas is capable of. There’s this darkness in him, like where the ocean floor drops into the deep. One wrong step, you slip off that shelf. I don’t want to owe him one single thing.
I turn back to Mrs Salustio, but I’m far away from her lesson.
I could go to our year adviser, Mr Hunter. And tell him what? That boys are teasing me? Yes, Ruby. Boys do that. Tell him that Lukas likes me? You’ll have to get used to dealing with that, Ruby. Men will give you attention over the years.
Besides, I can’t say anything at all about Joey. What would Mr Hunter s
ay? That’s what you get for drinking alcohol? We tell you not to. That’s what you get for having sex too young? We tell you to wait till you’re mature and ready. That’s what happens for making yourself vulnerable at a party full of testosterone-charged boys? You should have been more careful. He might even send me to the school nurse to talk about STD testing. I’d rather die a long and slow death.
I try to forget the lot of them and focus on the essay question. Gender roles. Have they changed since Shakespeare’s day?
Without thinking, I raise my hand. It shoots up straight as an arrow. The class falls silent. Every head turns to look at me. I can see the curiosity stamped across the girls’ faces. Why would she dare to talk after what she did at the party? Who is she to have a voice after she slutted herself out?
‘Ruby?’ Mrs Salustio says.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Yes what?’
‘Yes, gender differences are just as pronounced now as they were in Shakespeare’s day.’
‘Okay,’ she says. She sounds genuinely curious. ‘And what makes you think that?’
‘Well, it’s been hundreds of years since Shakespeare and we’ve barely progressed. Women can vote and work now, but men still treat women like crap. Someone should have told Helena that Demetrius was only looking to get laid.’
A few of the girls laugh. Alex turns to look at me, and I feel like she’s cringing. Mrs Salustio’s face is blank now, and she takes a second to respond. There’s a murmur across the class, but right now, with my heart pumping hard, I don’t give a shit.
‘Well, Ruby, that’s . . . uh . . . that’s an interesting take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Shakespeare was actually very liberal for his time, so I’m not sure he meant to present Demetrius as a . . .’
‘Man whore?’ Angel suggests, as she and Chante collapse into a giggling fit.
Mrs Salustio ignores her. ‘I think Demetrius has certain redeeming qualities.’
‘Like his big dick,’ Kyle calls out.
‘That’s quite enough,’ Mrs Salustio says.
The boys leave me alone for the rest of the class. I get a few curious glances from the girls. At long last, the bell goes and I can’t get out of there quick enough. I’m the first one into the hallway, moving to Modern History.
‘Hey, wait up,’ Lukas says.
I keep going. He jogs alongside me.
‘That was screwed up, what you said in there.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s the truth,’ I say, not breaking my stride. I have no interest in walking with Lukas.
‘I don’t just want to get laid – I mean, I want that too, don’t get me wrong.’ He grins. ‘But I want you, Ruby. I’m not gonna give up.’
I laugh and stop walking, turn to face him. How can I even argue when he thinks he’s being so reasonable? So generous. So kind.
‘Don’t you laugh at me,’ he says, suddenly serious.
‘Lukas, what if I don’t want you? What if I’m not something you can win?’
‘What do you mean? I love you, Ruby. I told you that.’ His eyes are wounded, but I need to be clear with him. Too soft and he’ll think he stands a chance. Too hard, and he’ll be angry. I’ve never done this before. I need to get it right.
‘Lukas,’ I say softly. ‘I’ve never said I wanted you. I don’t think I’ve done anything to make you think that. I’m not up for anything with you, but you don’t listen.’
A shadow crosses his eyes, and he grabs me by the arm. ‘Tell me then. Tell me what I need to do.’
‘You need to let me go.’
But he tightens his grip. ‘I defended you back there. Did you miss that?’
I look around the hall for someone I know, but people push past us like we’re not even there. No one tells him to let me go.
‘Because that’s what good guys do. When they see someone being a prick, they defend the girl they love.’
‘Lukas, I appreciate you trying to help, but you’re hurting me –’ My voice is shaky and high-pitched. Like a small, panicking child. A limp fish. I need my voice to sound strong and sure, except unlike my hands my voice won’t lie. It never does.
He pulls me closer. ‘I lost good mates for you. So don’t you fucking tell me to let go. Don’t you tell me you can’t be won.’
His grip tightens more, and I gasp.
‘You screwed my best mate. I forgave you. Another mate slandered you, I hit him. Told him you were worth it. Make yourself worth it, Ruby.’
Mrs Salustio heads down the hallway towards us, and Lukas drops my arm. His eyes seem to glisten. He looks like he’s going to cry.
By the time I get to the library, I’m no longer shaking. I move with the sea of half-alive kids to dump my bag onto the racks out front. We’re learning about the Space Race, how Russia and the US were competing to get the first man on the Moon. I’ve been struggling through the research, sick to death of reading about men competing with men – with money, with rockets, with guns, with bombs. What a waste of precious resources the Cold War was. Basically, it was a pissing contest. Another fight for dominance.
I turn around and almost smack faces with Joey fricking Milano.
‘Hey, Ruby.’
It’s like Lukas and Joey are taking turns. Everywhere I go, I have to deal with one of them.
‘You all right?’
He almost sounds like he cares, and I don’t know if he means it in a general ‘hello’ kind of way or a genuine ‘how are you’ kind of way. Maybe it’s a ‘you’re not pregnant, are you?’ kind of way, but I doubt the idea of me being pregnant has crossed his mind. A week ago, I’d have been trembling with excitement at the mere idea that he was talking to me. Now I feel nothing.
Imagine if I did something radical and told him the truth? What if I said, ‘Actually, I’m a mess. You really screwed me over. Literally. Made me feel worthless in sixty seconds, and now I’m in a cold sweat waiting for my period while the entire grade taunts me. You never asked if I wanted it, and I never said yes, and it hurt like hell and I hated every second of it. Oh, and a video clip of me is going viral, which I’m certain you can’t have missed. But, yeah, other than that, Joey, I’m cruisy.’
But instead of giving him the truth, I snap, ‘I’m fine.’
‘So what’re you up to this weekend?’ Joey says.
Waiting for my period to come. That’s what I’m doing all weekend. It’s kind of important for my future. He sounds so disinterested that I laugh.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Nothing.’
‘Hey, Joey.’ An arm snakes its way round his waist, jerking him away from me. ‘Whatcha up to?’
‘Modern History.’ He rolls his eyes.
‘Sounds stimulating.’
Angel seems to notice me suddenly, because she looks me over and smiles, but not in a kind way. In a way that tells me she knows all my secrets and I’m nothing but a slutty piece of trash. Then she discards me and turns back to Joey.
‘Whatcha up to after school?’ she says, launching her bag on top of mine and crushing it.
‘Got training.’
He’s unflustered. Always somewhere to be, something to do.
‘Cool,’ she says. ‘I might come and watch.’
I watch him head inside the library with Angel, her boobs brushing against his arm on purpose, laughing at something he said and slapping his arm so she can touch him. I trail a safe distance behind them, looking for a corner of the library where I can bury myself away and die – I mean hide.
I wade through the misery that is the rest of the school day, then the first half of the next.
Friday. I need to claw through one more day to reach the weekend. At lunch, I take a walk along the edge of the soccer field, behind the mulberry bushes where we’re not allowed to go. Today, I’m taking a leaf out of Mum’s book – stuff the rules.
I sit behind the bushes where I can hide with my thoughts. From back here, I can see Joey’s group, lounging, laughing, eating, flirting.
&n
bsp; What if I’m pregnant? It’s the thought I keep pushing away. It’s not possible. Surely it’s not. When I get my period, the agony of wondering will be over. But what if it doesn’t come? What if it’s just the start of a whole new agony? What would I do? Throw away my future? Be a single teenage mother on government benefits the way Mum’s on a disability pension? Drop out of school? Maybe Mum would help me out like Nan did when she had me, and I could still finish school. Get a job.
The bell blares to signal the end of lunch, so I wait for everyone to go back to their classes before I emerge. I’ll say I was in the bathroom. I’m allowed to need the bathroom, right? It’s not till I’m closing in on my classroom door that I realise something’s wrong. It’s too quiet. I round the doorway to an empty class. A ghost of a room. Dark, a bin full of scrunched up papers and drink bottles. Vacant desks.
I catch sight of the whiteboard.
PDHPE students – please meet in the hall.
A jolt of panic hits me as the words come together. Today is the day. The one I should have been dreading, except I’ve been distracted.
Sex Ed Day.
I stand there staring mutely at the board. My stomach turns to ice.
Not this week. Not today.
I can’t. But what happens if my name isn’t marked off? It’s mandatory. Covering their own arses to sign off that they taught us. So they get the tick for responsibility. They might force me to do a make-up class . . . with who, a teacher?
I drag myself down to that godforsaken hall. Dump my bag and edge my way in. I can feel the body heat from the entrance. Everyone crammed in, the smell of sweat and the groaning of wonky fans overhead.
‘Ruby, you’re late,’ says Ms Valance. ‘Sign yourself off here, quick.’
She stabs at the clipboard with a pen. I do as she says. Mark my name off. Alongside the clipboard on the table are bowls of bananas and next to those are big lolly bowls full of condoms.
‘Here,’ she says, thrusting a banana into my hand. ‘You’ll need one of these. And this.’
Ruby Tuesday Page 8
