Mum and Dad have never said they’d be worried if I turned out gay, but they’ve never said they’d be overjoyed either. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. If I tell them now, will it stress them out even more than they already are at the moment?
My phone is beeping. I pick it up, expecting to see a message from Bailey, but it’s from Bindi: Are you OK? I hardly saw you today.
I don’t know how to answer that. The last two days have been the best and worst of my life. A paradox. But I can’t tell her about Bailey, so I text back: Would you be OK if someone humiliated you on Facebook?
Bindi: You should get him back.
Me: Like how??
Bindi: You’re the smartest person I know. I think you could figure something out.
Groaning, I push the phone aside and hang my head in my hands. I don’t know how Bindi can have so much faith in me. Maybe I’m smart, or maybe I’m just good at remembering stuff. I think it’s probably the latter. Because no matter how smart Bindi thinks I am, I’m not smart enough to figure out how to humiliate a guy who thinks it’s funny to score zero for a test, and four for me.
Before school the next morning, Mum announces, ‘I’m going out for dinner tonight.’
Alfie’s eyebrows draw together.
‘But what are we going to have?’ He waves his Weet-Bix-coated spoon at me. ‘Are you cooking?’
‘No, are you?’ I snap back.
Mum sighs and dumps her coffee cup in the sink.
‘There are leftovers in the fridge, I’m sure you’ll manage. I’m not being picked up until seven anyway.’
‘Who’s picking you up?’ I ask. As if I don’t know.
Mum hesitates. ‘Marcus.’
‘Ooh, Doctor McKenzie,’ Alfie sing-songs. Anyone would think he doesn’t care that our father has been replaced. I stand up and tip my barely eaten toast off my plate and into the rubbish bin, then dump the plate in the sink.
‘How many times do I have to tell you to put your bowl in the dishwasher?’ Mum calls after me.
‘It’s a plate,’ I call back. I duck into my room, shutting the door harder than I need to, and message Dad.
Have you found a flat yet? When can we come over? From your children, remember us??
After that my morning list is shot to hell, because Dad messages back and then I message him back and then he messages me back. I’m running fifteen minutes late before I’ve even brushed my teeth.
Dad: I’m looking at a flat tonight. We can catch up on Saturday — whatever you want to do is fine by me. Dad.
Me: Saturday is THREE DAYS AWAY. I could be on drugs or in a gang by then.
Dad: It would be good if you weren’t on drugs or in a gang by Saturday. Once I have my own flat, then you and Alfie can come to stay all weekend if you want.
Typical Dad. I can’t even wind him up if I try. I wonder what he’d say if he knew I’ve got a boyfriend. Every time I remember that, my stomach ripples, like the surface of a pond.
Bailey’s not there when we start our judo warm-up. He arrives ten minutes late and gives me a quick smile before joining us in the same crunches-press-ups-jumping-around-to-face-the-back routine we did last week. I haven’t yet managed to catch his eye to smile back when Leadbetter tells us to pair up.
Sasha sidles up to me. ‘Howdy partner. Want to beat each other up?’
‘Sure,’ I say. Beside us, Bailey has paired up with one of the green belts. I suck in my breath.
‘Did I hurt you?’ Sasha’s hand falls off the lapel of my jacket.
‘No.’ But someone has hurt Bailey. The bruise under his eye has practically gone, but there’s a new swelling on the left side of his jaw, the overlying skin tinged blue.
Behind me, I hear Leadbetter say, ‘Been in the wars, mate?’
‘I sort of ended up the meat in a knee-mat sandwich,’ Bailey answers, and they both laugh. I don’t remember Bailey saying anything about going to judo last night. For a sport that’s supposed to mean ‘the gentle way’, he seems to get hurt a lot.
After we’ve practised a new throw for about ten minutes, Leadbetter says, ‘Right, time to swap partners.’
I shuffle sideways, trying to catch Bailey’s eye. He’s not looking at me, so I touch him on the elbow. Even then he doesn’t turn around. Instead, he taps Sasha on the shoulder as she walks past.
‘Hey Sasha, you got a partner yet?’
‘Looks like it’s you,’ Sasha says, smiling back. My stomach twisting, I pair up with the guy with the green belt, who tells me his name is Ethan.
‘You should twist at the hips, not the waist,’ Ethan says, when I repeat what I’ve been practising with Sasha. I keep trying, but instead of getting better, I think I’m getting worse. That’s because I can’t help watching Bailey with Sasha. Of course they have to touch each other, but it should be me he’s touching like that — his fingers brushing against my neck as he takes my jacket lapel, his hands touching my hips as he shows me how to scoop him off his feet.
Leadbetter wanders past. ‘Put some commitment into it, Catalan. You look like you’re on another planet.’
My face heating up, I mumble to Ethan, ‘You have a turn.’
Ethan frowns. ‘Don’t you want to throw me?’
‘You can throw me first,’ I say. The next thing I know, I’m lying flat on my back, trying to work out how to reinflate my lungs.
Ethan’s face comes into view. ‘Sorry. I thought you knew how to break-fall.’
I want to tell him he took me by surprise, but I would need some air in my lungs to do that, and it’s not there yet.
‘You OK?’ Bailey’s face appears next. He crouches beside me and holds out his hand. I let him pull me to sitting. My lungs inflate at last.
‘Sorry,’ Ethan says, and melts away.
‘You OK?’ Bailey repeats.
‘I’m fine. Are you?’
‘Of course,’ he says, but his fingers have moved to his swollen jaw. The bruise is still blue, still fresh. I stand up and gesture at his face.
‘Who did that?’
He shrugs. ‘Jack and I were horsing around.’
‘I thought you said you did it at judo.’
Bailey hesitates. ‘Did I?’ His eyes slide off me.
‘Yeah,’ I say, my voice low. ‘You did.’
His voice drops, so low I can barely hear him. ‘Don’t worry about it, OK?’
‘Come on you two,’ Leadbetter calls out. ‘I think you’ve established that Catalan isn’t hurt, haven’t you, Hunter?’
‘Sure,’ Bailey says, his cheeks pink. I turn away and find Ethan again, and this time when I try to throw him, I succeed.
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
CHAPTER 10
BAILEY: CHRYSALISM
The first time I ran away was when I was ten years old. Dad had just lost his teaching job, for reasons I didn’t really understand, and I’d just been caught shoplifting.
It wasn’t the first time I’d stolen something, just the first time I got caught. The first thing I stole was a packet of sweets from the dairy. I’d stuffed a tube of wine gums down my sock, and shared them with Maddy in our backyard tree house.
The second, third and fourth times were all books. It was summer, so the school library was closed. Our family had been banned from taking any further books from the public library until we paid our overdue fees, and that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
I read them at night, under the covers with a penlight — books by Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, David Walliams. I had to stuff my sheet into my mouth to muffle my laughter at the David Walliams book. The spines were pristine when I returned them to the bookshop, the pages unmarked. I’d thought I was getting away with it until Dad stormed into my room one night and dragged me outside. After tearing the book in half, he’d slapped me so hard that my left ear rang for a week.
That fixed my kleptomaniac phase, but started a whole new phase: absconding when things got too much. The shopping mall (
aged ten), the beach (aged eleven), the Waitakere Ranges (aged twelve, fourteen and fifteen). Last time, I stayed away for three nights.
The weird thing is, Dad never hits me when I come back. He just acts as if I was never gone in the first place.
I don’t know why I didn’t take off on Tuesday night. Even thinking about it now, three nights later, fills me with thick, choking rage. I wasn’t fucking stealing. I used that ten dollars to buy food. Food.
The months until I can leave this hellhole stretch out before me like tombstones in a cemetery. I don’t know if I can wait that long.
And now it’s late, after eleven, and I can’t stop thinking. I’ve been sitting in my caravan for hours, listening to Twenty One Pilots and surfing the net. The problem with surfing the net is that I always start looking at the future, until the yearning inside me is so great that I don’t know how to get rid of it. I start looking at the course requirements for law (but what if I don’t get into uni?); the requirements to become a barrister (but what if I don’t get into law?); the places I most want to visit in the world (but what if I’m too poor to travel, because I don’t get into law?). Lastly, weirdly, I end up on some site that has a quiz to work out if you’re gay.
I’m embarrassed that I looked up this site, even though no one else will ever know. I’m so embarrassed that after I do the quiz I delete my search history. I’m not sure it answered my question. Maybe I’m bisexual. I don’t know if I like that word; why can’t I just be me?
I turn off my light and lie on top of my bed, thinking about messaging Felix. We’re not having a fight, exactly, but we’ve been avoiding each other for the past couple of days — ever since I lied to him about how I got the latest bruise on my face. I doubt he really wants to know. Lying’s better for everyone sometimes.
I bring up Facebook messenger and type: What are you doing, Five?
My phone dings less than a minute later: Did you know if you were an element, you’d be helium?
Is that meant to be some sort of insult? I type ‘facts about helium’ into my phone, my eyes drawn to the first link. Helium is a chemical element with the symbol He and the atomic number two.
‘Two, OK,’ I murmur. ‘So what does that make you, Five?’ After Googling ‘element with atomic number five’, I message back: That would make you boron, which is produced entirely by supernovae and cosmic ray spallation.
Felix: Been on the net again, Two?
I smile and type: Yeah, but it’s no substitute for showing you what I didn’t learn on the net. Want to come to club judo tomorrow afternoon?
Felix: Count me in. What are you doing?
Me: I’m thinking about you, because you’re driving me crazy.
Felix: I’m driving you crazy? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Me: It’s a compliment, Five.
Felix: Like what you told me on Tuesday, in Latin? Can you repeat that?
I bite my lip, remembering all too well what I said to him on Tuesday. What if he takes it the wrong way? After an internal battle, I decide to send it to him anyway. It won’t take Felix long to look it up, only seconds longer than the time it takes to cut and paste my favourite Latin saying into my reply: Amore nihil mollius, nihil violentius. Nothing is more tender, nothing is more violent than love.
After I press send, my phone is silent for so long I’m worried Felix thinks I’m some kind of psychopath. I crawl under my covers and plug in my earphones again. When my phone finally dings half an hour later, I’m almost too scared to look at it. But when I see Felix’s reply, I get an odd sensation in my gut, one I haven’t had before. It’s a feeling of being impossibly happy and scared, all at once.
#2: Helium is so light that even the Earth’s gravity isn’t strong enough to hold onto it, and that’s how I feel when I’m with you (#5)
The next morning, I wake to the chiming of my phone, another quirky message from Felix.
Chrysalism: the amniotic tranquillity of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
‘Chrysalism,’ I whisper. ‘Nice.’ Smiling, I message back: I love thunderstorms, Five. See you this afternoon.
I sit up, tugging open the curtain on the window beside my bed. No sign of thunderstorms this morning, but the wind in the trees sounds like rain. When I walk outside, Dad is sitting on the doorstep, drinking coffee and reading a folded-over section of paper.
‘Kettle’s boiled,’ he says.
‘Thanks.’
‘What’s that around your neck?’
I let the rock fall back against my chest.
‘Just something I found by the river.’ I’d talked Maddy into giving me one of the leather thongs she liked to loop around her wrists.
‘Huh,’ Dad says, looking like he wants to say something else, like that’s a bit girly, isn’t it? Casting around for a change in subject, I say, ‘Anything interesting in the news?’
Dad grunts. ‘Just the usual.’ He holds up the paper. ‘People dying every minute, but the journos seem more interested in reporting on the Aussies arguing over whether same-sex marriage should be legalised.’
I shrug, my heart speeding up. ‘It’s been legal for ages here, right?’
Dad tosses the paper at the recycling bin. ‘PC bullshit, if you ask me. Marriage is meant for a man and a woman, not for queers to play house.’
There’s an all-too-familiar flash of anger behind my eyes. I want to say, Marriage is for people who love each other, who cares what sex they are? I want to say, What would you say if I told you I’ve been kissing another guy? But the last thing I want to do is provoke Dad’s wrath this morning. I’ll go crazy if I don’t get to go to judo, or see Felix, not necessarily in that order. So I walk inside, where Maddy is sitting at the kitchen table, eating cornflakes and texting.
‘Multi-tasking?’ I feed bread into the toaster and look for the Nutella, but the kids have scoffed it already. Typical.
‘You know it,’ Maddy says, glancing up. ‘Can I borrow your bike today?’
‘If you can have it back by one.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘That’s not enough time.’
‘I said I’d drop you off,’ Mum says, walking into the kitchen holding a basket of wet washing. ‘Although I’m not sure what the attraction is of hanging around the mall when you don’t have any money to spend.’
‘Depends who’s there,’ I say, earning a death-ray look from my sister.
‘Speaking of finances, can I have an advance on my pocket money?’ Maddy asks.
Mum holds the basket out to her. ‘If you hang this out, then perhaps we can consider it.’
‘Urrgh.’ Maddy takes the basket and staggers out of the kitchen. I spread jam on my toast, and sit at the table.
‘Speaking of finances,’ I say, and Mum gives me a wary glance.
‘Look, I think we need to let that g—’
‘I’m not talking about that,’ I say, although I’m not letting that go, not now, not ever.
Who took the money out of our bedroom?
I did.
Whack.
Pushing the memory away, I say, ‘I was wondering if there were any jobs g-going at the supermarket.’
‘I don’t know. I can ask.’ Mum leans forward to brush my hair out of my eyes. ‘You need a haircut, mister.’
‘Not yet.’ I lean back, crossing my arms. ‘I’d rather have the money for judo than a haircut, anyway.’
Mum’s forehead wrinkles. ‘I thought you were doing judo at school. Isn’t that free?’
‘I’m joining a club. I need money for subs and competitions.’
She sighs. ‘Don’t you think you should be concentrating on your schoolwork?’
‘I need this,’ I say, my voice soft. ‘I’ll go crazy if I don’t do judo.’
She blinks, and looks away. ‘I’ll ask,’ she says. ‘But if your grades slip, then you’ll have to cut back — on work and judo, OK?’
‘They won’t slip,’ I say. If I don’t pass, I won’t get out of here. If I don’t g
et out of here, I’ll die.
I’m not exaggerating.
A few hours later, I cycle to Felix’s, listening to the usual Saturday afternoon noises — the rhythmic whining of lawnmowers, fragments of music floating out of open car windows, the laughter of children playing. Felix is sitting on his front lawn, his feet dangling in the creek. He stands up, glancing over his shoulder at a woman I figure must be his mum, who is weeding.
‘See you,’ he calls out, picking up his bike from where it’s lying on its side on the lawn. The woman strolls down to the letterbox and gives me a smile.
‘You must be Bailey.’ She’s wearing an oversized floppy hat and white shorts; there’s a smear of dirt on her nose. ‘I’m Denise.’
I tip my helmet back, smiling. ‘Hi.’
‘Gosh,’ she says, ‘I hope Felix isn’t going to end up with bruises like that.’
‘Oh,’ I say, my fingers straying to my jaw, ‘I was just mucking around with one of my b-brothers. Judo’s not usually rough.’
She runs the back of her hand over her forehead. ‘Pleased to hear it. How old are your brothers?’
‘Eleven and seven.’ I cast my eye around the lawn. Everything seems so much brighter here, and there’s so much space.
I could do with some space. I could do with some bright.
‘And his sisters are five and thirteen.’ Felix fastens his helmet beneath his chin and slings a leg over the crossbar. ‘Later, Mum.’
‘Have a good time,’ his mother calls after us.
‘We will,’ I call back, taking off after Felix. I stick close behind him, riding in his slipstream. My eyes linger on his legs, the outline of the muscles in his calves. I’m also ogling his butt, which looks pretty damn sexy in his shorts.
Once we get closer, I overtake him and turn into the gravel driveway running down the side of the dojo. After chaining our bikes to a tree, I lead him inside. Ethan’s in the change room, along with Rick and another guy I haven’t seen before.
Invisibly Breathing Page 9
