The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella)

by Lilliana Anderson

  I stood up and listened at the door, their voices becoming too low for me to hear. I ventured out of my room to make sure everything was alright.

  “Mum?” I called. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing David. Just go back to bed. Don’t you dare take that car Dan!” she yelled, chasing my father out the door.

  Balling my hands into fists, I stormed toward the door and grabbed the metal baseball bat we had sitting there in case the wrong kind of person came to our door.

  By the time I got outside he was already in the driver’s seat of the car. All the excitement I had felt over the car had now been replaced by the anger and hatred I felt towards the man who was currently taking it from me. The man who deserted us all those years ago.

  Before he could put the car in gear, I swung the bat, bringing it down on the windshield with all the strength I could muster. I heard a loud crack as the glass splintered in a jagged pattern.

  I swung the bat again, this time taking off the side mirror with a clean swipe, causing the mirror to shatter, spraying glass up the concrete driveway. He reversed the car as fast as he could, screeching the tires as he straightened himself on the road. All the while, I was chasing him down the drive, beating on the car and denting the panels until he started to drive off, then with strength born of rage, frustration, and hate, I hurled the baseball bat at the back window, causing it to pop through the glass and lodge itself inside.

  “Fuck you!” I screamed after him, standing in the middle of the road with no shoes on and glass around my feet as I watched him drive away in my car. At least I got to see the arsehole leave this time.

  “Oh David,” my mother said, her hand covering her mouth as tears threatened to spill from her eyes. “I am so, so sorry.”

  Instead of talking to her, I ran. I was so keyed up that I didn’t even notice the pain of the asphalt road on the bottom of my bare feet. I ran straight to the one person I always thought of when something was happening in my life.

  I ran to Katrina.

  “Oh my god, what’s happened?” she asked immediately as she opened her window.

  I suddenly realised that not only was I shoeless, but I was shirtless as well, standing outside her bedroom window in nothing but my boxers.

  “My dad,” was all I could say. Her face fell as she quickly undid the fly screen and helped me climb inside.

  “Oh David, your feet!” she gasped, looking down at them. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

  I dropped onto her desk chair with a thud and finally looked at my feet. They were filthy and bleeding from the glass and jagged road I ran along.

  Trina’s phone started singing and dancing from the vibration behind me on the desk. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID, noting that it was my house calling. “Mum?” I said into the handset.

  “Oh thank god you’re there. Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine mum. I’ll come home in the morning,” I told her and ended the call. I wasn’t angry at my mum at all. I just didn’t want to go back there and talk about what happened with her yet. Right now, I needed Katrina.

  Trina returned to the room with an old towel, a bowl of water and a first-aid kit. She knelt down in front of me and laid the towel on the floor under my feet and started to gently clean them for me, inspecting my cuts for pieces of glass and debris before applying antiseptic and bandages. I sat quietly and watched her work, fighting my tears the entire time.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” she asked when she was finished.

  “He didn’t even want to see me Trina. He just came and took the car. He didn’t say a fucking word to me,” I whispered as a couple of tears fell from my eyes. I wiped at them, embarrassed that I was crying.

  “It’s ok to cry David. It's me. It's not like I’m not going to tell anyone,” she whispered, rising up on her knees and wrapping her arms around me. “It’s ok.”

  I leaned into her and let go, crying like a fucking baby. If anyone else had been there, I would have been so embarrassed. But it was just Trina and me, and this was the first time I ever let the fact that my father took off on me and my mum get to me. I wasn’t upset over the car. I really didn’t give a shit about it once I found out it came from him. I cared that he had been to my house. He had spoken to my mum, but he hadn’t even tried to see me.

  Eventually, we lay down on her bed together, and I told her everything about the visit and how angry I was at him for leaving. She listened quietly and held me, gently stroking my hair as I spoke. I don’t remember at what point we fell asleep, but when I woke up, my head was on her chest, and her arms were still wrapped around me.

  When I opened my eyes, sore and swollen from a night of being upset, it took a while for me to focus and realise that the door to Katrina’s room was open. In the doorway stood Ethan, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and a very unimpressed look on his face.

  I sat up and held up my hand. “This is not what you think Ethan,” I told him quietly, trying not to disturb Trina.

  Katrina stirred. “What?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep as she rubbed her eyes to get her focus. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright with a gasp. “Ethan!”

  “I should have known you too weren’t just friends,” he seethed. Pushing himself off the door frame and stepping into the room.

  “No Ethan! David is just a friend, nothing more. I promise you!” Katrina rambled, climbing out of the bed and rushing toward him, placing her hands on his chest pleadingly.

  I swung my legs out of the bed and went to stand, pain shooting through my feet as I took my weight. “Shit,” I hissed.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Ethan asked, taking in the bandages around my feet.

  “You don’t want to know,” I told him, pushing up and successfully standing this time. “I’ll leave you two alone.” They moved out of the way, so I could walk out the door. But Katrina grabbed my arm at the last second.

  “What about my parents? I don’t want you in trouble.”

  Pausing, I laughed. “After all these years, do you really think they don’t know?” I saw the look on Ethan’s face when I said that, and instantly felt guilty for rubbing salt into a wound that was so fresh for him. “I’m sorry. It's not like that… it’s….” I started.

  “Just go David, I can handle this,” Trina told me, her face begging for me to shut up. I limped my way into the kitchen and sat on one of the stools around the breakfast bar, listening to the murmuring as Katrina tried to calm Ethan down behind the now closed door to her room.

  Trina’s dad walked through, dressed in his work uniform. For a second, my heart stopped beating. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to finding me in his kitchen so early wearing only my boxer shorts.

  “Morning David. What ungodly hour did you arrive at?” he asked, heading straight to the coffee pot and pouring himself a mug. “Want one?”

  “Sure, thanks. So… you’re not annoyed?”

  “At what? You staying in Trina’s room?”

  “Um… yeah.”

  He placed a cup of coffee in front of me and took the seat across from me. “Your mum called us last night and told us what happened. We all figured you needed a friend.” He took a mouthful of his coffee. “What’s going on in there?” he asked, inclining his head toward Katrina’s door.

  “Ethan came over and saw us asleep together,” I explained.

  “Hmm, that’s a hard one to explain.” He took another mouthful and then narrowed one eye at me suspiciously. “Nothing did happen though – did it?”

  “No Mr Mahoney. I promise that I have never touched your daughter.”

  “Good. I trust her judgement, but you teenage boys can be very convincing.”

  “We’re just friends Mr Mahoney. It’s all we’ve ever been.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, drinking the last of his coffee as he got up from his stool and took his mug to the sink. “Well, I’ve got work. Do you have clothes? Or did you come here like that?”
r />   “Like this,” I told him sheepishly.

  “Alright, talk to Carol. She’ll get you something of Tom’s to wear home.”

  “Thank you Mr Mahoney.”

  “No sweat kid. Just don’t do this every night.”

  I sat in the kitchen on my own for a while and finished the cup of coffee. It wasn’t long before Mrs Mahoney came into the kitchen with a pile of folded clothes and a pair of flip-flops and placed them on the table in front of me.

  “I was told you might need these,” she said with a half-smile, before ruffling my hair and tilting my head up by the chin. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m ok. Thanks for these.” I said, indicating the clothes.

  “It’s no problem,” she said, getting her own cup of coffee and leaning against the bench top to take her first sip. “Is that your competition in there with Katrina?”

  “Yeah, I think me being here has caused a bit of a fight.”

  “It’s hard being best friends with the opposite sex. He wouldn’t have cared if you were a girl.”

  “True,” I said, standing up and taking my cup to the sink. “Listen, I’m just going to put this stuff on and get out of here. They obviously need some time to talk.”

  “Alright dear. Look after yourself ok, and tell your mum I said hi.”

  “Ok, thanks Mrs Mahoney.”

  ***

  When I went back home, I needed to have a big chat with my mum about what had gone down the night before. She kept promising to get me another car, but I told her not to. It wasn’t important. I knew she felt really bad, but I assured her it wasn’t her fault. She was trying to be nice. She couldn’t have known that he’d be such a jerk about it.

  We were sitting down staring numbly at the television when we heard a knock on the front door, and Katrina stepped in. “Hi Mrs Taylor, David. Do you think we could talk?”

  Nodding, I stood up, ignoring the pain in my feet to walk with her toward my room, waiting for her to go inside before following her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He dumped me,” she told me before bursting into tears and flinging herself at me. I caught her in my arms and held her, rubbing her back and shushing her until she calmed down enough to speak.

  We sat down on my bed, and I gave her some tissues to dry her eyes and blow her nose. “Is it because of me?”

  “No… Yes…it’s both of us really. He can’t handle the fact that you slept in the same bed as me and can’t imagine that we haven’t been screwing each other this whole time.”

  “So he’s throwing away a one-year relationship because I slept in your bed?”

  “He’s been jealous of you for a long time. He thinks we spend too much time together. He says it’s not normal for a girl and a guy to be as close as we are without you know…”

  “I’m sorry Trina. I really am,” I told her, and I truly meant it. I knew how much she cared for him, and I hated that I had come between them.

  “It’s alright David. I think I’m going to swear off guys from now on. What’s the saying ‘Boyfriends come and go, but friends are forever’?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s it.”

  “Well, that’s the way it has to be I think. If a guy can’t handle the fact that my best friend is another guy, then I don’t want to know them," she sniffled.

  “Hey, why do you think I don’t date?”

  Chapter Ten

  Before the school holidays ended, and we started our final year of high school, my mum surprised me with yet another car. This time it was a bit of a bomb, an old red Celica wagon. It did the job. On the weekends, I would take it over to Katrina’s place, and her dad would teach me how to fix things on it.

  Surprisingly to me, even though she’d broken up with Ethan, Katrina continued to train for triathlons. She was good at them too and even tried to get me roped into it occasionally. I was happy to train with her a couple of times a week, but I didn’t have any interest of competing like she did.

  School was shittier than ever. You’d think that by year twelve, we would have all figured out how to get along, but there was still this great class divide which meant Cassie and Co continued to rule the school and did their best to make everyone else feel like crap.

  Katrina and I claiming that we were close like family had come back to bite us on the butt. Cassie had started referring to us as the ‘incest twins’ after word had somehow gotten back to everyone after Ethan had found us in bed together. She came up with this elaborate story about us actually being related, and the gossip mongers grabbed hold of it.

  There were a lot of whispers, a nice amount of graffiti adorning the walls in the toilets and the usual jibes when enough people were watching to get a laugh. I don’t know what it was about Katrina and I hanging out together that was so fascinating for people. Although, I guess when you’ve got someone like Cassie, who has it in for you, anything is possible.

  Once again, there was no point denying anything. They would think what they wanted to anyway. It just meant that Katrina and I separated ourselves from everyone more and more.

  We cut ourselves off and quit the whole ‘group’ scene all together. We just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

  Katrina put a lot of time and energy into her training, which in the long run paid off, because she got selected to race at Nationals and came close to making it on the Australian team.

  I watched every race she competed in, except for the interstate ones, and I couldn’t have been prouder of her.

  In our last term of school, everyone was getting ready for the HSC exams which would determine what courses we’d get accepted in at university. There was so much talk about what everyone was going to do about their futures that finally, Katrina and I weren’t really a concern to anyone anymore.

  We still got bitchy comments from Cassie and Co, but they were easy to ignore. School was almost over, and we wouldn’t have to put up with her anymore.

  Once the exams had all been completed, school finished for all of us. So to celebrate the end of our high school life, the school once again put on a formal dance.

  “I really don’t know if I want to go,” Trina told me one afternoon while we were sitting together at my house, going over the university course manual. We were both leaning towards studying law and were applying to Sydney Uni as our first choice, and the University of Western Sydney as our second choice. Sydney Uni, was harder to get into and had a much higher minimum acceptance mark from our exams, but UWS’s mark was a little lower, which is why it was a good backup.

  “Go where? To Uni?” I asked her, a little shocked.

  “No, to the formal or the ‘Prom’ as stupid Cassie still likes to call it.”

  “We can boycott it if you want, get drunk and throw eggs at the celebs when they get out of their cars,” I suggested, half-jokingly. Although, I would have dearly loved to see the look on Cassie’s face when an egg splattered all over her nice dress.

  “That would be awesome! I’m so in!” Katrina laughed. “We can’t get drunk first though, because we’ll need to be able to get away. We’ll park your car around the corner and wear hats and glasses and stand in with the crowd of parents and friends while they’re taking photos. Then, as soon as they get out of their car, we’ll egg them and run.” She laughed and sat back in her chair. “It will be epic.”

  I watched Trina as her evil plan unfolded with an amused grin on my face. “Well, look at you. I’ve never seen you go this nasty before – I like it,” I said, nodding my head while I chewed on the end of my pencil thoughtfully. Weighing up how likely it would be that we’d actually get away with this. I decided getting back at Cassie was worth the risk and held out my hand. “Alright, let’s do it.”

  Trina grinned and took my hand, shaking it solidly to seal our plan. We then set our applications to the side and got into my car to go and scope out the location of the Year 12 Formal, so we could easily plan our attack.

  Chapter Eleven

  When the
night of the formal finally arrived, Trina and I did our best to dress so we’d blend in with the crowd, but not be immediately recognised. We loaded up a small Crumpler bag with about a dozen eggs and then drove to the venue.

  We parked at one end of the street and then walked to the opposite side of the circular driveway, where everyone would be dropped off to make their grand entrance.

  The grounds had these really exquisite gardens, so it was easy to obscure ourselves by the side of a palm tree while we waited.

  “Don’t lean against it,” I warned Katrina. “Those things are always full of Huntsman.”

  Trina stood up straight and immediately brushed off her arm. Shuddering she said, “I hate Huntsman, they’re the worst kind of spiders with their long creepy hairy legs! Yuck!”

  Families had already begun to gather with their cameras at the ready, and I could see Cassie’s mother in amongst them. I nudged Trina and pointed her out so we could keep an eye on her, she’d know which car Cassie was coming in, so she’d serve as a warning for us to get ready.

  We stood and watched the first few cars come up the drive, letting their occupants out at the front entrance. You’d think it was some kind of award show the way the flashes of cameras and phones were going off.

  Eventually, I noticed Cassie’s mum getting excited. “This must be her car now. Get ready,” I said to Trina, reaching in the bag to grab as many eggs as I could carry in one hand.

  Katrina let out a loaded breath. “Fuck, I’m so nervous now. I don’t know if I can do this!” she hissed.

  “Don’t think about it. Just do it,” I told her, grabbing her arm and pulling her forward. “Load your weapon.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and took an egg in each hand. We walked quickly towards the black limousine as it pulled up and waited while the door was opened by the driver.

  “Ready?” I said to Trina as I saw the first leg emerge from the limo.

  “Not really, but I’ve come this far.”