by Ben Karwan
And I think that’s what hurts the most.
For the next hour, I cycle through a loop. I calm myself down, wipe my tears and remember to breathe. A minute or two passes before I remember how disappointing I am, my facial muscles tremble trying to keep my tears in and I end up back in a sob.
Maybe I actually am a disappointment. I can’t see how high-school English will get me a job. Will I ever have a satisfying career? Will I be able to support myself?
On my bed, my phone buzzes, interrupting my self-pity. The text message reads, ‘Look up.’
A face peers at me through my bedroom window, framed by the furious glow of the sunset. I allow myself a little smile, wipe my eyes once more and slide the window open. Elliot Carter pushes the flyscreen from the frame and climbs into my room. He doesn’t say a word, he just hugs me tight.
Elliot has lived two houses down for as long as I can remember. He started school a year later than most people, so though we’ve been in the same classes all through high school, he’s nearly a year older than me.
He breaks the hug and moves me to arm’s length. ‘You need to talk about it?’ He stares right into my eyes, his gaze unfaltering.
‘It’s nothing you haven’t heard before,’ I say. ‘Just me being a pathetic human.’ I lower myself onto the edge of my bed and Elliot sprawls himself in the centre.
‘What did she say this time?’
‘That’s the thing – nothing unusual. Just more of how I’m terrible because I don’t like the things she likes.’
‘Did she say that?’
‘Not in as many words.’
Elliot murmurs thoughtfully, as though he’s trying to figure out what to say next. ‘What exactly are you worried about, though? She thinks the arts are lesser than the sciences. So what?’
‘I’m worried she’s right.’
He sits up rigid. ‘You know that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, right?’
‘Not really. Think about it: I’m not going to make enough money to support myself with what I want to study, even assuming I get really good marks. It’s pretty hard to be a successful, self-reliant adult if you can’t afford to live.’ I pick at my thumbnail as I speak, avoiding eye contact.
He puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘You’re overthinking things.’ His voice is soft and calming. ‘You’re summing your self-worth up in a few little comments. Which aren’t even accurate, for the record.’
‘I just feel like I’m destined to be a burden on anybody stupid enough to love me.’
Elliot removes his hands and crosses his legs. ‘You’re not a burden on anybody.’
It’s lucky that I’ve stopped crying by this point; my door swings open and Mum enters the room unannounced.
‘Jennifer, you have a … Oh hi Elliot. I didn’t know you were here.’ She shoots me a Look of Doom, which says a million different things all at once. ‘This door should be open.’
‘Sorry, Dr Janson, I closed it. Won’t happen again.’ Being the smart boy that he is, Elliot often addresses my mother with her proper title. It regularly earns him brownie points.
‘Yes, well … Jennifer, Dylan is here.’
I look past her and see no sign of Dylan. Through the silence, I hear his obnoxious laughter booming from downstairs.
Mum stares at me. ‘Are you going to go and greet him?’
‘Just tell him to come up,’ I say. I’m kind of annoyed he’s here, to be honest.
Mum gives a little sigh and heads back downstairs.
‘I should go,’ says Elliot, already on his feet. ‘Leave the two of you to it.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I say. ‘I don’t want you to go.’
‘It won’t end well if I stay.’
‘Why not?’
But Elliot can’t reply. Dylan stomps up the stairs and calls out to me before he’s even reached the landing.
‘Hey lovely!’
I force a smile as he enters the room and presses his lips to mine. Yeah. Dylan’s my boyfriend. True, annoyance is probably not the healthiest of responses to your boyfriend showing up, but cut me some slack – he’s hard work. A few months ago, over champagne, our mums decided that Dylan and I should date each other, whether we wanted to or not (I know, really romantic, right?). Dylan did want to, incidentally. I hadn’t been immediately opposed to the idea – I’d thought he was cute for a while and he’s always been really nice to me.
‘Elliot, my man,’ says Dylan, clapping Elliot on the back. ‘What brings you here?’
‘Just came to say hi,’ says Elliot. ‘You know, last exam today and all. A bit of celebration. I was just heading off, actually.’
‘Elliot, seriously, you don’t have –’ I begin, but Dylan interrupts me.
‘Well, good to see you again, man. See you later.’
Elliot makes a minuscule move, as though he’s about to hug me, but he shifts his gaze towards Dylan and then back to me, and settles for words. ‘See you, Jen.’
I give him a helpless smile as he hops out the window. I miss him instantly.
‘What’s his deal?’
‘Huh?’ I divert my eyes away from the window. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Climbing through your window? It’s a little weird.’
‘It’s just what he does. He’s done it for years.’
‘Well, I don’t like it.’ He says it as though his opinion makes definitive decisions. Dylan doesn’t like it, therefore it has to stop. ‘It’s no wonder everyone thinks you guys are banging.’
It’s true. The rumour mill, always full of quirky and original tales, has for years suggested that Elliot and I are together, despite both of us being in relationships with other people. I’m sick of hearing about it, to be honest.
‘Good thing I don’t care what people think.’
‘What’s up with you today?’ It is more accusatory than caring.
I tell him a disjointed version of the truth, leaving out the part where my mother is the reason I’m questioning my entire future because a) I neither want nor need his sympathy and b) we met through our parents so I don’t want to say anything that he might repeat to his mother, who might then repeat it to mine.
I don’t know why I bother telling him this, because I doubt he even registers what I say. He sits himself next to me and his hand brushes my hair behind my ear as he stretches his arm around my shoulders, allowing him to whisper to me. If he were any good at it, I’d say he was whispering seductively, because I’m sure that’s his intention. But there’s nothing remotely alluring about it.
‘So … Did you miss me?’
It’s only been a week since I last saw him and he does even less with his time than I do, but I decide to do the girlfriendy thing and show an active interest in his life. Mum would be proud.
‘Of course,’ I say, straightening my dress. ‘How was your week?’
I half-listen as he talks about the meals he’s eaten, a joke his brother told him and a Canadian customer he served at work. His hand leaves my shoulder to aid his speech. He talks with his hands a lot.
‘Canadian accents are so weird,’ he says. ‘They’re, like, American, but not.’
His observations don’t get much more insightful than that.
‘Anyway,’ he says, putting one arm back around my shoulders and the other on my thigh. I can feel his breath in my ear. ‘Enough of that. Did you miss me?’
I shift my body away from his. ‘You already asked me that. I said I did.’
‘I missed you too.’ He closes the gap between us again, his hand drifting dangerously close to the inside of my dress.
‘Dylan, please don’t make me say it again. I can’t.’
This is one of the few ways my strict Catholic upbringing works in my favour: I manage to avoid physical intimacy without giving honest reasons. In truth, Dylan just doesn’t seem like the right guy. We saw each other most days after we started dating but we began seeing less and less of each other as my focus shifted to my English
exam. Now it’s painfully obvious how little we have in common and it’s safe to say my initial butterflies have faded. Contrary to Mum’s advice, absence does not make my heart grow fonder. It just highlights how self-absorbed and slightly sex-crazed Dylan can be.
‘Your parents won’t know,’ he whispers. ‘I know you want to. Don’t let them stop us.’
‘It’s not about my parents. It’s about my own values,’ I say, which is true enough. ‘I don’t want to corrupt myself. I really want to wait.’ That part, not so much.
I know he’s disappointed, so I feel slightly guilty. But it takes me about ten seconds to get over it.
‘Your dad was showing me your new TV just before,’ he says. ‘Maybe we could go and watch a movie instead?’ It’s perhaps the least original euphemism he has ever come up with. ‘Watch a movie’ clearly means ‘Cuddle, make out and completely ignore the movie’.
‘I don’t know, it’s getting late. I think I just need to go to bed.’
‘Bed, you say?’ He punctuates it with a wink.
I fight the urge to gag. ‘Dylan, stop. We can watch TV next time, okay?’ I kiss his cheek in farewell, take him downstairs and show him to the door. Mum and Dad come out of the lounge to say goodbye. I breathe a sigh of relief as I close the door behind him.
‘You’ve done remarkably well for yourself, Jennifer,’ says my mum. ‘Such a lovely boy.’
I murmur something like an agreement and return to my bedroom. I’m not sure being stuck in a relationship because I don’t want to upset Mum or hurt Dylan qualifies as doing remarkably well for myself. I’m a terrible human sometimes.
Chapter Two
Sophie answers the door with Luke sitting on her hip, tugging on her blonde ponytail. Sophie’s arm is wrapped tightly around his waist.
‘Hello,’ I say as brightly as I can. The whites of her eyes are streaked with red, and dark circles curve under her eyes, yet her skin still glows. ‘And hello, Luke!’
‘You want to say hi to Aunty Jen?’ asks Sophie, and she hands her son to me. ‘Hi,’ says Luke, waving in my face – although his impossibly cute baby voice makes it sound like ‘Hah-yee’.
I take him from Sophie and carry him into the kitchen, where Sophie makes coffees.
‘You’re getting so big,’ I say, swooning and tickling his stomach. ‘Ah-yes you are!’ He giggles and I melt.
‘Thomas!’ he says.
‘You want to watch Thomas?’ repeats Sophie.
‘Yes! Yes!’ he calls.
‘Ask Aunty Jen nicely and maybe she’ll put it on for you.’
‘Thomas, please!’
I open my mouth and gasp with exaggerated excitement. ‘Thomas? Of course! Let’s go!’ I carry him towards the lounge, making flying noises as though he were a plane. I pause only to stick my head into the study where Sophie’s mum stands in front of a bookcase, which is stocked with books on the rearing and psychology of children, though the odd novel is dispersed throughout. Her steaming cup of tea waits on the table next to her armchair.
‘Hi Mrs Anderson. How’re you?’
She plucks a book from the shelf and smiles over her shoulder. ‘Hi Jennifer. I’m good, thanks. It’s nice to see you.’
‘Hah-yee, Nanna.’
‘Hello, sweetie,’ she says kindly. She’s nailed the grandmother voice. ‘Are you watching Thomas again?’
Luke nods enthusiastically and his flight to the lounge continues. I put his baby-sized body in his adorable baby-sized foam couch, which is in the middle of the room, and slot the Thomas & Friends DVD into the player. He stares at the screen, fascinated as the events of Thomas the Tank Engine on the Island of Sodor unfold before him.
Sophie brings out two mugs of coffee and hands one to me.
‘So, you all done with exams?’ says Sophie, taking a seat next to me.
‘Yeah, they were awful,’ I say, ‘but I think I nailed the English one.’
Sophie sips from her mug. ‘Of course you did. You’ll get full marks.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I say.
‘Come on, you’re a machine at English.’
Colour rises to my cheeks. I feel weird accepting compliments.
‘Does your mum know you’re here?’ Sophie says. ‘Or has nothing changed?’
‘I told her I was coming,’ I say, ‘but you know how she is …’
Sophie and I have been friends since year seven. We were in class together a lot and we spent our lunchtimes at school together almost every day. Mum banned me from seeing Sophie nearly two years ago, when Sophie became pregnant: Mum labelled her impure, a terrible influence and inherently unchristian.
Sophie feels unwelcome at our house, so we have to hang out either at her house or in public. It sucks.
Sophie smiles sadly into her mug. Luke’s earnest giggles fill the room.
‘He’s grown so much,’ I say, quickly changing the subject. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I last saw Luke but I guess rapid growth is pretty normal for children.
‘Tell me about it,’ Sophie says, her fingers interlocked in the loop of the mug handle. ‘He’s learning new words so quickly. He said “Daddy” the other day. Normally kids learn that word a lot earlier – at least, they do according to the books – but since I never use it I didn’t really expect to hear it.’
I murmur my agreement.
Just before we started year ten Sophie got this boyfriend, who was a year or two older than us. He seemed to be a reasonably okay guy. I mean, I had no immediate reason to hate him and, from what I could gather, he treated her pretty well for the majority of their relationship.
Sophie went on the pill when they first started sleeping together but sometimes she forgot to take it. She only missed the odd day here and there, so she figured it would all be fine.
The day she found out she was pregnant, Sophie hadn’t been in school. As I always did, I sent her the semi-annoyed ‘How dare you leave me stranded?’ text we always sent each other when one of us was absent, but she hadn’t replied.
After school, I headed around to her place to make sure she was okay and found her sobbing in the bathroom. She told me that one of those pee pregnancy tests had come back positive so she’d gone straight to the doctor for a more reliable test. She didn’t know what to do. What if she had a little person inside her?
I went with her to the doctor a few days later for the results. Sophie didn’t react when the doctor told her she was pregnant. My own gut did some circus tricks but I fought to keep my face neutral.
‘How am I going to tell Mum and Dad?’ Sophie said once we left the clinic.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ I asked. I thought it might stop her parents yelling or doing anything too drastic if there were a witness.
Sophie shook her head. ‘I need to just go home and do it.’
To her eternal credit, she did exactly that. She called me later that night and told me what had happened. Her dad had sat in silence, his face blank and unmoving. Like a statue, Sophie said. Her mum was shocked and asked her heaps of questions: ‘How did this happen?’ and ‘Didn’t you use protection?’ and ‘How long have you been sexually active?’
By the evening, Sophie’s mum had begun researching doctors and hospitals and planning finances and everything else that needed sorting. Her dad had stayed quiet for a few days but after the initial shock passed, he was also super-supportive.
After she’d told her parents, it was time to tell Mr Boyfriend. It was then that he lost all my respect. He went into immediate denial and he threw all sorts of accusations at her, insisting it couldn’t possibly be his baby. He broke up with her on the spot, claiming she must have cheated on him, because they hadn’t even slept together! I told Sophie she should get a paternity test – that way she might at least get some child support – but she said she didn’t want anything to do with Mr Boyfriend ever again.
‘I don’t know how I’ll explain it to him,’ she says, looking at Luke, who’s still engaged b
y the DVD. ‘How can I tell him his dad doesn’t want anything to do with him?’
‘I don’t know …’ I trail off. ‘But I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’re the strongest person I know.’
Sophie smiles.
News always spread quickly through our school, so by the time year eleven started, everybody knew that Sophie wasn’t back at school because she was pregnant. I heard many, many different rumours, but the general consensus was along the lines of the boyfriend’s claims – that she cheated on him and that’s why she’d be raising the baby alone.
For the past two years, those of us who know the truth have been under strict orders not to talk about the rumours and not to correct any false information. Sophie has never wanted anybody to know that their opinions get to her. I have mixed feelings about this. It’s great that she’s never retaliated or got mad or anything, but it really sucks that she keeps it all bottled up instead of telling people that they’re upsetting her.
Mum was horrified when she heard the rumours that Sophie was pregnant. She asked me if it was true and, on Sophie’s orders, I said yes but didn’t elaborate. Mum decided that Sophie was an awful person because she had sex before she was married, cheated on her boyfriend and did a lot of unchristian things. I can understand people at my school believing the rumours, but my mum? She’d known Sophie for years and didn’t question it or try to find out the whole story.
She doesn’t like me being friends with Sophie but she’s not going to stop me from seeing her.
After his Thomas episode, Luke climbs up from his baby couch onto the adult couch, and sits himself on my lap. I wrap my arms around his waist and blow a raspberry on his cheek.
‘Walk, Mummy!’ he shouts to Sophie.
‘Please?’
‘Please!’
‘When Aunty Jen leaves, okay?’
‘I can come for a walk, if you want,’ I say. I’m perfectly okay with spending more time with them and I don’t want Luke to be happy about me going home.
