When he eventually spoke, he didn't ask me what was wrong, he just sounded relieved. “Okay, well, you do sound a lot better. Fuck. You have no idea how many times I wanted to just get in the car and show up at your place just to make sure you were alright.”
It was completely left field, but at the mention of ‘showing up’ I smiled at the memory of Bree waiting for me with those awful flowers. “Don't forget to figure out what you're going to lie about to get in.”
“Min.” He didn't sound pleased, which was actually a bit of a surprise. He usually would jump right into joking around with me. I felt a bit guilty.
“I'm sorry,” I said quickly. “That was kind of inappropriate. It's okay. I'm okay. I only brought her up because she sent me something terrible before I went to sleep last night.”
There was a pause. “Terrible how? Is she crossing lines again?”
“No, actually,” I said, leaning back towards my laptop and opening Deviant Art. I copied the address and emailed it to him. “Click that,” I said. “She made it to cheer me up.”
I could her him thumping away at the screen of his mobile. “Shit, it says I can't while I'm on call,” he told me. “I'll do it in a sec.”
“Okay,” I said, still feeling guilty about joking around when he'd obviously been really worried about me. I would have been so lost without him last night, he'd been wonderful. I didn’t tell him how much I appreciated him often enough. I really should. “Look, Henry...” I began, feeling uncomfortable, “thank you for being there yesterday. I'm sorry I ruined our evening out by having a mini-meltdown.”
He chuckled. It was a quiet, gentle sound. “It's my turn to sound inappropriate,” he said. “But I can't hear the word 'mini' now without feeling pangs of hatred for everyone who calls you that.” I smiled at that. He sobered. “But, Min, regarding last night... I need to ask you something important. I went home and kept thinking about how you'd brought up killing yourself right out of the blue and just worried that the idea was already in your head. You've never mentioned it or joked about it before and it scared me. You'd talk to me about it if you had those thoughts, right?”
At least I could be completely honest. “This time you are over-analysing me,” I reassured him. “I don't have those thoughts. I just thought it was what you meant about not leaving me alone.”
“Okay,” he said, and then laughed a little nervously. “Just don't you do it and leave me alone, okay?”
Don't you leave me alone, either, I thought, looking down at the knees of my men's jeans. God. Please don't figure out what's going on for me and just leave. “I won’t, Henry,” was all I said.
Fortunately he changed the subject. “Okay. Speaking of alone, I hope you don't lock yourself up and work all weekend.”
I glanced at my laptop. “I can't anyway,” I said. “Because unfortunately I've delegated stuff to my team and I have to wait until they send me their components before I can keep going.”
“Good,” he said. “Sean's wife's huge baby shower is tonight, which I totally forgot about until Outlook reminded me this morning, and unfortunately I think I'm obliged to go. Would you like to come? It's casual dress, apparently, so that's something.”
I looked down at my t-shirt and jeans. How casual? Casual enough for me to rock up in this? Hah. “Yeah, I think I'll give it a miss,” I said. “Have fun, though.”
He snorted. “Yes, 'fun', that's definitely one word I associate with Sean Frost. At least his wife is quite nice. Well, you make sure you have fun, too, okay? Call your Melbourne friends or your Mum or see Bree or something. Playing multiplayer for twelve hours straight doesn't count as social interaction, especially when you mute everyone.”
“Please, I don't play for twelve hours straight,” I scoffed. “I stop for food. Actually, speaking of which, I'm really hungry now.”
He laughed. “I'll let you get to that,” he said. “And I'll listen to this 'terrible' thing Bree sent you. Bye, Min. I’m glad you’re okay.”
I didn’t feel very okay, but I did grin at the thought of him listening to Bree’s sound file. “Thanks again, bye.”
After he'd hung up, I decided to have another listen to Bree's agonising singing so I could imagine what Henry was thinking as he was, too. I clicked the link on my laptop and played it again; god, it was even worse through proper speakers. It was all I could do to not just put my hands over my ears and try and sing over her so I couldn't hear it. Despite the fact it was making me laugh, I had to stop halfway through. The bridge of the song had some really high notes that Bree was just spectacularly missing and the pain was too great.
After a minute or two, Henry texted me, “Oh, dear.” I laughed. 'Oh, dear,' was about right. He followed it up with, “Oh, and thank her for the handbag tip on getting you to restaurants when you next see her. Much appreciated.”
I groaned. “I don't think so,” I said at my phone as I closed media player on my laptop and opened my browser. “I don't want to give her any ideas.”
I decided to forgo room service in favour of an enormous cheesy pizza and a garlic bread from up the road, and before I'd ordered, I opened a new Google tab.
I stopped for a second. I wanted to search about the whole man-thing, but I didn't even know the terminology. Was it 'transsexual'? Wow, okay, no, I was not searching for that. Fuck, I couldn't even imagine saying that word to Mum, she didn't even like it when I didn't match my lipstick with my blouse properly. Whatever, it didn't matter what it was called because it didn't change anything. I was only going to be like this at home, anyway. Fuck. Time to drown my sorrows in grease.
After I'd ordered it, I had to wait forty-five minutes for them to bring it up. That wasn't really long enough to get any serious gaming in, and I didn't really feel like painting.
I stared at my laptop. I could just do that search.
Since I really couldn't bring myself to type 'transsexual', I just typed, 'I think I want to be a guy', and hit enter. There were a lot of results from forums and blogs, and I clicked quickly through them. People asking themselves the same question... but they all seemed to be young teenagers. Even people answering their questions were teenagers. They were using the term 'transgender' or 'trans' which was happily less clinical, but when they started to discuss ‘transitioning’ and 'coming out' I could feel my pulse start to race again. Coming out? Fuck that, seriously. Never. When I read the terms 'medical diagnosis' and 'surgery' and then saw some pictures of it, that was the final straw—no. Just no. No doctors, no one was examining me or injecting me with anything and no one was cutting into me. I'd rather live in limbo forever than that. I closed the tab and sat back in my chair, taking a few deep breaths.
I was 25, not 13 like these kids. They all talked about ‘just always knowing they were men’. If that was the case, wouldn't I have known by now if I was like them? I looked down at my jeans. Apparently not, because here I was wearing men's clothes and searching the internet about wanting to be one. I had a sudden thought about how Mum would react if I told her and my throat tightened. She'd ship me off to every therapist in the fucking country, and, regardless of how often Henry sang praises to counselling and psychology, just no. I was done with counselling. Henry... fuck. Fuck. What would have happened last night if I hadn't had him? God, and work. I would be infamous at work, I'd never live it down. It would be worse than high school. No, there wasn't going to be any 'coming out'. I was going to wear my fucking uncomfortable, fucking godawful work clothes at work and I could deal with whatever this man-thing was in the privacy of my own home.
I could feel my pulse in my hands, my heart was beating so hard. I was getting so sick of that feeling. Was I going to get like this every time I thought about it? I was going to need a hell of a lot more wine in my cupboard if that was the case. God, it was too hot inside.
I stood up and went out onto the balcony. It actually wasn't any cooler out there because the sun was directly on it, so I came back inside and just stood restlessly in the centre of m
y living room. I'd lose all of this if work found out, I thought, looking at my home. I couldn't stay living here if I left Frost. Thinking about that made me worry about my timelines again, and again I checked to see if anyone had sent me their components but my inbox was empty. I sat and refreshed my mail constantly for about five minutes before I realised that wasn’t going to make work magically appear there.
I was stuck until people emailed me their components; stuck stressing about work, Henry, Mum and whatever the hell was going on in my head.
When my eyes fell on those withered, evil flowers, I remembered what Henry had said and had a bit of an odd thought: I could invite Bree over. She was completely crazy and would definitely give me something else to think about, and I'd also be able to boast to Henry that I'd had human-to-human interaction. I hoped the shock wouldn't cause him to drop dead on the spot. Plus, the idea of someone getting really excited about seeing me was actually kind of flattering. And, honestly? I'd enjoyed myself last time. She didn't need to stay that long, either.
I'd picked up my phone to message her, but before I sent one I had second thoughts. Goddamnit, I'd need to change back into those other clothes. Could I be bothered? Maybe I should just watch a couple of TV shows I'd downloaded, instead. I probably shouldn't be around people now; look at what I'd done last night with Sarah and Rob.
I went and flopped down on my couch with my phone, and just as I'd done so, it vibrated in my hand. There was a notification in the corner of the screen for Deviant Art. Really?
I selected it. It was from Bree. I'd started to think, 'Great minds think alike', and then laughed to myself about using the term 'great mind' to describe Bree. She probably wasn't stupid, but 'ditzy' was understatement of the century. I opened it.
“uh so dont kill me but im in the city and i kinda thought i could come up and say hello??”
I frowned at the screen; she was asking? That was progress. Well, maybe she could come over for a bit after all; those pizzas were really big. “Okay. How far away are you?”
“ummmmm...........”
There was a knock on my door.
I sat straight up on the couch, my jaw open. Looking up at the clock, I realised it couldn't be the pizza guy yet, it hadn't even been half an hour. In case I was wrong, though, I jumped up and rushed over to the door, looking through the peephole, and there was a blue eye staring back at me on the other side of it.
I smothered a startled noise and stood away from the door, putting a steadying hand on my chest. I was about to have a go at her for breaking her promise and just showing up, but she beat me to it.
“I'm sorry...” she said meekly through my door. “I promise if you'd have said no I would have just snuck away!”
I groaned and ran a hand over my face. Min, you'd actually been about to invite her, I had to remind myself, ‘crazy’ is what you wanted, remember? I very nearly opened the door before I realised what I was wearing. I needed to change first. “You're going to have to wait out there for a sec.”
“Why?”
I sighed at her through the door. “Because I need to hide the body and clean up all these bloodstains,” I said flatly, and then rushed off to change while she stood giggling in the passageway.
I rushed into my bedroom, pulled off the t-shirt and jeans and just stuffed them into a shelf in the wardrobe. Pulling on a blouse and my skinny jeans, I was just zipping up the fly as I closed the wardrobe door when I saw myself. My legs looked so weird in these stupid tight jeans. I stopped doing them up halfway, groaned, and then opened the door again to look for something else. I eventually gave up and settled on a cotton skirt because I couldn't leave her out there forever.
I put on as much makeup as I could in a few minutes, and by the time I opened the door, Bree was standing there having a deep and meaningful with the pizza delivery guy, holding the pizza box in her arms.
She looked me up and down with a bit of a strange expression, but then gestured at the delivery guy. “This is Sandeep,” she said. “He's a qualified dentist but Australia doesn't recognise his qualifications so he's delivering pizzas for a living.”
Sandeep gave me a bit of a pained look. I felt for him as I reached over and took a couple of notes out of my purse which was hanging by the door. “Don't worry about the change,” I told him. I figured he'd earned it for keeping Bree entertained. He nodded and then looked at me with pity as he left.
Bree was still busy frowning at me. “Did you seriously go and spend 15 minutes getting dressed and putting on makeup to eat pizza with me?” I didn't know what to say to that. “Because, like, I'm flattered, but that's really weird?”
I looked down at her. She really couldn't lecture me on clothing. Being Saturday, she wasn't in her uniform, and she'd switched her pleated skirt for what I assume should be described as shorts, but I wasn't sure there was really enough material to call them that. And not to say she was chubby — because she wasn't, really, just short — but she wasn't very slender like I was and her thighs had volume to them. That, in combination with her thin scoop-neck t-shirt, looked almost pornographic. How the fuck did her parents let her leave home like that? I felt uncomfortable just looking at her.
She noticed my line of sight. “Bit different than a Cloverfield uniform, yeah?” She was grinning. “How do I look?” She did a little turn.
Like you're ready to lap-dance someone. “Older. But not old enough to wear that.”
She laughed. “I still can't believe you made me wait out here while you put on makeup. That's so hilarious.” Something occurred to her and she stopped giggling. “Not that you look bad or anything! Although that is kind of heaps of makeup. Can you smell that?” She looked down at the pizza box in her hands. “Oh my god, I can't believe you invited me over for pizza! Let's eat. I'm starving.”
She ducked under my arm on the doorframe, kicked off her thongs and then went straight into my kitchen. Chuckling to myself, I followed her in there to find her already banging around in my crockery cupboards. She had one of them open and was apparently planning on splitting our pizza between two plates, but instead of taking them she just kind of looked back at me.
“I can't reach,” she said, perched on her tiptoes by an open door. “Who puts the big plates all the way back there?”
I gave her a smirk and then reached easily over her head, took two plates, and handed them to her.
“Show off,” she said, grinning, and then went to split the pizza. I leant back against the counter and watched her trying to separate the slices. She was making a mess of it. “How many pieces you want? Because we can both try to do four each but these pieces are seriously huge and if I eat four of them I'm going to be really sick.”
I observed her take four slices, anyway. “Should I go and get the bucket?”
She handed me my plate which was laden with garlic bread and pizza, looking determined. “It smells really good. I have to try, I promise I’ll stop before I need a bucket. Let's go and eat on the balcony!” She stopped on the way past to pet the evil flowers and then continued outside. I followed her, giving the flowers a bit of a measured stare as I went past.
She'd only taken a few bites of her pizza before she'd discovered the view. “Wow, I can't believe you live here!” she said, and then took her phone out of her 'shorts' and took a panorama of the city. “Look, you can see the Harbour Bridge.” She pointed at it. I pretended to be surprised and extremely impressed, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “Well, it's exciting to me, okay? I can see a brick wall through my bedroom window.”
She turned back towards the view and leant her stomach over the balcony. “Whoa, it's really far down to the ground,” she said. “It makes me dizzy.” My grin faded a little; I didn't like her leaning over the edge like that. I put my pizza slice back on my plate as she peered downwards. “Can you imagine falling off the edge? Like what it would be like sailing through the air and knowing you're about to die?”
“Why don't you lean a little further over? Then you
won't have to just imagine what it feels like.” I thought I sounded pretty casual, but Bree looked back at me as if I'd asked her to get down.
“You worried I'm going to fall?” she asked, looking amused. “What am I, like, six?”
“What you are is leaning over the edge of a 26th floor balcony.”
She watched me thoughtfully for just a fraction of a second, and then her foot slipped from under her and she lurched towards the railing.
Fuck, my heart stopped. I leapt out of my chair with the intention of trying to grab one of her limbs... and then realised that although the movement had been very sudden, it wasn't something that was likely to propel her over the edge.
Bree stood up straight again and turned so her back was against the rail, giving me a very cheeky grin.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. She didn't. “You did that on purpose.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Did I scare you?”
I looked down at me and then back at my chair. “No, I just suddenly needed to stand up,” I said flatly, and then sat back down in it and took a deep breath. Fuck.
She looked both delighted and pleased with herself, and then came back to the table and sat in front of her pizza. “So, like, not that I'm complaining at all because it’s awesome, but what made you invite me around? Just bored?” She carefully took a big bite.
I swallowed mine. I knew why I wanted her here, but I wasn’t going to tell her why. She didn’t need to know. “It's all part of my plot to kill you.”
She laughed and said through her mouthful, “Nice try, but I saw you about to rush over and stop me from falling.”
“Of course,” I said. “Your body needs to stay in my apartment so I can feed it to the flowers.”
The next sound she made was alarmingly like choking, but then I realised she was laughing. When she saw me panic again, she just laughed even harder and eventually she needed to put her pizza slice down while she got a hold of herself. “Oh my god,” she said when she did. “You're so awesome. I have no idea how you say all those things with such a completely straight face, it's great. Those poor flowers, though,” she leant back in her chair and looked at them through the open door. “I still feel so sorry for them. It makes me so happy that they found a good home.”
Under My Skin Page 17
