“Good. Because then I’d have to punch you.”
The chuckle turned into an outright laugh for a second or two. “Anyway, you shouldn't feel that bad if it does turn out to be something serious, because since those initial meetings you’ve been a good friend to her.”
“That's true,” I said, remembering the last few days. “And I've spent a tonne of money on her, too, I don't think I've got anything to feel bad about.”
That caught his attention, but he was careful to be mild about it. “Just out of curiosity, how much have you spent on her?”
I immediately felt self-conscious. It didn't look that great, did it, buying a gold bracelet for someone I'd met three weeks ago? I glossed over that part. “Oh, you know. Money for food, taxis to get back to her friend's...”
He nodded, accepting that. I felt awful about not telling him about the bracelet, but I didn't want him to think Bree was just using me for my money. She wasn’t like that.
He put his wine glass on the table. “Well, it just sounds like you're being a good friend,” he said, “whatever's going on for her. And judging by what happened over the weekend, she's being a good friend to you, too.”
I really wanted to keep discussing Bree to try and figure everything out, but shortly after that, the waitress brought our dinner. I stopped talking to inhale mine in under three minutes, but Henry dawdled over his as usual, chatting about his sister who was pregnant again. She was younger than him and already had three children.
“I guess I'm lucky she went and married a Chinese guy,” Henry said. “Or I'd probably lose my place as star child of the family.” He remembered something and laughed. “You should have seen Mum's face when Alice was first pregnant. She didn't know whether to be overjoyed she was going to be a grandma, or horrified that the child was going to be half-Chinese.”
I rolled my eyes. “You think your mum's traditional? When I first moved to Sydney, on every single phone call, Mum would always say, 'Don't date white men, and don't date Chinese men, and make sure he's Christian. Not Anglican, though'.” I paused, looking around us. “Actually, she'd probably be horrified we're eating in a Japanese restaurant, too.”
Henry nodded once. “Note to self: next time I visit your mother, pretend I've converted to Christianity and don't mention how much I like sushi. Got it.”
I was laughing with him, but in the back of my mind I was still acutely aware of what I was saying. My mum was traditional. If she knew what I was thinking about my body these days and how I wished I could change myself... fuck. At least she was thousands of kilometres away and had to look after grandma so she couldn't suddenly show up at my home and accidentally catch me trying to look like I wanted to.
It was dark when we'd finished our dinner and went to leave the restaurant. “Mind if I stay over?” Henry asked me. “I'm probably over the limit to drive back to the bay tonight.”
I pressed my lips together. “I need to do some more work on the project,” I said, remembering Diane's insistence Henry not be exposed to it. “Which means I'm probably going to need to lock you in the bedroom or something.”
He grinned sideways at me. “That'd be okay...”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Alone.”
He tilted his head. “Knew there was a catch. That's fine. I need to finish the book I'm reading, anyway.”
We walked back to my building through a road in The Rocks, and it bordered a park lined with palm trees. The street lights were a gentle orange, and they cast a sort of tropical light on the gardens of the townhouses on the other side of the road. We could have been walking up a street in any nice part of Sydney, except here every single car parked along the road was gold-plate prestige. Behind us, the Sydney Harbour Bridge loomed over the houses.
Henry had his hands in his pockets as we walked, smiling at the streetscape. “This is a nice area, isn't it? Very cosmopolitan, but there's something quiet and suburban about it, too.”
My favourite thing about it was its complete lack of reflective surfaces, but I didn't say as much.
When we got back to my building and stepped into the lift, Henry's hand was idly stroking my lower back. He didn't usually inadvertently touch me like that, and he was generally pretty upfront about just asking for it if he wanted sex. I wondered about that hand.
I didn't wonder very long about it, though, because when the doors slid open on my floor and Henry stepped out of the lift, he stopped suddenly and I nearly walked straight into him. Over his shoulder, I could see a familiar shape seated against my door. She didn't see us straight away, though, because she had her eyes closed and headphones in her ears.
“That's Bree, isn't it?” Henry asked in a really philosophical tone.
I groaned audibly as I walked out of the lift behind him. “That's her.”
I wanted to be annoyed at her for again showing up whenever she felt like it, but I was too relieved that she wasn't at home with whatever was going on there. Especially after all the possibilities I'd been discussing with Henry.
She opened her eyes and looked up at us. I had expected her face to light up like it always did when she saw me, but she didn't. Instead, her eyes were swimming and she looked really upset. My stomach dropped. What had happened?
“Wow, okay,” Henry said quickly. “I think that might be my cue to leave.” He kissed my cheek.
“Fuck,” I said, closing my eyes for a second. “Fuck. I'm sorry, Henry.”
He nodded. “It's okay. I'll take a taxi home, we can talk tomorrow.” He then glanced back at Bree and said quietly to me as he stepped back into the lift, “Good luck.”
Bree hauled herself off the floor, but she didn't come running up to me like she usually did. Instead, she waited for me to walk up to her. When I got to her, she just swallowed and looked up at me. “I'm sorry,” she said in a tiny little voice. “I ruined your evening with Henry.”
I sighed; Bree. “Not really,” I said. “I was just going to come home and do work. Come on. Come in and tell me what happened.”
I let us both in, and literally as soon as I'd closed the door, she had her arms around me. I braced myself against the wall so I didn't fall over. I was still wearing my heels, and I tried to awkwardly kick them off.
“I'm sorry,” she said again into my blouse. “I'm sorry...”
I put a hand behind her head. It was so, so strange to think that this was the same girl posting all those awfully sexual photos of herself on the internet. Fuck. What could turn that giggling, energetic, frighteningly extroverted girl into this? It must be something awful. God, I felt sick about that. I felt sick. I was scared about what she was going to tell me.
“Bree, what happened?” She shook her head. I wasn't sure if that meant 'no' as in I'm not telling you, or 'no' as in nothing. “Seriously, you look really upset.”
She pulled away from me for a moment. She was a mess. “Can I have a tissue?”
“Yeah,” I said, and led her into the bedroom, grabbing one from the bedside table and handing it to her.
She sat down on my mattress, blowing her nose and then staring at the scrunched tissue in her palm. She looked absolutely miserable. It actually hurt to look at her like this. “Can I do anything to help?” I asked. “Anything?”
“You should change,” she said, as if I'd never asked her anything.
I did feel uncomfortable like this, but honestly, it could wait. Everything could wait. I sat there silently beside her for a little while, hoping she would spontaneously tell me. She didn't. Maybe Henry was right when he'd said, ‘You’re doing a lot to avoid asking her’. Maybe I should just do it. Not knowing and having to imagine all the awful things that might be happening to her would be far more fucking agonising than whatever she could say. It took me a minute or so to work myself up to it.
I took a breath. “Is someone hurting you?” I wasn’t even sure how to ask it. “Or, is someone, like...”
“No,” she said almost angrily, jamming her eyes shut and spilling fresh
tears down her cheeks. “No, no one's beating me up,” she said. “Or doing anything like that. But it would be fucking easier if someone was, because as soon as I say 'no, I'm not being abused' people are like, 'oh, well, it can't be that bad, then' and they treat me like I'm overreacting.”
It would be easier if she were being abused? Did she really mean that? “Overreacting to what?”
She closed up again, and shook her head. “You can't do anything about it anyway, no one can. I’m just stupid. I should just be happy I'm not living in some terrorist war-zone or something.”
“Bree,” I said. “I've been worrying about you all day. Seriously, all day. I was sitting at my desk this morning trying to figure out what the hell is going on with you. I know it's your business and you don't have to tell me, but it's driving me fucking nuts not knowing,” I said. “Especially when you show up here, like, distraught and then expect me to be content just watching you cry and not being able to help.”
She took a deep breath, gently scrunching the tissue in her hands. You’re going to tell me finally, I thought.
I was wrong. “I’m sorry,” she repeated again, and then came more tears. “I shouldn’t have come here, I just,” she took a ragged breath, “I just—you always make me feel better. But now you feel worse.” She leant into my hand. “Did you really worry about me all day?” she asked. I nodded at her and her face crumpled up. “I told myself, 'when you meet her, be really nice, because she has this really hardcore job and she works like a million hours...'” She swallowed. “And now I'm just making it worse.”
“Bree…”
There was something in her eyes as she looked up at me. “Okay,” she forced out of her mouth, but her jaw was so tight she could hardly move it. “Okay, but it's a long story, so you should have your shower and get changed first.”
“And then you'll tell me?”
She could barely speak, so she just nodded.
I touched her cheek and sighed. “Okay,” I said, releasing a long, measured breath. “Okay. Go grab yourself a slice of cake or something while you're waiting. Carbs are supposed to cheer people up. I'll be really quick.”
I was as fast as I could be in the shower; I didn't need to wash my hair tonight anyway, so I just got rid of all of my makeup. At least I couldn't focus too much on how jarring it was to see myself topless, because I was too worried about what Bree was going to say. What if it was something really, really awful that was happening to her, even though she said it wasn't? She'd lied to me before, maybe she was lying to me now. Fuck, I hoped it wasn’t that, I did. But what if it was?
I threw on the hoodie and jeans, and then walked out into the living room, expecting to see Bree on the couch, maybe eating her cake.
She wasn't there, though.
"Bree?" I called, checking the kitchen, the balcony–I even ducked back into my bedroom and made sure she wasn't curled up in the doona somewhere.
Walking back into the living room, I realised how silent it was. It was at that point that I saw she’d left my Opal card and some small change on the kitchen bench.
She'd left. Fuck, she’d left. And she had no money, no means of getting home and it was fucking dark outside. I took a breath. Shit. Shit! Why the hell would she do this?
I rushed over to my handbag and picked up my phone, hurriedly fumbling around with it and calling her number. She rejected the call, and when I tried again she rejected that one, too. Fuck! Now, on top of what was going on at home, she was wandering around the laneways in Sydney at night in that tiny skirt with no way of getting anywhere safe.
I leant against the kitchen counter for a second. I'd only been five, maybe ten minutes in the shower. She can't have gotten that far, and she was probably going towards the train station. I'd stepped into my old sneakers and rushed out the door before I'd even thought about it, and only realised when I saw myself in the mirrors in the lift that I was still dressed like a guy.
I stared at my reflection. I wasn't just dressed like a guy, I was dressed up as a guy. I didn't have time to go back home and change, though. If she was close by the hotel I could still catch her.
I put the hood over my head and belted through the lobby as fast as I could, hoping none of the staff would recognise me.
It was dark outside, and the laneways that lead towards the station weren't actually that well-lit. I half-walked, half-jogged along them, looking for her. Aside from the odd person walking back home from work and one very concerning group of suspicious-looking teenagers, there was hardly anyone out. It was the perfect environment for someone to pull over in their car next to a sweet little blonde girl and pretend to offer her a ride home.
While I was imagining all manner of fucked-up scenarios, I recognised her silhouette down the end of one of the lanes. God, the relief. She was in one piece and thank god she hadn't done something stupid like trying to hitch-hike home. “Bree!”
She stopped walking and turned back towards me as I jogged up to her. I hugged her briefly, and then stood back, holding her shoulders. “Bree, what the fuck? Just–what the fuck?” I hugged her again, and she let me, just standing passively in place. “Why did you do that? Are you trying to get yourself mugged or killed?”
She shook her head slowly. It was like all the energy I usually expected of her had been sucked out and she was just this shell of herself. “I didn't want to make everything worse for you and just be another thing you have to stress about,” she said. “So I left.”
“...thereby causing me to fucking stress about you!” I pointed out. “It's too late to just disappear, Bree, I'm already stressing. If you wanted me not to, you never should have dragged me to dinner in the first place.” I stood up, and went to run my hand through my hair, again forgetting it was long. Thank god she was okay, but how the fuck was I this tied up in what was going on for her? I may have been casually messaging her on Deviant Art for ages, but I'd only met her three weeks ago, and seriously, I'd only really been close to her this week. One week!
“Why?” I kind of asked the universe.
She thought I was talking to her. “I'm sorry.”
I took her by the shoulders for second. “You drive me fucking crazy,” I said. “You are fucking crazy. But, please, please, don't ever do anything like this again. You'll kill me.”
I released her and stood back, taking a deep breath. I didn't know what else to say, either about her running out like that or whatever was going on at her home. If she wasn't going to tell me, she wasn't going to tell me. And it was driving me fucking crazy with worry but I guessed I'd just have to deal with it.
“Come on,” I said, giving up. I took her arm the same way she'd taken mine dozens of times when we'd been walking around Sydney. “Come back to my place. You can't go anywhere at this time of night. Maybe you can call Courtney or something and talk to her instead, if you don't want to tell me.”
She sucked air through her teeth. “Yeah, right. She's fucking in love with him,” she said quietly.
I stopped in my tracks and looked down at her, my jaw open. Her brother?
Bree didn't look up at me. I didn’t want to push her, and it took her some time to be able to say anything else. “It's really complicated,” she said. “Like, really. When I start thinking about how I would explain it to you, everything's just so fucking unfair I can't even breathe. It’s just so fucked up. I don’t want to tell you because it sounds like it’s nothing, but it’s not. It’s really not. I don’t even want to think about it.”
I wished I had Henry’s ability to cut through everything and just ask the right questions, but I didn’t. I just wanted to know she was safe. “Is he… doing anything to you?”
She deflated. “Not in the ways people actually care about.”
I watched her for a moment, and then exhaled. I just couldn’t imagine what sort of person could want to hurt Bree–other than nameless, faceless kidnappers, that is. But her own brother? Henry was so fiercely protective of his sister. I wondered what sort of
person wasn’t. Who would hurt someone like Bree?
At least now I had some idea why talking about it was difficult for her. “Come on,” I said, starting to walk. “You're 18 now. Let me show you why 'four hundred thousand bottles of red wine' in the cupboard is better than having milk in the fridge.”
She took my arm, and I think she might even have smiled a little when I quoted her. I flashed her a lopsided one of my own, and led her home.
TWELVE
Fuck, my head. I wasn't even properly awake yet and it was killing me. With my eyes still closed, I put a palm against one of my cheeks. My face felt hot, and that was in direct comparison to the fact the rest of me was shiver-cold.
Where was my doona?
I felt around the mattress for it, expecting that I'd probably kicked it off at some point. But when my hand landed on something solid, warm and breathing I had one of those panicked moments where I really worried about what I'd done while I was drunk. Had Henry come over last night after all? I didn't think I'd—
—shit, Bree.
Despite my splitting headache, I sat bolt upright in bed, twisting towards the something. It was her; her curls were spilt out all over the second pillow and she had both the doona and the extra blanket coiled around her. I could only see below the knee on one of her legs, but it looked bare. I gaped at her, feeling the panic set in.
Fuck, had we—? I stared open-mouthed at her as she stirred, yawning. Fuck. Fuck! Had I gotten so completely wasted that I'd slept with a girl?
Even as I was asking myself that, though, I had a patchy memory of pretending to smother her with the doona as I'd tucked her in on the couch. Yeah, I was pretty sure she'd fallen asleep on the couch and I'd staggered in here and passed out by myself. God, that was a relief.
I lay carefully back down again, staring up at the ceiling and laughing at myself. As bits and pieces of the night started to slowly come back to me, it became very clear nothing like that had happened. Before we'd gone to bed separately, Bree had made me watch three or four episodes of oh my god the best TV show on earth—which, by the way, was far from actually being the best TV show on earth—and we'd been sitting across the couch from each other.
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