Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  I shrugged, unzipping the bag. “If you can give me a good description of it, yes,” I told her, and then patted the bench beside me with a very distant, vague memory of making a similar motion to Gemma last night. I pushed that thought aside as I pulled my laptop out and opened it.

  She came around to sit beside me and waited for Windows to resume while I was getting the tablet out. I'd left the browser open at the photo bank site I was using for work, and since I didn’t really need the main screen while I was using the tablet, I let Bree look through the photos a bit while I set up a canvas.

  “These are really amazing pictures,” she said as she scrolled through them. “The colours are fucking awesome.”

  I scribbled a bit with the stylus to make sure my settings were intact. “Eh, they're okay. None of them are what I'm looking for, which is an amazing photo of Australia that says, ‘sign a multi-million dollar distribution contract for pink diamonds!’”

  “For that Russian guy you said about?” I nodded at her, and she tilted her head at the photos, considering them. “They’re still great, though.”

  I was actually very over those photos after hours of looking at them, so I turned my attention to the tablet. “Now,” I said, gesturing at the blank canvas. “Describe your creek.”

  Bree didn’t do that bad a job of helping me paint it, actually. Her idea of composition wasn't terrible and she was able to give me detail that built a good atmosphere—water mist over the creek, dappled sunlight through the trees and crunchy autumn leaves all over the ground. However, it wasn’t so much that she was good at describing pictures that helped me, it was how goddamn bossy she was about making sure I was getting everything exactly right. Boy, did she let me know if something wasn’t turning out the way she remembered it.

  The final piece didn’t fill up the whole canvas, just an oval in the centre of it. I was pretty certain my battery was going to die before I'd have time to fill in a whole background, so I left it at that.

  When I'd finished, Bree still acted like it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. “That's exactly right,” she said with a whimsical sigh. “Like, exactly. I kind of want to show Mum and Dad to see if they recognise it, but at the same time I don't. It's so creepy, I can see it in my head and it looks like this. ”

  “That's from your head, remember,” I said to her, but was still secretly very proud that I'd done her childhood memory justice.

  She took the tablet from me and was holding it up against the laptop screen while I stretched my wrists out.

  I didn't realise what she was doing until she said, “Oh, right, I can see why you don't like the photos.” I looked down at her for an explanation. “Well, when you compare this,” she indicated the tablet, “with this,” she pointed at my laptop, “the photos are really flat and really boring. Your picture makes the place look, well, kind of magical,” she said, smiling down at the tablet again. “Fuck those stupid photos, you should do all the landscapes for your project thing.”

  I had opened my mouth to immediately contradict her, but didn’t go through with it. Actually, that wasn't such a bad idea. In fact, it was unexpectedly a really good idea and it had very unexpectedly come out of Bree.

  “You're welcome,” Bree said smugly, tossing her curls.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “If I close this contract using that suggestion, I will take you out for a few drinks,” I promised, and then gave her a bit of a surprised look again. She'd come up with that?

  My laptop hardly had any charge left, and since it was going to take us three or four hours to get home, we packed up, piled into the car, and headed back to Sydney.

  Bree had been treating me to some very frightening renditions of Mariah Carey songs as we drove, but quietened as soon as Sydney loomed on the horizon in front of us. I didn’t want to go home, and there was something nagging at me that I didn't want to have space to worry about, as well.

  As we gave way at the turn off to the final tollway that lead into the city, Bree abandoned her silence to flip the twenty-cent piece again. “It says go that way!” she said, pointing back towards the mountains.

  I worried about that. “Do you want to stay over?” I asked, hoping she'd say yes. “It’s fine if you do.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “No,” she sounded miserable. “I mean, I totally want to, but I can’t tonight.”

  Why not, Bree? I asked myself as I looked across at her and nearly side-swiped a road train. I swore and corrected my steering. “Okay,” I said, both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. “Want me to drop you home, then?”

  She nominated a train station, and then hugged me awkwardly through the driver's side window as I left her. “I had a great time today...” she told me, but left the sentence hanging and then looked like she wanted to say something else. She never said it, though, she just turned and walked towards the platform. I leant forward to look up at her before I drove off; there were just a selection of regular people waiting for a train. She'd probably be safe, even in that 'long' skirt.

  When I got home, I usually had makeup to wash off and clothes to squish out of and generally had a shower. Not needing to do that was really disorienting, it wrecked my whole routine. I decided to strip and have a shower anyway.

  I felt better than I had this morning in it, especially about the Gemma thing. It was fine, I decided. It was just something a woman had done to me when I was drunk, Henry probably wouldn't even care about it. In fact, he'd probably be able to give me some advice for how to stop constantly thinking about it all the time.

  After I'd thrown on my hoodie and the old trackies, I decided to start looking at Bree's suggestion for the project. I'd plugged in my laptop and had been going through some of my old landscapes to decide if I had the skill to pull something like this off when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out to check it.

  It was Sarah, and that reminded me that I'd run out on her last night. Again. I braced myself as I opened it in case she was going to yell at me. Her text wasn't angry at all, though. “How's the head, Toyboy? ;)”

  It would be better if I had better painkillers, I thought, as I read her message again. There was something comforting about the fact she was so okay about my guy-thing that she could joke about it.

  Even though she wasn't angry, I decided to apologise anyway. “I suppose I can't really say it was the food this time, can I? I should have at least said goodbye. I'm sorry.”

  “Are you kidding? Watching my female boss completely dismantle my female friend was the highlight of my week.” There was a pause, and then another message came through. I'd been fine with the 'Toyboy' comment, but as she kept going, I was already beginning to feel a very familiar discomfort, and my heart was beginning to race. “Just fyi Gem is totally questioning her sexuality over you. Should I tell her that you might decide there's a guy in there after all?”

  I couldn't type fast enough. “No, just leave it, it was absolutely nothing anyway,” I said. “Just a drunken pash in a pub with a girl. It probably happens all the time. And I doubt I'll run into her again so it doesn't matter.”

  “1. You work in the same building. 2. You're both friends with me. 3. I've actually never pashed another chick in a pub, and to my knowledge Gemma hasn't either. 4. My hand slipped and I accidentally gave her your phone number. In my defence, you weren’t there to stop me.”

  It was the last part that made me start to panic. This was getting out of hand. I felt sick. Really sick. “It was nothing, Sarah,” I texted back, but my hands were shaking a bit. “Really, it was just one of those drunken things. It didn't mean anything. I have a boyfriend.”

  I had to wait a second for her response, and when I got it, it floored me. “OMG, who you are SO not into. If you don't mind me saying, that whole thing with him is so obviously a 'should'. He’s nice and all that, but why would you settle for someone that you're not into when you can set the whole room on fire with a chick like you did with Gem?”

  My ja
w dropped.

  I couldn't even look at that message a second longer. I put the phone down and felt my pulse race. Even without it in front of me, though, I remembered every word and I felt every single one of them like punch in the stomach. I couldn’t argue with her, because she was right.

  Oh, no, I thought as my chest tightened and I got light-headed. No. No, no. Not this again. Please, not this again.

  My throat was starting to feel like it was closing over and as if that wasn’t a big enough problem on its own, I couldn't breathe because of these stupid fucking bandages and everything was just so fucking fucked and what on earth had fucking possessed me to think anything could ever be fine and okay after I'd cheated on my boyfriend with a woman? Sure, I’d pushed Gemma away, but I’d wrapped my arms around her first. I couldn’t fucking put this all on her.

  I sprung out of my chair and wrenched my hoodie off, pulling at the bandages with quivering fingers, searching all around them for the claw. When I finally found it and tore them off me, the relief lasted for about two seconds until I realised that the burning in my chest was still there. I paced, trying to get rid of it, my hand on my ribs.

  Stop it, Min, I told myself as my apartment began to feel extremely fucking small all of a sudden. There wasn't any air in here, either, but I kept trying to breathe anyway as my heart thumped against my palm. It's going to be fine, Min. It’s fine, you’ve been with him for years and not really been into him and it’s been perfectly fine. Nothing needs to change just because you know why you’re not into him and, actually, won't it be easier now? Now that you know what the problem actually is?

  It didn’t feel fine. It didn’t feel fine at all. And if he saw me dressed like this and heard people call me Bree’s boyfriend…

  I was breathing and breathing and still no matter how much I tried I felt like I couldn’t inhale deeply enough to get all the oxygen I needed. As my vision started to grey, in the back of my mind I could hear Henry's voice saying so calmly, 'It's okay, Min. It's okay. It's just adrenaline, it will be gone soon,' and while that was normally a comforting thought... now?

  Now I was going to have to tell him. He deserved to know. But, fuck, what was I going to do? I didn’t want to lose him. He was just so much fun and so wise and loving and Mum would fucking kill me. How would I even show my face at work if we broke up? And if I couldn't show my face at work, how could I stay there, or even here? My home belonged to Frost. I didn't want to lose it or him or anything and I didn’t want to break up with him. I just wanted everything to be okay.

  I had been circling the inside of my apartment and trying to talk myself down when my phone buzzed on the table. As I looked at it, my heart started pounding again. I was worried it was going to be Sarah with some more home truths so I almost didn’t check it. I was glad I did, though, because it was Bree this time.

  “why were u so distant with me today.....?? :( :( i mean u were nice and we had fun i guess but it just felt like..... i dont know.... u dont even want to hug me anymore :( :( ”

  My chest clenched. Bree.

  On the one hand I wanted to invite her over right now because I couldn't face thinking about all this stuff, but on the other, I doubted I was in a fit state to entertain. It was a bit of a moot point anyway because she’d told me she had to stay home tonight. I couldn’t not reply to that message, though, because Bree wasn’t like Sarah. She’d be upset if I didn’t.

  “I’m just going through some stuff right now,” I typed, after thinking it through. “It’s not you at all.”

  “why wont u let me help though?? uve been like the best friend ever and i want to help if u feel like shit”

  I smiled a bit at that. “You do help. I would have gone nuts all day if you hadn’t spent it with me.”

  It was a while before she replied. By that time I’d already taken double the recommended dose of my strongest painkillers and fallen asleep on the couch. Anything, really, to avoid thinking about what had happened with Gemma last night, what I knew it meant about me and what I had to tell Henry about tomorrow.

  The clock on my phone said 3:13AM when I opened her message, and I was too tired to really know how I felt about it.

  “well if u cant figure out how i can help u feel better about stuff maybe ill try to think of something myself…………. :) :) :)”

  My head was aching again, and if she was that determined to help, I was tempted to ask her to leave codeine by my front door instead of coffee this time. It was too late to reply, though, so I didn’t. I just had another sub-par painkiller, tucked myself in bed and hoped I’d accidentally sleep all the way through tomorrow.

  FIFTEEN

  I knew exactly how I was going to say it. I'd spent all of Sunday morning staring blankly at my laptop while I meticulously chose every word. I was going to open up by saying, 'Henry, I need to talk to you about something important. I did something awful on Friday night'. He'd want to take me somewhere more private to talk properly, and then I could tell him everything, all in one go.

  So when I'd finally managed to talk myself into a nice dress and some heels and I'd showed up the right amount of early to be relaxed when he arrived, everything went wrong.

  Henry was late.

  It was weird, because Henry was never late, not ever, not unless it was something to do with work. In fact, he was pathologically early everywhere, it was one of the things we'd bonded over when I'd first come to Sydney. He'd say, 'I'll see you at six,' and we'd both show up at wherever we'd arranged to meet at 5:40. So when the clock ticked 12 and he still hadn't shown up, I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

  It was a bit too early to worry about horrific car accidents yet—although I won't promise it didn't cross my mind—so I stood on the stairs out the front of the cinemas on George Street and checked my phone.

  He hadn't texted me. No one had texted me, actually, although I had a couple of dozen comments from the painting of Bree's childhood creek I'd uploaded this morning. I didn't really have anything to do, so I just stood on the stairs of the cinema and wondered what the fuck was going on. The wait was killing me. I was exhausted. Whatever was going to happen, I just wanted it over and done with.

  As I stood there, though, I still couldn’t help rehearsing the whole thing. Henry, I thought, I ran into Sarah and went for a drink with her. Her friends showed up, and I was really drunk, and one of them kissed me and I let her. I stopped and made a face. Now that I imagined saying that to him, it didn't sound like anything. If some random drunk girl grabbed Henry and pashed him, I wasn't sure I'd care about it. Okay, I thought apprehensively, I should tell him more. 'I let her and I enjoyed it', maybe? How much, though? Should I tell him that it really turned me on and I wanted to keep going? Or is it cruel to rub it in his face that much?

  I wondered again if I should just tell him about the guy-stuff, too, and immediately dismissed that idea. That really would be the kiss of death for me and Henry. He thought he was dating a nice, feminine woman. How would any guy react to their girlfriend saying, 'Okay, so, I enjoyed pashing a woman on Friday night and I hate looking like a woman, I hate dressing like a woman, I don't really feel like a woman, and, actually, I might be better off as a guy'. Yeah, no. Both Bree and Sarah had been great about it, but then neither of them were dating me.

  When I heard Henry's voice behind me, my heart started going again. “Min! There you are! I'm so sorry!”

  I'd been turning towards him, opening my mouth to say, 'Henry, I need to speak to you', but the words died on my lips when I saw him.

  Henry was carrying an enormous rectangular box that had a picture of a pram on the side of it. And not just any ordinary pram, space-age pram that had two stroller-type seats and one canopy-thing where you were probably supposed to put a baby.

  Henry set the box down on its end beside me, took me by the shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Sorry I'm late,” he said. “As you can see, I had some shopping to do, and when I realised I wasn't going to make it in time I went to text
you, but...” He took his phone out of the pocket in his jeans and showed me; it was dead. “I was so tired last night when I got back from Melbourne that I think I forgot to switch the power point on when I plugged it in.”

  I was still staring at the pram box, distracted from my confession. “That's for Alice, right?” I said confidently, sure that I knew the answer, but extremely uncomfortable about it at the same time. There were three seats on that thing.

  He looked surprised. “No, it was on special. I thought I might as well start investing in baby stuff now.” At my horrified expression, he laughed and put a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Min,” he said. “I'm joking. As if right after you get a promotion is the right time to even be thinking about a family.”

  I forced a smile, but for a moment I couldn't escape from the disturbing mental image of myself with a big pregnant belly. Henry wants kids, Min, I tried to tell myself. That means at some point you're going to have to do that. That is, if he doesn't dump your sorry arse for cheating on him. I swallowed.

  Henry hoisted the box under one arm and started to usher me inside. “Yes, it's for Alice. I was planning on leaving it in the car, but it was really expensive.” He patted the box. “So, if you don't mind, it's coming to see a movie with us. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't eat much of the popcorn.”

  While we were buying the popcorn, people were staring at us. Henry laughed about it a little, but I just felt like everything was completely out of control and I couldn't find anything funny. I saw him look at me with concern, but he didn't comment on it while we were heading to our seats. When we'd sat down by ourselves in the very back of the cinema with the pram beside us, I still hadn't told him about Gemma.

  Before I got a chance to talk myself into it, though, Henry had already put a gentle hand on my forearm and leant in quietly to ask, “Min, are you alright? I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone out there, but you look really run down and really worried. Is everything okay?”