Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  “There's actually no room,” I said, ignoring what she really meant. “I didn't want to annoy Matt and Andrew.”

  She looked at the now-empty couch, and then back at me. “Come on,” she said mischievously as she took my hand, “there's no one there now!”

  This time, I didn't let her pull me up. “That's rude,” I told her, but I accidentally glanced over at Gemma again.

  Bree saw, and her face cycled through a series of emotions. “Okay...” she said eventually, and then went and sat there by herself. Before I could second-guess my decision and join her, Matt and Andrew returned and sat down, chatting with each other, and with Smithy who pulled a chair up behind the couch to continue their conversation. No one was talking to Bree even though she was wedged up next to them, and I felt awful.

  Maybe we should go home early, I thought, worrying about her. It would be easier for Gemma, too. Fuck, I was causing a lot of headaches by being here, wasn’t I?

  Sarah came up to me with one of the wines. “Hold this,” she said, and then poured me a big glass of red wine.

  “Whoa, whoa, stop,” I told her, and she paid completely no attention to me. “I have to drive home at some point!”

  Sarah gave me a look. “Mmhmm,” she said noncommittally, and only stopped pouring when the wine was almost at the brim. “It's really nice, trust me,” she said, smiling sweetly and then moving on to Chris.

  Since I really didn't want a repeat of last Friday, I just had a couple of mouthfuls and put it on table behind me as everyone got seated. Sarah dimmed the lights, and then we got started on whatever horror movie people had chosen.

  Gemma was sitting on a chair not too fair away from Bree, which meant I couldn't look at Bree without Gemma blushing a bit and thinking I was looking at her. Obviously, I didn't want to further humiliate her after the whole lift thing, so I tried not to. In the process, Bree looked even more crestfallen.

  Towards the middle of the movie, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out; Bree had sent me a message, and it only said one thing, “:( :( :(“

  I didn't want to look up at her, so I texted back, “I'm sorry...”

  “ur being weird again...... please can we just have fun....? these guys seem nice... well except for that girl behind me who wont even look at me whats up with her???”

  I winced. “We both work for Frost and there was kind of a situation there with the CEO today.”

  “ooooohhh so its a work thing???”

  I exhaled, thinking about how to answer that. I really should just tell her what happened between Gemma and I, it was reaching a point where it looked like I was deliberately concealing it from her. And I couldn't hide it forever, because if we were going to keep hanging around with these guys, it would come up eventually. Now probably wasn't the best time, though. “Kind of, I'll tell you when we get home, okay?”

  She seemed to accept that, and while I was staring down at my messages and ignoring the movie and everything else going on, Sarah said pointedly, “Hey, Min, I'm really comfortable and I could use another beer, would you mind?”

  I looked up from my phone, feeling a bit guilty. She was probably trying to get me off it, which was fair enough, because she'd invited me to this gathering with her friends and I was sitting glued to my mobile and texting people. I felt a bit bad, I hoped she wouldn't be angry. “Sure,” I told her, and hopped up to head into the kitchen.

  I'd opened the door and walked straight in when I realised the kitchen was already occupied. Gemma was sitting on the far end of the counter, all by herself with a glass of wine. She looked just as alarmed as I did.

  Sarah hadn't been trying to get me off my phone after all; I was going to kill her.

  My first instinct was to apologise to Gemma, turn and walk out again, but I also didn't want to be rude. Fuck. I couldn't just stand there staring at her, either. “I'm, uh—” I gestured at the fridge. “Sarah wanted me to get her beer.”

  Gemma made a face. “Of course she wants you to get her a beer, I'm in the kitchen,” she said glumly.

  I opened the fridge, but when I pulled out one of the beers, my hands were shaking and so several others fell out onto the floor. I needed to go chasing one of them at a crouch across the kitchen. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, the drawer that I'd seen Sarah take the bottle opener out of was under Gemma's dangling legs. I pointed at them, and she blushed. “I know, I know,” she said, “they're really old trackies, and I can't believe I still have them in my—”

  “—No, the bottle opener,” I said, interrupting her before she could embarrass herself. “It's in that drawer.”

  “Oh...” she said, hurriedly shuffling over so I could get into it. While I was fishing around for it amongst all the whisks, spatulas and other weird implements, I cut myself on something and hissed, holding my finger up to inspect the damage. It wasn't bleeding as far as I could see, but it stung. I ran it under the tap anyway, just in case. Jesus, could I be any more pathetic?

  Gemma had been watching me and she started to laugh, putting her head in her hands. “God,” she said, groaning. “I am like the Queen of awkward, I'm so sorry. I basically spend my whole life this colour.” She indicated her flushed face. She was so red I could hardly see her freckles anymore.

  “Well, I'm ruling right alongside you,” I said, looking down at the unopened beer and just giving up on the bottle opener. “Fuck.” I tried to bang the lid a bit on the sink to get it off, but that didn't work either and I just ended up leaning against the wall and laughing at myself.

  We stopped laughing, eventually, and she ran a hand over her face.

  “Min,” she began, “I am so, so, so sorry about what happened in the lift today. I've been beating myself up over what a total idiot I was in front of the CEO and those other guys in there. And...” She stopped and made a face, straining as if she was trying to remember something. “You know, I had this whole speech prepared about how I was going to apologise to you and I've been rehearsing it all evening, but it's gone now.”

  That sounded familiar, so familiar it made me chuckle. “Are you kidding?” I asked. “This is my fault. I should have told you I look like a girl at work. None of this would have happened if I’d just been up front about why I wanted you to pretend you hadn’t met me.”

  She was nodding. “You do look like a girl at work,” she said. “It’s actually kind of incredible. I didn't even recognise you, and then I thought to myself, 'Oh, her name is Min and she's really tall, too...?' and then I realised...” She gave me a really pained expression. “Oh, god,” she said. “Sean Frost.”

  I shook my head. “I don't know, he seemed kind of fine about it, actually? He offered me dispute resolution services or something afterwards. I don't—well, I don't want anyone at work to guess what happened between you and I, but I was mainly worried about what you were thinking.”

  She laughed once, humourlessly. “What I‘ve been thinking? I've been drinking all evening and celebrating my future as a lonely cat lady,” she said. “I'm hopeless in general, but I'm especially hopeless when people are interested in me.”

  I was just trying to pay her a compliment, but it came out a bit smooth. “Which must happen a lot, right?”

  She pretended to glare at me. “Do you want to make me all awkward again?” she asked. “Do you?”

  I laughed. “Sorry. Just saying you kind of seem like one of those girls at school that would have had all the guys swarming around her.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I was friends with those kind of girls,” she said, and jerked her thumb backwards towards the living room. Then, she put her head in her hands again. “And now my apology has turned into a counselling session.”

  “On the bright side, we are in a room full of alcohol,” I pointed out. “There's no better room to get depressed in.”

  She laughed at that, a little nervously, I thought. When she stopped, she watched me for a moment, as if she was trying to talk herself into something. “Okay, I'm going to do
it, I'm going to take a big risk and say something completely embarrassing.” I mimed 'come at me'. She took an exaggeratedly deep breath, gathered herself and then continued, “You're totally hot, and I'd kind of go there again, you know? But I'm not sure I'm actually into that, and if it all goes badly and gets awkward, then either you can't hang around with us again, or I can't, and Sarah's been pretty keen to get you to come out with us for years.”

  “I can't anyway,” I reminded her. “I have a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, so you keep saying...” she said. “But, yeah… God.” She put her face back in her hands again. “I can't believe I just said all of that to you. Of course you have a boyfriend, and then there's that girl you brought tonight... what am I doing...?”

  Meanwhile, I couldn't believe I was actually about to say this to someone other than myself. “Gemma, you're beating yourself up too much.” I remembered my first impression of her. “You want to know what I thought when I first met you?”

  She gave me a pained expression. “Do I?”

  I grinned. “I thought, 'That girl can't possibly be being nice to me, she's too hot. She's probably teasing me'.”

  I wasn't sure that helped. “Oh, god, did I come across as really arrogant, too? Too drunk is what I was. I can’t be trusted when I’m drunk, and I can hardly remember half of that evening. I think I called you Sarah's toyboy or something, and she won't let me forget it.” She did look a bit charmed, though. “Thanks, anyway. Wow, I was worried you were going to be so angry with me…”

  I shook my head wryly, and a much easier silence stretched between us. “So, are we good?”

  She smiled. “Yeah,” she said, and then hopped off the bench and stood there awkwardly for a moment, looking at me like she wasn’t sure if she should hug me or not.

  I hugged her, because she was hilarious, and at least as hopeless as I was. “And I thought I needed to chill out.”

  She gave my flat chest a bit of suspicious look as I let her go. “How did you—”

  “Magic,” I told her, and then we both wandered out into the living room again as she laughed at that.

  Sarah was beaming at us as we came back, and I handed her the beer she'd been after. It still had the cap on, and I pretended it was on purpose. “Well, you didn't specify that you wanted me to open it.”

  Chris was sitting next to Sarah, and took the bottle off her for a second, opening it with his big rugby hands. Sarah rolled her eyes at me. “So you were in there for like ten minutes and still you didn't even open my beer?” she asked us. “What were you two doing, anyway?”

  I looked down at Gemma, who was blushing again at Sarah's implication. Instead of saying anything, I just winked at Sarah as I went to sit down.

  I didn't get there, though, because as I watched Gemma go back to her seat, my eyes landed on Bree. She had a really strange expression on her face. “No, seriously,” she said so everyone could hear. “What were you two doing?”

  Everyone shifted a bit uncomfortably in their seats, trying to pretend they were watching the movie. I looked around at them, feeling the blood drain from my face again. There wasn’t anything I could say. If I told her the truth, she wouldn’t believe me.

  When I didn’t say anything, she took a deep breath, and even in the low light I could see her eyes were veiled. “I’m sure you guys were doing a lot of work in there,” she said evenly, and then she stood up and marched out the front door. It slammed heavily behind her.

  NINETEEN

  For those short little legs of hers, Bree was surprisingly fast. By the time I'd made it to the front door, I couldn't even see the tail end of her so I had no idea which direction she'd gone in. I looked around the side of the house, in the shed, and all through the backyard, but she wasn't anywhere to be seen which meant that she'd taken off up the road. In the dark, in suburb she didn't know, in that flimsy dress, again.

  I shouldn't have put off telling her about Gemma and I. I rushed out onto the footpath and looked both ways. I should have just told her last Saturday, right after it had happened. I'd even told Henry, but not Bree. Why not Bree?

  I knew the answer to that question, but I was too distracted by the fact I couldn't see her anywhere. Shit. I stood in the entrance to the driveway, trying to figure out what to do.

  The front door opened. “Hey, Min, is everything okay?” It was Sarah's voice, and she actually sounded kind of concerned. “I mean, obviously not, but you know...”

  I was worried and a bit frustrated and I very nearly had a go at her for sending me into the kitchen while Gemma was there, but I bit my tongue. I was glad Gemma and I had sorted stuff out, and it wasn't anyone's fault except mine that I hadn't told Bree what had happened.

  While I was still stuck on what to do next, Sarah wandered down onto the driveway with me. “Well, that settles that,” she said with a bit of an ironic grin.

  I frowned at her. “What settles what?”

  She was still grinning. “The great debate about whether or not Schoolgirl is into you.”

  I threw a hard stare at her. “If she's running around... wherever the hell we are right now because you decided to teach me a lesson, I'm going to be pretty fucking pissed off.” Turning back towards the road, my eyes rested on my car. I should take it, I thought. I can cover more ground more quickly that way. I walked out onto the road.

  Sarah followed me out to it. “Do you actually think I'd do that?” she asked me, as I patted down my pockets to try and figure out where my key was. I didn't answer her, and she said a bit indignantly, “I'm not a sadist, Min. The way she was angling herself into your lap earlier, I kind of figured she already knew and was pretty keen on making sure Gem didn't get another shot at you.”

  “Well, she didn't know,” I said, and then opened the car door and went to get in.

  Sarah stopped me. “Yeah, I got that much,” she said. “Are you right to drive? I saw two beers and some wine go into you.”

  Wow, in worrying about Bree I hadn't even thought of that. “Yeah, I probably am,” I decided. “Just.”

  She let me go and I climbed in. I was putting on my seatbelt when the other door opened and Sarah swung in the other side. She put her seatbelt on, too. I stopped what I was doing and looked across at her, narrowing my eyes. She crossed her arms. “Oh, come on, Min. All this is partially my fault. Let me help you look for her, at least.”

  I made a face, and then started the engine. She probably would be a help. “Which way's the train station?”

  “Left,” she answered. “You think she's actually going to go home, though? Because there's a park the other way, maybe she just needed some time alone.”

  I pulled away from the curb and turned left.

  “...Okay, then. Left again up here,” Sarah said, pointing to the end of the road. Then, she spent a few seconds looking at me. “I know I've been teasing you for weeks, but what is going on between you two?” I didn't want to answer her, so I didn't. I had no idea.

  Actually, who the fuck was I kidding? That was bullshit, of course I knew what was going on. That little smile she'd given me yesterday had confirmed it, but if I was honest with myself I think I might have known before that. She's into you, Min, I told myself, and, come on, you know she's doing something to you. You're falling for someone who's about five years old, has no concept of personal boundaries and takes 'extrovert' to new and frightening levels. What the fuck is wrong with you? When on earth did you start to prefer her company over Henry's, and where the hell do you think this is going to go?

  I hadn't answered Sarah, which I think was her answer. “They have a Facebook relationship status especially for you and Bree,” she told me, looking forward at the road ahead of us.

  “It's not complicated,” I said. “I'm just a fucking idiot.”

  She laughed a bit at that. “Well, not to rub it in, but I could have told you where it was all heading the first time I met her. That girl basically has 'I LOVE YOU, MIN' tattooed in capital letters on her forehead.�
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  I slowed at an intersection. “You did tell me. Constantly,” I said dryly and gestured at the road. “This way?”

  Sarah looked back at where we were going. “Oh, sorry, yeah. Just up there on the main road,” she instructed, pointing. “Well, I like her and I think you two are cute together. I mean, I like Henry, too, but he kind of seems like your brother.”

  I gave her a tired look. “Can you not?”

  She put a hand on my forearm as I waited to turn out onto the main road. “Min, I'm saying this as a slightly drunk friend: believe me, I've been in relationships like yours, myself. Just cut him loose, it's better for both of you.”

  “It's not that simple, Sarah,” I told her, turning out onto the main road and pulling up alongside the train station. “I want to try and make it work with Henry. I really like him, and he's always been there for me.”

  Her hand was still on my arm. “Min, other people can be there for you.” I looked across at her for a second. She wasn't spooked by the fact I was watching her either, she just let me, and then she smiled. “Go on, off you go.” She inclined her head towards the station. “Go rescue Schoolgirl.”

  'Rescue', yeah right. I headed up to the station and awkwardly jumped the barriers to Platform One in my denim jeans.

  It was remote enough and late enough in the evening that it was deserted, and that made me worry even more. I couldn't find her in any of the waiting rooms, or along the platform. The toilets were seriously gross but I checked both of them anyway, and eventually walked out onto the platform to have another look out across it. There was no one.

  Maybe Sarah was right, maybe she'd just gone to have some alone time in the park? I was half-walking, half-jogging back to barriers when I rounded the corner and nearly collided with her. She looked like she'd only just arrived; she must have come a different way.

  My heart lifted. “Bree!” I said, and then went to hug her. “Fuck, I'm really sorry I didn't—” I stopped, because she coldly shrugged me off and kept walking out onto the platform. “Bree?”