I thanked her and went inside, immediately feeling really terrible because it was probably Henry who'd returned it. He was being a lovely, considerate boyfriend and I was making out with girls behind his back. While I was torturing myself over that, I went straight for my phone to check to see how many missed calls I had.
There was a post-it stuck to the screen, and it wasn't Henry's writing.
“Hey Toyboy, you're not missing much. Your absence started a leadership coup, but everyone's too terrified of Jason to go as far as declaring themselves lead. Next week's pitch is fine, don't worry about it. I don't think I need to tell you to have fun... ;) See you in Broome.”
Sarah. I half-laughed, half-groaned at her message, crumpling it up and throwing it in the bin so that no one would see it. I texted her a quick thanks and put my phone back in my handbag where I couldn't see or hear if it was ringing or not. I decided I didn't want to think about work right now. Not after the day I’d had, and not while Bree was here.
Speak of the devil, she returned from the bathroom and banished me out of the kitchen, putting on the house apron that was way too big for her and then getting started on the pasta. I watched her from the couch, a bit worried that she'd burn something and set the sprinklers off.
She noticed and guessed what I was stressing about. “I'm not going to set your kitchen on fire!” she called over the bench, from behind the wilted roses. “I cook all the time! Also, how much cheese do you want?”
“All of it,” I told her, thinking that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something.
“Okay!” was her cheerful response, and then I heard the fridge open and her bustle around in it. ...all while I was sitting here on the couch, doing absolutely nothing.
Despite the crap day she’d had, she was still cooking for us. And despite everything that always was going on for her, she still made time to do nice things for me. All that stuff she'd said on Friday about me acting like my gift to her was just letting her do nice things: I remembered it with a painful level of detail.
“Bree…” I began, and my tone of voice made her stand on tip-toes behind the counter so she could see me properly. “I…” I swallowed. “Well, thanks. Thanks for cooking for us.”
She looked delighted, and even blushed a little. “It’s my pleasure, Min.”
We held eye contact for a little too long, because she was giving me this cheeky little smile.
And, wow, it gave me butterflies. I turned back at the TV so she couldn't see the big stupid grin on my face, and decided to leave her alone to cook. She seemed happy again, she was going to feed me, and maybe everything would be okay after all.
TWENTY-TWO
I definitely should have gone into work. I woke up at the crack of dawn when my alarm went off, like it was any other day. As I was feeling around my bedside table for my buzzing phone, however, all the events of yesterday slowly started coming back to me. I groaned, tapped the snooze function, and turned over.
It took me full three rounds with snooze to actually manage to get myself out of bed. I washed and dressed and got as far as checking my outfit and worrying about how it looked when I realised what I was doing.
I was wearing clothes I hated to go and be yelled at by someone I hated even more, and I was actually worrying about whether or not this stupid blouse my mother bought me went with this skirt and what she’d have thought about it. It didn’t matter what she thought about it, she wasn’t here to see it. Jason wasn’t going to give a fuck about my mismatched fabrics while he yelled at me, and it didn’t even matter what Diane thought about it. She wasn’t just going to not fire me because I’d picked the perfect outfit.
The whole thing just seemed completely messed up and none of it fucking mattered. But if it didn’t matter, why was it all so critically important to me? I sat down on the bed to talk myself through it, but just ended up with my forehead resting on my palm, wondering about the logistics of actually jumping on a plane and running away.
I’d been trying to be quiet because Bree was still asleep, but when I sat down on the bed I must have woken her up anyway. I could see her yawn and stretch in the mirror behind me, but she stopped mid-yawn when she saw what I was wearing. “You’re not actually going in to work today, are you?” she asked, propping herself up on an arm and rubbing her eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t have anything urgent that needs doing because that Russian-pitch-thingy got cancelled.”
I exhaled. “If I’m not there for my team to take their disappointment out on, they’ll all bitch about me behind my back,” I said. “And the last thing I want is for Marketing to decide I’m a hot topic, because they kind of know that I was made lead of a confidential project and everyone loves to tear down someone who got promoted above them. So there’s that. Plus Jason and Diane weren’t done with having a go at me and I should let them finish.”
Bree just stared at me. “Where do you actually work?” she asked me. “Hell?”
I laughed once. “Well, the pay is good,” I said, and stood up. “How do I look?”
She couldn’t have given me a more tired expression. “Min, take those clothes off and get back into bed. You’re being totally ridiculous. If people are going to talk shit about you, it’s way better if you’re not there to hear it because it’s probably all bullshit anyway.” She put the doona over her head and turned over.
I looked back at my reflection, decided she was right, and just put my comfy clothes back on and got back into bed with her.
Bree sat up for the express purpose of returning some of the doona to me and tucking me in. “You care too much about what people think about you,” she told me for like the hundredth time, and then before I was able to stop her, she lay down against my side, put her head on my shoulder and draped an arm across my stomach.
I stiffened. I could feel her breasts against my ribs. “Bree, we shouldn’t be—”
“Relax, Min, I’m not starting anything, I promise. I just need to make sure you don’t sneak off to work the minute I go back to sleep,” she told me, and then snuggled into me and did exactly that.
Sneak off to work? She made me sound like a heroin addict. I lay there for a moment, not really sure what I should do. While I was trying to figure that out, I ended up accidentally falling asleep again, too.
I woke up way too late to call in sick. If I called now, I either risked getting Henry when I was put through to HR, or risked getting Jason if I got put through to Marketing. I peeled Bree off me—somewhat reluctantly, actually, she was really warm—and then went to go write work an email, instead.
When I sat down at the laptop to try and figure out what I should say, I didn’t know where to start. I knew I should have gone in.
I still hadn’t written anything when Bree wandered out into the living room in her thin pyjamas. I double-took; she wasn’t wearing a bra.
I hadn't even written a subject. “Maybe the fact I can’t write this email is a sign that I'm supposed to be a mature, responsible adult and face the shit that's waiting for me at work,” I said to her as she walked past.
She didn’t look at all convinced. “Or maybe it's a sign that place is fucking awful and you should quit before it kills you,” she helpfully suggested, and then went and opened my living room blinds… to a miserable, rainy day outside.
“Oh, well,” she said brightly. “We can stay inside and watch movies or something together.” She bent down by the bottom shelf where all my DVDs were to go through them while I just typed out some flimsy excuse with the word ‘police’ in it and sent the damn thing.
When I was done, I went and sat on the couch near where she was crouched. She’d taken some of the cases out. “You have heaps of Disney movies,” she observed. “All the old ones. I never picked you for that type of person.”
“Because I’m big and tough, you mean?” I asked her neutrally. She rolled her eyes at me, so I explained, “When I was a lot younger I really wanted to be an animator for Disney. I used to
put those movies on repeat, rewind all my favourite scenes and imagine that I was watching something I'd helped create.”
Bree looked absolutely charmed. “That's so beautiful,” she said. “You could still be one, you know. If you really wanted to. You're only 25.”
I scrunched my nose and shook my head. “Nah,” I said. “I'd need to retrain, and to be honest, animation isn’t my forte anyway. It was just nice to think about.” That wasn't the only problem, either. “Besides, Mum would kill me if I quit my job. She just loves to tell everyone her daughter is in marketing for Frost International, and I'm actually pretty good at it most of the time, so it's not that bad.”
Bree's smile faltered a little. “You should have seen yourself yesterday when the police called you, Min. You looked so sick. I'm sure your mum wouldn't want to see you like that, no matter what she likes to say about you.” I shrugged, not really wanting to go into the intricacies of my relationship with Mum.
Bree watched me intently for a moment, and then shuffled forward a little, DVDs momentarily forgotten. “If you could be anything, like if someone gave you a wish or something, what would you be? I bet it wouldn't be a marketer.”
I snorted. “If I could be anything? I'd be a dragon. Or maybe invisible, I don't know.”
She laughed. “That's not what I meant!”
“I know,” I said, but I didn't answer her real question.
She selected a few boxes and came to sit next to me on the couch. “Let's watch some of these,” she said, and spread them across her lap. “Which one's your favourite?”
I was about to answer her when my mobile rang. Bree casually picked it up from the coffee table to give to me, but her face fell when she glanced in passing at it and saw what was on the screen. For a second I thought she might be about to reject the call. She didn't, though. Instead, she just passed it over. Our fingers brushed as I accepted it and looked down at the screen.
'Henry' was flashing on it, and my thumb hovered over the red handset symbol.
Just seeing his name, I felt all the energy I'd built up from relaxing and sleeping in drain out of me. I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to pretend he didn't exist and just live in sick day land forever.
“Are you going to pick up?” Bree asked.
I pressed my lips together. “I don't want to.”
“Okay, just leave it, then. Let's watch Disney movies all day and order pizza.”
I looked between Bree and the phone and groaned.
I couldn't ignore Henry just because Bree's suggestion sounded perfect, and I felt really guilty about that. A month ago, a perfect evening would have been spent playing Black Ops with Henry. I would have had fun, too. I always did, except when he was being all romantic. He didn't deserve for me to ignore him just because I felt really guilty, though.
I scrunched my eyes shut and swiped the screen as I put it to my ear. “Hi, Henry.”
Beside me, Bree slumped.
“Hi,” he said gently. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I told him. At least it was true.
“You sound so much better. Wow, I was so worried about you yesterday, and when I saw you in the corridor you looked so pale.” I kept waiting for him to mention Sean, or ask what Sean had to do with Bree, but he didn’t. It felt like a really deliberate omission. “I'm so glad you took my advice and are using some of your sick leave for once.”
I made a non-committal noise.
“Anyway, I know you're probably not up to going out tonight, but I was hoping I could drop around in my lunch break? I'd like to show you what I bought your family, and since you're not feeling too well, I thought perhaps I could bring you some healthy food. Pasta and bread are great for energy, but when you're running yourself down you'll need greenery as well as the carbs.”
Bree must have been able to hear the conversation, because she looked very indignant. “I bought apples,” she muttered. I patted her, but I was too distracted by the fact he wanted to come over to be very comforting.
I really, really didn't want to see Henry right now. I'd been looking forward to a nice, relaxing day with Bree, and I couldn't imagine how any day with both Bree and Henry together could ever be described as 'nice and relaxing'. I was sure Henry suspected something, and even if he didn't, I was worried that either Bree or I would say something while he was here that would give it away. Henry was going to find out the whole story because I was going to tell him, but it had to be while we were both alone and not in any sort of rush. And I wasn't sending Bree home now, that was certain. I wanted to keep her out of her own house as much as possible. Fuck. That meant I was going to have to let him come over, didn't it?
I looked apologetically across at Bree. She had a really strange expression on her face.
“Min? Are you still there?” Henry's voice startled me a bit.
I was just going to have to suck it up and deal with the discomfort. It was all my own fault, anyway. “Sure, that's fine, come over.”
Bree made a face and then flopped backwards on the couch, groaning. Disney DVDs scattered everywhere.
He sounded relieved. “Okay, that's great,” he said. “I'll be there in about ten minutes. I can't wait to see you, Min.”
“Me, too.” I stopped him before he hung up, not looking forward to what I had to say next. “Henry...” I began.
“Yeah?” he sounded like he thought he knew what I was going to say. There was a smile in his voice.
He thinks I'm going to say, 'I love you' again, I realised, jamming my eyes shut. I didn't. “Bree's here.”
There was a long pause. “Oh...” he said. He sounded so taken aback, and even in that one single syllable, I could hear such disappointment. He quickly disguised it. “Oh. That just means I need to buy more food, I suppose. See you soon.”
We hung up and I exhaled, still grimacing.
Bree was still lying supine on the couch. “He hates me, doesn't he?” she said flatly.
I shook my head, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “No, he's not like that,” I told her, and then stood up to get changed. Even though he'd seen me dressed down without make-up last time, I think seeing me in a binder was one step too far.
Bree followed me as I walked into the bedroom. “He should hate me.”
I opened the wardrobe and sighed at all my tight, frilly clothes. “He should hate me,” I said. “But he doesn't.”
Bree sat down on the bed, looking troubled as she watched me.
I took out a very feminine blouse, thinking I could probably get away with these jeans if I was wearing a nice top. I felt depressed even just looking at it, but twisted around to Bree. “Would you mind...?” She obediently lay back and put the doona over her face so she couldn't see me change as I began to. “You know what the most fucked up thing is about all of this?” I asked her as I pulled off my hoodie and t-shirt and began trying to wrestle myself out of my binder.
Her voice was muffled by the covers. “No?”
I wondered if I should even tell her. “I was about ready to get an intervention order against you when you found out where I lived, but Henry thought the coffee was a cute idea and told me I should get to know you, because I need more friends.”
“Oh,” Bree said. I was still trying to get out of my binder even after she'd had few seconds to consider that. “Wow, that makes me feel really bad. I mean, not the intervention order stuff. You were pretty upfront about that in the beginning. But like, that your nice boyfriend was just looking out for you and helping you make friends with me and then I end up going behind his back and stealing you from him.”
Once I was done, I stood in front of the mirror for a second, feeling weird. “Is it okay?” I asked Bree as she emerged from under the doona. “Are the jeans too 'guy'?”
She shrugged. “You're asking the wrong person,” she told me. “Because if you want my honest opinion, I prefer you as a guy.”
I grimaced, looking back at my reflection. That wasn't a guy. Sighi
ng, I went to sit on the bed beside her and put my head in my hands for a moment.
Bree gave me a comforting pat on the back, but it was weird having people touch me when I was dressed like this. Even Bree. I didn't shrug her off exactly, but when I stiffened, she got the message and snatched her hand away. “Sorry.”
That made me feel even more guilty. “No, Bree, don't be sorry, it's just...” At least it was easier to sigh deeply without the binder on. “This is my reality.” I gestured to my chest. “Even if you'd kind of prefer it wasn't.”
She glanced at my breasts and her cheeks went a bit pink. “Oh, no, that's not what I meant,” she told me. “I mean, you're completely different when you're being a guy. Like seriously, when you're wearing menswear and walking around like that, you're just funnier and nicer and way more relaxed. That's what I like more. I don't even care about how your body is. I mean, obviously you do, but to me you're still the same person whether you have boobs or not, you know? It doesn't matter to me.”
I smiled at that, and exhaled at length. It was so comforting to hear that from her. “Sometimes you really do say the right things,” I told her quietly.
She flipped her hair smugly and then went to put her own clothes on.
Henry was definitely less than ten minutes away; I didn't even think it had been five when he knocked on the door. I stood to go and answer it, but Bree stopped me. When I looked back at her, she had that weird expression again. “Don't make out in front of me, okay?” she asked a bit forlornly. “Please.”
I understood what she meant; I wouldn't want to see her making out with someone else, either. “Henry and I have never been like that. I was never into it anyway.”
She followed me out into the main room as I went to let Henry in. Before I did, I took a deep breath, pulling myself together, and opened the door with the biggest smile I could manage.
Henry was standing there in the doorway in his suit with one hand full of grocery bags and the other with a big bouquet of crisp red roses. “That's a beautiful smile,” he said warmly, and then pecked me on the cheek and walked past me into the hallway on his way to the kitchen.
Under My Skin Page 50
