Beautiful Mess

by Claire Christian

  ‘At least I’m not scared of Yogo,’ Kelly smiled, and we giggled and felt bad for the anorexic girl.

  So, the thing with the chips felt huge. She didn’t want the chips. It was the moment when I realised how bad things actually were. For the first time I thought about the fact that one day she might actually succeed. That her parents wouldn’t read the signs or they’d stop being overcautious or she’d stop asking for help. In that moment the size of that sadness was too big to even let into my brain. My throat clamped shut so I couldn’t swallow and tears instantly welled, so I made myself think about something else. Those thoughts were like the sight of black clouds on a sunny day. And I just slammed the door so I couldn’t see them anymore. But from that moment I could always hear the thunder. Knowing that something bad might happen.

  But then she’d be okay. Things would go back to normal and we’d take the piss out of teachers, go to parties, sleep in each other’s beds, get drunk and talk about how brilliant it would be when we were older.

  I wish I could remember the specifics of the last time we hung out, the last time we talked. I’ve run it on repeat over and over again in my head to try and see if I missed any clues. But it was just a normal day. I can’t even really remember what we talked about because it was that normal. We’d sat on the floor of my bedroom spiralling into a YouTube vortex of pimple-popping videos—clinging to cushions, squealing, unable to drag our eyes away. At one point that afternoon she’d been looking at my desk and picked up a framed photo of us from Year 7 camp where we’re both sunburnt and freckly and wearing backwards caps. It was after I’d kissed Kyle Chong behind the girls’ cabins in free time, my first kiss ever. Kelly had kissed his twin brother Jimmy. It was a dare. Kyle had braces and I could feel them clash into my teeth. We spent the night laughing because Jimmy had grabbed Kelly’s boobs mid-pash, except he’d done it super quick.

  ‘He just kind of honked my boobs,’ Kels said, squinting her eyes, disgusted, while some other girls in our cabin and I howled with laughter. ‘Like this,’ and she demonstrated the quick double-handed grab he’d done on her boobs.

  ‘What did you do?’ one of the girls asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘I pushed him away and just, like, walked off like this.’ She folded her arms around her chest and stalked around the cabin with a repulsed look on her face. I was crying with laughter. We took the photo just after that.

  ‘This is my favourite photo of us,’ she said, holding the frame in her hands.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘We look so happy,’ she said. ‘We’re so stoked with ourselves.’

  ‘That’s because you’d just experienced sexual ecstasy with Jimmy Chong.’ I started to giggle. ‘Honk honk.’ I mimicked the action in the air. Kelly didn’t laugh.

  ‘I’ll never forget it,’ she said, putting the frame back on the desk. Then she picked up a whiteboard marker and walked over to my mirror, rubbed out the dick she’d drawn a week before and replaced it with a love heart. She kept rubbing it out and starting again, making it perfect.

  None of this was weird. She’d always draw or write things on the mirror. She’d always laugh about that photo. At the time I just thought it was a normal afternoon. Maybe it was for her too. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she already knew what she was going to do, maybe that’s why she said what she did and why she drew the love heart. She had wanted me to know that she’d never forget me and she loved me.

  That night her mum picked her up, she had dinner with her family and said goodnight like she normally would. Then in her room she made some really shitty choices and drank a heap of vodka. She tucked herself into bed. She didn’t write a note. She must have vomited in her sleep, because that’s how she actually died. She choked.

  I can’t help thinking about her in her bed. Choking. What if she’d decided she didn’t want to anymore? What if she tried to vomit it up but was too drowsy to lean over the side of the bed?

  What if, in the end, she didn’t want to die, but it was too late?

  I’ve been thinking about Kelly all weekend, all the details of these moments, trying to find new information, trying to work out if things were for Kelly like they were for Gideon. Too much, too big. So huge that they consumed her and all she could feel was the pain. It must have been. If she really felt like it was her only option. She must’ve. Why else would she have done it?

  I stayed at home all weekend trying to process everything. I don’t know why I walked out. I don’t know what I’m meant to say to him now. I’m so embarrassed. I feel like I need to apologise but I don’t really know what for, or what I’d say.

  That’s when I notice the flash of mint green sitting on the kitchen bench amid a pile of junk mail. No stamp, just my name on the front. There’s a card inside. It’s homemade. On the front is a drawing of a penguin.

  On the inside, it reads:

  Ava,

  I’m sorry.

  Gideon

  I feel awful. I bite my lip, my eyes sting. I keep thinking of him standing there reading the most beautiful poem ever, basically saying that he wants to help me, and I couldn’t even say thank you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hate it. I hate feeling this way, feeling like I will never, ever feel anything good, or normal or like myself ever again. I’m so over it. I’m so over myself. I wish I could take a break, just get away from my own thoughts, from the stupid shit I keep doing. I wish I could fix everything. I wish she never died. I wish she told me how she felt. I’m angry with her. So, so angry. Then I feel shit for being angry with her, because I love her. And I would give anything to just hang out and talk about nothing and tell her about this boy I’ve met who wrote me a poem, an amazing, lovely poem. I’d tell her that I freaked and walked out, and that I’m confused and I don’t know how to make it right, and that now he thinks he did something wrong. Which he didn’t, not even a little bit. Everything he did was perfect.

  He was right, I am broken.

  Every Monday morning in English we spend the whole lesson doing an exercise which Jason calls free writing. We can write whatever we want as long as the pen doesn’t stop moving. Today I wrote a poem. A poem about Kelly. It just kind of poured out and I surprised myself with how easily it happened. I’ve never written a poem before. I have started a million diaries in my lifetime but I never stick to it; write one or two entries and then give up because I never know what to say.

  You look like shit, I read scrawled on the piece of paper Minda just handed me in class. I feel like shit, I quickly write back and pass it to her. You wanna talk about it? she writes, glancing up to make sure that Jason doesn’t see us. I shake my head.

  Minutes later she taps my leg under the desk and points to her notebook: what happened? I think for a moment, and then write the words I fucked up and I don’t know how to fix it, on my own page. Minda writes the words A guy? on her page and points at her notebook. I nod. Just tell him how you feel. I roll my eyes as she starts writing again.

  NO BULLSHIT is written in giant capital letters in her book.

  I think about this all day. About what I can tell him that would make sense to him. I begin three poorly constructed letters attempting to explain and apologise and convince him that me walking out had nothing to do with him or the poem and everything to do with me. But every single one of them is crap because I do a really shit job of explaining how I feel. My pen stops. I don’t know what to say, but all of a sudden I know exactly what to do. I open my notebook to the pages I wrote this morning, rip out the page with the poem on it, quickly scrawl a note and put it in an envelope. I walk straight around to Gideon’s house and stuff it in his letterbox. If he wants to know what is in my brain. Well, that’s exactly it.

  ‘What else?’ Robbie asks.

  ‘I’m pissed off. I shouldn’t feel this way,’ I tell him. ‘Things are pretty fucking great at the moment. I just shouldn’t feel like—’ I stop myself.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘This. Sad. Not even sad. I feel. Out of
it and angry. Really fucking mad.’

  ‘At?’

  ‘Myself. For feeling this way. Again.’ I stare at Robbie. Today he is wearing a bright orange T-shirt with a picture of two cartoon oranges made to look like John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. Pulp. Ha.

  ‘Is it the same?’ He looks down at his shirt and back at me, smiling.

  ‘No and yes. I don’t feel the same way. I don’t feel—’ I breathe out. I hate these moments of having to describe what feels completely indescribable. Matching words to feelings is the worst fucking thing ever. That’s the point, I’m feeling it, I don’t want to talk about it.

  But if I said that to Robbie he’d just smirk at me because he’d then say something like, ‘You know.’

  And I do. Talking about it is how I navigate it. Acknowledging what it is means there’s strategies and if there’s strategies there’s forward momentum and if there’s forward momentum there’s wellness. That’s all we’re ever striving for. Wellness. Whatever that feels like.

  ‘I don’t feel,’ I repeat myself, ‘dark. It doesn’t feel dark. It just feels flat. Like I can’t think properly. Can’t make decisions. Can’t differentiate between what are my real thoughts and what are my thoughts because I feel…’ I sigh, frustrated. ‘Just everything feels foggy. Like a big fog.’

  Robbie nods and asks, ‘What else?’

  ‘I feel disappointed in myself for being back here again.’

  ‘Okay. But you are different. You are not the same Gideon dealing with your depression this time.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how small the changes, we are never the same as we were. It’s important to have perspective.’

  ‘I just wish it wasn’t something I had to deal with.’

  ‘I know. But you do.’ He pauses. ‘How did you feel when Ava left?’

  ‘Like I’d fucked up, I shouldn’t have read that poem. We’d just had this really honest conversation and then I went too far.’ I look at Robbie. ‘I don’t blame her for leaving.’

  It feels good to talk about Ava with Robbie, a relief. But I also feel bad, like I’m betraying her trust or something. Like our conversation should be sacred and we should be the only two people in the world who know about it. Me and her. But now there’s three—me, her and Robbie.

  ‘And now I just feel—’ I say.

  ‘Bare?’ Robbie asks. He’ll do this, help me find the right words. I like it. His vocabulary is better than mine. And usually he’s right.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Vulnerable.’

  ‘Yes. Completely. And that’s really fucking scary, Robbie.’ He nods and smiles. ‘I don’t want to upset her,’ I tell him. It’s true, I don’t.

  ‘I don’t think you did.’ Robbie looks at me and I raise my eyebrows, unsure. ‘You didn’t hurt her. You didn’t make her cry. She cried because she had an emotional response to you, to your scars, because of her stuff.’ He grabs his long hair and in two swift movements he ties it up in a bun with a rubber band at the crown of his head, revealing his undercut. I think what I like most about Robbie is that he genuinely doesn’t care. He does what he wants and says what he wants when he wants. I wish I was more like that.

  ‘How do you feel about her grief?’

  ‘I don’t feel anything about her grief,’ I say quickly.

  Robbie just as quickly laughs. ‘Gideon, there are very few things that you don’t feel anything about, mate.’

  I laugh. ‘I’m feeling definite things about your man bun.’

  Robbie smirks. ‘Are they feelings you want to talk about?’

  I laugh at him. ‘Not even a little bit.’

  We smile at each other and Robbie raises his eyebrows, pressing for an answer. I don’t know what to say.

  I told Robbie about receiving her letter and poem and what it said.

  You have nothing to be sorry for. I don’t know how to explain. I wrote a poem. I blame you. I’ve never written a poem before. Read it if you’re confused about me. I just need you to know you did nothing wrong. It was all me and I think we should hang out again.

  Love Ava

  I chose not to read the poem. Not yet. I don’t feel confused about her. I don’t know if she meant for me to take that literally, but I will, because that’s what I do. I put it in my top drawer next to my bed and I’ll read it when I’m confused. I don’t know why. I wasn’t confused when she just walked out on Friday night. As I thought back on every single detail of the night over and over again, the things we’d talked about, my two poems, my scars, our conversation, I realised it all must’ve brought up a lot of stuff for her about Kelly.

  I don’t know how to answer Robbie’s question because I don’t think I’ve really thought about Ava’s grief as a thing. It’s just part of her and I don’t know her without it. I think she’s sad and fragile…

  ‘She’s fragile. But also not. She’s really, really strong.

  She’s really amazing. I think I’m helping her.’

  ‘Do you want to help her?’ Robbie asks.

  ‘Yeah. I do.’

  ‘That’s a responsibility.’

  ‘Yeah. It is. But. I feel like I can.’

  ‘Okay. Help?’

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him.

  ‘Can she help you?’

  ‘I don’t want her to help me,’ I say before I even realise.

  ‘That seems a bit one-sided then.’

  ‘I really like her.’

  ‘Like like?’ Robbie asks without a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘Are you a fifteen-year-old girl?’ I ask.

  ‘If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me,’ he says.

  I’m not really sure about many things at the moment, but how I feel about Ava, that’s totally clear to me, even if I’m too scared to admit it.

  ‘Yeah, I like like her,’ I tell him. ‘I, like, like her. A lot.’ Robbie smiles. But I’m afraid it’s not about whether I like, like Ava. The more important question is whether Ava like, likes me. Which I’m hand on heart one hundred per cent sure that she doesn’t. I refuse to let something like my feelings ruin our friendship.

  ‘Do you know what the Japanese say about broken things?’ Robbie looks at me. ‘Kintsukuroi they call it. They take broken pieces of porcelain and they repair the cracks with gold. Making it as it was, but new again. They believe that the cracks can make something more beautiful, more valuable.’

  ‘Is that for real?’

  ‘Have I ever lied to you?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘They believe that the cracks shouldn’t be hidden, that they’re part of their history, and should be shown. If you’re going to show the cracks, why not show them beautifully.’

  ‘So Ava’s like a Japanese mug?’

  ‘Yup, and so are you. We’ve all got cracks, Gideon.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Show her yours, if you want, cause they’re part of you. They might help her. Help her, not fix her. It’s not your job to fix her.’

  I get it. I get the metaphor. There’s no point pretending that everything is okay and that I’m not broken too. Because I am. I need to also realise that she’s not a mug that I need to put back together or fix or be careful with. She’s just Ava, and yes, she’s got some pretty big cracks but they just make her more beautiful. She’d never have let me in like she has if I hadn’t met her when I did. If I’d met her while Kelly was still alive she would’ve probably just fobbed me off. She didn’t need me in her life then. But I think she needs me now.

  ‘Well played, sir,’ I say. ‘How do I tell if she likes my cracks?’

  ‘You gotta fill ’em with gold first, buddy boy,’ says Robbie.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shall we talk meds?’

  ‘I don’t want to change ’em.’

  ‘Shall we talk strategies then?’

  ‘Yup.’ So we do. I leave my last session with Robbie for a while armed with a new notebook and some strategies.

/>   ‘I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,’ Ava says, smiling.

  Innuendo aside, I feel a normal wash of anxiety cool my system. Are we really going to do this? As far as people go I feel comfortable with Ava, but this feels unsafe. Or maybe this is just the way that everybody feels when there’s someone insanely attractive lying on their bed expecting them to share their secrets.

  We managed to get through three shifts together over the weekend at Magic Kebab with copious banter and giggling—righting the course of our friendship after the weirdness with the poem and Ava walking out. But maybe we’re pushing our luck by spending tonight together, hanging out at my house. In my room. On my bed.

  ‘You go first,’ I mutter.

  ‘Okay. But there has to be rules.’ She sits up and crosses her legs.

  ‘You’re so bossy,’ I smirk, knowing I’ll get a reaction. She scoffs and hits me hard on the arm.

  ‘I’m serious. Rule one, no commentary once someone has shared. Just say the thing and then that’s it. You’ve said it. The other person knows. Done.’ All her words smash together in quick succession. She’s serious.

  ‘Okay,’ I nod.

  ‘Okay, really? You promise to say nothing?’ Her hands race forward and land on my leg, but just as quickly as they land, they’re gone. She uses her hands to punctuate her sentences. I make a mental note to add this to the list of things I like about Ava.

  ‘What about non-verbal communication?’ I ask.

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘But what about your epic fortune-telling eyebrows?’

  She laughs loudly. You can always tell what Ava is thinking. I like this about her too.

  ‘Okay, for the sake of my non-compliant eyebrows, non-verbal communication is fine.’

  ‘I feel like we should shake on it,’ I say, which we do. The anxiety morphs into excitement mixed with nerves, which I picture looking like erratic, colourful worms squiggling all around my body making my skin feel weird.