Friendship on Fire

by Danielle Weiler

  Unsurprisingly, Roman won champion boy for the day and the Brigade, including Rachael, surrounded him with pats on the back and kisses on his cheeks. He appeared uncomfortable but polite and I rolled my eyes and walked away. Not before he saw me do it, though. He hung his head and let his trophy fall into his bag like it meant nothing to him. Seeing that didn’t compel me to talk to him.

  Nate? He contacted me every now and then on MSN but I ignored him. His SMSs were more frequent; they were the worst. I would become more confused the more often he sent them, because he would appeal to my soft, loyal side and our good memories. When I didn’t answer after he’d put himself out there, I would get an abusive message, no doubt to reclaim his pride, that seemed to remind me that I was doing the right thing. If Mum got wind of me receiving any messages from him, she’d threaten to change my phone number. It wasn’t a bad idea.

  One night mid-term, Nate came into work looking ragged, yet handsome. The beaten down rogue look suited him, unsurprisingly. The visit had taken me aback so much that I stood at the register like a stunned mullet, feet nor tongue willing to move an inch. Luckily, my facial features still worked. Apparently the look on my face made my manager realise he had to tell Nate to leave, and quickly.

  Even as Nate was shuffling out the door, he kept saying, quite earnestly, that he needed to talk to me. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. But I desperately did, which only added to my confusion. How could talking with him make it better for me? Surely it would serve merely to dredge up the past and make me feel worse.

  Deep down, I had a feeling his talk would consist of trying to make me take him back, with some ultra important excuse as to why he cheated on me, and I couldn’t bear that. Cheating was unforgivable. Wasn’t it?

  Term 3 — August

  Dear Diary,

  I hate feeling so messed up. I miss the happy, confident Daisy who was my signature in times past. My close friends; Shana and Sarah, are the sunshine in my life, and they have taught me to get quite good at ignoring everyone who waste my time.

  Besides. This is the last term of class work, and the last real opportunity I have to pick my teachers’ brains before my final exams begin next term. I need to use all the time I can get so I at least have a choice of what to do at Uni, even if I don’t know what I want to do. Throwing myself into work is a great excuse to distract myself from the niggling complexities of my life.

  You’d be so proud of me, diary. Each night I come home from school, if I’m not working, I study for two hours and complete assignments a few days early. I try my best to listen in class and keep out of trouble with Mr Head.

  Now, before I completely destroy my reputation, there is a method in my ‘madness’. Let me just say that the importance of me having a routine to come home to is imperative; it keeps my overactive, curious brain at bay, and stops me from wanting to contact Roman or Nate or anyone else who might stress me out. No matter how embarrassed I was about what happened with Roman, it tore my heart just as much as it did with Nate to lose him, though for different reasons. To not be able to talk to my best friend, or worse, feel awkward talking to him, deserves more than distracting. It needs disciplined, time-wasting work. Like study.

  It still hurts me to see Rachael at school, especial y after our phone call over a month ago, but I do think I am lucky I hadn’t thrown all my eggs into her basket in the first place. I count myself blessed to have other friends at school to spend my time with, even if in the past she had been first choice.

  So, by increasing my confidence with my schoolwork and other friends, I managed to convince myself that I didn’t need the same things other girls identified themselves with. Sure I kept going to parties on weekends with Shana, Sarah, Linda and James, but I didn’t feel the pressure to find a random guy and hook up with him. I could easily have done that. There have been a few guys who’ve taken an interest in me at these parties, and the girls have encouraged me to take the plunge, but I don’t need it for my self esteem. I mean, the attention would be nice. And getting to know someone. They seemed like nice guys. James gave a couple of them the thumbs up, from his male intuition. I acted like they weren’t my type, but wasn’t being entirely honest. The truth is not something I want to broadcast: my heart can’t take another disappointment at the moment, on any scale.

  What if I hooked up with a guy, but he didn’t call me the next day, or the next week? That alone would be disappointing for me, if not for other girls. What if I saw him getting with another girl later that night …?

  Shana reckons I have ‘avoidance issues’. I know, I laughed too. According to her, I am avoiding meeting another guy in the same way that I met Nate (e.g. in a party scenario), because it would remind me acutely of him, which would lead to trust issues. She had nodded professional y then, impressed with her own observations of my life, and I laughed again. The world’s worst cover is a laugh, but I tried it anyway.

  Sarah told Shana I would hook up with a guy again when I missed getting some for long enough. James had shaken his head, and I was grateful to Sarah for saving me, but what if Shana was right? What if I had baggage that I would drag around with me to every situation, every guy I met from now onwards? That didn’t seem fair, for him. Whoever he was. I didn’t want to mess up an innocent guy by throwing my issues onto him, like Nate did to me.

  I had to fight the urge to hit James up for information on Roman. Here he was, a full bottle on everything Roman was thinking and feeling, and I couldn’t steal one drop of information from him. My pride had been hurt after the last time I tried, and I knew it was useless to try again. It might plunge me into the depths of despair again. No, James would be loyal to Roman, which I couldn’t hold against him. Loyalty is hard to find in friends these days.

  On the bright side, I think Shana and James are becoming close, if you know what I mean. She drops hints to us about things they have done, or that they are trying to find more ‘alone’ time together. It’s sweet. I’m not sure how experienced she is, but she knows how I feel about getting more serious with someone. She will be more careful than I was.

  Sarah can be a bit of an independent, lone sailor when it comes to boys, and she likes to be like that. She can take them or leave them. I wonder at times if it’s a wall she puts up, or if she has a mil ion times more confidence than I do. I’m getting used to being strong by myself again, slowly, but I hope one day I can be half as happy as Shana and James make each other. When Nate leaves me alone enough to move on with my life and forget all about him, that is.

  Yes, that will be the answer to my problems. Avoid Nate.

  Dais xx

  n Friday night, we had finished our family dinner and were chatting over chocolate and hot drinks in the lounge room, when there was a loud knock at the front door. Josh got up to get it, as I think secretly he wanted to use having a guest for us all to entertain as an excuse to disappear. Dad put up his hand.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he said sternly, straightening his back and tugging at the front of his shirt.

  I frowned. Was he expecting someone? He sure didn’t look happy to talk to whoever it was he’d invited over.

  We waited as quiet as church mice, craning our necks to hear the conversation between Dad and the mystery guest.

  ‘Please,’ I heard a male voice speak in a low tone.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Dad answered. Poor sales boy, I thought to myself. You picked the wrong house to sell whatever you are selling. ‘Nothing you can say will make me change my mind.’

  ‘Can you at least tell her I’m here? She might change your mind if she wants to talk to me.’

  I froze. Steadying my mug on the coffee table, I rose in a trance to see for myself who was at the front door asking for me. It could only be one of two boys, and I didn’t recognise the muffled voice without seeing them.

  I tiptoed to the front wall, peering around it to make eye contact with the brown eyes I once loved dearly.

  ‘Daisy. Please, give me a few minutes.�
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  ‘I suggest you be careful here, young man. You’re already pushing it by being on my property,’ Dad said in a new, menacing tone.

  This couldn’t keep happening. He couldn’t keep showing up to my places of comfort and demanding to talk to me. I knew he wouldn’t go away until he’d said his piece, so it had to be now.

  ‘Dad, it’s OK. I’ll just talk for a little while. I’ll call you if I need you,’ I said, rubbing his arm to soothe him.

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ Dad said, for the record.

  I smiled at him in reassurance. ‘I’ll be fine, really.’

  With a final glare at Nate, Dad went back inside, and I stepped into the cold of the night.

  Nate and I stood in silence for quite a long time. He had lost weight. I hadn’t noticed in McDonalds the other week just how much. His hair was lighter and more unruly, and his eyes a paler brown. No matter how much he’d beaten himself up about losing me, he still looked incredibly cute, my hormones boasted, and I had to remind myself that this was the person who broke my heart not so long ago. It didn’t take long to dredge up the memories. My face hardened.

  ‘How’ve you been?’ he asked, digging his hands deep into his jeans pockets.

  I smirked slightly but stopped myself. Sarcasm wouldn’t help. ‘I don’t have long Nate. Why don’t you talk to me about something that’s not so obvious?’

  The hurt in his eyes was evident at my cheap shot, but he composed himself for his next tack. ‘OK we won’t go into pleasantries then,’ he said more to himself than me. ‘I’ve come to tell you something. My parents have finalised their divorce.’

  ‘Yep, and?’ I didn’t show it but curiosity was rising inside me.

  ‘I found out the real reason they have ‘irreconcilable differences’,’ he stated, with a tone that suggested we were still friends.

  ‘Yep, and?’ I’d worked so hard to not be swayed by anything he had to say that my rudeness was probably too blunt.

  ‘Daisy …’ His voice saying my name made the hairs on my neck stand up.

  I shook it off. ‘No. Don’t expect me to be any nicer or more interested. Say what you have to say, then leave.’

  ‘My dad cheated on my mum.’

  His statement left only the trees whistling in the spring air. I watched his eyes fill with tears, begging me to fill in the blanks.

  Understanding flooded to over-flowing point in the front of my brain and I began to feel dizzy. It was a genetic transference, then? Nature and nurture? My hurt was somehow caused indirectly by Nate’s father? Reason flew out the window as I tried, with all my will power, not to laugh with bitterness.

  Nate continued. ‘He’d done it a few times in the past, but apparently this longer affair was the last straw. Amelie and I had no idea …’

  I watched his features as he talked, wrestling with himself to use more or less detail. I was struggling with the same issue. On the one hand, I wanted to slap him and tell him I hated him for turning into his dad. Especially seeing as he hated his dad’s very philosophy of life. On the other hand, I felt incredibly sorry for him. It wasn’t necessarily his fault. I wanted to hug him and tell him that with my help, he could be made better. My stability mixed with his need for positive moulding could fix our situation. Bury what he’d done; call it ‘misguided grooming’, and move on to bigger and better things.

  Trust me, it was tempting.

  Taking a deep breath, I said firmly, ‘Nate, I think it’s time to …’

  ‘Wait,’ he pleaded with those brown eyes. I had to avert my eyes to something in the dark street, something much less attractive. ‘I want to make it up to you. I’d like you to give us a second chance. We’ll have all the time in the world after school has finished, the whole summer. Imagine the fun we could have. You can pick my brains about anything that happened. Rachael told me you called her and I promise I’ll tell you the truth about everything. You are good for me. I tried so hard to be a better person around you. Only, don’t make a decision now, take a few days to think about it. Please.’

  The mention of Rachael brought me back to ground zero. The truth she so willingly shared with me reminded me about Nate’s own ongoing affair with her and who knows who else in their seedy Grammar circle, and my neck stiffened.

  ‘You might benefit from being around me, but I certainly don’t from being around you,’ I snapped.

  He reached out to me, but didn’t touch me. ‘Don’t say that, Daisy. I know I made you happy.’

  ‘Yeah, you did. That was before you cheated on me with my best friend, for a long time, and let me give myself to you,’ my voice broke on the last few words. I bit my lip hard.

  ‘I didn’t mean to. It’s the nature of our friendship group at Grammar. It’s … expected.’

  That was a weak point of argument.

  ‘I don’t give a damn what it is. You guys walk around like you’re top shit, yet you’re at the bottom of the ethics chain. It makes me sick.’

  Nate was shaking his head furiously. ‘You don’t understand. You have to be like that to be included in the group. I was new. I had no other friends. Daisy, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t feel anything for her like I do for you.’

  The genuine tone in his voice didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel sorry for him that he fell for their crap, and lost the only positive influence in his life because of it. For once, I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I knew I’d be OK, but I wasn’t so sure about him.

  I shrugged. ‘Funny, I don’t feel better about that. Normal people have one person at a time they give themselves to and hold on to that.’

  ‘My dad taught me wrong, but I know that now …’

  I interrupted him, changing the subject like the snapping of fingers. ‘Why didn’t I get to meet your friends?’

  ‘What?’ He blinked at me.

  ‘Your friends. Why didn’t I meet them? Or go to your house. Rachael did. Why didn’t I?’ My eyes bore into his like hot coals.

  ‘That wasn’t the part of my life I was proud of,’ he replied in a small voice, close to a whisper.

  ‘Right. So you live two lives. Like split personalities? That makes much more sense.’

  ‘Things are so easy for you, aren’t they Daisy? Good role models, stable upbringing, older siblings to look up to, all your family ‘God’ stuff.’ I winced at the easy religious stab, even though I didn’t consider it such an obvious part of my life to attack. He hadn’t seen any of it. ‘I’m still trying to make up for deficiencies that are beyond my control and you won’t give me any rope.’

  My temper flared, making my hands shake. ‘Don’t throw this back onto me. Don’t you dare make me feel inadequate, not more than you already have.’

  Our eyes locked in defiance for a brief moment, before he broke his gaze. I had seen glimpses of his temper before, I realised with an internal laugh. But in actual fact, we hadn’t had a real fight in our whole four months together. His nasty side, up until now, had been well-hidden, protected under lock and key and veiled under money, courtship, and teasing.

  Once again I remembered Roman’s desperate pleas with me to end it with Nate, to listen to the rumours that were, for once in my life, true. I remembered Josh’s unwillingness to accept Nate, when he didn’t clarify why. Call it brothers’ intuition. Call it clear character discernment. Call it intelligence that I didn’t have.

  Nate’s voice became like butter, pleading once again to the side that used to love him. That might still love him, regardless of his failings.

  ‘Daisy, listen to me. I’m sorry. I miss you. Please think over my proposal.’

  This couldn’t happen. The what-if situations I’d spent so long squashing and killing inside me reared their confusing voices. I put one hand to my head in exhaustion, exhaling sharply. Nate was instantly at my side, arm around my waist and worried eyes assessing my face.

  Embarrassingly, but unsurprisingly, I jumped at his touch. Brushing his hands away, I sat down on ou
r veranda chair.

  ‘Sorry. Did I do something wrong?’ he asked, kneeling in front of me. At closer quarters, his cologne filled my nostrils with every breath I took.

  ‘Add it to the list,’ I murmured, weary from thinking and arguing.

  Nate chuckled, steadying his elbows on the chair on either side of me. The warmth from his body radiated onto my legs.

  ‘I guess I’ve got a lot to make up for.’

  ‘You sure do,’ I almost joked.

  ‘Haven’t you missed me?’ His smooth voice entered my ears and began setting up house in my brain, muddling it further. ‘Don’t you think about what we had?’

  ‘That’s a stupid question,’ I answered, heart racing. The resolve I’d set up for months now was preparing to slowly be chipped away.

  Nate tested the waters further. As he spoke, he began to trace circles on my left leg where he knelt, paying careful attention to places he knew made me squirm.

  With his other hand, he was gently kneading my right calf. How I’d dreamt about his touch, wishing I could feel him again and knowing I never could. Only this was better than a dream.

  ‘I never got to tell you this, Daisy. But I do love you. I always have.’ I tested his words against his eyes. He was genuine. ‘I was afraid to show you I’d fallen for you. Call it insecurity …’ He shrugged, humility spilling forth from his body.

  It was nice to have something I’d always suspected finally confirmed. Maybe his lack of reassurance could be put down to his father as well. It fit, didn’t it? Heaps of people had issues telling loved ones how much they loved them …

  I said nothing. My mind was racing way ahead of me and I couldn’t keep up with anything that was happening.