Eleven Weeks

by Lauren K. McKellar

  “We can make this a joint cake,” Mum says, spooning the mixture into a baking dish. “A Happy House-Buying Shae and Happy Birthday Stacey cake. Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  I nod. “Sure does.”

  Mum doesn’t respond, so I turn and walk upstairs. My feet feel like lead as they drag over the carpet. I reach my room and grab some clean clothes from my pink dresser—a hangover from when I was five—then walk into the bathroom. I need another shower.

  Swish.

  Water steams out of the showerhead and I scald myself underneath it. I grab the loofah and start scrubbing, scrubbing till my skin feels almost raw. I want to be clean. I want to be so damn clean I am shiny.

  Slut.

  I scrape particularly hard over my nether regions, the harsh material rubbing my nipples till the skin breaks and red specks of blood rise to the surface.

  Then, when I can clean no more, I turn the taps to closed. The water doesn’t stop running, though. It keeps leaking from my eyes.

  After I’m dry, I drag myself to bed. I’m so exhausted. I feel it in my limbs, my eyes, and my brain. Everything is slow, sluggish, and foggy. I just want to sleep now, for a very long time. My eyes are closed before my head rests upon my pillow.

  Happy birthday to me.

  November 26

  “YOU GUYS! Can you please get into alphabetical order?” I stamp my foot from my position at the top of the stairs. My hair swishes from side to side. Graduation is about to start in two minutes time, and not only are people not ready, my mother is here.

  Yes. You heard it here first.

  For the first time in my entire schooling career, my mum has graced an awards ceremony.

  I scan the area one more time, just as the door to the room opens. Dave and Kate slink in, hands wrapped around each other. It’s like watching a porno, the way he gropes her in public. I shudder. He’s someone I’ll be glad to lose track of once school finishes. I see him with Kate—the way he talks her down, making her feel like an accessory, not her own awesome self. I grit my teeth. Jerk.

  “Oh, Kate. Good, you’re here.” I bounce over to Kate’s side, scanning her up and down. “I was getting worried. What took you so long?”

  “You know … she couldn’t decide what to wear.” Dave jokes. Only, I can’t see him. My eyes are fixed on Michael, who is walking up behind him. Michael, who is looking anywhere but at me right now.

  “But … it’s school uniform today.” Even as I say the words, I realise how stupid I sound. I tilt my head to the side. My mind is a million miles from here and smack bang in Michael town. Is this the last time I’ll see him?

  No, you idiot. He’s in a band, and you have tickets to their gig next week. I pat my subconscious on the back. Good thinking, brain. We just bought ourselves an extra week of hang-time.

  “Well helloooo, Stacey.” The guy I’m trying not to stare so obviously at joins our group, giving the back of my skirt a quick tug. I scowl and quickly smooth it down. Heat flushes my cheeks. Was that skirt-tug a subtle reminder about keeping my assets covered in the future?

  Michael claps his hand on Dave’s shoulder. “Dave, man, how you doing?”

  “I think I’ll be better in an hour or so.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Michael looks across the group to me. I look at him, and I’m trapped in those stupid chocolaty eyes with their little flecks of irritating hazel and putrid gold flicked through them. God, could he be more annoying?

  “Not to interrupt your male bonding session, but can you please line up alphabetically? It’s important.” I clasp my hands in front of me and conduct what I hope is a feminine eyelash batting, and not a crazy-person-with-something-in-their-eye move.

  “Your wish is my command.” Michael bows.

  I blink. So … we really are good? And we are friends? Friends who probably won’t hang out once school is over, though. After all, it’s not like he’s ever asked for my number, and he is in a band, and—

  Hush. This is a problem I don’t have time to sort the answer to right now.

  “Right.” I narrow my eyes at him, then spin on my heel. “I’ll see you when we’re graduates, Kate.” I throw one hand up in the air and charge to the front of the line.

  Thu-thunk, thu-thunk, thu-thunk.

  Why the hell is my heart pounding so fast?

  Just breathe, Stacey. Breathe.

  “We’re ready,” Miss Lucas, the assistant principal, sticks her head through the doorjamb. “I don’t suppose you could …?” She jerks her head toward the students behind me, and I nod and smooth down my skirt.

  “Shame we can’t offer you any extra credit for that,” Miss Lucas says, but I don’t miss the way her eyebrows jump up and down. I shake it off. I’m used to my teachers thinking I’m an idiot. When at fourteen you get caught making out with a guy behind the hall instead of participating in school sport, you’re generally not referred to as a promising student.

  But the past is the past. It’s time to graduate the hell out of this thing.

  I turn to face the masses. “Everybody, please line up now,” I say. People keep talking, too excitedly involved in catching up on the weekend’s gossip—for the last time ever, mind you. Our final day of school. I swallow. “They have started already.”

  In what feels like two seconds, I hear my name being called and I step forward and out in front of the audience.

  “Please, a reminder to hold your applause till the end,” Mr McDonald, our principal, says as I scan the crowd, looking for my family. He needn’t have bothered. When I finally see Mum in the audience, she’s texting, or scrolling through some social media feed on her phone. I force a smile for the photographer. At least her phone’s on silent.

  A ding echoes throughout the auditorium. Mum shoves her phone in between her legs and focuses her attention on stage as the parents around turn to look at her.

  Or, I thought it was on silent.

  I look at my feet.

  Time snaps back in and I walk to my spot with the two students whose surnames come before my own, holding my graduation certificate in front of my chest, just how I’m supposed to. I watch as student after student takes the stage, some to beaming smiles of parents in the front row, others to a disinterested eyebrow or two.

  Michael walks out to collect his certificate, and his mother stands—actually stands—to cheer him on (silently, of course) and take a picture. His cheeks flush red, and then he looks over at me. I smile. He winks.

  A pang of something strikes me in the heart, and I push it away. It’s Michael. He is leaving. I am … staying. Insert a round of applause for me here.

  More of my friends and some people I barely know walk out and take their certificates, lining in rows behind me and the other ten students whose surnames begin with the letter A. Michael is behind me. His breath is warm on my neck. I can’t help swaying backwards.

  And then it happens.

  “Kate Tomlinson,” Mr McDonald says. Kate walks across the stage, her cheeks flushed red. She never likes being the centre of attention; God knows why. She’s beautiful, funny, smart, and dating a guy who is going to take her traveling across the country as his tour manager.

  She shakes our principal’s hand, then moves over in front of the photographer for the money shot. I hear the guy, some dweeby year ten student, clear his throat, then announce, “Okay, taking your photo in three, two—”

  “Yyyyyyes! That’s my daughter!”

  The slurred voice comes from the very back of the auditorium, accompanied by over-enthusiastic applause.

  What.

  The.

  Hell?

  “Good job, Katie! Good—yob.” I crane my neck to the back of the hall, and that’s when I see him. Kate’s dad, Paul, who left her and her mum a little more than a year ago with no apparent reason.

  Now he’s shown up at graduation … drunk?

  “Uh, I must remind you that you need to, uh, hold your applause to the end.” Mr McDonal
d pushes his thick, tortoiseshell-framed glasses back up his nose as he attempts to take control of the situation.

  “My! My girl!” Paul claps harder, his face red and his eyes fixated on my best friend, who is apparently frozen into place. The parents in the audience watch the scene unfold as if it’s a game of tennis. Kate’s dad. Kate. Kate’s dad. Kate.

  “Yaaaaaaaaaaay Katie!”

  This time, one of the teachers walks over to him, no doubt asking him to shut the hell up. I look over at Kate. Her face is white, her lips a thin line, her eyes empty pools. It’s at that moment that the dweeby photographer decides to do his freaking job and snap her picture. I shake my head. Idiot.

  “Miss Tomlinson, we’ll ask you to move along now.” Miss Lucas, the deputy, puts a gentle hand in the small of Kate’s back and steers her to join the rest of us on the floor.

  At the back of the room, Kate’s mum, Deborah, has reached Paul’s side, and has her hand out as if to comfort him. He flinches away with a wild lash of his arm, then starts a weird drunken ramble, the word “Kate” and “baby” the only coherent terms among it.

  A rumble of low voices washes over the audience, and I push my way through the other students to Kate, who is standing in the back row, her arms trembling.

  “Kate, what’s going on with your dad?” I go to rub her shoulder, but fold my arms under my chest instead, pressing my lips together. She looks like one warm gesture could bring her apart. I can’t be the one to do that.

  “I don’t know.” The words are so soft; I lean in to hear them better.

  “I’ve gotta get back to my place up front, but we’ll talk about this later, yeah?”

  Kate nods and I move back to my spot. Mr McDonald clears his throat, “ahem”ing into the microphone over and over again.

  It’s pointless. Everyone watches, their hushed voices still continuing as two teachers escort Paul out of the hall, both with an arm around his.

  Everything goes back to normal, and the rest of the ceremony plays out. Well, as normally as it can, given the circumstances.

  There are times in your life when seconds seem to drag out for hours. Graduation is like that. Particularly the last few minutes.

  Miss Lucas announces the heads of each subject. I shift my weight from foot to foot, trying to avoid pins and needles.

  “Head of English … Alexa Chan,” Miss Lucas says. We all clap again as Alexa pushes her way from the back of the crowd to the front, a big smile on her face. I clap like I mean it, but my heart and mind are both on Kate.

  I scan the crowd once more for Mum. Her phone is back out, and she’s texting again. Maybe she’s writing a post on Facebook about how proud she is of me.

  The thought is laughable.

  “Head of Drama … Stacey Allison.”

  I keep staring at Mum, texting on her phone. Someone nudges me in the back. Then someone else.

  It’s only then I register that the name Miss Lucas has called belongs to me. I shake myself out of my stupor, and can’t stop the grin that takes over my face. Sometimes you get so good at pretending to be someone you’re not, you forget to respond when it’s the real you.

  I walk up to the stage, shake the principal’s hand, and collect my certificate. My knees do this ridiculous wobbling thing, and I smile. Sure, it was only a class of ten, but I came first! At a school subject! I’m freaking out—I’m head of goddamn drama!

  This is something I’m good at.

  Pretending.

  Is it really any wonder?

  When the last of the subject toppers are announced, we’re all allowed to head back to our seats. I take one last look at the crowd, hoping to finally catch Mum’s eye.

  Only, she’s not there anymore.

  I wonder if she really ever was.

  I push through the crowd, heading back to my spot in the A row.

  Michael winks at me. Nice work, he mouths.

  “He said, ‘Nice ass.’” Dave shakes his head and corrects him.

  “Probably because my ass is great.” I flash them both a confident smile and turn my head, feeling my hair flick behind me.

  My stupid heart, though? It does this dumb stage dive past my ribs, through to my stomach. But no one is there to catch it.

  No one’s ever there.

  It’s no wonder I got number one in drama.

  I’m really good at pretending.

  After the ceremony I push through the crowd, trying to get to the back to find Kate, but it’s too late. When I finally reach her, Dave’s mother is embracing her. That woman smells like a perfume parlour and acts like she’s drunk a bottle.

  “We are all so worried about poor Deborah—I mean your mother, dear.” Mrs Belmonte sighs as she pulls Kate into her ginormous boobs and squishes a little. Her voice is loud enough for everyone outside the hall to hear it. Hell, I’d be surprised if people down the road at the supermarket didn’t catch that remark.

  I make a mental note to text Kate later instead. Looks like she’s tied up.

  I scan the crowd, looking for the familiar blonde that screams mother to me, but she is nowhere to be found. I fish my phone out of my pocket to text her, but see she’s beaten me to it.

  Mum: Had 2 go. Love U

  I take a deep breath. You know what? At least she came. She came to my graduation. Can I really be upset that she left early?

  “So, your latest conquest spells like a twelve-year-old girl.”

  I spin around to see Michael, standing way too close to me in this sea of people. He is fixed board-straight, hands in his pockets, brows arched. Smug bastard.

  “Cut the crap, Michael.” I roll my eyes and give his stomach a tiny punch. Ow. Seriously, how the hell did he get abs? “Congratulations on graduating, and all that.”

  I turn and start to walk toward the parking lot.

  “The conversation isn’t over.” His voice is stern, not joking like he had been before the ceremony. His feet crunch the gravel behind me.

  “It takes two to tango.”

  “Then let’s dance, baby.” He steps around in front of me so I almost run smack-bang into his chest. It is eye-level with me, and I swallow. My gaze travels over his pecs, his shoulders, his freaking Adam’s apple …

  Pull yourself together, bitch!

  “Last time I saw you, we were friends. The time before, you basically called me a tramp. Now you’re accusing me of having some dumbass boyfriend? I don’t know where you get your information from, but I’m not seeing anybody. Snap out of it.”

  “So who’s sending you texts full of grammatical errors that say they love you?”

  I frown. What is he—

  Oh God. Seriously?

  “My mother, you idiot.” I step around him and keep walking.

  Feet shuffle in the gravel and soon he’s by my side again. “Your mum texts like that?” He screws up his nose, his pace easily matching mine. Hell, the man has beanpoles for legs. Jack could climb those things and find a giant at the top, and—

  Heat flushes my cheeks again as the image of a potential giant organ at the top of Michael’s legs forms in my brain. Since when did I become so sex-obsessed?

  “Why didn’t she stay till the end?” he presses, and all thoughts of his potential appendage fly from my brain. I’m used to people picking on me, but people don’t insult my family. It’s just not what they do.

  “Shae’s buying a house and moving out of home, and getting married, and has a promotion at work. Steve is moving out of home and who knows what promotion Sean has now. Scott is off saving the world somewhere still, and Mum doesn’t have time to text in complete words, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand them.”

  To prove my point, I bring my phone up to my face and type a few quick words.

  Me: Thanks again for coming. Meant a lot to me.

  “So, what are you doing?”

  “Hmm?” I stop walking when we reach my car. It’s a hand-me-down from Shae, of course, but I know I’m lucky. Hell, not everyone my age
has wheels.

  “What are you doing? Your sister and brothers are ruling the world … what are you planning on doing?” Michael leans up against the door of my Corolla.

  “Graduating?” I shrug. “Trying to get boys who follow me to stop blocking the entrance to my car?”

  “I mean, next year.” Michael gives this easy smile. It’s not enough to calm the panic in my body, though. I hate this question; I hate it with a passion. Especially from him.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s the year of Stacey; I’m going to live it up.”

  He shakes his head. “You must be doing something aside from partying. Kate’s going on tour with us—you’re not jetting off for a gap year? Or working somewhere glamorous?”

  He means well. I can hear it in his tone, see it in his smile. Something in those small things breaks me, cracks me open just enough to let seven tiny words spring free from my mouth. “I just haven’t sorted it out yet.”

  I must sound as pathetic as I think I do, as suddenly Michael’s hand is on my shoulder, his large chest right in front of me again.

  “Hey.” He gives the top of my arm a rough stroke. “You’re not supposed to have it all sorted.”

  “Yeah, well, everyone else kinda does, right?” I shrug his hand off. Even though I want nothing more than to let his comfort soak in.

  “Yeah, but you know … you don’t have to want to do anything.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to do anything—it’s that I kind of want to do everything.”

  “Of course you do.” Michael laughs, his face breaking into a smile, and I instantly feel some relief. Relief about what, I don’t know. That he doesn’t think I’m a drop kick? “Remember that time in tenth grade when you took on every elective possible?”

  “I forgot about that.” I giggle along with him. “Who volunteers to do sixteen units when you only have to do ten?” I silently add and then fails six of them. I was always good at dreaming; at making plans I couldn’t necessarily follow through.

  “But that’s just you, Stace. Hell, even two weeks ago. We were only doing one round of shots, then you had, like, seven …” As he says the words, something flashes over his features. He’s not smiling anymore. He drops his hand.