I wish I could say I felt guilty about these imaginative interludes, but I did not. Not then. I binged on them as often as I could. Of course now I have enough guilt to kill an elephant. And I know through social media that Emma is still very much alive, because she started following me while I was in Melbourne and I of course followed her back. I am not a monster. I want better for her than I want for myself, partially because of the undeserved ill will I sent her way in secret all those years ago, and partially because she seems like a genuinely good person. But back then, self-reflection seemed like something that was important for me not to partake in. A ‘don’t stare directly into the sun’ kind of thing. I chose to be a vindictive little weasel, in the privacy of my own mind, because it felt better than facing the discomfort of inadequacy.
Fran knocked on my window that afternoon, and I remember the fury filling my veins as I rolled over in my bed. How dare he bring her here, interrupting my important work, poisoning my safe space. But when I looked through the glass, I saw it was only Fran. He waved and I gestured for him to come in, trying to stuff my dysregulation down far enough for it to be completely out of sight.
‘Hey, how are you doing?’ he asked, treading lightly as though I might be unwell.
‘I’m okay.’
‘Are you sure? I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s everything at school and home and stuff?’
I wanted to say fine, to keep it folded and hidden and small, but my body betrayed me in an instant with tears and hideous sobs that shook my shoulders until I folded them in on themselves. It was a self-made spectacle that filled me with disgust.
‘Hey, hey.’
Fran sat on the bed next to me and patted my back in a slow, soft rhythm. I would have screamed or kicked out at anyone else for touching me, but it felt okay because it was him. I felt like a baby, or a dog, in exactly the kind of way I needed to feel like a baby or a dog. Like disgust was not an emotion I could register, like it was someone else’s job to look after me, and all I had to do was let them. When I ran out of tears, I wiped my face and sat up in bed, hugging my knees to my chest and not looking at Fran, because how could I ever look at him again once he’d seen me like that? Vulnerability was a horrific disease.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked, his hand still touching me.
I shook my head, wiping my eyes on my knees.
‘Have I done anything to upset you? I know I’ve been a bit busy lately; I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much.’
‘You haven’t done anything. You’re great,’ I replied.
‘Is it your mum?’
‘It’s notnotmy mum. But it’s not really her either. It’s me. I’m just . . .’
I couldn’t find a way to tell Fran exactly how wrong, how damaged I was without making him hate me, and him hating me was the thing I was most afraid of in life.
‘Is it your mental health? We can always talk, you know. Are you feeling sick, depressed, anxious, or anything like that?’
‘I’m all of those things, all together all the time.’
It did not really explain what I wanted to explain, because how could I explain to someone else what I did not yet understand myself? It was impossible to put into words how stress felt the same as fear felt the same as anger felt the same as anxiety felt the same as shame. It was one snarling knot that only ever grew larger and more difficult to contain. How trying to bear it meant I needed to be a part-time participant in life, how my mind always had a backlog of private work to do and was constantly falling behind. How awful I often felt, and how big, how uncomfortable, how out of control, how tiring that awfulness was. How all my emotions built up, how it made me feel like I was like an old-fashioned roll of film that needed to go into the shop for a few days to be developed. How without that processing time, none of it made any sense and I was useless. How I needed deep rest, away from everything, more regularly than I needed food. Fran put his arms around my whole curled-up body and hugged me. I could not tolerate how much I needed him to stay.
‘What can I do? Can I make you a tea, or get you some chocolate? The shop will still be open, I could ride up.’
‘Could you just . . . lie with me?’
Fran froze for a moment, perhaps wondering what I meant. I am not sure he has ever fully grasped that I do not hide secret meanings inside my words, even if I was or am terrible at expressing myself. His assumption, perhaps, was that I might be trying to seduce him away from his sweetheart, though even at my most delusional I knew that would have been a losing battle.
‘Yeah, of course. You lie back down,’ he eventually said.
I rolled onto the other side of the bed and slipped my legs under the sheets. Bed was heaven. Fran was on top of the covers, and lay on his side to face me.
‘Can you tell me “remember when” stories, please?’ I asked, my eyes closed.
‘Remember when?’
‘You know, like, remember when we found that baby bird, remember when we had that waterbomb fight. Stories, about us.’
So I drifted off to sleep with my mind full of sweet, real memories instead of the tangled mess it often kept me awake working to undo. It was more than I deserved.
11
When I arrive back from the drive home to myself, the family is dressed and ready for an outing, which I am expected to also attend. I could be ten again, us all going to the shops to buy new school shoes or birthday outfits or cushion covers and throw rugs to update the living room. There is little worse that I can imagine than the Sunshine Plaza during the Christmas holidays, but that is where we are headed, five of us squished into Mum’s small car, Dad granted exemption because he has self-nominated to stay behind and clean the gutters. Olivia wants to get Maeve’s photo taken with Santa, Mum wants more gold decorations from Myer for above the fireplace, and Luke and I need to buy gifts, the only ones to leave these things until the last minute. I hear Mum empathise with Luke, his busy job and busy life not leaving room for such minor tasks, after telling me yesterday it was a shame I could not be more organised. Luke drives and I sit in the back between Maeve and Olivia. Maeve likes to hold hands on car rides, I learn. Her tiny fingers wrap around two of mine and grasp on tight. If I think too hard about children and their tenderness, I could make myself throw up.
The winding road down the range makes me nauseous and sweaty, but there is a lot to look at as distraction. A fire burns in the valley, smoke drifting out to sea, and there are three huge container ships on the hazy horizon. Traffic on the highway is at a standstill, as everyone leaves the city for the coast, to spend their designated two weeks swimming and eating and getting drunk in overpriced apartment rentals where it inevitably rains most of the time. Maeve requests a Christmas carol, ‘Feliz Navidad’, her favourite apparently, and we listen to it five times before she falls asleep.
