‘Fun! Will meet you there, not sure I’ll be able to stay up for the countdown though. Maybe we could do one at 9 p.m. like when we were younger? Haha.’
‘We can do one at 7 p.m. if you like! I’ll bring the sparklers.’
I was scared to tell Mum I would be joining them at the party, so I chickened out and told Dad instead. He was thrilled at the prospect of his teenage daughter choosing to ring in the new year with her parents rather than going off to get wasted at a party or the pub with her friends. I did not want to deflate his enthusiasm by telling him I was going to see a friend, or that Fran was now my only friend, or that my only other option was staying home alone. Dad must have briefed Elsie, because she knocked on my bedroom door when it was time to go, as though this had always been the plan.
‘Coming,’ I called, and took a quick look at myself in my wardrobe mirror.
My reflection felt like a visit from the ghost of Christmas future; I looked haggard and worn, aged fifteen years by the stress of wrangling so many menacing thoughts. I was wearing a sparkly black net dress that Olivia had left behind when she moved away, now mine thanks to squatters’ rights. My hair was a mess, and I had applied too much eyeliner. A girl wearing that much eyeliner was usually going through it; best to stay out of her way.
‘Olivia’s dress,’ Mum commented, as I met her and Dad on the front lawn.
‘Yep,’ I replied.
‘You both look lovely,’ Dad said.
I must have walked to the end of the cul-de-sac with my parents, I must have been given a drink, I must have found Fran, we must have spent the evening together, making small talk at the party surrounded by people who had watched us grow up. I do not recall. By the end of the night, I must have been quite drunk, because I sense I was acting out of character, acting out full stop. It is ugly to think about, and uglier to imagine how it must have felt for Fran.
‘This party is boring,’ I announced, probably quite loudly, without regard for who around might have heard, including the hosts.
‘We can go if you like,’ Fran replied.
‘I’m going to go, you should stay. This is exactly the kind of thing you love. Chit-chat with people who are obsessed with telling you how much you’ve grown. Like, obviously – that is how time works.’
‘Right. We don’t have to hang out, but I’ll walk you home. You seem a little wobbly,’ he said.
If I had considered what I wanted, it would have been clear I wanted Fran to walk me home, to come into my room, to watch a movie, to have sex again, to fall asleep together and welcome the new year lying side by side. But a feeling can exist like a diamond at the bottom of a well, easily lost when the fireworks of dysregulation are thrown down there too. Thoughts about myself, and how to right the wrongs, how to clean my house, instead played on a loop, taking up all the airtime, making methinkabout how I felt about myself, rather than feeling anything. To say how I felt would have meant being vulnerable, and perhaps my neurons had remembered how close vulnerability was to shame. That is how I understand it now: that feeling nothing was safer than feeling too much, but in the moment, flight simply felt like safety. It was a bird finding shelter in a tree during a storm. I do not remember how I left things that night, whether I said something cutting or mean. I am sure I did, to give him comfort in his decision to let me go alone. To be the black in our black and white dynamic.
Or maybe I leaned a little too hard again on tired. Tired covered so much. Tired was my umbrella, my costume, my shortcut, my vice. I only remember walking away. No, that is a lie. I also remember turning around from halfway up the street, watching from the comfort of the night as Fran stood alone in the light of the party, hesitating as he looked for a new conversation to join. He eventually approached Mrs Kingston, turning his back to lean in and say something to her, a packet of sparklers sticking out of his jeans pocket. All I was aware of at the time was that it brought me peace to go home alone to bed.
People have a tendency to assume that those of us making poor decisions do so after careful consideration, as though we weigh up all of our options and make a definitive call on what might be the worst possible choice we can make in any given moment. These are the kinds of assumptions made by people with nervous systems and brains and families and bodies that function as they are intended to; they know as much on the topic as I know about cryptocurrency, which is to say: nothing.
Let me explain the reality, not on behalf of all poor decision-makers, but as an example of how one of us might come to be. It is both tedious and exhausting to struggle most of the time. It is also predictable in its unpredictability: something happens, and I react. That is how I move through the seconds, and the minutes, and the hours, and the days. The reaction is the part that is unknown, usually even to myself until after the fact. There are fewer folks who grasp it than don’t: we are not all operating from the same reality. If capacity were a vessel, and emotions the weather, I am trying to collect a monsoon in a bottle cap. Choices are often not that at all, more a reaction to what isnotwanted – in desperation to avoid the difficult thing, I might, for example, sprint in the opposite direction, still looking back. And this is of course how to succeed at running head-first into a brick wall, literal or otherwise. Or, I might do nothing at all, decisions coming to pass only when every other option has expired. Room for one at the last resort. What I am trying to say, really, is that if I could cope with and analyse my feelings in the moment, I would not be in the mess I am in.
I was not thinking about what my life might look like down the track, or how to steer it in the right direction. I would love to get to the point where I am the kind of person who has plans for the future – wouldn’t that be wonderful? Maybe then I will have space to think about this. That is why a Dr Montague is needed, to help me learn some healthy coping mechanisms, to help me understand myself more. The first step cannot be admitting there is a problem, because understanding the problem, and even further back, what might be causing it, what precedes it, has to come before. So that is where I am at now – the step before step one. I did not choose to hurt Fran that New Year’s Eve, not consciously, though I realise the impact is the same regardless of intent.
None of this is an excuse. I have never, not once, explained my shortcomings as though they somehow absolve me. It is the opposite; I am offering my own brief of evidence to the jury, urging them to do the right thing and find me guilty. See, you twelve kind people, this is how my mind works! These are the confusing and unique ways I have thought and acted and felt that led me to make that particular mistake. We are on the same side, me and those in judgement of me. And I feel confident that other all-star poor decision-makers, the world’s greatest, are operating in a similar way, generating their own uniquely terrible situations and outcomes as byproducts of the turmoil within them, rather than causing chaos for chaos’ sake.
Whatever was going on inside my head at the time, the reality is I ghosted Fran. Poof; gone. I left. Right when I was on the cusp of having everything I dreamed of with him, I placed it on the ground and walked away, as though it meant nothing at all. I know,I know. See how she runs. With how I felt about myself, losing him seemed inevitable, so I chose instead to tourniquet him like a damaged limb, cutting the blood flow entirely. I was on burnout autopilot – floating, all doing, no feeling. The current was strong, and I let myself be taken out to sea. I would be lying if I said I spent any time thinking about the pros and cons of this decision before making it. That is not how it works, remember. I was in the monsoon; I was running towards the brick wall. And I never thought about what that might have felt like for him, not once. Until now. So, of course revisiting these memories takes an energetic toll; they have accrued interest over time.
21
Mum says the Bennetts will not ever speak to her again if we do not go and admire their light display tonight on which they ‘spent twenty thousand dollars on lights from England’ to create. It seems like a statement born of a particularly dull game of telephone, which is essentially what living in a close-knit community is, because why twenty thousand dollars? And why England? Going to look at Christmas lights is another Christmas Eve tradition in our house, regardless of our neighbour’s illumination budget, and it is perhaps my favourite. Christmas Eve is to me the main event, a celebration without any of the pressure. There is no set meal, no set seating, no set conversations. It is all anticipation, everything magical and full of potential – the perfect time to view a human feat of excess that may otherwise be considered environmentally irresponsible.
By sunset, Mum is waiting in the living room, pacing in front of the fireplace with her light-up earrings switched to the most erratic setting. It is almost as though she seeks to overstimulate herself on purpose. She is not great at being still, and it gives me pause. I suppose she usually hides her busyness so well, with craft and cleaning and food preparation and decorating and dieting and judging other people for what they wear or eat or say. Maybe she is setting the pace necessary to keep her life in motion; maybe she too is overwhelmed by what might arise if she comes to a halt.
‘Oh, honey, that skirt is so crinkled,’ she says, frowning as she looks up at me.
My silk skirtiscreased, but I had thought of it as the kind of piece that is elevated by an ‘I don’t care’ kind of attitude. Quiet luxury, the internet says. I have spent my life chasing an ‘I don’t care’ attitude and I really thought I had nailed it with this look. Apparently not; I have perhaps instead landed on something closer to roaring garbage. Most of the time I dress with the aspiration of not being perceived, so I find it hard to switch into public-facing mode and know how to dress appropriately. Silk skirt and vintage Garfield Christmas tee is clearly not the winning combination, but it is too late to do anything about it now. I have insufficient energy for any kind of reaction. Olivia arrives to draw focus and we are all glad for that. She is wearing a creaseless forest green linen slip dress with gold jewellery and red lips – just Christmassy enough, without the need for flashing earrings or classic cartoon characters in Santa hats.
‘I wish Dad was well enough for me to leave Maeve with him. I’m dreading carting her around, she’s so difficult at night,’ she says.
‘He would have loved that, they get on so well,’ Mum says.
‘I can take her,’ I say, wanting to try trusting myself again.
Olivia smiles and heads to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine while we wait for Luke. She tosses her drink back in a few fast gulps. Our brother makes his entrance in a T-shirt printed to look like an ugly Christmas jumper.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Olivia asks him, holding out the bottle of wine from the kitchen as she pours herself another.
