“I don’t,” I whisper.
Kieran looks like he wants to argue, but after a moment, he shifts back in his bed to make space for me. I take my shoes off and peel off my hoodie — his hoodie — and lie next to him. This time he’s the one with his face burrowed into my shoulder. The melting ice will drip onto my shirt, but I don’t care.
“My ex-boyfriend had to do this,” he whispers after a moment. “Pull me out of a fight. Wipe the blood off my face. It’s why I got expelled from my last school, and it’s why he broke up with me.”
I’ve always wanted to know what happened in Sydney, and now it’s here, and I’m afraid of it. “Do you want to tell me about it?” I caress his back.
“I…” he sighs, breath warming my neck. “I’d gotten into trouble before. It’s not as if I had a clean record. It wasn’t fighting people,” he clarifies. “Just…being late, or talking back to teachers, or vandalising the tables. Everyone drew dicks on the tables. But I don’t know if you want to hear about him. My ex.”
My hand on his back pauses for a second. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He looks up at me. “Never mind,” he says after a beat. “Michael and I had been dating since the start of last year, but we were sneaking around.”
Michael. So that’s his name.
“I can’t remember whose idea it was to keep it a secret. People will think it was mine, since everyone in our school seemed to know Michael was gay, from the way he carried himself. He was…he was…” Kieran’s voice changes and my heart twists. “But Michael never confirmed it. I think he was afraid. We both got sick of sneaking around, so at the start of Year 12 we just did it. We didn’t tell anyone, just held hands, and kissed goodbye and, well…” He goes quiet for a moment. “I didn’t expect how vicious it was going to be. Maybe because I thought the world was more progressive than it was. Maybe it was because it was my school in particular. I’m not sure most of them were actually homophobic. I think they just liked yelling slurs and watching us flinch.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Michael hated it. I hated it too, but I got angry. I’d yell back while Michael told me to calm down and ignore them. I thought that was so stupid — that you couldn’t just sit back and let people say those things to you. Bullies only let you go once you prove you’re not weak.
“Anyway, that was life for the first term. Michael didn’t complain, and whenever it was the two of us, he seemed fine. Happy, even.
“It was only in the last week of school when I realised that things were so much worse for Michael. I guess it was because of the way he looked. Pretty. He had perfect posture, whereas most guys slump over their desks. If he was mad, he could make others feel so small.” Kieran looks at me, and surprisingly, smiles. “Like you.”
I don’t return the smile. The comparison unsettles me.
“The point,” Kieran continues, “is that people — mostly guys, insecure boys — had been giving Michael shit since the beginning of high school, but it got so much worse during that term. Guys would shout at me, but they’d harass him, throw things, stop him from opening his locker. That kind of thing. When I found out how bad it was, I got mad at him for not telling me. He got angry at me for always retaliating. He said that I was feeding the bullies, because I was giving them a reaction. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was too stubborn to see it then.
“So. The day I was expelled. It was lunchtime, and we were walking across the yard for a place to sit. Michael had a lunchbox with the lid off. He was showing me the pasta he’d made, he’d made it from scratch and all.
“Anyway, someone shoved him hard in the back, and he tripped and fell onto the concrete. He grazed his palms.” Kieran shows me the bottom of his palm where it meets the wrist. “And he spilled his pasta. All of it was gone, and it was covered in grains of dirt and tiny pieces of gravel. And the fucker who shoved Michael laughed. It was one of the guys who’d given him shit that term — for years. So I lost it and punched him in the face.”
I suck in a breath.
“I hadn’t been in a fight since I was fourteen. I knew I could punch hard, but obviously, eighteen-year-old me is a lot stronger. The guy’s nose started gushing with blood. Just like mine. Except his was actually broken, they took him to the hospital and everything. But that was after.”
“After?”
“Well, the guy’s friends started fighting, too. So then I started fighting them. Michael tried to pull me off and shouted at me to stop, and I ignored him, because I thought this would end everything. It got so bad that the teachers had to come out and pull us apart. I’d only seen that a few times before. Usually, people at my school had small scuffles, wrestled a bit, but didn’t draw blood like we did. First, they called my dad, who took me to the hospital. I needed to get my hand looked at.”
Kieran brings his hand up, and I take it, looking at the scars on his knuckles.
“Stitches,” he says. He starts to pull his hand away, but I hold on tight.
“The school expelled me. Another boy got expelled too, since he’d been in trouble too many times before. The rest of the boys were suspended. Michael was suspended, even though he didn’t do anything. Just because he was in the thick of the fight.
“He came to see me after we were expelled. He checked my hand and made me tea and all of that nice stuff. Then he broke up with me. When he said that, it was like the whole world went quiet, or something. Or like I was in a dream. I told him that I was only defending him, and he said that I did it for myself. That I wanted an excuse to take out my anger. I thought he was wrong, and I told him so. But maybe he was right. Maybe he was right all along.” Kieran closes his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“I — I’m sorry,” I say.
“Michael said he couldn’t have a boyfriend who punched people. I guess you were right all along, the first time you met me. About the type of person I am.”
I shake my head. “Kieran, no. I was so wrong about you.” I wish we’d been friends from the beginning. I wish it so much it hurts. “Tonight wasn’t your fault.”
“Itismy fault. After I was expelled, I kept thinking that it wasn’t my fault too. It wasn’t my fault that I was expelled or that Michael broke up with me. But it is. I’m responsible for my own actions.”
We’re quiet for a minute, and then Kieran brings me closer, closing his eyes. I take the wet ice towel and put it on the bedside table, and turn the lamp off.
