Her lip quirked and he winced. “You’ve noticed?”
“Maybe just a little bit. I figured it’s about you being the baby of your family. Having everyone take care of you.”
His stomach knotted in embarrassment and he knew the MDMA must be wearing off.
“Dunno,” he lied. “Hey, you know they want me to be captain? Of the Sharks?”
Cheryl’s mouth fell open. “That’s amazing!”
“Yeah, I’ve been fobbing them off about my answer though.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if I’m old enough to be captain.”
Cheryl glared at him. “So, you’re old enough to date me but too young to be captain of a football team, is that right?”
He grinned. “Well, you’re just a sexy little girl at heart, Cheryl Karalis-Walker. The Sharks captain has to be a rugged bloke of many moons.”
Cheryl poked him. “I bared my soul for you. I want reciprocation. Not this jokey-joke stuff.”
He dropped the smile. “Sorry, it’s just… hard.”
“I know. Why don’t you want to be captain? Why don’t you re-enrol at uni?”
“Probably what you said about me being the baby. Youngest.” He ducked his head. “They call me that for a reason.”
Cheryl didn’t smile. “So, you’re waiting for someone else to do everything for you?”
“Nah, it’s more like every time I want to do something scary, I think about my brothers and parents…” His neck went hot. “Do I really have to say this?”
“Yes. What about them?”
He let out a slow breath. “They were good at everything. Jase was in a band, and Dom killed us at every video game, and Ant had a million girls following him around, and he was captain of his under-eighteens footy team, and Marty played tennis for Australia when he was seventeen… And it wasn’t just them. Dad was so popular at his uni that people used to enrol there just so he’d lecture them and Mum’s a doctor, and it was like, by the time I showed up, every base was already covered.”
His guts knotted. “Sorry, I know I’m bitching about nothing.”
“You’re not.” Cheryl laid a hand on his. “Your family loves you. They’re so, so proud of you.”
“I know. But…”
“What?”
“No one needs me for anything,” he said in a rush. “Anything I could do, it’d been done a million times before. I was just… there. One of the boys. The extra Normal.”
Cheryl’s face reflected the things he’d felt when she’d been talking: pain, sympathy, helplessness. He closed his eyes. After what she’d shared with him, he owed it to her to keep going, to say the thing he’d never said to anyone.
“When I was in high school, I used to think this thing. Whenever I was gonna put my hand up for an assignment or make a joke, I’d think, ‘Someone can do this better than me.’ I’d think that all the time. I still do. I sit down to re-enrol and I think ‘Why bother? Someone can do this better than me.’”
“Patty-Bear, that’s not true. You’re amazing.”
“Not in my family.”
“You’re the only one who plays AFL! None of your brothers even came close. Not even Magic Antony.”
“That’s not fair. He did his Achilles.”
“So? You didn’t, which means you’re better at football than him. Straightforwardly better.”
