Emmet

Some days Emmet couldn’t stand them: Fitz, with his lewd jokes and massive ego; Danny, who could never keep his hands to himself; Alex, with his constant mockery and sarcasm. Were they even his friends anymore? ‘Frenemies’ was a term Bridie used to describe some of the girls in her year, the ones who pretended to be nice to your face and tore you to pieces behind your back. Emmet’s back didn’t need to be turned for his friends to tear him to pieces.

As usual, they were gathered around the ping-pong table in the Year Eleven break-out area. Fitz and Alex were violently whacking the ball at each other. There were extra points if the ball hit your opponent’s body.

Danny, who was waiting his turn and seeking a playing partner, greeted him with a two-handed push in the chest. ‘Sullivaaaan! We’re up next.’

Emmet was the only one in the group referred to by his surname. He used to like it, used to think it was a badge of honour, of belonging. Now it was irritating. Maybe it was just oversaturation, to borrow a term Mum used in relation to Auntie Tanya.

‘We love each other,’ she’d said of her sister, ‘but we know each other too well. I let her get away with nothing and she’s the same with me.’

That sounded about right. Years of belittling and goading each other. Years of scathing commentary and stale in-jokes. Emmet’s feelings were tipping from ‘like’ to ‘dislike’. He suspected that he was alone, that the others still liked each other at some base level.

One of Fitz’s shots evaded Alex’s bat and body and went zooming into the ether.

‘Ouch. Arsehole.’

Not the ether after all. Jemma Lowry’s arm. She glared at them, in between checking the red mark blooming on her pale skin. Fitz leered back at her, oblivious to the fact that, even if he hadn’t just caused her pain and embarrassment, he was not in her league. Alex smirked at no one in particular. Danny pushed him and swiped Alex’s bat: hitting someone outside the group signified immediate defeat.

‘Yay! Our turn, Sullivan. Nice job, Jemma.’

Emmet felt colour rushing to his face. This was why most of the girls disliked his group. The leering, the lack of concern for others, the persisting immaturity. The other boys in their year were starting to develop common sense, to think about careers and what kind of people they wanted to be. Emmet’s friends behaved like they were fourteen-year-olds.

He took the other bat from Alex. He hated ping-pong. He was shit at it, shit at anything that involved quick reflexes or coordination skills. It’s not like his parents hadn’t tried him in different sports. Soccer, rugby league, swimming, cricket, karate: Emmet had hated them all equally. Hated the running, the sweating, the up-close physicality of the other players. Most of all, he hated feeling stupid every time he missed an easy catch or couldn’t remember a basic sequence.

Danny served, smashing the ball low and hard across the net. Predictably, Emmet missed. The ball hit his torso: two extra points to Danny. They all guffawed. Emmet, too, his voice hateful in his ears.

~

In English, they finally got their assignments back; the English department had been marking them since the second week of term.

‘Our class average was below the other classes,’ Mrs King said, trying to sound like she wasn’t bitterly disappointed. ‘So, before handing out the papers, I want to give you all some general feedback about common mistakes and areas needing improvement.’

Emmet was usually in the bottom half of the class. He sat through the PowerPoint as she highlighted each mistake, each failing. Poor thesis statement: guilty. Not going into enough depth: guilty. Failing to highlight enough ‘techniques’: guilty.

‘It’s not about the mark,’ she insisted, when it was fucking obvious it was. ‘Having said that, I know you can all do better on the end-of-year exam if you take my feedback on board. Remember, Year Eleven is a trial run for Year Twelve. Improvement is the name of the game.’

Finally, just as the bell was about to go, she handed out the papers. Emmet glanced down as it landed on his desk: twelve out of twenty.

‘Fuck,’ he muttered, and Kiara Singh, who was sitting in the opposite aisle, grimaced sympathetically.

The thing was, he didn’t mind English. He actually liked reading and talking about books. It was the stupid essays, the conjuring of thesis statements and techniques and all that bullshit. It was the same with visual art, which used to be his favourite subject before they’d made him hate it. They wanted him to analyse his art, pretend that there was a reason behind every colour choice and artistic decision. They wanted self-reflections and even more fucking essays.

‘Whatcha get, Sullivan?’ Alex sidled up on their way out of the classroom. Mrs King had separated them in Term One and they hadn’t been allowed to sit together since. Danny and Fitz were scattered in different classes; the teachers didn’t hide their plan to separate the group as much as possible.

‘Twelve. You?’

‘Eighteen. You fucked up the class average, bro.’

Emmet grinned, feigning indifference. Alex always got good marks, despite never reading the full texts. He knew how to play the game.

The problem was, Emmet had never been good at games, sporting or otherwise.

~

The best thing about Thursdays was that he had a free last period while his friends did business studies. As a result, he got to leave school at lunchtime. It was a nice feeling, walking out the school gates alone, without the customary shoving and guffawing, without embarrassment burning like acid in his stomach. Some Thursdays he went straight home and enjoyed having the house to himself. Sometimes he went to the beach. Today he had a specific destination, a specific
task.

He knew the address, had stood on the alleyway countless other times, studying the people walking in and out of the premises; no matter the time of day, or the day of the week, there was always some activity. As he watched, a well-built man dressed in black leathers sauntered towards the shopfront. Bike helmet pinned under a meaty arm, a long ratty beard, his head turning left and right before yanking open the door. His presence lingered long after he was gone and almost obliterated Emmet’s resolve.

Until he reminded himself how desperate he was. Until he reminded himself it was now or never. His mum was away with work for a few days, his dad never scrutinised him as closely as she did, and Bridie was too innocent to begin to imagine what he was up to. On weekends he risked being spotted, by someone from school or someone his parents knew, because Cronulla was more like a village than a large beachside suburb.

Emmet wished he was wearing something other than his school uniform, and wished that his face wasn’t already turning a deep shade of incriminating red.

Stop being such a fucking coward, he told himself loathingly.

He drew on every ounce of willpower he possessed to force himself down the alleyway. Following in his predecessor’s footsteps, he looked left and right before yanking open the door.