Chapter Three

Our results are released in the second week of December. On the day of their release, Mum wakes me up at six fifty-six. In the morning.

‘Jennifer, get up. It’s nearly time.’

I ignore her and roll over. I want to sleep. Seven o’clock is way too early to be up in the first place, especially when my results are just going to ruin my day. Mum bounds around my room, turning on the light and opening the curtains. She even opens my laptop, which sits on my desk.

‘What’s your password?’

I swing my legs, which are cocooned in the sheets, off the edge of the bed and key in my password. My desk and my bed are close enough for me to use my bed as a chair.

I look at the time. Six fifty-eight.

Once the website loads, I type in my username and password and we sit, Mum on my desk chair, me on my bed, waiting.

Six fifty-nine.

‘Ooh this is so exciting!’ she says.

‘Why?’ I say. ‘It’s not going to be anything special. Don’t get your hopes up too high.’

‘You never know. Maybe you did better than you expect. Oh it’s seven! Quick, click “Enter”!’

I do so and wait while the page loads. My heart quickens marginally. I’m not entirely sure how they calculate our final scores because they do all this really complicated maths. All I know is that our individual subject results are normalised and everyone across the entire state is ranked. They turn these rankings into a number between one and one hundred, which universities use to decide who to accept. The whole concept is weird because two people in different years could have exactly the same level of intelligence, approach problems exactly the same way and even give exactly the same answers on their assessment, but whether or not they get into their dream course depends on how well everybody else did in that particular year. It’s disheartening to think your mark is directly related to the marks of others. It’s not really fair. Why can’t they just say ‘You got seventy-six per cent of the marks so your score is seventy-six’?

My (mother’s) first preference – a medical degree – needs a score of at least ninety-six.

‘Oh Jen,’ says my mum quietly as my score flashes on the screen: seventy-two point three five.

But I’m not focusing on that score. I’m looking at my English mark. A smile forms across my lips. Surely there’s been a mistake. I’d quietly expected a good English mark. It’s out of fifty and I thought I’d get maybe thirty-five or so, meaning that nothing has prepared me for the number in front of me. The letters flash and dance around on the screen. My English study score is forty-four. My teacher said they use a normal distribution curve for study scores, so only two per cent of us get forty-five or above. That puts me in the top three per cent, right?

I glance down at my other subjects. I have dismal scores in Chemistry and Physics – no surprises there – but by some miracle I’ve managed an average mark in Mathematical Methods and Biology.

My fingers feel disconnected from my hand as I scroll up and down the page. My heart jumps up into my throat and decides to beat there for a while. Do unis look at individual subject scores? Or do they take the ATAR as a whole? Maybe I’ll be able to get into an English or literature course – and Mum can’t get mad if it’s because I don’t have the marks for science, so hopefully that means no confrontation. All those late nights of reading and hours of practice essays might finally pay off.

‘Well, to get you into a good science course we have several options from here,’ says my mother.

My smile evaporates.

‘You can repeat year twelve and try to get a decent score, or you can try to work through a pathway program, which would only take a few extra years of study.’

Maybe if I’d worked harder at my other subjects my ATAR would’ve been higher, but then I’m not sure I’d have had the time to do so well in English. Besides, seventy-two is above average and, given the subjects I took, I think it’s a decent effort. Imagine what it could’ve been if I’d done Literature instead of Chemistry! But I guess science isn’t off the table just yet – for Mum, anyway. Of course there’s no mention of my English score. I worked hard for that and I don’t even get a ‘well done’ – just a list of options on how to be better.

‘Yeah,’ I say, already worried about the reaction I’ll get. ‘Maybe it’d be better if I change my preferences, though …’

Mum straightens her back, waiting for me to go on.

‘I could get into an arts course with this score. Maybe journalism or something?’

‘You don’t have to settle –’

‘I’m not settling,’ I say, determined to keep my voice casual, like this is an off-the-cuff suggestion. ‘That stuff makes sense to me and I think I’d be good at it.’

‘That’s all very well but you’re an intelligent girl. I don’t want to see that wasted. If you only –’

‘I know. If only I applied myself, right?’

‘You don’t need to say it like that,’ she says, scowling.

‘Like what?’

‘Like it’s a ridiculous idea.’

I sigh and nod. ‘I know. If I spend every waking moment with my nose in a textbook, I probably could understand what’s happening. I might be able to learn about alleles and genetics and stuff.’

‘You’re very capable –’

‘Maybe I could do it. But that’s not the type of life I want to live. Say I repeat. Say I sacrifice everything to study. Say I get a “decent” score. Then what?’

‘Then you could go to university,’ she says, ‘and work towards the bright future you could have.’

I look down at my toes, which are poking out the end of the sheets wrapping my legs. ‘Maybe.’

‘Look,’ she continues. ‘I just want what’s best for you. I don’t want all your potential to go to waste and for you to look back on your life and be disappointed. Just … think about it, okay? Don’t make any rash decisions.’

I pause for a moment. ‘Yeah, okay.’

She kisses me on the forehead and heads downstairs.

I don’t really want to hang around the house waiting for mum’s loaded comments about me repeating year twelve. After I shower, I stuff my feet into thongs and go for a walk. I don’t really have a plan for where I’m going; I just need to be out of the house.

I end up at the cafe where I work. It’s not a great job – customers are usually pretty rude – but it gives me something to do and everyone who works there gets along. We usually bond over the nasty things customers say to us.

‘Hey Jen,’ says Brittany as I push open the door. She’s a couple of years older than me and is the youngest of the three managers. ‘You’re not rostered today, are you?’ She fiddles with the knobs on the espresso machine.

‘Nah, I was just walking past,’ I say. One of the regulars waves at me from his spot in the corner. Only two other customers are in here. ‘I was going to ask if you needed an extra pair of hands today but it seems pretty quiet.’

Steam swirls up past her face as she cleans the machine. ‘Nah, we should be all right. Thanks, though. Joe’s supposed to come in at three. Can I call you if he doesn’t show?’

‘Sure.’ It’d be nice to have a distraction.

I say goodbye and head to the library. I find a copy of Infinite Jest, which I started reading the other day, and pick up from where I left off.

By eleven, I figure Mum will have left for work, so I venture home. My heart sinks when I see Dylan standing at the front door with his hand on the doorbell, preparing to ring it. Then we make eye contact and I can’t avoid him.

I inwardly curse myself for not reading for an extra ten minutes in the library.

‘Hey lover,’ he says, meeting me halfway up the driveway and planting a kiss on my lips.

‘Hi,’ I say, cutting the kiss short.

‘I almost missed you.’

‘Good thing you didn’t.’

‘How did you go with your results?’

I tell him my scores and he offers a high-five. ‘Nice work,’ he says. ‘I’ll be happy if I get that.’ He’s a year younger than me so he starts year twelve next year but at a different school to where I went.

Because of social protocol I invite him inside; he’d invite himself in anyway and I figure if I get him inside he’ll be more focused on our TV than on me. He spends a good five minutes admiring it before turning on the sports channel.

‘Aw, man, this is so good!’ he says. ‘The picture’s so clear!’

He pats his lap, inviting me to sit on it, but I sit next to him instead. I zone out while he yells at the players and the referee about how the coach needs to use one player in a different role and his play-making is all wrong. I know it’s an NBA game but, other than that, I have no idea about the players or the teams.

We watch the last twenty minutes of the game, which ends with Dylan’s team losing by one point. If only the coach had done x, y and z, we would’ve won! And the American Beauty referee!

While he complains, he flicks through the channels. I ask him to stop on So You Think You Can Dance. I started dancing when I was about eight but Dad suggested I give it up at the beginning of the year so that it wouldn’t become a distraction during year twelve. Mum had no doubt been the mastermind behind that decision. I don’t think either of them had a problem with me dancing; they just thought I should focus on school. It probably wasn’t the worst idea they’ve ever had, because it did give me a lot of extra time to study for English, but it was still hard to let it go.

My instructor encouraged our whole class to enter local competitions and stuff but I just wanted to do it for fun. I liked being in touch with the rhythm of my body. Dancing was the one thing I did where my mind and my body felt truly connected. Everything that built up inside me, all my worries and fears, dissipated through the movement and escaped into the music. I miss dancing but I don’t miss the pressure of our performances. Dancing was just for me. No one else.

‘Come on, this is boring,’ says Dylan.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘What do you want to do?’

He tightens the left side of his mouth as though thinking. ‘Want to watch a movie?’

The drawers in the TV cabinet are filled with DVDs and Blu-rays, the majority of which are Aaron’s. Dylan plucks one out and puts the disk in.

The cinema system is actually really good – better than the movie itself. I don’t really know what the movie is about – it has cars, a robbery and Ryan Gosling. I’m not really paying much attention to it. Dylan must enjoy it; he only tries to make out with me twice.

‘That was good,’ Dylan says once the movie finishes. ‘Want to watch another?’

‘Actually,’ I say, ‘maybe you should head home. Mum might come home and accuse us of tainting her couch.’

Dylan frowns. ‘You sure? We’re not even doing anything. Besides, I really want to watch Shawshank – Morgan Freeman will sound extra epic through these speakers.’

‘Maybe next time.’ I pat him on the knee as I stand, full of guilt.

He sighs and follows me to the door.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ I say and kiss him on the cheek. I wait until he’s out of sight before I close the door.

‘You know, climbing up a tree to enter through my window after dark is definitely the reason people think we’re dating,’ I say, putting the flyscreen aside.

‘Where’s the fun in entering through the front door, though?’ Elliot climbs through my window and sprawls himself across my bed. ‘And since when do you care what people think about us?’

‘Fair call,’ I say. ‘Wait a sec.’ I race downstairs to tell Mum and Dad that Elliot is over for a while.

‘Keep your door open,’ calls my mum’s voice from the kitchen – cue the selective hearing. I return to the bedroom and close the door behind me. I don’t want to announce my conversations to the whole house. Privacy is nice.

‘Congratulations on your results,’ he says, smiling.

‘But I didn’t tell –’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘You’ve finished year twelve. That’s a big deal for anyone.’

I smile and tell him my scores. He jumps up and smushes me into a hug when I mention my English mark. ‘I’m so frickin proud of you,’ he says, then falls back onto my bed again.

I ask how he went and, as I had predicted, he scored highly – a ninety-four. He’s always been one of the smartest at our school.

‘It was so much better than I expected, really,’ he says. ‘I’m still a little stunned.’ He has this weird way of pronouncing an ‘s’. His lower jaw always shifts across to his left, distorting the sound slightly. There’s no actual reason for this; it’s just how he learned to pronounce the sound. He lisps something awful when he tries to keep his jaw straight.

‘As if you’re stunned – you’re the smartest person I know.’

‘No way,’ he says.

I think he’s about to say something else but the bedroom door flings open and my mother shoots a Look of Doom at me. The slight disappointment on her face tells me she really thought that instead of talking, our bodies several feet away from each other, we’d be entangled under the covers. ‘I told you to keep this door open,’ she says quietly.

‘Sorry, Dr Janson,’ says Elliot. ‘It was me. Last time it’ll happen, promise.’ He flashes my mother an award-winning smile and for an eighth of a millisecond, warmth spreads across her face. I wonder how many times he can get away with saying it’s the last time.

‘It’d better be.’ And she leaves.

‘How’re things with Nessie?’ I ask. ‘Nessie’ is our nickname for Elliot’s girlfriend. Her real name is Annabelle Portland but I always call her ‘Nessie’, after the Loch Ness Monster – not because she’s a monster but because although she appears in many of his stories, I have never physically seen her. I haven’t seen so much as a photo, so I’m not entirely convinced of her supposed existence. Apparently she gets really anxious about having her photo taken.

‘She’s pretty good. She’s gone back to Scotland with her family for Christmas and New Year, so I’ll be all by myself.’ He sings the last three words à la Eric Carmen, off-key and strained.

Nessie doesn’t actually come from Scotland but Elliot and I refer to Queensland as the Scotland of Australia because a) it’s up north and b) it’s where Nessie was born.

‘Am I ever going to meet this mythical beast, thief of your heart?’ I ask.

‘Maybe,’ he says, placing his hands behind his head. ‘You know it’s nothing personal; she’s just really shy.’ It’s cute when he becomes defensive of her.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m just teasing.’

‘I think I finally have a photo of her for you, though,’ he says. ‘It took a lot of convincing to get it.’ He scrolls through the photos on his phone and flashes one in my face. ‘It’s the best one I could get – it’s really hard to get good lighting.’ Instead of Nessie’s face, I get a copy of the Surgeon’s Photograph.

‘You’re an idiot,’ I say, shoving him in the shoulder. ‘Did you actually download that photo just for the sake of that joke?’

He nods, looking disproportionately proud of himself. I just shake my head.

‘Oh guess who I saw today,’ he says as though the thought just occurred to him.

‘Who?’

‘Theodore C. Block.’

Theodore C. Block is one of our friends, so I’m not really sure why this is impressive. Usually we just call him Teddy but we sometimes use his full name, including the pretentious middle initial, as on all of his school papers, worksheets and assignments, he had, without fail, written ‘Theodore C. Block’. We like to think of it as a term of endearment.

‘That’s not weird, though, is it?’

‘No. It’s weird because of what he was doing,’ says Elliot.

I wait for him to elaborate. ‘What was he doing?’ I ask. Elliot can out-patience me whenever he likes.

‘Trying to get a date. I know, I know, that’s still not weird. Wait for it. The weird part is that the girl he was hitting on gave him her frickin phone number.’

I mock falling off the bed in shock. ‘You’re kidding!’

Teddy has a habit of attempting to court women but he rarely gets anywhere with them because he thinks that he’s incredibly charismatic and that he’s super-smooth with ‘the ladies’ when instead his flirting is actually painful to watch. He’s a bit of a sleaze but, all in all, he’s a good kid.

‘He seemed pretty impressed with himself. Blonde, curvaceous – exactly his type.’

‘Of course,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘We should call him and see if he’s been rejected yet.’

‘Do it,’ he says, tossing me his phone. I find Teddy’s number and dial. While it rings, I turn speakerphone on. Then his voice answers.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Theodore. I hear yo–’

‘Nah, I’m just messin’ with ya. I’m not really here. I think there’s a beep soon, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’

Beep.

‘You’re a moron,’ says Elliot, and I hang up the phone. I toss it onto my pillow and it rings about ten seconds later. I assume it’s Teddy calling us back. But it’s not.

‘Hey Mum,’ Elliot says into the phone. ‘Yeah, I’m just at Jen’s … Okay … Yep … Sure, I’ll be there soon.’ He hangs up.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah, sorry, Mum just wants me home. I’ll talk to you later, okay?’ He gives me a quick hug and starts to climb onto the window frame.

‘See that?’ I ask, pointing at the door. ‘You know what it’s for, right?’

‘I told you, where’s the fun in that?’ He smirks with the right side of his mouth and swings out of view.

I smile and shake my head again. I like Elliot. Purely platonically, of course, but I like him nonetheless.

I pick up the flyscreen and click it back into place. Through the screen, I watch Elliot jog back towards his house, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It’s a much different type of alone to usual – it’s much more relaxing now that I have my final scores. It feels really weird. I hadn’t realised how much stress I was under until the stress had gone. I’m really happy with my score but I still don’t know what I’m going to do about uni. I definitely want to go – I don’t think I’m ready to work full-time. But the only thing I can imagine studying and enjoying is English. I can’t exactly go and tell Mum that again, though. The last time I tried, we ended up talking about pathway courses. I’m not in the mood for another lecture.

The online portal where we entered our course preferences for uni was reopened this morning so that we could enter a more realistic preference list if we wanted to.

I log in to my profile and look at my preference list. Medicine. Science. Biomedicine. I know my scores won’t get me into those top ones but I’m not sure about the others.

I click open another tab and do searches on each of the courses in my preference list. Specifically, I look at the entrance scores. As I suspected, my top three preferences all need scores much higher than I got – the lowest score of those three courses is eighty-five. But some of the other courses on my list have minimum scores of around seventy. I’m not confident I definitely won’t get into one of those … I imagine most other students worry about what will happen if they don’t get in. I’m worried about what will happen if I do.

I sit in silence for a bit, listening for movement outside my door. It’s quiet. My hand trembling a little, I delete my entire list. My heart thumps like a kick drum. The list is blank. It’s wide open.

Just to see what it looks like, I search through the database and add some courses I think I’d actually enjoy to my list.

Mum’s footsteps thump up the stairs and I freeze, hoping she doesn’t come in to see what I’m doing. There’s no real excuse for what’s on my screen right now. I glance at my door, fully aware of the guilty look etched across my face, but she heads past my room, presumably to her own.

One deep breath later, I click and type as fast as I can, adding several arts courses that have options to study English or journalism. My list looks so much better with eight beautiful arts degrees. I can’t help but smile.

After a moment I sigh and hover the cursor over the ‘Edit’ button, preparing to change it all back.

I stop. What if I didn’t change it back? What if I left it? Sure, Mum might be mad at me, but that’s only if she finds out what I’ve done.

The screen looms in front of me for a while as I try to think this through. If I get accepted into an arts course, I’ll be studying what I actually want to. But then Mum will know I messed with my preferences. Do I really want to face that? What if I get an offer for an arts degree and she makes me refuse?

I click the ‘Edit’ button and search for the top science courses. I have no hope of getting into Medicine, so I put that as my first preference. Biomed. needs a ninety-three – that goes at number two. I skim through the database once more and pick two other science degrees that require a high ATAR for preferences three and four. Of the top four preferences, the lowest minimum entry score is eighty-seven.

The arts courses fill the rest of my preferences. They all have entry marks below seventy-two.

I save my changes and close my laptop.

Before I go to sleep, I do something I don’t usually do. Actually, something that I never do. With my hand clasping the crucifix necklace my mother gave me years ago, I pray. The door is closed and I keep my voice at a dull whisper.

‘Dear God. At least, I think that’s how you’re supposed to start these things. I don’t know if you’re real or not. I mean, my mum definitely thinks you are, but as much as she won’t admit it, she’s been wrong before. If you’re up there, I just want to apologise for not being the greatest of your creations. I’m sure you can’t be particularly proud of me.’ I pause. ‘I don’t really know why I’m talking to you. I guess … I just want confirmation that I’m on the right path, or whatever. Am I doing the right thing, trying to make myself happy? I want to believe in you – trust me, I really do – but I don’t know if I do or not. I like the idea of you looking after me, but it also scares me. If your presence were truly omnipotent, then it’d be like you were invading my privacy. I realise the idea of that is about as ridiculous as Aaron being worried about invading the privacy of his paintings, but it’s still a concern. Sorry, I’m rambling. Anyway, if you’re truly all-knowing, then please help me. I need a sign: am I doing okay?’

I remain in silence for nearly a minute. It’s not as if I expect anything to happen but it’s still marginally disappointing when it doesn’t. I puff my cheeks and thread a lungful of air through my pursed lips.

‘Never mind, then. Sorry to bother you. Amen.’