32

The school holidays are over and it’s Monday morning – the first day back at school. I’m in the car with Dad. I’m so excited to see Harley. I have accepted the fact that, yes, I am falling in love with him, and I’m pretty sure he’s falling in love with me. In the car, I reread the texts me and Harley shared while he was away at his dad’s.

Me: Are you at your dad’s now?

Harley: Yeah, just got here. My arse is asleep from the drive lol

Me: I miss you x

Harley: I miss you too x

Me: What you doin x

Harley: Playing Starfield. It’s mad! You? x

Me: Just babysitting while dad’s at work. X

Me: Whatchu doing now? x

Harley: Just having dinner. Forgot how good dad’s spag bol is lol you? x

Me: Just having some ice-cream. Hurry up and come back! X

Harley: Lol I’ll see you in a week xxxx

Me: That’s fucking forever xx

Me: Hey, I miss you! I haven’t heard from you since last night. You didn’t even say goodnight

Harley: Sorry! I crashed early x

Harley: Dad’s making us go camping. Might not get good reception for a couple of days. I miss you xx

Me: That’s okay xx have fun.

Harley: What you up to? X

Me: Dad’s just gone to work, so making breakfast.

Harley: It’s like lunchtime lol

Me: What’s your point haha

Me: Hey x

Me: What you doing? Xx

Me: Oh I forgot you don’t have reception. Sorry for all the messages, I’ll talk to you when you’re back in the real world x

Harley: Hey! Sorry, haven’t had a signal for a few days. I missed you. How does camping look on me? xx

Instead of reading the next messages, I open the photo Harley sent me after that last message. His hair was all messy and frizzy. His stubble had grown to a dirty length and he’d honestly never looked hotter to me.

We arrive at school. I take my backpack and climb out of the car. Dad says something to me as I close the door, but I don’t hear him – my eyes are focused straight ahead. Tegan has climbed off the bus and is walking straight for me. We arrive at the gates at the same time.

‘Hey,’ I say. Tegan glances at me, then turns and walks through the gates without saying a word. She climbs the stairs, and I’m stuck standing at the bottom watching her leave. I miss being her friend. I really miss her.

But all is okay, because I kind-of-maybe have a boyfriend, don’t I? Are we boyfriends now? The night of the grand final with Harley felt very boyfriendly. The walk along the beach and the hidden kiss in the rocks before he went to visit his dad’s felt very boyfriendly.

I walk into school, feeling more confident and excited with each step I take, because I’m gonna see Harley soon. I miss him so much. It’s actually kind of sad how much I miss him – I only saw him yesterday.

I pass through the quad and climb the stairs to Mr Dudley’s classroom. As soon as I hit the landing, I hear Harley’s voice. He’s climbing the stairs behind me, talking to someone. Soon, Harley and Jack arrive at the top of the staircase. Jack gives me a nod as he passes and Harley stops beside me.

‘Hey,’ I say.

‘Hey.’

Harley’s hair looks a lot neater than in the camping pic, and his face is cleanly shaven. I reach my hand for his, painfully aware of how hard I am smiling as I do so. I reach for his hand, remembering how we kissed, cuddled, how he drove me home and said he had a great time with me, how we kissed in the secrecy of the rocks at the beach and how we texted all holidays, saying we missed each other. As I take his fingers in mine, he wrenches his hand away and steps back from me.

‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘What are you doing?’

I feel every piece of fat in my body shudder. The smile falls from my face and my head begins to spin.

‘What?’ I ask, and I realise I’ve done something wrong. Harley isn’t out yet and I’ve just touched his hand at school. Now, he is looking at me like I’m just the stupid fat boy.

‘Not here,’ he says, looking over my shoulder and along the corridor, probably making sure no one saw me touch his hand. He rushes past me before I can say anything else and disappears into Mr Dudley’s classroom.

It’s like concrete blocks have formed around my feet. I’m stuck where I’m standing, at the top of the stairs, opposite the door to the classroom. I want to run away, run home, climb under my blanket and never come out again. Instead, I’m frozen.

I hear Mum’s voice, telling me I only have to be brave for a few minutes.

I walk into the classroom and take a seat in the empty front row. Mr Dudley calls the roll, reads the announcements. Behind me, Jack and Harley are whispering. Mr Dudley tells Jack to be quiet. Jack argues back that it was Harley talking to him, but I’m not really here. I’m still in that moment when Harley took his hand away from me, where he asked what I was doing.

At the end of roll call, I’m the first one out of the classroom. Harley’s so close I could touch him, but I don’t know that I could look at him without crying.

Along the balcony and into the corridor, I’m replaying Harley taking his hand away from mine. It was like his hand had touched runny diarrhoea and he had to fling it away as quickly as possible to keep safe.

I’m not in first period Biology, or second period Maths, even though my body is present.

At recess, I head to the seniors’ area. I pass Gordon, Zoey and Tegan sitting at their hangout. They’re talking about something funny, laughing. Tegan’s back at school and they’re all together again, just like they were before I turned up. They don’t miss me.

I start for the boys’ hangout, but I see Harley munching down a sweet chilli chicken burger. I can’t be around Harley right now, knowing how awful it was for him – the thought of my hand touching his. I can’t sit with them.

I turn and start for a tree in the middle of the grassy area where some groups are in circles eating their food. I sit down and lean against the tree, take my earphones from my backpack and plug them into my ears. I play ‘Kiss Me Once’ by Kylie Minogue and take out my lunchbox.

Tegan, Zoey and Gordon are in their hangout like I was never really here, Harley is with Jack and their friends in their hangout like I was never really here, and I am eating my food alone at recess. Who was I kidding? I’m not going to be one of those people who has a group of friends. I’m not one of those people who people want to be around. No one would notice if I stopped coming to school one day. No one would care.

My sandwich is back in my lunchbox after one bite. I’m not hungry. I’m not anything but a gay, fat boy listening to Kylie Minogue under a tree. I close my eyes, because soon tears are going to flow and I don’t want that to happen.

Something taps my shoe. I look up and it’s Harley, staring down at me. I take out my earphones and Harley sits on the grass on front of me, crossing his legs.

‘Can I help you?’ I ask.

‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ Harley says.

‘About how you batted my hand away like I have leprosy?’ Harley looks to his lap and sighs.

‘I do really like you, Jonah,’ he says, his voice quivering. ‘I’m … I’m sorry … I’m scared.’

‘Scared?’

‘I’m not ready for anyone to know about me,’ he says. ‘But I do really like you. I was a dick this morning.’

I look across to the hangout. Jack and two of the other boys have left.

‘I really like you too,’ I say.

‘I want to kiss you so bad.’

I smile. I never thought I’d smile again, but I am, and warmth has rushed to my cheeks.

‘I know it’s a shit thing to ask,’ Harley says, ‘but can we keep this between us for now?’

‘I won’t rush you into anything,’ I say. ‘Probably should’ve told me this before, though.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘So, we’re bros,’ I say.

Harley laughs. ‘Maybe bros who kiss in secret sometimes?’

‘That’s hot.’

Harley smiles and rubs his eyes. ‘I know it’s shit,’ he says. ‘You’ll tell me if it gets too hard for you, okay?’

‘I’ll tell you.’

I follow Harley back to the hangout. It’s amazing how I could feel intense despair, feel completely alone, and how quickly it has all changed in my head. Harley likes me and I like him. We’re going to be together, even if I have to pretend there’s nothing going on between us for a little while.

And there is a switch in my head that is turning. It’s telling me that no, I am going to be one of those people who has a group of friends. I am going to be one of those people who people want to be around.

Harley sits at the table and returns to his chicken burger. I look across to my old hangout, where Tegan, Zoey and Gordon are sitting.

I want my friends back. At least when I was in Rushton, I still had a group I could sit with, even if the only time they showed real interest in me was when my mother died.

I’m staring at them. I’m hearing the distant sounds of their voices as they chat, but I’m not really here.

It’s my first day back at school after Mum’s funeral.

Everyone was lining up at the door for first period English. I saw Ben and one of his friends at the front of the line, but I joined the back. A strange silence fell over the conversations that were happening for a second, then our teacher arrived. As I walked into the classroom with my classmates, I could feel their eyes on me. I could hear their thoughts: That’s the guy whose mum just died. I knew they were all thinking it. They were feeling sorry for me, watching me, preparing themselves to comfort me should I start to cry.

I zeroed in on Ben in the second row and sat in the seat beside him. Usually he would greet me with a ‘Mornin’, Jonah’, but there was no greeting that morning. He sat quietly as our teacher began the lesson. I could kind of sense his eyes darting to me at times, until I finally caught him glancing at me. He tucked in his lips and said, ‘Sorry for your loss, Jonah.’ I thanked him and said it was okay, then his friend also said sorry about your mum, then others began to offer their condolences.

Hope you’re okay.

Sorry to hear about your mum, Jonah.

We’re here for you.

My teachers always called me a quiet achiever, but now I was voiceless. I kept my head down all morning, knowing people were looking at me, wondering how I was coping.

At lunch, I sat at the hangout under the gum tree with Ben and his friends, as I did at every recess and lunch.

‘Hope you’re okay, mate,’ one boy said.

‘So, you found her?’ Ben asked. I nodded. ‘What happened? Do you know how she died?’

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘They did an autopsy. Results take a while. They think it was a heart attack.’

‘A heart attack?’ the blond boy asked. ‘I thought only old people had heart attacks.’

‘What did she look like?’ the black-haired boy asked. ‘My grandpa told me when they’re gone, they look like they’re sleeping.’

‘I dunno,’ I said, remembering her wide-open eyes when I found her in the backyard, her wide-open mouth. ‘She looked scared.’

After a minute, they moved on to talking about the new Star Wars movie that was coming out soon, and I ate my lunch, stuck with the image of my dead mother in my head, thanks to them. I was also excited for this new Star Wars movie. In fact, I had been researching it on my phone the night before. I wanted to join the discussion, but that was probably the most interest Ben’s friends had ever shown in me, because there was something interesting about me for once – I was the grieving kid who’d just lost his mother. They probably hardly even noticed I wasn’t at school for the previous few weeks, because I was quiet – the quiet achiever. It wasn’t like I wanted to be that way.

At high school, I was always scared to talk, to say the wrong thing, because in primary school, whenever I’d said anything idiotic, people would laugh at me and tell me how stupid and weird I was.

That was a weird thing to say.

In Year Seven, I wanted to be more popular. I wanted to make more friends, but for some reason people didn’t seem that interested in getting to know me, apart from Ben. So, I resigned myself to being the quiet boy at the hangout – the boy who ate his lunch while Ben and his friends bantered. At least I had some people to sit with, I guessed.

One day, two months after Mum died, Dad picked me up from school unexpectedly early, just after lunch. He had Zeke and Luke with him, and my mind was going places, thinking maybe someone else had died. Maybe this was finally the wake-up from the nightmare and Mum had actually returned from the dead, crawled out of her coffin in the dirt and walked back into town. It wasn’t until we were in the car that he told me what was going on.

‘We’re being evicted,’ Dad said. ‘We need to go pack all our stuff and leave the house tonight.’

‘What? I thought you said you were taking care of that?’ I remembered the eviction notice we’d received a month before. Dad said we couldn’t afford to live there without Mum’s income, but that he was gonna take care of it so we wouldn’t have to move. Nothing to worry about.

‘I know what I said, mate. Don’t worry, we’ll be okay.’

He was lying. He hadn’t taken care of it. We were not going to be okay.

When we got home, there was a trailer in our driveway. Inside the house, most things in the living room and kitchen had already been packed into boxes. I was so pissed off as I burst through the front door, passed the kitchen and headed up the hallway. I loved our house. It was just a little three-bedroom with white walls and no air conditioning, but it had been our place for years. It was the place with the living room where Dad had howled and danced when Manly Warringah Sea Eagles beat Melbourne Storm forty–nil in the grand final. It was Mum’s last house, the place where she died. It was the place that felt like home.

I slammed my bedroom door shut. I pulled my duffel bag from the cupboard and loaded all my clothes inside. On top of the clothes, I put in my runners and my other pair of black school shoes.

Dad’s footsteps banged past my doorway, then music started. It was Cold Chisel – Dad’s favourite. He liked to put on music when he was doing housework. The bangs continued through the walls as he began to pack up Zeke and Luke’s room. Zeke and Luke were in the backyard, playing in the sandpit, and had no idea what was happening.

‘Where are we going?’ I yelled through my wall.

‘What?’ Dad called back.

‘I said where the fuck are we going to live now?’

‘Jonah, don’t swear at me,’ Dad called. I didn’t even feel bad. I hated him in that moment. ‘I’ve got it figured out, okay?’

‘Like you figured out the eviction notice?’

‘Jonah! Just pack, please.’

I pulled the blankets and sheets from my bed and sat on the bare mattress for a moment. I felt like crying. I felt like crying hard, like smashing my window and kicking a hole in my wall and punching the back of my door until all the bones in my hands were broken. But I looked at the photo of Mum on my little desk. She was at some formal. You could see the straps of the green dress she was wearing, and she had make-up on. Her eyes sparkled with joy as she smiled.

When the packing was done, our fridge, our washing machine, other cabinets, a desk, a stack of pots and pans, and even my mattress were sitting on the front lawn in an assembly. We were leaving it all behind.

We walked back inside for one last inspection, then Dad strapped Zeke and Luke into the car, attached the trailer to the back, and we set off out of the neighbourhood. I imagined for a moment that he was taking us to a haven by the beach, where we would join a community of fifty couples who all had children and we would live in bungalows on the sand. I also imagined we’d end up under the town bridge, which leads over the bay and up the coast.

Instead, Dad drove us to the caravan park on the south side of Rushton.

I’m still staring at Tegan, Zoey and Gordon. They’re smiling, talking, enjoying each other’s company. Watching them makes me feel sad, so I leave for the library again. Inside, I find a corner and take out my phone. I haven’t heard from Ben in months. I was waiting for him to be the one to text first, but he hasn’t. I just need to talk to someone – anyone.

Me: Hey Ben, how’s it going? What’s new?

I wait watching my phone’s screen for a while. When the siren sounds for the end of lunch, I still haven’t received a reply from Ben. I know things were a bit weird with us when I left Rushton, but I kind of thought he cared about me, even if just a little bit. I guess he really doesn’t miss me at all.