Later that night, I’m sweating in my bed. I’m trying not to think. I’m trying not to think about thinking. I’m trying not to think about not thinking. I’m trying to sleep. I can hear cars going past outside. They’re probably all heading to Dana Paterson’s eighteenth a couple streets away. Trav and Naya are there. I wish I was too.
I swipe through Snapchats from Dana’s party.
There’s one Trav put up. It’s a video of Shitty pouring a vodka bottle into a coal fire in an old oil drum. ‘Woo!’ he screams as the flames erupt into the black sky. His gaunt face glows red and Raj barks laughter in the background. Animals.
I open Sophie’s Instagram story, but I exit it after the third bathroom mirror selfie of her looking miserable with emoji sad faces planted all over her.
I go back to the direct Snap Naya sent me a couple of hours ago. I’ve jerked off twice to it already but it hasn’t lost any of its allure, despite what it represents.
It’s Naya wearing a tight navy dress that heaves her breasts up. It still somehow manages to look elegant—she’s the only one in Banarang who could ever pull it off. She’s holding up a black gown next to her.
‘What should I wear? Navy or black?’ is typed across it.
My heart skipped when I saw it, then got caught on the skipping rope and tripped over into a puddle when I realised what it meant. She was asking me for sartorial advice for a party she knew I wouldn’t be at. Shitty was right: she sees me as her little brother, nothing more. ‘The one you’ve got on’, I sent back.
It’s probably not good for my sexual and mental health to keep using a girl I’ll never get with as stimulation, so I open up YouPorn and watch several videos from the ‘big butt’ category instead.
My phone buzzes.
Naya: I did go with that dress in the end
What are you doing?
Me: Chilling
Naya: I’m in a park
Alone
Me: Why?
Naya: Party didn’t go so well
Ad I’m a little drunk
and*
Me: What park are you in?
Naya: Little kids one near Dana’s house
Me: Ha.
I’m like a block away from that
Naya: You should come then
Me: Okay
I guess she needs a friendly shoulder to cry on. I can offer that. I’m pathetic. Jimmy wouldn’t settle for this. Shitty didn’t.
But I want to see her.
I unlatch my window and roll out like a prisoner in my own house. Dad won’t mind: I’m exploring my emotions.
It’s a balmy night and it feels good to be out. A small car hurtles up the road, its high-beams shining straight into my eyes. The car slows and the windows roll down. It’s a Year Eleven kid from school. His peroxide-blonde tips flatten as he squeezes his head through the window, then spring back up into their stiff, gelled erections. He thrusts a can of Southern Comfort and Coke in the sky.
‘Little Bohhhh-nahhhhh!’ he shouts, then throws his head back in cackles. The tyres shriek like a fruit bat and the car speeds off.
What was that about? Just Banarang being Banarang, I guess.
The power lines above me are festooned with red- and-green tinsel already. The council won’t clear your blocked drain for a week but they’ll go all over random parts of town with cherry pickers putting up shiny plastic prematurely.
I feel the bass rumbling from the party. It’s a doof-doof psy-trance loop that I’m guessing hasn’t changed in the last hour.
Ahead, the dull street lights give the kid’s play park an atomic yellow glow. I see Naya. She’s on the swing, her feet dragging over the black rubber mat as she sways gently back and forth.
I pry open the creaky gate. She stands up and walks towards me. Her mascara has run and her eyes are redder than her lips.
She hugs me. I take it. I don’t put my arms around her, but I absorb the hug. It’s skin-on-clothes but her cheek brushes mine as she steps back.
‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ she says.
I shake my head.
She staggers over to a tree, drops down under it and taps the grass next to her.
‘How’s your night been?’ she asks as I sit down.
‘Yeah, it’s been fine,’ I say. ‘You look, err, nice.’
She scoffs. ‘Ha. A little bit overdressed for the occasion, I think.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
She’s a lot overdressed for any occasion in Banarang’s history, but I’m not complaining.
‘Did you bring any drinks?’ she says.
I clearly walked in with my hands in my pockets, so I don’t know why she’s asking.
‘No, sorry. I didn’t think.’
‘Damn.’
‘How was the party?’
‘Baaaaaaaaaaaad.’ She draws it out like a drunk sheep.
‘Why?’
‘Just boys. Maybe they do all only want one thing.’
‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter. A friend had a, umm, setback today. He let me—I mean, himself down. He let himself down. But it will be fine in the end. I don’t want to talk about it. I just needed someone on my level tonight.’
I want her to keep talking, but I can’t think of what to say. I should go back and steal some drinks from Dad’s bar fridge. I don’t know if she’d like VB, though—it seems to be a taste you’re forced to acquire when you’ve got no better option.
She lies down on the grass. The peaks of her breasts are flattened across her torso from this angle, but they still swell with each breath she takes.
‘I’ve been worried about something too,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘I can’t find my tote bag. Do you think I might’ve left it in the driveway near that guy’s car?’
I say nothing.
‘This could be bad. It had my ID in it.’
‘Oh. Yeah. Well, maybe you just left it somewhere else?’
‘I guess. I haven’t heard anything from the police. But I’m scared, Bones.’
I need to change the subject. Fast.
‘I’m going to swim next week,’ I announce. ‘At the swimming carnival.’
I don’t know why I say it. I didn’t think I’d decided yet.
‘Really? That’s awesome!’ She sits up and wipes her face with her hands. She’s got the glimmer back in her eyes. I feel great. ‘There’s a lot you can do when you try. Now come and look at this. The stars are nice.’ Her dress creeps up her thighs as she stretches out again.
I lie back awkwardly, reluctant vertebra by reluctant vertebra, until I’m embedded in grass that would have absorbed megalitres of dog urine over the years. How am I doing this?
There’s an opening in the branches above us, a portal to the sky. It’s like a painting of the Milky Way has been framed in ornate golden leaves. That’s the one good thing about living in the country—you can see the stars like you’re in an observatory.
‘So, where’s this Southern Cross thing I’ve heard about?’ Naya asks.
‘I don’t know anything about stars. Just that they’re small, but we’re smaller. I do like looking at them, though.’
I can feel her leg on my jeans. I think. I hope it’s her leg. I can’t raise my neck up to check, cos that would be weird. Or maybe I’m cramping up from a potassium deficiency—I should have had a banana.
‘What’s that?’ Naya points at a white dot crawling across the painting. ‘A shooting star?’
‘No. Just a plane. Every plane going anywhere good flies over Banarang.’
‘I love planes. What countries do you want to visit?’
‘C’mon. You have to pick.’
‘Maybe Singapore. Or the UAE.’
‘Ha! You’re funny. They’re awful.’ Her speech slurs and slows. ‘I’ve been to both. So sanitised.’
‘Well I’d probably fit in better there, then.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Why? They’re clean, I’m clean.’
‘Do you seriously believe anyone wakes up and thinks, “Oh, I feel great. I fit in. I’m normal and I am happy being normal”?’
‘I don’t know. I s’pose so.’
‘No way.’
Silence takes over for a second and I feel the doof doofs in the dirt. We’re laid out like two corpses in a shared grave. The side of my body is almost touching her now.
‘You should travel, though, Bones, you really should. There are a lot of different cultures, and you can learn from them.’
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘I doubt we’re that different anywhere, though.’
She tries to scoff again but hiccups instead.
‘What? I bet every country has greed and bullshit,’ I say. ‘And I bet there’s buildings and trees and cars, and I bet you get attention everywhere you go.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s all the same. All over the world.’
‘No, the attention thing.’
‘Like, beauty standards. Around the world. They aren’t that different, are they? Like, I bet…I bet you’re beautiful everywhere.’
Once the words escape my mouth I realise how lame they sound. Naya breaks into a fit of laughter. After what seems like minutes, she finally calms down and tries to catch her breath.
‘It’s just a comment, okay?’ My voice breaks. ‘I’m talking about culture.’
‘Oh, man.’ She pats her heart over and over. ‘That is too cute. Thank you, B.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ My cheeks must be blazing red. Thank fuck it’s dark.
Naya rolls her head to face me. I can feel the warmth of her sweet breath on my cheek. I think I like it. But I keep my eyes locked on the stars.
‘I hope you did mean it like that,’ she says.
She edges her face closer to my cheek. I turn my neck and find my face reflected in the glimmer of her eyes.
Her pillow lips land on mine and fasten for a full second. My lips tingle, like a million warm electrodes are massaging them at once. It’s awesome. Amazing.
Her lips peel off and make that kissing noise—the one that people make to show that they’re kissing but isn’t actually necessary. Or maybe it’s not a kiss without it. Then she pecks me again, and her head wriggles into my neck and she lays her arm across my chest.
‘Being good’s not all bad,’ she whispers, and her eyes close.
Within seconds she’s snoring on my shoulder, with her hand stretched out across my chest. I wipe my wet lips with my wrist and stare up at the spectacular star show. I’m flying higher than the Airbus to Abu Dhabi.
I feel alive. So my eyelids draw the curtains and I sleep like I’m dead.