My Person

Nick leans in towards me. He looks nervous, but not in the way where he looks inexperienced, in a way that it looks like he really wants to kiss me but is worried that I will pull away and won’t kiss him back. He looks at me in the eyes, then down to my lips, back to my eyes and down to my lips again. He licks his lips. It’s like he’s moving in slow motion, as I move towards him, ready to wrap my fingers around his curls and close my eyes. My first kiss, it’s going to be perfect it’s going to be -

A freight train rattles past, it doesn’t normally wake me up, it just crawls into my dreams transforming them into warzones. But this one, this one ruins the perfect romance and I wake up with a headache. I try to not let that make me cry. I crack my neck, left to right hoping for the headache to leak out like sauce does when you eat a juicy burger. It doesn’t so I practise my breathing. I look over at my alarm clock and it says it’s 6:17. I sigh, I had been looking forward to a sleep-in, but the freight train rumbling past woke me again. A small stream of light comes through the gap in the blind, but it feels blaringly bright at this hour of the day.

One of my posters fell down last night. It’s my largest one, in the middle of my collage that’s floor to ceiling. I’m scared to look at it in case it breaks again. I’ve gone through three different types of Blu Tack to try and get it to stick. It’s of the Jonas Brothers when they were on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine. It’s thrilling when something you enjoy in silence, and will never reveal unless someone else reveals it first can have a home in your room, and you don’t have to worry about the boys in your year making fun of your bad taste in music. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not delusional. I know that not every song of theirs is the best song, and sometimes the way Nick’s voice sounds is a bit embarrassing, but some of their songs really immerse you, and you feel like you’re captured in an epic romance.

Nick’s been my longest celebrity crush after Gordo from Lizzie McGuire. I’m a sucker for a guy with dark curly hair that has the potential to also be swept up in a love affair. I also like how strong his moral compass is, and the idea that I could be a temptation to him. He and his brothers wear purity rings, which I had never heard of and then gobbled right up. The idea of saving yourself for marriage, how romantic! They’re also Christian, which is very important to me, and there’s something very attractive about how proud and vocal they are despite the abuse they get. The insanity of the hatred they receive for just trying to love the Lord, and to save sex for marriage.

One of my favourite pastimes is to dream of how we’d meet, be trapped in an elevator and fall in love. The sort of love that he’ll fill up many pages of poetry with, record record-breaking albums with, the sort of love we’d grow a family with. He’d try and hide me from his fans to protect me, but then even they couldn’t deny how much we should be together. Then suddenly I can sing, and he’ll pull me onto the stage one night, and I off the cuff, knowing all the words, join him in a beautiful duet, and then he proposes. It’s perfect.

But back in the elevator where we first meet, I’ll be wearing my favourite outfit. A black pleated skirt that sits just above my knees and fans out nicely, with my blue shirt that has wide sleeves that are pre rolled that cut off part way between my elbow and shoulder, that has a wide scoop neck. I wear it so much that I have freckles only in the loop of my chest, without anything on you can see the odd gaps of just pale white skin with no freckles like I’m wearing a flesh tank top. My hair will be sitting really nicely, and it’ll look thick and beautiful. When our eyes meet, he’ll stop in his tracks and can’t take his eyes off me. The power will be all mine. It’s about here when I start wondering about the logistics of things.

Have I lost 10kgs? Am I suddenly really confident in my body? Am I wearing make-up to cover up my blushing? How did I get there? How did he get there? Am I in America? Where are his bodyguards, brothers, friends and fans? Where is this elevator that we’re in? How long are we trapped in the elevator? How long is a good amount of time to meet someone and then fall in love? Four hours? Five? What if I need to go to the toilet? What if we run out of air? What if - well, you get my point. It’s similar to my daydreams of when I get really hurt trying to stop someone being mugged, or a bank from being robbed and I get stabbed or shot and become an instant hero only to be tragically placed into a medically induced coma for many weeks and only to be fed liquid in tubes. When I wake up, I’ll be thin, feel confident, like I’ve found meaning in life and then my life will begin.

I’ve kissed the giant poster of the Jonas Brothers more than once. I think only because it’s a thing I’ve seen happen in movies. It gives me a burst of joy at the absurdity and secret-ness of it all. I would rather cross my heart and hope to die than my parents or anyone finding out, the thoughts that flicker through my mind, and then them seeing me kiss my poster.

I want to lay in bed ironing out the details of our romance. Each time I return I get to go slightly further in my story because I’ve answered the questions that came to mind last time. There are still questions that pop up but I can enjoy it more when I’m sleepy, I’m less concerned about how realistic things need to be for our connection to feel genuine. My PJs stick to me with the glue of my sweat. I forgot to turn my fan on last night, and had another nightmare. It’s not the worst nightmare that I’ve ever had, it’s just recurring and vivid. I miss the bus, the timetable is ripped off its plastic foundations, and it’s then when I look around that I don’t know where I am. I just know that I’m late for school and have no idea how to get there.

I kick off one sheet at a time, to prolong my time in bed, but also in an attempt to get up. As I’m mustering the courage to get out of bed, I’m hit with an overwhelming feeling that I can just lie here, like I’m dead and that would be okay. I don’t have to go to school. I don’t have to try and make friends, try and keep friends and worry about how many excellence credits I’ve got. I could just float away on this cloud of a bed of mine and not have to worry about a thing again.

I make a compromise and grab my laptop from the floor. It’s slightly too far away for me to grab, I’m halfway off the bed, but I still flop back down now that I have what I was looking for. I open it, always praying that the screen hasn’t cracked while I fell asleep watching TV last night. Often it’ll tumble onto the floor with a loud thump, and I picture the screen shattering, not like the class, but the colours breaking through, bleeding against the black. I breathe out my largest exhale of the morning as I see that it’s just as I left it, filthy. The keyboard - covered in crumbs, and the screen painted with fingerprints. I try to find the place I was last night in the Supernatural episode I was watching before bed. When I get to where I think I last remember I was, I hit play. Morning TV is a reward. It’s a way to trick you into thinking that it’s the weekend, to get a slither of fun in the morning before the school day starts and you realise just how tired you truly are.

I lay in bed longer than I had planned watching TV when I catch a glimpse of the time. A jolt runs through me, like I’ve witnessed a crime. I know I still have time to get ready, but the fear hits me like lightning all the time, that I will be late, and I will let everyone down.

I make my bed quickly because that’s always been something that I can do. Katie never makes hers in the morning and her room is always messy. When we shared a room, it was what caused our friendship to break apart, and transformed her into just my annoying little sister, rather than a cherished playmate who I shared all my life with. She’s probably still asleep. She hasn’t been going to school lately and I doubt today will change things. Mum and dad have just stopped trying. They don’t have any energy left to use it all up on convincing a girl who is as stubborn as concrete. They leave their handprints on her, in hope that when she settles they’ll leave a mark. But she’s always evening things out so that nothing sticks to her.

It’s challenging having a sister lose all of her potential, so it’s up to you to create something that your family can feel joy from. The tiptoeing on eggshells, my own personal hell. Never knowing what side of the bed everyone will wake up, just knowing their hair will turn out in wild directions, that barely a comb can fix for long as I brush it.

I say a quick prayer, thanking God for the day and that we have a roof over our heads. I pray that Katie will go back to school and smile again. Mum and dad can show an interest in what I do, and that today I will talk to at least one boy and pray that God will help me find a husband before I’m 22. Oh, and world peace and happiness. Praying can’t just be a personal wish list even though it can be quite easy to fall into sometimes.

I slowly approach my fallen poster and sigh when there are no new signs of damage. I forcibly push into each corner as I stick it back into place. I admire it with a smile. I shut the door behind me, and carefully peer out to see if any of the neighbourhood cats have visited. They’re often fighting in the garage and their screams really make my skin crawl. It doesn’t look like any are there.

I run inside without any shoes on, and curse (politely, in a Christian way) as I hobble across loose stones as I enter the house and into the darkness. No one has been up yet and all of the curtains are still closed. It feels like an oasis of night. I always feel a bit special when I wake up and no one else is up to join me. Like I’m in my own little world and I can choose my feelings without something making them out for me.

I have a shower in our bath shower combo. I try to avoid the bath curtain from sticking to my skin as I move quickly. We have a tarpaulin against the wall where the dial is to change the temperature. I have to avoid that sticking to me too, but that one is a bit more scary. When it sticks to you and pulls out from the wall as the tape finds it hard to hold back, you get a peak at the rotting wood frames, where the tiles have fallen away to time and decay.

I wish we could have a shower with a glass door like the ones that the girls at school have, a brand new bathroom, where the tiles aren’t wonky because dad decided to give tiling a go to save money. It could have worked if he hadn’t done it when he was drunk. He likes to shower with a bottle of beer in there with him, sometimes two.

I don’t really like having showers in the morning because it makes me tired. But everyone else at school seems to have a shower in the morning, so I do too. I don’t want everyone to think that I don’t shower. Sometimes I’ll skip drying my hair in the morning so that everyone knows that yes, I take hygiene very seriously.

I like having a shower as hot as it can go so that I’m freshly pink, but then that brings in a roll of morning yawns and I contemplate if I can sleep standing up. I like the pressure on my back and hope that it’ll knead out all of my tension that has already built up this morning. I wish I had the type of voice where I could sing in the shower and no one would say anything mean like “it sounds like cats are drowning”. Why does anyone think it’s okay to say that? I think I would be a happier sort of person if I could sing in the shower and not feel ashamed.

I try not to look at my body too much as I wash quickly. Seeing the change in my thighs and my hips is too upsetting. Growing so much that it leaves scars along my body. Scars my best friend’s mum said we were too young to have. I wonder if adults know how long their lazy remarks sit with you. I rush as I apply mum’s bio-oil, and colour in the white lines that twist around my body in strange places.

I left my school skirt slightly too close to the shower and now there are big lobs of water on it. I sigh because I hate using the hair dryer when no one else is up yet. I don’t want the morning to begin with any yelling. But I washed my hair too, and can’t let myself look like I’ve been drowned. Once my skirt is mainly dry and I put it on along with my school blouse. I get bored part way through drying my hair, so I pick up the burning hot hair straightener and set it to work on my wet locks. I love the steam that comes with it and the sound. I even kind of like the smell it makes when my hair sizzles. I can see my hair break and fly away but everyone wears their hair straight to school. Straight and pulled back into a ponytail. If my hair wasn’t so wet, I would have done my usual trick of tying my hair up and then just straightening my side fringe and the curtain of hair that hangs out the back. I stopped doing it for a while because one of my friends was laughing about a girl who does that and her hair looks terrible. I worried that she was talking about me in a cruel way, direct to my face, but without my name and ending with a snare. It’s difficult to figure out if you’re being sensitive or paranoid, or justified.

I wipe the steam off the mirror, and inspect my face. Just have a few pimples at the moment which my fringe mainly covers. Freckles completely drench my face, and I get shocked at how vibrant they are this morning after a few moments this weekend spent in the sun. It’s hard to know if a freckle has always been there or if more have sprouted overnight. There’s not really much more room for freckles, I wonder what will happen when they reach their limit. Will they cover every pale bit of my skin and line up?

I make toast and smother it in butter. I like to eat my toast upside down so I can get the taste of butter straight away without the taste of bread overpowering it. I eat as I get my bag together and run around my room, trying to find my school shoes. It’s 7:30 am, and I’ve forgotten to make lunch. The kitchen, painted lime green by my parents for reasons I’m still unsure of, is in slight disarray. No one could be bothered unloading the dishwasher yesterday, so dirty dishes overflow from the sink. I think it was meant to be me or Katie whose chore it was but after a day of school and then homework, I don’t want to have to do any work. So it’s not really fair, is it? Katie spends all her time at home and still does nothing but watch TV. She should have to do all the chores, but I still get yelled at as if I have the same amount of spare time as she does.

Katie dropped out of school at 13. She didn’t even do any NCEA levels. Mum and Dad have tried to get her into doing remote work, but we all quietly think she has a learning disability and she gives up really quickly if she doesn’t get something straight away. It could be because of all the weed she smoked as she started puberty, and still smokes now. I guess you could say we’re polar opposites, but we both couldn’t live off our dark impulses, someone had to hold it together for the family and I guess it just left me.

One Saturday after my netball game, Mum got a call from the mall security. Katie had been shoplifting. I knew she did it, how else would she have nice branded makeup and new clothes that her friends just “gave her”? None of her friends had the sort of money that they could afford to give away stuff like that for free. She’d also steal some of my favourite clothes, like my green hoodie I got from Cotton On. She cut off the label and said that her friend gave it to her. I got in trouble for overreacting and screaming at her. But there was no way to prove that it was mine and she got away with it again. Part of me feels excited by the drama of her being caught but also annoyed that I can’t go home and finish reading. But sometimes, life is more exciting than books. The police come and put her in handcuffs, and put her into the back of the police car. I don’t know how they’re allowed to do that, it’s just for show. She’s not really under arrest, she’s just not allowed back at the mall. The next day at school, she went in bragging about how she was arrested and that the pigs drove her around in the cop car. She wasn’t that confident the day before when her face was all red from crying, her tears had washed off her cheap foundation and it made her look more like her age. She had slouched down in the cop car so no one could see her, so I don’t know why she was spinning it like she was tough. I didn’t call her out on it. I couldn’t be bothered.

She started smoking back at intermediate. I was so mad. She’s one year behind me and started in secret in my last year, hanging out with the dropkicks behind the sheds. She’d wash her uniform when she got home every day and sprayed Impulse so thick, it was almost a homage to hairspray in the 80s. We all knew, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. I felt like I had failed at being a big sister for a bit. That I should have protected her, stopped her from starting. She’s always been one to fall into peer pressure, but she’s also good at making you think it was her idea, so maybe it was.

Back then ciggies were only a dollar each. They’re sitting between $1.50 and $2 now. Anyway, she’s not the one with asthma, I am. I vowed never to smoke because it seems anti-religious somehow. There was a time when I entertained the idea of buying cigarettes to sell at school to make some extra money. I had dreams of wearing a trench coat, luring my classmates into dark corners and opening up my coat. One side filled with cigarettes, then the equipment needed for rolling your own underneath as the second tier, filters, tobacco and paper. The other side would have cigars, lighters and matches. I was never going to do this, I had to Google what you need to roll your own cigarettes, so it was never going to happen anyway.

You know how in films, they’re always saying don’t smoke what you sell? Well, that’s normally in regard to drugs, not smoking. But I guess smoking is the gateway drug so they’re not really that different are they? Mum and Dad have always smoked, even in the car, inside and when Mum was pregnant with me. That’s probably why I was born three months early, not just because I like being on time. Which is a running joke that my family has, even though it’s not funny. Why would I want to be late? I like seeing the trailers before the film, I don’t like rushing and I don’t like the feeling of being forgotten when people I’m meeting up with are late.

Part of the walls in the lounge have started yellowing. It’s where dad sits and smokes when we’ve gone to bed. Mum hates him smoking inside, so he compromises by only smoking inside when she’s not home or in the same room with him. He doesn’t even open the window. It makes the lounge smell yuck, thick with smoke that lingers, beer and BO. One night he didn’t put out the but of a cigarette properly and it burnt all the rubbish in the bin and a hole in the carpet. The fire alarm didn’t go off, so it was good that Katie woke up.

Dad’s been smoking since he was nine. He’s tried to give up, but he always goes hundies. Juice cleanses, running 10k, quitting cold turkey. It lasts a couple of days and then he’s back at it again. I thought Dad’s teeth would be enough to put Katie off smoking. He looks almost worse than some of the pictures they put on the cover of cigarettes to deter people from smoking. Guess even a walking-talking advertisement isn’t enough then.

Katie used to have long curly white blonde hair. She killed it with straighteners, it started falling apart and falling out. Now she doesn’t have much and it looks fried. She’s also dyed her hair black like she’s a goth. But she doesn’t feel strange enough to be a goth, more like a wanna-be goth, like this is a phase I need to go through so of goth, not a lifestyle. She wears foundation that isn’t her shade and doesn’t blend it into her neck. It covers the colour in her cheeks, her freckles and her pimples. Well, to be honest, I think the sort of foundation that she uses brings more attention to her pimples because they become tiny mountains packed with powdery clumps of off white, kinda like snow.

I grab the last packet of chips from the pantry. I know mum’s going to be annoyed because I ate some of the school lunch food not as school lunch, but I hope she’ll give me some money for the canteen or a lunch pack from the dairy tomorrow anyway. I grab an apple that doesn’t look like it’s mushy, but then again you can never really trust an apple. I look through the fridge, dodging odd bits and pieces that are long past their best-before date when I track down the luncheon. Normally we get the thin circle cuts from the supermarket, the ones the people at the deli give a few slices for free to eat as they walk around the store. I’m not sure why it was just luncheon that this happened for. No other meat. No other food.

This week we have the shorter fatter luncheon that comes in a log. This one is my favourite because of how thick you can cut the pieces and smother them with tomato sauce. I peel back the plastic layer and cut it into strips. The way that it looks like a smaller log version of the large dog food logs, is both exciting and disgusting in equal measures. I think it’s just exciting because if I can eat something that looks and to be honest, probably tastes like dog food, I probably could go on Fear Factor and win a challenge. That is if they don’t bring out any rats.

When I’m about to leave is when mum starts to get up. I say bye, and she just looks at me grumpily with sleep still in her eyes. She’s not one for talking, and when she does she doesn’t really have the nicest things to say.

I speed walk down the road to the bus stop. I like to get to the bus stop at the very minimum five minutes early. You never know if the bus has already come, is on its way or not going to show up at all. Everyone always laughs at how I want to be on time all the time, which is why I was born three months early.

I’ve got a flip phone, one that doesn’t have a name-dropping brand but one you can have fun with. Flipping it shut dramatically at the end of a fake conversation, feeling important flipping it open when you answer the phone or are doing a bit about being a Valley Girl from America. It’s got a camera on it, not a very good one, but a camera! I don’t take many photos because they’re very pixelated, but I have taken a photo of the two bus timetables that I can take the bus to and from school with. I’m glad I did because for some reason people keep ripping the timetable off the stand, which is the worst thing they could do at a bus stop really. I don’t mind the graffiti, or the smashed glass, or the abandoned beer bottles - but why would they remove the times the buses are coming? That’s the key component of a bus stop!

I’ve memorised the times of the morning buses for both routes, but I always second guess myself when the buses aren’t running perfectly on their schedule. It’s 10 minutes until the bus is meant to arrive. I toss up the pros and cons of walking to the next bus stop to hang out with Sarah before the bus arrives. I start walking, obsessively looking over my shoulder as if I’m being hunted rather than just making sure that I don’t miss my bus.

Sarah lives down the road from me. It feels further away when walking because the paths are flat and there’s just one turn. I’m not sure why she doesn’t walk to my bus stop and I have to go to her’s in the morning, but it could be because the one by her house is slightly closer to school. I’ve known her since the last year of primary school and she’s one of my closest friends. I didn’t realise at the time that your friends shouldn’t annoy you so much or put you down so often. But I was just glad that I had a friend.

As I arrive at her bus stop, she’s not there. Worry crashes through me. Have I missed the bus anyway? I sit down and my legs swing as I can’t touch the ground. I’m not sure why but this bus stop is always in a slightly better condition than mine, and no one has ever ripped out the timetable. They do scratch into the plasticy material, ugly little attempts to look like they’re graffiti artists when they don’t quite have the skills yet. You can just make out the times of the bus, but you do have to squint a bit. I’ve also taken a picture of these timetables so I know when the bus is likely to come. I timed taking the picture of it well because it was when they last put a fresh one in. I think they’ve given up coming to replace them because that was a long time ago. They switched from glass to this semi see through thick plastic thing very quickly. It must have been annoying for them to have to come out, clean up the glass, and organise another pane to be inserted. My bus stop has lost two of its three plasticy panes, and I don’t think they’ll bother to replace them either. It’s okay now, but I’m not looking forward to when it rains.

As I get lost in my thoughts, I see her walking towards me. She’s started straightening her hair lately which makes it sit flat against her face. She has naturally curly hair that she got from her mum, that makes her hair nicely frame her face and give her volume. She’s also started wearing eyeliner to school. I think it’s a cheap pencil one because it smudges easily and gets into her creases. I’ve stopped mentioning when it does, well, because it’s all the time and she gets mad when you point it out.

One of her socks is slightly lower than the other one. It’s now only cool to wear socks that go up to your knees, but it’s harder if your calves are shorter and wider than those who dictate the rules. I wave and sit back down at the bus stop. I always get a weird mix of feelings when I see her. There’s joy because I have a friend to go to school with, in the morning, but then a crash of dread. As she arrives she’s listening to her mp3 player, lip synching to Flight of the Conchords. I don’t really know their songs, but she knows every word and won’t let a conversation begin, once she’s finished one or two of their songs. I don’t know what to do so I sit on my hands and look towards the direction that the bus should be coming from.

I’ve only got a $20 note and they’ve stopped taking them on the bus. I don’t know, maybe they’re too big to break and they need all their coins. Sometimes they let you on for free, other times they throw a big fuss about it and tell you off. When I get on for free, it means I can go to the dairy and get some lollies to eat. My favourite lollies aren’t lollies really but the chocolate squares that have caramel inside, paired with a can of Creaming Soda is the best combo.

Sarah has two brothers who are autistic. They’re both really into bugs and computer games. They talk in American accents because they watch so many American videos about boring science things. I think Sarah is autistic as well but it’s not as obvious as with them so her parents don’t really care. They’re really particular about food and noise, but she is just, I don’t know, different. But it’s mainly boys who are diagnosed with autism, ADHD and everything really. It’s not something that I’ve brought up, because how could I begin that conversation, and how could that not come across as cruel? What if she says something even worse back to me?

Mum gave me the talk the other day. She sat me down, and in quite a frazzled way she sighed as she tried to find the right words to say.

“You know, Sam there are certain things that -”

My throat gets trapped in a gulp. I didn’t think we’d have the ‘talk talk’ she didn’t even talk to me about puberty, I had to find that all out on my own in the most humiliating way. One night at a sleepover at my friend Charlotte’s place, she told me that her mum said that I don’t wear anything under my school shirt and that I should at least wear a singlet. I hadn’t realised. I made sure to wear a singlet under everything after that, even when it was really too hot, and it wasn’t quite clean enough to keep wearing. I knew about bras and had been waiting for one for ages, but Mum never took me shopping for one, so I just kept waiting, ignoring what was happening with my chest. Charlotte gave me one of her bras to wear, it was tan, severely padded and was a B cup. It was already too small for me.

When watching a sitcom before the news, there’s always a young girl going through puberty. I always make sure to not breathe, to not move, to not do anything that will draw attention to me when that happens. I got my period when I was 13. Mum never spoke about periods before, so I was too embarrassed to ask about them. She doesn’t really have a ‘come sit down and tell me all your worries and take care of you’ vibe about her. She checked my undies when I was in the shower, and afterwards said “you’ve got your period. There are pads underneath the bathroom sink” and that was it. She didn’t buy them often and never asked when I needed them, so I started to spend my money on magazines that came with free pads. The idea of buying them myself and the checkout person seeing me buy them, I would surely pass away and leave this world. Thankfully there were quite a few years where magazines came with free pads, but there were a few times that I had to buy them all on my own.

I wore the bra that Charlotte gave me every day. I’d secretly take it off, and store it under my pillow every night so no one could see. Then put it on under my PJs in the morning and get dressed in the bathroom after my shower. This worked out quite well for a bit. Until one day Katie was walking around boasting about wearing a training bra. Hot tears flooded out of me. How come she got a training bra? I didn’t get one. Why hasn’t Mum thought to give me anything? Katie is flat as you can be and I’m at least a C cup at 13.

One morning, Mum broke my secret habit. I’d usually sneak my bra in with the washing and make sure that I was the one who emptied it and put it in the dryer. Sometimes, I’d sneak it out of the dryer before it was fully dry in case someone else saw it and wore it partially wet. It never felt nice, but I knew that it would dry from my body heat. Mum got to the washing machine before me, and it was then I remembered that my bra was in it. As I was sneaking away, she asked me quite forcefully.

“Where did you get this from?”

“Charlotte gave it to me.”

“Why?”

“Her mum said you could see through my shirt.”

“Well, it’s not up to Charlotte’s mum to give you things like this.”

Blinking through tears, I scream “well you didn’t.”

She responds like I’ve slapped her in the face, which is her go-to response so it doesn’t really upset me anymore it just makes me more angry.

“You don’t need a bra.”

“Yes, I do. This one is too small.” Tears don’t stop falling. I can’t believe she is making me have to confront this.

“Fine, we’ll get you some.”

I walk away, mad but also like a weight has fallen from my shoulders that it’s finally happening.

At the weekend we go to Farmers, and she brings Katie along so I’m fuming even more than normal. She looks so comfortable in there looking at bras with lace on it like she’s not dying inside, as if this isn’t a super personal and intimate thing that we’re doing. I get measured, and I’m a D. I’m embarrassed, Mum and Katie don’t have a chest like mine. But double Ds is always said to be the dream bra size, so does this mean that I’m finally attractive?

Nick looks me up and down slowly, taking in my appearance. I normally slouch to hide the curves of my chest, but with him I feel my shoulders relax, pull away from my ears and straighten. He puts his hand on the small of my back. My mouth opens a little in anticipation. I -

“Sam. Sam.”

“What?”

“I’ve been talking to you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’re not listening. Are your ears painted on?”

“Ugh, no. I am listening.”

“What did I just say?”

“I don’t know, you just started talking.”

Part of me feels a little bit of a thrill that I’m going to have the talk about the birds and the bees like I’m a teen in an American sitcom. When a sex scene or a kissing scene comes on TV Mum still yells cover your eyes. If it’s a show or film that we’ve recorded or got out from the Video Store she’ll fast forward until it’s over. I wonder if she’ll loosely talk about it or get into the details. I know enough about sex, I think. I’m not sure what she’s going to say, I just know that I won’t look at her face.

“Well, Sam. You know when you see someone you haven’t seen today yet?” She looks at me with a pleading in her eyes.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well..”

We’re off to a weird start. Maybe she’ll go down the relationship route. Like you meet someone, realise you’re in love, get married and then you sleep together. That you save yourself for that one special person. While I start thinking about Nick, Mum breaks through my thoughts.

“So what you have to do is say ‘hi, how are you?’”

“What?” I look up at her.

“Yeah, so -” She fiddles with her sleeve.

“Why are you bringing this up? I thought -” I’m frowning more than I need to, and I can’t keep my voice steady.

“Look you don’t do this and it’s what you’re meant to do. It’s polite.”

“But why? No one cares, why can’t I just dive straight into the conversation?”

“It’s just the way it is.”I fold my arms.

“I say hi to people when I see them.” I hate how much I can hear the whinge in my voice.

“Yes. But you need to ask them how they are.”I look away.

“Then once they say that they’re good, you say “that’s good. Yeah, I’m good too.” And then start your conversation.” She looks fed up with me.

“Okay.” I mumble, looking as far away from her as I possibly can. I know how red my cheeks are, I can feel the heat spreading to my chest.

I would have preferred the talk about sex.

I spend a lot of time figuring out how the world works. I think I’m also on the spectrum, but it’s not something that I like to think about. I know it’s one of those things that we’re not supposed to look down on and see it as an insult, but it feels a whole lot different when it’s yourself. The thought alone burns my cheeks red, and the idea of someone else thinking about it, talking about it behind my back or even to my face makes me feel a whole lot worse. I know you’re supposed to look someone in the eye when they’re talking, even though it doesn’t really feel that natural. I know you’re supposed to say certain things in a certain way, stand and speak, and sit and hold yourself in a certain way because it’s obvious when you don’t. I study these differences and store them away in my brain for safekeeping. I try to justify it because we all do it in some way. We adjust to the social clues, and I know what the social cues are and I work hard to meet them. I get doubly embarrassed when I can see someone else not catching them, but also a tint of pleasure in knowing that I know that that is a social cue, and the appropriate way to behave is not that.

*

In maths class, I sit near the back for the first time and Wes sits next to me. He’s grown a lot taller this year and has a pretty good moustache going. He’s always been in the cabbage classes, so I’m a bit surprised he’s in my class. But then again he’s always been really smart, he just doesn’t really care about school. I can feel my face turning pink at what people could be thinking. Does he like me? Do I like him? Would we be cute together? Is he sitting next to me out of pity? Is this a joke? Is everyone laughing at me behind my back as they watch my face get pinker with every shallow inhale? Or does nobody notice, and nobody cares?

Mum said to me the other day that people don’t think about me as much as I think they do. Which to be honest felt quite rude to me. I didn’t show her that it hurt my feelings. I’m not sure if she’s right or not, because it definitely feels like it and how would she know how much people think about me? She did say, how often do you think about each little detail of other people? Strangers? People in your class? People at school? Which actually isn’t that much unless I think they’re cute and maybe I have a crush on them. But it’s easy to forget that last part, when you can feel all the eyes in the room on you, even when they’re not.

Robert Pattinson said that he would get full on blown panic attacks when he was out in public before he did Twilight because he thought that everyone was watching him when they weren’t. And now everyone is watching him. And not just watching him but screaming at him, right in his face. I don’t know how people don’t get embarrassed doing that. Like he’s going to think that you’re crazy, and he’s going to be super uncomfortable. I think if I ever saw him, I’d stop in my tracks, turn bright red and then run away to hide.

Even though my thoughts happen in a rapid succession, I worry I’ve waited a bit too long to say anything. I muster a “hi”, without looking up at him and he says “sup” back. I lean back like it wasn’t a big deal, and hope I’m not wearing a smirk. I did it! I spoke to a guy today. I can tick that off my list now and my day feels just a little bit brighter.

I’ve never had any guy friends before even though I’ve always been in a mixed school. It doesn’t really happen unless you’re flirting with someone, or your friend is flirting with one of the boys and then the groups sort of merge. But I hang out with nerds, and we don’t steal beer to drink at the park on the weekends, or skive off school, or bad mouth our teachers. I’m generally sat next to the class actor-upper when they were acting out. It’s always been that way for as long as I can remember. The teachers hoped that my love for rules and waiting for nothing but validation from teachers would rub off on them. It never does. They often just try to rile me up. Which they do. And everyone thinks it’s so terribly funny. Which it’s not.

There’s a weird expectation that when a boy likes a girl he’s mean to her, and as the girl, you’re meant to take that and be flattered. Like what? That’s such a strange way to be raised, to take cruelty as praise. How are you meant to know if someone is being kind, or even has feelings for you when they treat you in such a way? No wonder people never know when to leave a relationship, or stick by someone for so long, they’ve been told that hate is what is expected. That a boy pushing you down on the ground or pulling your hair or saying mean things to your face is how they show they care. That’s messed up. It’s also quite confusing when someone is unkind to you and you’re not sure if you’re meant to take it at face value or if it’s got undercurrents of affection. Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming about a guy hating my guts, who is always hell-bent on hurting me, but it’s a disguise because he’s too afraid to admit how much he really has fallen for me and how much love he has in his heart for me. The whole good girl, bad boy sort of thing.

I’ve had a crush on Jacob for the last few years. He’s thin with a mop of curly hair, sharp eyes, dark bags, and a face that kind of looks like a rat. I know that’s a bizarre thing to say, but ratish men are attractive. When they look starved, a little dirty and they only run on coffee, cigarettes and passion. In a hot strained trying artist sort of way. He’s in the year above me and barely shows up for school. He drinks to drown out his pain and feels everything so intensely. He’s just broken up with his girlfriend and has been posting sad Facebook statuses about how much he fucked up and how much he misses her and loves her. God, I wish it was about me. I would be who he loves enough to change himself for. His friends and family would say that I was the only one he would change for, and that love got him through it. The enemies-to-lovers romance that is in every rom-com, that is what I want. Him - to want me so desperately that he’ll become a better man because of it. He’s the sort of guy who would start a fight if another guy looked at his girl, he’s possessive and a bit controlling but isn’t that the sort of guy everyone wants? Someone that is willing to get his knuckles bloody for you? That he’ll show the world that he loves you and only you - he’ll even sing in the canteen, serenade you to show you that he’s sorry for how he’s wronged you in the past, but now he is a new better man all because of you.

I don’t spend that much time watching rom-coms. Not really.

He flirts with me in English. Well, I think he is, maybe he’s just getting some practice in for the next girl. But he’ll lean in close when he talks to me and has a knowing smirk when he teases me. He’s repeating the year because he doesn’t show up to his classes. He’s generally always in English though. I think he really enjoys writing but is too embarrassed to admit it. The other day he was laughing with his friends about how he’s such a cabbage and was lucky to even get an achieved. I saw that he got an Excellence. I’m not sure why he would lie about that.

I read one of his stories once, Miss randomly assigned us as pairs and my heart dropped out of my chest into my hands and spilt all over the table. There is no shade that could have covered up the red that I grew. I had written a story about a woman who had lost her husband and she played with her ring finger, a familiar gesture that bore more sadness now she no longer wears the ring. He wrote an action story that surprisingly turned into a romance at the end. It was about a guy whose dad had left so it was just him, his mum and his sister so he had to become the man of the family. A man broke into their house and he saved his family only to hear screaming outside where the man attacked a girl, who he also saved. The girl ended up being the nerd from school, but without her glasses on she actually looked pretty cute, and she was so thankful that he saved her that she broke out of her naturally shy demeanour and kissed him. Was this story about me? Heat creeps along my chest, it builds quickly into a rash and I hope he doesn’t notice. I look up and can see that he’s watching me read.

“What?” My voice is embarrassingly too hopeful, that it cracks in the middle, going up an octave like I’m the Cool Girl in a movie who is shy and bashful but still knows how to get a boy to notice her.

“You look so serious when you read.”

“Oh.” I feel blood rushing to my cheeks.

“It’s hot.”

I realise that I’m holding my breath and exhale sharply, giving him a look that I hope is angry yet coy. But still you know, really quite pretty.

“Shut up, I’m reading.”

He grabs his story out of my hands, and in a dismissing gesture says “don’t waste your time, it’s shit.”

“No, I like it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

I reach out to grab the paper from him, and he holds it higher. I stand as he does, he’s wearing a wide smirk. Ugh, this is such a classic guy thing to do so I am kind of into it. I can feel butterflies in my stomach, because this is surely flirting, isn’t it?

“Jake. Give it here.”

“Nah.”

“I need to finish it and give you feedback like Miss said.”

“You don’t have to do everything that the teachers say you do, you know?”

I can’t help but give him a scandalised look. “Uh, yes, I do!”

He leans in close to me. “No.”

I can feel his breath against mine, he smells like smoke. I go to grab the paper out of his hands, and his tongue is poking out at the edge of his smile. I would melt if this wasn’t also annoying me, I wanted to finish reading his story. I wanted to figure out if it was about me. I mean it’s probably not, but it’s hard not to make assumptions and leap to conclusions out of a desperate sort of hope.

He moves closer to me, his chest against mine. His arm is still above my head. I reach up and find my hand just stops on his shoulder, I can’t reach any higher. I like how he’s taller than me, I don’t know why that’s attractive, but everyone’s type is tall dark and handsome. Although, he’s not that handsome, well not in a way that everyone would jump over fire to get to him, but in a way that I like. I hold my breath at the intimacy of it all, our bodies so close. I feel something hard against my leg, and a warm feeling rises up within me.

I step back as Miss yells at him to stop messing around. I sit down glowing, remembering that he’s had sex before and this is the closest I’ve ever been to a kiss or anything romantic. I try not to look, just in case anyone sees me, especially him - but as he sits down I look at his crotch and can see him adjusting himself, trying not to draw attention to himself. I don’t think anyone has gotten a stiffy from me before. I feel a bit grossed out, but also quietly proud about it.

He’s a real enigma. He’s the sort of person who feels things so deeply that he would declare his love for a girl, that he’d die for her and then cheats. Then he hates himself, and everyone hates him, he begs her for forgiveness, she takes him back and then the cycle repeats. He then falls in love again with someone new, someone that he thinks could fix him. Then back to the girl who encourages his drug use and skipping school. Part of me feels like I shouldn’t interact with him at all, but it doesn’t feel very Christian to behave that way. Treat everyone with kindness and love. But what happens when that kindness and love leads to forgiveness and that leads to sin and hurt and hate? What do you do when you try to love your neighbour and then they break you apart and break your faith? Not that this has happened, it’s just something that I take time to worry about from time to time.

But even then, thinking that someone is so twisted and wrong and you’re the only person who could save them is wrong. I know that. I really do, but I cannot help but think that. I think all the girls who follow the rules, and have never relaxed a day in their lives, love the idea of a careless man who makes them care less. But the reality is probably the opposite, at first you’d start to relax, enjoy the moment. But then you’d worry, has he met someone else, has he overdosed, what’s he going to do with his life now? It’s a sort of fantasy I entertain, helping a lost man find his way, and him giving his heart to me because of it. But it’s not based in any sort of reality, it’s hard to figure out what God’s plan is for you for it all. When all the other girls are praying for God to deliver them a husband, to meet a nice guy at church who they can grow a family together with, grow old together and wear matching outfits together with. I put my foot down for the matching outfits, because chances are that he’ll look better than me in it and I don’t think I’ll ever get to the place where I could accept that.

Jake leans in and for a split second he lets his guard down and I can see how scared he really is.

“Can I kiss you?”

Afraid that I’ll break the spell of the moment, I simply nod yes. He cups my face as he pulls me into such a passionate kiss, that if we were in a cartoon there’d be fireworks exploding forever and ever behind us, trying to capture the love and the passion of that moment.

“You know what, Sammy?”

He brushes my hair softly off my face. “What?”

“It’s always been you.”

He pulls me in to kiss me again and -

Jake lets out the largest burp I have ever heard and he cackles at himself. He high fives the guy behind him and goes to high five me as well. I don’t meet him halfway.

“Oh, come on, Sam! That was a good one.”

I roll my eyes. Sometimes boys can be so close to being perfect and then they ruin it by opening their mouths.

I can’t imagine Jake writing me poems, or songs or love letters. I can’t picture him saving all his pennies for a ring. I can’t picture him choosing to settle down with me, and maybe that’s why I like to fall into the daydream of what could have been in another universe.

There’s a weird moaning noise and I look over and Jake and the guy behind him are pretending to make out, and have both pulled up their school shirts circling their own nipples, as they moan and flail their tongues about.

Seriously? What happened to romance? Like true, proper I’m in love with only you, you’re the love of my life, you’re my soulmate sort of romance? I know it didn’t really exist in the old days, marriage was for alliances and women were battle prizes. Children younger than me, married off to ugly old men who didn’t bother to learn anything about them, judged only on their beauty, if they could sing and do embroidery. I’ve read enough on the Tudors recently to work myself up about not ticking any of the boxes in these categories. I wouldn’t even be able to be a jester, I’m not quick witted enough, I can only do cartwheels and not backflips. I’d probably have to be a maid, or I would have died because I was born premature.

Women always have to be one step ahead of everyone, as their one way to have an ounce of power. And it’s not true power really, they’re still their husband’s possession, and these drunk fat men gloat about having the pick of the season, but don’t care about them as a person. The pressure of having boy babies is their one purpose, when preganices don’t come, and babies were born dead or worse, female.

I do love the secret love affairs from back then. The forbidden glances, the hidden love letters, the touch of a hand that feels like the creation of the universe all over again. Love that cannot be, and the apple of their eye released, so that the other person can be safe, or live a perceived better life.

Was romance only something that happened in the 1950s? And even then romance only really was involved with the short courting period then led to a quick marriage. But the courting, that was peak romance - the poems, the songs, the dances. Then, I can’t live without your intensity of it all. The I’ll beat up a man if he even thinks about you. The I’ll give you my sweater if you’re cold. The I’ll open doors for you, pull out chairs for you, forever be in love with you - smiles bold, stories told, cards fold. The flowers, the car rides, the golden words spun into elaborate words of romance and passion. As she begins to let herself sink into it all, a love all consuming - then the husbands become cruel and resentful of their wives, and cheat and beat them. Romance is a fleeting thing that can never quite be captured, caged and hung in a locket around your neck in a tempt to prolong it.

In today’s day and age, romance doesn’t seem to be something on anyone’s radar. The older people get the more tired and disillusioned they are. Flowers are only given when there’s been a fight, or they’ve been caught cheating, not for romance, but for regrets.

Mum doesn’t like it when Dad’s romantic. He generally only does it on their wedding anniversary and she thinks he only does it to tell everyone that he has, rather than wanting her to feel appreciated. And I think I agree with her. It also stresses her out, because they don’t really have the money to be so extravagant, and she can’t even enjoy the flowers or the dinner, because the whole time she’s worried about how much it all costs and how this will affect their bill payments. I’m sure she’d much rather that he did all the cooking and cleaning for the week and folded the towels her way, and stopped making us fold the towels how he likes that. I guess romance in reality means fewer chores and more snores.

But I still hope for romance someday despite it all. I want a boy to throw rocks at my window. Well only if I lived in a two story house, and not in my little room in the garage, that would be quite scary. He could just come in and knock on my door instead. Or stand on my lawn with a boombox over his head, badly singing along to my favourite song, because he’s realised that all along it was me, only me that he wanted but he was so afraid of how much he felt for me. He’ll put on a little song and dance for me at school in front of everyone to ask me to prom, but in my case, the school formal. He’ll wear a tux even though that’s not really his thing, and get me flowers to go on my wrist, and wear a tie that matches my dress. Everyone would be so jealous of our love, and we’d just smile and say you’ll have your special someone out there.

On my wedding night, there’ll be rose petals scattered on the floor and all over the sheets. There’ll be candles lit and littered around the room, so many that he would have gone through a whole box of matches, and we could potentially open a candle store with how many he bought. There’ll be champagne in a silver bucket on ice and he’ll buy me diamond bracelets just because and everything will be perfect. We’ll be married at 23, after finding each other at 21, have our first kid at 25, cause everyone’s always talking about enjoying the time that you’re married before you have kids. We’d have a boy first, then twin girls, and then another boy. The eldest, always looking out for his sisters, and being a kind gentleman that puts everyone else first.

I always liked the idea of being a twin like Mary Kate and Ashley, the Sweet Valley High twins Elizabeth and Jessica, Zach and Cody. An inbuilt best friend who truly understands all of your thoughts and insecurities. There’s always one cool twin and one that’s focused on the studies. I’d be the one focused on my studies to do well at school, and we’d get up to hijinx by pretending to be each other. So because I’m not a twin, I figured it would be exciting to have twins myself. Four has always seemed like a good number, and then two of each would be perfect. And of course we’d have a golden retriever, maybe two. That’s what all the pretty mums with blonde hair and sunglasses have, golden retrievers. I wanna be like that. Be a stay at home mum, who does pilates everyday and has a glass of white wine once all the kids have gone to bed as she does her skin care routine and reclines on a ridiculously long white couch, even though she has children, they’re not allowed in the second lounge because that’s just for the adults. I only know about adults having their own rooms in houses because of one of my primary school friend’s houses. They had their own bedrooms, a play room, a lounge, and then a formal dining room that was for adults only. I couldn’t believe it, so many rooms for so few people. I don’t know what they did when they lost things? If I was rich enough to have such a large home filled with so many rooms, I’d either have to employ someone to find all the things I’ve misplaced, or have multiples of everything I own so it doesn’t matter if they get lost anyway.

Grace, my best friend sees things the way I do. She wants a big family too, where the boys are the oldest and they can protect their sisters. And our kids will fall in love and get married, and we’ll finally be sisters. She knows how important it is to have true romance in a relationship, and how not having sex before marriage is a good way to see if you actually like each other. She’s not a Christian which worries me a lot, but she does have some really good Christian values, so I figure God’s probably okay with that. We write each other love letters all the time, which does raise the standard a little high I think for the future boys we’ll date. The other day we both freaked out wondering how relationships actually work, because how can you tell a boy everything and connect with each other on as a deep level as the two of us do. On Greys Anatomy, Meredith and Christina call each other their person, and that’s what we are to each other, our person, our solemate. I feel so lucky to have found that in highschool already. There’s nothing like having a true best friend, one that you’ve chosen rather than one you’ve been forced to have because they’re the only option at school.

The bus is crowded on the way home, but I’ve managed to nab an aisle seat, arguably the worst seat. The man next to me is sitting with his legs spread wide and I have to make myself smaller and angle myself towards the isle, where literally no one knows how to walk down without knocking into me, even when I round my shoulders in. The scratchy seat fabric pinches at my legs, and I can feel my shirt sticking to my back. I try to edit out the image of Jacob being gross, and replay our conversation in my head, trying to remember what words he actually said. It’s probably our longest conversation that we’ve had, and he was so close to me, maybe if we weren’t in a class surrounded by all those people something could have happened. I wonder if we’ll either have one of those classic scenes of the good girl tutoring the bad boy and him being able to suddenly understand maths, or biology because of the way she’s related it to his life. That sort of stuff always makes me roll my eyes, but I also can’t look away. There’s something about seeing two beautiful people together saying bad dialogue, even when they don’t have the best chemistry, that makes you hope that you could have that someday. That’s what I want my highschool experience to be.

But instead, when I got home I scrolled on Tumblr for hours. Some times I head into spirals of fandoms about people who I don’t know and who’s shows I haven’t seen but due to the dedication of the fans - the edits, the video clips, the interview snippets, I feel like I’ve known their discovery for so long. It’s an interesting thing, like a deep dive into tiny snippets of someone’s life that you begin to feel affection for. Or to see their confidence on stage improve, and like you’re cheering on a friend, you feel proud about their growth. Today, I mainly ended up watching clips of Glee, Teen Wolf and Supernatural, where the fans ship unlikely pairings like Cas and Dean, but I can’t stop watching them. The fact that someone found these clips, cut them together, added music, and sometimes text to the scene is really quite moving. The dedication to it all! And who would have thought that so many people would band together on the internet for the shared love of it. I don’t repost anything, or create anything, I don’t want to risk anyone I know finding it. I like it to be a private thing that I don’t have to share with anyone and have a little community. I know that I’m interested in the same things as other people around the world. As cliche as it sounds, it does make me feel less alone, and that’s something I feel like I have to try not to feel all the time. Even though I’ve always had friends and people to invite to birthday parties, I’ve always been uncertain about where I stand with people. Like back when we used Bebo, my closest friend Charlotte (the one who gave me my first bra) never made me her other half on Bebo, and that felt like a stake right through the chest. Then she would do the little sections on her profile, where you’re supposed to write your hobbies, or your favourite books etc, and she’d dedicate each section to a friend, and I was always last with the least said about me.

At intermediate she was the only one who didn’t have any kids from her primary school go there like the rest of us did. So I decided to become friends with her. We got along well, we hung out with each other after school, we had sleepovers. She had two crazy dogs both with really coarse hair. It was the first house I’d been to where they didn’t have a microwave and heated up their food on the stove. This truly stopped me in my tracks, they also only drunk store bought water and she had all of the expansion packs of Sims. She doted her eyes with little hearts when she wrote, so I decided to do it too. She had nice, fat strong writing, and mine always looked uncertain. When she noticed that I was doing it as well, I alternated between doing round circles, stars and hearts. She said copying isn’t the biggest form of flattery as a throwaway comment. But I knew that it meant that she was not happy with me at one.

She’d talk in a way that she expected people to listen and be ready to repeat back what she said if she did a pop quiz later. She’d say all the time that she had thunder thighs and they were disgusting to look at as she shakes her legs that barely jiggles. She’d say that Playboy is a very cool brand to own when you’re 13. She had a belt, hoodie and glasses that one of her friend’s gave her. The idea of Playboy anything made me feel gross. I knew that it’s not an appropriate thing for a 13 year old to own, because even though I hadn’t had the sex talk I still knew what went on in the Playboy mansion and what the Playboy bunnies did. She’d make little comments like it was a service she was delivering, like a King visiting the peasants once every ten years to give out words of wisdom. But often what she had to say wasn’t very kind and stole away my replies from the shock of it all.

One day she decided she didn’t want to be seen with Michelle, one of my primary school friends anymore. At the time I had thought it was really out of the blue. But once she said that I remembered all the times she sighed when she saw Michelle, or rolled her eyes when she talked. I told Charlotte that I agreed, that we weren’t really friends anymore and I was just being nice to her because I felt like I had to. I was at the age when I had started to realise what made you stand out from your peers in a bad way. And I desperately didn’t want to be the one who would be left behind. One lunch we just ran away from her, laughing as we looped through the school seeing her chase after us looking confused, unsure if it was a game, or we were being cruel. She followed us for so long, that it was heartbreaking to see how long she held onto hope that it was just a game for. I felt terrible, and can still remember Michelle’s landline off by heart even though we haven’t spoken in years and haven’t been at the same school since intermediate.

Charlotte and I often got mistaken for twins, which I loved. She was a lot prettier than me, with thicker longer hair, and was a size 8. I don’t think I’ll ever be a size 8 in my life, but I took those comments as the highest praise. Boys flirted with Charlotte, she had kissed lots of them, went on dates with boys from other schools, and had her first kiss when she was nine. She had long lashes that were always clumped with mascara, wore mufti shoes to school everyday and had a Pinkilicious. She would start teaching me things, like not to smile without teeth because that made me look weird. That 13 was too young to have stretch marks, so I should be using my Mum’s bio oil. And that I should never wear or draw, or be associated with the colours purple and green because they were the national gay colours.

It was starting to dawn on me, Charlotte was actually a Cool Girl. She wore a Billabong jumper to mufti day, had a Supre tote bag and had on Roxy shoes and I wore a full brown outfit. Trackpants, and a matching shirt. I don’t know what compelled me to do that, but I liked how they matched, and very quickly I learnt that that wasn’t the vibe. Mufti days even sense then have always been a huge stress for me. Even though there was that one episode on Kim Possible that told us not to focus on brands, that the tiny little logo wasn’t worth the extra money and nobody would ever notice the difference. But they do notice the difference, the brand means a lot and no one every tells you how hard it is to not worry about what you’re wearing, and what other people will think about what you’re wearing. I remember Charlotte and her other friends calling my name that day. I was wearing my matching brown shirt and pants and I pretended that I couldn’t hear them. I was fighting back the tears worried about what hateful things they were going to say straight to my face. I don’t think they said anything in the end, just how it was weird that I was ignoring them, and that my outfit was very brown.

We drifted apart when intermediate ended. Not really drifted, it’s a strange turn of phrase that people say. It was more of an abrupt end of a friendship that was never addressed and we never saw or spoke to each other again. It’s weird how you acn see someone everyday, wear each other’s clothes, wear each other’s mannerisms, and inside jokes and then it’s like it never even happened. There’s a quote from Hannah Montana that really stuck with me that year “sometimes your friends come into your life for a reason, other times they can come into your life for a season. And that’s okay.” I still had other friends from intermediate who’d be with me when I went to college, so I always had that to hold onto. Michelle introduced me to a lot of things. One of the two biggest was C4. C4 is a channel dedicated to playing music.

Growing up I decided that I hated music. Katie would go through phases of listening to heavy metal, then rap, then Brittany and it caused so many arguments in the car especially on road trips. So instead of everyone arguing what CD to put on I decided that I would just hate music and that would limit the scope of the arguments. The one exception was Hilary Duff, who I’d have dreams of meeting where she’d want to be my best friend and mentor and she would always be her giving me things she got for free from award shows like ferbies and an iPod. My first and only CD I owned for the longest time was her first album. Come Clean from Metaphorisos was ahead of its time really, every time it rained I’d feel the song in the depths of my soul. I mean Hilary Duff ruled Disney and all of the best teen rom coms, I was obssesed. We had A Cinderella Story, Raise Your Voice and then the most iconic film to grace the silver screen - The Lizzie McQuire Movie. The producers must have know how much of an impact the film would have on teenage girls across the world, but everything was just so perfect. Then when I was 13 I got an mp3 player for my birthday and my whole life changed. Dad used to have a CD player walkman which we were hardly ever able to use, so to have something of my own where you didn’t need CDs I was over the moon. Dad had figured out how to download some songs for me, bless him. And it was mainly a whole lot of Avril Lavigne. No one ever talks about how much a teen girl needs a ballard to belt out about feeling alone in life. But you do, you do need it. So that was sort of my first real yet mild exploration of pop music.

The mp3 player and really appreciating Avril Lavigne, happened after this period of time. But C4 helped me to realise that I didn’t need to hate music, everyone around me just needed to be more respectful of the fact that some times people like music that you don’t like and that’s okay. There’s no need for a screaming match in the car or for CDs to be taken out of the CD folder and threatened to be thrown out of the window. I’d rush home from school and turn on C4. At first I nearly stopped because Katie made a huge deal about me who was supposed to hate music and hated whenever she listened to C4 after school and not Disney Channel. After swallowing down those repeative jabs, I could begin my study of popular music. I would get on top of the newest music and Michelle and I would talk on the phone as we listened talking about what songs and music videos we liked and which ones we didn’t. My time listening to C4 was really the biggest commitment I mde to look cool at school. Because of this, I already knew the lyrics whenever someone would pay the extra money to download the song as their ringtone, or download an illegal copy of the song off Limewire.

The second biggest thing I learnt from Michelle was Tumblr. That’s probably what I’m most grateful for from that friendship. It sounds like a pretty mean thing to say, but it’s actually a really thankful statement. Tumblr to me, is a place where I can just be myself and have no one observe me. You can find quotes on the internet that resinate with a niche element of your life, see cool clothes and artistic apartments, and start to build a patchwork quilt of imagining what your life could be if you were no longer a kid and you could have whatever you wanted. Or you can pretend to be a teen with long thin legs who wears tiny shorts and wears a plaid shirt around her waist, and has dark hair and can climb barb wire fences, then will drink a beer with the boys and smoke a cigarette. What I really enjoy, especially on the weekends or in the school holidays is finding new accounts and scrolling through all of their pages until I reach the end of their blog. The strange thing is often the edits are for gay relationships between two boys. It’s something I try not to think about too much. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to them, because I know that homosexuality is wrong and is a sin that you’ll be sent to hell for. But I also know you should share and spread only love and not hate. And seeing two men be gentle with each other, or the opposite because they’re so scared of their feelings feels more romantic than anything else. Sometimes there’s the odd edit of Hermione and Ginny being together, but I don’t like those. It doesn’t make sense for girls to like girls, and anyway, I obviously love Ron and Hermione together. But if I were going to entertain the idea of Hermione being with someone other than Ron it would be Draco, obviously, then Harry. Not Ginny. Also Ginny is such an ugly name.

After feeling guilty about being on Tumblr for so long and looking at pictures of thin women, I decided to read. It’s hard to concentrate on reading. I’m working my way through the Harry Potter series for the 10th time. I like to read it every year, and the second to last movie comes out soon so I like to brush up on the details. I used to have a Harry Potter trivia book, where I would get a 100% on the quizzes. I love comparing what they keep and what they don’t. Although, sometimes the films can be quite disappointing because they miss out on a lot of key things, and they’re not as funny as they should be. But I do love the magic of it all. It’s always something that I look forward to and while the books were still coming out I’d line up to be one of the first people to get them. I read the last two in a single day. So I guess you could say that I’m a chill person who is incredibly well-adjusted.

It was the first novel I ever read, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. We watched the film when it first came out and I try not to be the sort of person who asks questions in a movie, but I just can’t help it. There’s a scene where they have detention for being out on the school grounds at night, and then they’re sent to the Forbidden Forest at night. It doesn’t quite make sense why their punishment is the same thing that they got in trouble for, but maybe they were hoping to scare them into obedience. But something has been in the woods killing the creatures, which is a pretty extreme thing to send 12-year-olds to deal with. Anyway Hagrid discovers something silver, sticky and beautiful on the ground. I ask Mum what it is and she says “I’ll have to read the books to find out.” Hagrid says that it’s unicorn blood and I decide that yes I will read the books then. Even though I’m 7, I’ve always had an advanced reading age.

I’ve always loved Hermione, when I first saw her in the films and read her on the page, I felt seen. A nerdy girl who loves to read and study and be at school, who isn’t ashamed of her knowledge. It made me hold myself higher and feel less ashamed about wanting to get good grades at school. Especially since we’re now entering NCEA, and I want to get straight excellences, like Hermione would. Hermione never cared about her appearance, in the way that in sitcoms there’s one hot sister and there’s one nerdy sister. They can never be both. That’s like my and Katie, no need to waste any time figuring out which one I am. The nerdy girls who eat real food, who don’t eat salads, who always get seconds. Because when a girl is like that, who isn’t seen as superficial, that’s when a guy truly starts to fall for her. Because he can see that she’s not like other girls. Who bleach their hair blonde, starve their bodies and boss around their boyfriends that they don’t really like. A lot of relationships seem like that, like they can’t stand their partner. Like the whole ball and chain gag that guys laugh about, but then they’re the ones proposing? Like why bother if you don’t even like each other?

I fall asleep reading, my hand cramped from holding the page open that I was last one. I wake as my book crashes on the concrete floor. That’s one of the bad things about living in the garage, is that when you drop something on the ground it’s highly likely it’ll break. Not that I think my book would break, but it falling on a carpeted floor wouldn’t make much of a sound. I do have a rug on the floor so it’s less cold feeling, and it feels like a room, but it’s one of those ugly rugs that aren’t really rugs. They look like the things that you lay down on the floor of the car in the front seat that can come out. I’m not sure why they can come out, maybe it’s for cleaning. Another bad thing about living in the garage is that I got to choose the colour to paint my room. And no matter what colour a child or a teenager suggests, it is a bad idea. I don’t know what possessed me to choose the brightest, boldest, ugliest shade of yellow to cover my walls.