Yours, Juli

by Thalia Lark

  I couldn’t get to sleep that night. My eyes were heavy and itchy with exhaustion, and my body felt like it might sink through the Dead Bed’s mattress with fatigue, but unconsciousness refused to capture me. I tossed and turned to such an extent that eventually I heard a quiet “Juli, shush,” from across the dormitory. After that I sat up and rubbed my face tiredly with my hand. I decided to take a trip to the restroom seeing as sleep was impossible.

  I stood in front of the mirror for several minutes after splashing my face with cool water. Then I sighed and rested my forehead on the cold mirror, staring into my bloodshot eyes and hating how similar their brown hue was to my mother’s. I imagined her standing behind me, gazing at our white, tired faces side by side in the mirror.

  ‘Get back to bed, will you?’ she said, folding her arms over her chest. ‘You shouldn’t be up wandering around the school at this hour.’

  I gazed at her blurred outline as she frowned at me, wishing she could find something tender and loving to say, wishing she could find something about me she was proud of. Then I stared vacantly at my reflection and focused on the cold glass against my skin, raising my arms to press my knuckles to the mirror gently. I knew I was still in shock after what had happened. There was a part of me that still couldn’t believe my own mother had attempted such a thing. I’d thought self-harming was something only teenagers with low self-esteem did, or drug addicts going through rehab, or prison inmates. It was something people only heard about on television or about people they barely knew who’d suddenly dropped out of school. It wasn’t something that family members did, or even close friends… And it especially wasn’t something that a mother did.

  Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen her since she’d been taken to hospital; maybe I just hadn’t grasped yet how bad a state she was in. Perhaps I simply just couldn’t fathom how anyone could be so unbelievably selfish. But I found my eyebrows tightening together as a sudden surge of anger gripped me. How could she have done this? Hadn’t there even been a tiny part of her that still cared for me? Didn’t she understand that by hurting herself she was removing herself from me even more, abandoning me to a cold and uncaring world without my own mother? Not that she’d been into the warm, protective parent-figure before then, but still… My chest started to tighten as I wondered whether she was safe in the hospital. Surely the nurses wouldn’t leave her alone for a second now this had happened. Nevertheless, I couldn’t relinquish the fear that somehow, just somehow, she’d manage to try it again.

  As tears started rolling down my pale cheeks, I pushed away from the mirror and ghosted back out of the bathroom door. The hallway was chilly, forcing me to cross my arms over my stomach and hunch forward to preserve heat as I tiptoed down to the eleventh-grade dormitory. Without thinking it through, I climbed up the ladder of Alex’s bunk, casting a quick glance over the long figure under the blankets before hauling myself onto the mattress silently and crawling to the head of the bed. She woke up with a start and raised her head as I tugged back the corners of her sheets and wriggled in beside her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, not sounding overly alarmed.

  I snuggled into the warmth of her bed, nestling my back against her front and shivering as she wound an arm around my waist and scratched her fingers comfortingly against my stomach. After holding me quietly for a moment, she retrieved her phone from the corner of her mattress and flicked it on, reaching one arm under my neck to handle it. I blinked groggily against the light from the screen, watching as she set her alarm for five, only four and a bit hours away, before sighing as darkness enshrouded us once more.

  She relaxed behind me, nuzzling her lips in my hair gently. ‘You okay?’

  I shrugged tiredly, my forearms resting over the top of her hand against my sternum, my fists curled loosely against my throat. I closed my eyes, focusing on the warmth of her body behind mine to keep the chilling thoughts of my mother well away from my consciousness. Then I dozed on and off for the remainder of the night until Alex’s alarm rang quietly at five, and I had to steal through the freezing hallway back to my own bed.

  Human

  I awoke that Wednesday night to the unnerving feeling that I’d just been wrapped in a horrible nightmare. The room was dark save for the dull glow of the night-light by the door. I could hear steady breathing around me and the occasional rustle of sheets. My head was pounding behind my eyes and my whole body felt heavy and hot; I’d felt a little washed out the day before, but hadn’t thought I’d actually become ill. I tried to roll sideways and felt a wave of nausea wash through me as my head spun and small pinpricks of light flickered in my vision. A low groan escaped my lips as I settled back on the pillow. ‘Lori,’ I moaned.

  There was a rustle from the end of my bed.

  I folded my arms over my face, my limbs feeling like they’d been weighed down with lead plating. My head felt like it was about to explode, my eyes swollen shut and burning with involuntary tears and my body aching and stiff. ‘Lori…’

  There was a loud swish of sheets. ‘Juli, was that you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I took a deep breath and willed my stomach to settle. ‘Can you…’ I swallowed uneasily. ‘Can you get a teacher?’

  ‘Are you alright?’ I heard her push back her sheets and the groan of her bunk as she climbed down the ladder swiftly. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can you – just get someone?’ I licked my lips as my mouth filled with saliva, and a wave of incomprehensible fatigue rolled through me. I felt the throbbing behind my eyes intensify and the skin on my face simmer with heat in the darkness. I kept still as a dull ringing sounded in my ears, until a shadow fell over me and a cool hand suddenly touched my forehead.

  ‘Juli? It’s Miss Wheaton. What’s the matter, honey?’

  ‘I’m – not well.’

  ‘Can you get down from your bunk? I’ll take you down to sickbay.’

  I nodded, grimacing as my head pounded with more intensity than the morning I’d woken up in hospital with a hangover. I kept my eyes squinted closed as I pulled myself upward and inched my way to the edge of the bunk, feeling my way down the ladder. Halfway down my vision was overcome with silver sparkles, and I felt my body sag and tip sideways, my grip loosening dangerously from the top rung. More than two hands caught me and held my weight until through the spinning vertigo I felt my toes touch the carpet.

  ‘Come on, honey. This way.’

  Miss Wheaton and Lori supported me, presumably all the way down to the sickbay. I didn’t register walking at all, my vision too blurred to make anything out. I felt invisible hands pulling me along until suddenly I dropped sideways onto a mattress. The stars swimming in my vision gradually faded until I was able to make out the empty beds in the sickbay around me, illuminated by a soft yellow glow. My head sank into a pillow and throbbed steadily as a hand pressed its palm to my forehead and I recognised the nurse’s voice beside me. I felt a thermometer poked under my tongue, and I frowned in the dim light, too exhausted to move.

  ‘Forty-two.’ Mrs Donovan sounded grave as she pulled the instrument from my mouth. ‘Jen, go soak a hand-towel in some cool water from the tap. I’ll fetch some paracetamol.’

  I felt hands adjusting my position on the bed, but the pain in my head was too intense to pay much attention. I rested limply against the pillow, sweat rising on every inch of my body and making me shiver. A cool, damp towel was placed over my forehead, providing a small amount of relief from the indescribable heat that was coursing through me.

  ‘Here honey, sit up for me, just a little bit, there you go,’ Mrs Donovan said.

  Someone propped my head up with a pillow so I could take two paracetamol. I breathed through my nostrils as the cool flannel was wiped over my face again and then down my bare shoulders and arms. It felt nice, and I felt my muscles relax a fraction. I closed my eyes and rested against the pillow, my pyjamas soaked with perspiration, and gradually I felt the pain in my body lessen and the heaviness
of my limbs lift slightly.

  ‘I thought she looked a bit pale last night,’ Lori said suddenly. ‘She came in from outside the night before at twenty to eight with soaking wet clothes.’

  ‘She must have caught a chill,’ Mrs Donovan said.

  ‘She’s been rather rundown lately as well,’ Miss Wheaton said.

  ‘Well, it’s done now. She can stay here overnight and I’ll keep an eye on her. You two get back to bed. You can come visit her in the morning, Lori.’

  I heard retreating footsteps, and then a gentle exhalation from Mrs Donovan as she sat on the edge of my mattress and wiped the cool flannel over my arms again. ‘Just get some rest now, love. You’ll feel better by the morning.’

  I nodded and gradually drifted into unconsciousness.

  I opened my eyes hours later to the sickbay lit with sunshine. I blinked and rolled onto my back, pulling myself up into a sitting position and rubbing my sweaty forehead as vague memories of the night flickered back in idle waves. I frowned. My head was pounding and my body felt clammy and washed out, but I knew the temperature had gone and I was feeling a good degree better. As the mattress creaked underneath me, Mrs Donovan appeared from the small kitchen and storeroom attached to the sickbay. She smiled briskly as she carried a steaming cup of tea over and placed it on the table beside my bed.

  ‘A bit of ginger and lemon tea to perk you up.’ She drew back to inspect me shrewdly. ‘How do you feel? You still look pale.’

  I shrugged tiredly with one shoulder. ‘Okay.’ My voice was hoarse and my throat was burning uncomfortably, so I accepted the tea gratefully and sipped at it, swilling the few drops of hot tea around my mouth.

  ‘You must have caught a chill from the rain.’ Mrs Donovan tutted her disapproval as she shook her head. ‘Honestly, what were you doing outside at eight o’clock at night in the rain? You kids have absolutely no sense whatsoever.’

  ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Quarter past nine.’ She felt my forehead with her hand and nodded. ‘You just stay here and drink your tea. I’ll fix you some breakfast in a little while. I think I have a few books in the office you can read to keep yourself occupied too.’ She bustled off towards the kitchen.

  I watched her leave and then reached a hand up to pluck my singlet from my chest. The underwear I was wearing was damp with perspiration. I hoped I’d be able to take a shower soon, or at least change out of my pyjamas. I didn’t feel light-headed anymore, which was a good start.

  Mrs Donovan watched me like a hawk over the duration of the morning and made me drink tea and lemonade until my bladder was on the verge of bursting. Then she insisted on staying outside the door of the small sickbay restroom while I relieved myself in case I felt faint. I dwindled the first few hours of the day away browsing through some magazines, until the lunch bell rang from outside the dormitory complex and five minutes later Lori, Emma and Harvey appeared in the doorway looking flustered. Smiles lit their faces upon seeing me awake, but they faded quickly when Mrs Donovan advanced on them with her hands on her hips.

  ‘What are you three doing? I hope you’re not here to excite her too much.’ She narrowed her dark eyes. ‘Any excitement and you’ll have to leave.’

  They all nodded obediently, making me laugh a little in amusement.

  ‘Hey, Juli,’ Lori said breathlessly, dropping her workbooks on the floor and dragging one of the plastic chairs against the wall beside my bed. Emma and Harvey sat down on the edge of my bed.

  ‘We’ve been so worried,’ Emma said. ‘Mrs Donovan said you were doing alright when we came this morning, but you looked like a ghost against the pillow.’

  ‘It’s just a bit of flu.’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t come sooner.’ Harvey reached out a hand and squeezed my foot under the sheets affectionately. ‘I only heard in Modern this morning. How are you feeling?’

  I shrugged. ‘Alright. I need to pee again though. Mrs Donovan’s made me consume half a tank of fluid this morning.’

  ‘I heard that, missy,’ the nurse’s voice snapped through the kitchen doorway.

  I made a guilty face and my three friends stifled quiet laughs behind their hands.

  ‘You didn’t miss much in modern history,’ Harvey said. ‘We’re still watching that documentary, but we didn’t get very far because the DVD player wasn’t working for most of the lesson.’

  ‘That sounds about right.’ I raised my eyebrows. Mrs Bailey was a lovely woman, but she could barely set her digital watch, let alone mend a DVD player. ‘I’ll catch up on the film in my own time. Hopefully I’ll be back at class tomorrow.’

  ‘Only if I deem you well enough.’ Mrs Donovan appeared suddenly with a thin Vegemite sandwich on a plate and another cup of tea. She set them on the bedside cabinet and nodded her head towards them firmly. ‘If you eat well today and don’t have a temperature by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, you can return to your schoolwork.’

  ‘I hope you feel better by English tomorrow,’ Lori said, grinning impishly. ‘We’re having a relief teacher because Mr Warner’s away visiting family. That means two whole glorious hours of mucking around and talking.’

  We chatted nonchalantly for another five minutes until Mrs Donovan reappeared, noticed I hadn’t touched my food, and ushered my friends out with mutterings of disapproval. Harvey gripped the doorframe tenaciously as the nurse tried to shepherd him outside, and he begged to be allowed to talk for me for two more minutes.

  Mrs Donovan glared at him. ‘Fine. Two more minutes.’

  Lori and Emma waved and disappeared outside as Harvey sauntered to the edge of my bed and sat down again opposite my hips. He smiled a little awkwardly and rested his books on the mattress beside him, staring at the sandwich on the bedside table.

  I appraised his worried face and frowned, waiting in silence for him to explain his consternation, and in the meantime retrieving one of the triangles of my sandwich and nibbling on the corner without the crust. I eyed it appreciatively, looking up at Harvey only when he drew in a breath and sighed.

  ‘Juli…’ He hesitated, his eyebrows drawing together as he glanced at me. ‘I was talking to Lori the other day. About you and me I mean.’

  I nodded, chewing slowly and bracing myself.

  ‘I’ve tried so hard up until now to – you know, form a substantial relationship with you. I’ve asked you out on dates, I’ve tried to talk to you away from the others, I’ve been wanting to kiss you for weeks now, and I’d really, really like you to be my girlfriend,’ he hesitated. ‘But I can’t help feeling like something’s…amiss between us.’

  I narrowed my eyes and prepared to respond, but he continued before I could, reaching out a hand to pick up mine. I tried not to pull away, uncomfortable by the roughness of his fingers.

  ‘Juli, I’ve liked you since you first moved here, you know that.’ He stroked the back of my hand with his fingertips. ‘But you don’t seem to be in this as much as I am, and it’s not going to work if you aren’t. I know you’ve had a lot going on lately, but I wish more than anything that you would just take a little time out to tell me how you really feel.’

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  Harvey set his jaw, his eyes narrowing determinedly. ‘Alright…’ Then without warning he leant towards me and pressed his lips stiffly to mine. I felt him part his mouth to pull on my bottom lip with his, kissing me with fervour. I felt such a surge of shock and revulsion that I reached out one arm and shoved against his chest aggressively.

  ‘Harvey, I’m sick,’ I said, my tone irritated and breathless.

  He sat back, looking stunned, then raised a hand and wiped two fingertips over the corners of his lips. ‘Wow. Okay then.’

  I sighed, closing my eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry, Harvey. I know you wanted that to be romantic and sweet and…I know that was seriously rude of me to just push you away like that.’ I paused, gazing at the bed sheets and knowing I couldn’t hold up this charade anymore. It wasn’t fair to Harve
y…and it wasn’t doing me any good either. Despite the months of confusion and fear and deliberation as to how I should go about ending things between us, I found suddenly that the words just started to tumble off my lips as though I was no longer in control of them. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I wish I could like you and want to go out with you the way you like me. But…’ I shook my head, avoiding his eyes. ‘Harvey, my life’s just so complicated right now. I have so much going on and I’m having to put so much effort into my schoolwork and my mum’s in hospital and I can’t go home and I just don’t have any energy to put into a relationship right now.’ I finally looked up at him. ‘You’ve been such a good friend to me, and I like you so much. I really do mean that. But – I can’t date you, I’m sorry. I hope you can understand that.’

  He was silent as he processed, and then he forced a smile on his face and nodded.

  ‘If circumstances were different – if they were easier, if I didn’t have so much shit in my life, then…I’d date you, of course,’ I said, looking into his warm brown eyes and momentarily believing it was true. ‘But I can’t right now.’

  Harvey was silent for quite a while, and then he nodded slowly as though he was gradually coming to grips with all that. ‘Okay… Okay, I think I understand.’

  I scrutinised his face nervously. ‘Can we still be friends?’

  He met my eyes. ‘Friends as in…until your life has settled down? As in, with the prospect of becoming more?’

  I bit down on my bottom lip. ‘I don’t know.’

  He nodded slowly, his brows drawing together until finally he raised his head to look at me squarely. ‘Maybe we should just stay friends then. Because I don’t think you want more than that… No, its fine, Juli, really. I mean, if you’re not attracted to me – well, you’re not attracted to me. You can’t choose who you fall for. I just wish…’ He frowned, staring at the bedclothes with a mixture of grief and frustration in his eyes. ‘I just wish you’d told me all this a few months back.’