Yours, Juli

by Thalia Lark

  ‘I didn’t know then.’

  ‘You didn’t know what? That you didn’t have time for a relationship? Or that you weren’t into me?’

  My shoulders tensed, and I knew I just needed to tell him the truth, the truth about me, the truth about us, the truth about Alex – but I couldn’t.

  Harvey shook his head, closing his eyes briefly in frustration. ‘You just let me like you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, if I’d have known from the start that you just wanted to be friends, I wouldn’t have had to – you know, stop liking you. But you allowed me to like you in that way, and now…’ He shrugged, glancing at me sadly. ‘I’m going to need some time, Juli. I don’t know if I can be your friend again just yet.’

  I nodded, pressing my lips together. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I mean, it’s not how I wanted this to end, but…what can you do?’ He rose to his feet and tucked his hands in his pocket, and then he turned back to me with a puzzled frown. ‘I just don’t get one thing. Why pretend to like me for so long? I mean, there’s nothing to be ashamed about not being attracted to someone…’

  I hesitated, looking up at him, and then hunched my shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I just…I felt like I belonged for once – you know, with other people. I felt like I fit in.’

  Mrs Donovan bustled in suddenly and motioned her head towards the door. ‘Alright, young man, your time is up.’

  Harvey held up one hand in silent farewell. ‘Well, I’ll see you around then I suppose.’

  ‘Harvey, I—’

  ‘It’s fine. Really.’ Then he turned to the door without another word and disappeared quietly into the hallway.

  I felt a tear roll silently from the corner of my eye down my cheek. I reached up and wiped a hand across my face, my chest hollow with guilt. How could I have treated him like that? How could I have strung him along for so long? Friends didn’t do those sorts of things to each other. I’d become so wrapped up in secrets, I’d forgotten to stop and acknowledge that Harvey was a real person, a good, kind, wholesome person, a person with feelings and hopes and fears – a person who didn’t deserve to be lied to, and neglected, and used.

  I’d never expected to unleash such emotions when I first stepped foot in St Peter’s. I’d never expected to make such close friends. I’d never expected to be someone’s crush, or to let someone down, or to feel such sadness and remorse when I did. After a whole fourteen and a half years of caring for nothing and nobody except my animals, I’d never expected to feel love towards the people around me. It was a strange feeling, at that moment a buzzing mixture of grief and tension and regret, but it was a good feeling, a healing feeling, because it made me feel human.

  Weeping Beauty

  My temperature crept back up by nightfall that day, and my sinuses became so blocked I could barely breathe through my mouth. I blamed the rain from my night out with Alex; Mrs Donovan blamed my friends and refused to allow anyone else to see me that day. ‘It’s all this excitement that’s stopping your recovery. You’ll be fine as long as you rest.’

  Life trailed on dully until assembly Friday week, by which time I’d recovered enough that my only ailment was a partially blocked nose. I woke up expecting another day of mundane classes and study, and perhaps a movie of some sort in the recreation room after dinner. With so few weeks to the term left, nobody was really in the mood for any wilder forms of entertainment. Students were jumping at the chance to just relax every moment they could. I knew the weekend would mostly be spent with everyone’s heads submerged in their textbooks and revision sheets, mine and my friends’ included, so I wasn’t complaining about the choice of a quiet night in. Apparently though, the universe decided by that Friday that my life had been going too smoothly for too long.

  During assembly on Friday afternoon, Mrs Bentley took to the stage with a wide smile, adjusting the wire of the microphone around her feet so she didn’t trip. She looked around at the students all sitting cross-legged on the hall floor, and enthusiastically announced that two of the film and media studies students had been selected to enter their documentaries in a local film competition.

  ‘There’s a five-hundred-dollar prize on the line and Mrs Burnes has organised for the two best student works to be entered. In honour of the occasion I thought I’d ask the two nominees to present their documentaries to the school. Something a little bit interesting for you all in the lead up to the winter holidays. We’re all pretty tired of hearing me rattle out a list of missing property, aren’t we?’ A few students chuckled politely as Mrs Bentley gestured towards the back of the hall where the film and media teacher had set up the projector.

  While Mrs Burnes brought up a video clip on the screen, Courtney Goddard suddenly appeared from the sidelines and jogged up the staircase to the stage. She took the microphone from the principal’s hands with a quiet thanks and turned to the awaiting crowd of students, smiling confidently and shrugging. ‘Hi everyone. Well… We had to choose a social issue for this assignment. I decided to base my documentary on the experience of sexism within high school, and the modern-day defiance of female stereotypes, so…I hope you enjoy it.’ She nodded up the back and gave someone the thumbs up, and then the video began.

  Courtney’s documentary introduced her topic with a calm voiceover and short clips of teenage female representation from television sitcoms from the sixties and seventies. In most of them the girls were leaning against walls or tables in classrooms giggling and hiding their mouths with their hands, surrounded by boys who were clearly asserting their authority over the conversation. I watched with little emotional involvement at first, even admiring the way Courtney had put the documentary together; however much I disliked and distrusted her, I had to admit she had artistic skill. I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts to really take the significance of the documentary on board though.

  Then suddenly, Courtney’s voice on the video said: “Of course, teenage girls of the twenty-first century do not fit this classical representation of the meek and modest little lady. We run, fight, snore, fart and – as you’ll soon see, drool – as much as any bloke these days.” And following a short clip of some of the senior girls playing soccer on the oval, my face suddenly filled the screen.

  My mouth fell open in complete shock. I felt my stomach drop and my face turn hot as I recognised my features lying sideways across my pillow. My eyes were closed and my mouth parted as low snores issued from my throat. But that was not nearly as bad as the sudden beam of light that fell on my chin, where a thin line of glistening saliva was running onto my pillow. There were hisses of suppressed giggles from the video as an eruption of laughter ran around the hall. I felt my fists clench against my stomach and my teeth grind together in my mouth as wave after wave of humiliation washed through me.

  I could feel Lori and Emma’s shocked glances at me as I stared at Courtney watching her video from the side of the stage. The clip changed at that moment, but I didn’t even attempt to register what came next. My eyes were trained on Courtney as I felt every cell in my body charge first with deep disgrace and then anger. I knew she could be trying, and blunt to the point of rudeness, but I hadn’t thought even Courtney could stoop to such a malicious level.

  ‘Did you know she took that?’ Lori suddenly whispered, leaning towards me.

  ‘No.’ My voice was low and flat with repressed fury, and I simmered in silence until the end of the two demonstration videos when everyone was dismissed from assembly. I rose carefully, watching Courtney as she slipped out of the hall and disappeared towards the dormitories. I started to make after her as the rest of the students milled around us, moving to the exits in one large, noisy colony, but Lori carefully looped her arm through mine and pulled me in the opposite direction.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go chill and do something fun, maybe go to the library or down to the tennis courts.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I said.

  �
�Punching her lights out isn’t the answer,’ Emma said, taking hold of my other arm. ‘Let’s go tell Miss Wheaton so we can sort it out civilly.’

  ‘You think I’m going to be civil after she filmed me drooling in my sleep? You’ve got to be fucking joking.’ I yanked my arms from theirs and started off after Courtney before they could respond, ducking around a group of chattering twelfth graders in front of us. Admittedly I had every intention of strangling Courtney to the point of asphyxiation, and then burying her body where nobody would ever find it, but strangely enough, when I caught up to her halfway to the dormitories and grabbed the back of her blouse, pulling her around to face me, I found my hands didn’t fly at her quite as fast as I’d thought they would.

  ‘How could you do that?’ My voice was low and livid, but my fists were safely clenched by my sides.

  Courtney narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. ‘You gave me permission to use footage of you…remember?’

  ‘I gave you permission to use footage of me in the background. I didn’t give you permission to illegally film me sleeping – and drooling – and use that as a leading premise against the female stereotype.’ I shook my head, grinding my teeth and glaring at her with fury. ‘You are so going to fail this semester when I tell Mrs Burnes about this.’

  Courtney’s expression stiffened suddenly. ‘You wouldn’t dare tell,’ she said, advancing a step on me. I still had an inch and a half on her in height, but this time the deceitful glimmer in her eyes was forceful enough to make up for any physical advantage on my behalf. ‘What are you planning to do? Go and complain that I didn’t seek permission and that you’re so embarrassed you might die now? Besides, what’s telling going to do now? Everyone’s already seen the video.’ Then she smirked. ‘You were a blast. I could not have been more blessed with that flu you picked up. I’ve never seen someone drool in their sleep like that. I thought it was something that only happened in books and movies.’

  I massaged my fingers against my palms. ‘Don’t try and pretend like you’re not scared now. I know how much you pride yourself on your grades. I’ll be going to the principal this afternoon and telling her what you’ve done, and if you’re not sent to juvie for unlawful filming, at least you’ll fail the assessment and be eliminated from that stupid competition.’

  Courtney scowled at me. ‘You won’t tell.’

  My expression caught slightly at the tone of her voice, the arrogant confidence that made it sound as though she somehow had something on me. ‘And why is that?’

  She leaned closer to me, a vindictive smile on her lips, and lowered her voice so nobody walking by could hear her. ‘Because I know about you and Alex Calvin, and I have a stunningly unattractive snapshot of you two making out behind the tennis courts, and if you tell about the video, I’ll put that picture up during next assembly instead.’

  I felt my heart drop like a lead balloon, but I continued to glower at her resolutely. ‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, come off it,’ Courtney said. ‘I’m not so stupid as to continue believing whatever ridiculous pretence you’ve been trying to uphold. And the photo on my phone might not quite do you both justice – not with the way your faces are all mashed up together – but there’s definitely no mistaking who it is. So if it made its way into the assembly slideshow perchance, everyone would learn about you two. And I do mean everyone – students, staff, guests, friends… Perhaps I could even ask for it to be livestreamed back to your whacko family…’ She raised one eyebrow at me in mock perplexity. ‘Now, I’m going out on a limb here and presuming that we don’t want it spread around that you’re a lesbian, otherwise we wouldn’t be going to so much effort to hide it, am I right?’

  I was lost for words suddenly, staring at her in shock. Of all the things she could have had against me, photographic evidence of me and Alex was the last thing I had expected. I thought about the severity of what Courtney could do if I came clean about the video. It would have been one thing for her to threaten to tell a few people. It was a whole different matter when she had a photo – a photo that would simultaneously publicise my most innermost confidences, reveal to the entire world all the lies I’d constructed, humiliate both me and Alex, possibly ruin the relationship we’d built over the semester, and deeply wound my friends whom I hadn’t trusted enough to tell. With all this spiralling through my mind, Courtney’s blackmail left me too shell-shocked, terrified and powerlessly angry to devise any retort more creative than: ‘You are such a bitch.’

  ‘Of course I am.’ Courtney shrugged as though the fact was not unfamiliar to her. ‘Nobody ever gets their way being a kiss-ass. Anyway, we understand each other now.’ She nodded approvingly, her eyes round and innocent. ‘If you tell on my award-worthy documentary – which is more than capable of winning that competition, not to sound big-headed or anything – then that picture will be up and ready the second everyone walks into assembly next Friday. Or maybe I’ll just print out a few hundred copies at the library and pin them up around the school,’ she added musingly.

  ‘People will know I didn’t give permission for it anyway,’ I said. ‘I’ve been talked about enough already what with the shit I’ve done around this school. I’m fairly sure people will realise that I didn’t want you to publish me drooling in my sleep.’

  Courtney shrugged as she slowly backed away towards the dormitories. ‘Well, we’ll soon see, won’t we?’ Then she smiled. ‘Look on the bright side, Julianne. You were a hoot.’ Then she waved tauntingly and slipped off before I could give tangible rise to the fury tingling in my knuckles.

  I glared after her and clenched my fists by my sides. Courtney wouldn’t hesitate a second to publicise that picture if she didn’t have her academic reputation hanging in the balance. But the last thing I needed right then was the whole world to learn about Alex and me, especially like that…I hadn’t even told my best friends, let alone the classmates and teachers who still had a shred of respect for me. So instead of seeking out Mrs Bentley about the video, a thought I’d entertained only very briefly before coming to my senses, I walked with deliberate care up to the tenth-grade dormitory, climbed the ladder to my bunk, stretched out on my stomach and pulled the quilt up over my head. I buried my face into my pillow and started to cry silently, tears of humiliation, fear and stress dripping onto the fabric as my whole body shook with repressed sobs.

  I held my breath and cried for a short while before rolling onto my side under the doona and taking a few long deep breaths. The air between me and the blankets rapidly became hot and steamy with moisture, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull back the covers. I just closed my eyes and tried to imagine that I was anywhere in the world except St Peter’s Boarding School, anywhere where I didn’t have to face the hellish realities of existence on Earth. I stayed under the blankets for a long time, feeling as though my whole world was slowly collapsing around me, and unable to see anything but black tentacles of anxiety reaching out towards me and threatening to drag me under where I could never escape.

  I didn’t realise I’d fallen asleep until a blast of cold air suddenly hit my clammy face, and someone started shaking my arm to wake me up. I blinked groggily, my eyes dry and crusted with salt from crying, and then I glanced down my bed to see Lori leaning over me from the ladder, frowning with exasperation.

  ‘We were looking everywhere for you! Have you been here the whole time?’

  I nodded a little, frowning and reaching up a hand to rub my stinging eyes free of crust, feeling dazed and disoriented. Lori crawled onto my mattress and stretched out beside me as I rolled onto my back and kicked the covers to the end of my bed slowly. I plucked my shirt off my stomach and fanned my abdomen for a moment as she settled against the pillow, and then as we stared at the ceiling in silence, my subconscious seized the opportune moment of my post-sleep stupefaction, and forced my lips into fumbled speech. ‘Hey, Lori…’

  ‘Yeah?’ Her tone had relaxed again after th
e frustration and worry of not being able to find me.

  I took a deep breath and gazed upwards vacantly. ‘You know Alex?’

  ‘Alex Calvin? Sure.’

  ‘Well, I like her,’ I said. ‘You know, like…I really like her. Like you like Gideon, you know?’

  Oh my God, I thought, my mind reeling with shock. I did it. I actually did it.

  The silence that followed perturbed me. I waited tensely while she absorbed and contemplated my out-of-the-blue confession. ‘Well…’ she paused suddenly, her tone an indecipherable mix of confusion and sorrow, and then she turned her head to frown at me. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me that? It would have saved so much trouble, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ I reached up to rub my nose with the back of my hand shamefully, willing the moisture suddenly burning in my eyes not to fall. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Lori took a deep breath in silence, and then as tears started running down my temples, she rolled over slowly and looped her arms through mine, hugging my arm to her chest and resting her chin on my shoulder. ‘It’s okay, you know. It’s okay to be who you are. We’ll all still love you.’

  I smiled a little. ‘I’m sorry for lying.’

  ‘I pretty much knew the truth anyway, so in a way, you sort of didn’t lie to me. I mean, you did, but I could see right through it. I should really think about going into psychology, you know. I could be like one of those criminal profilers on television.’

  I blubbered out a laugh.

  Lori was quiet for a moment, and when I glanced over at her again she was smiling. ‘So tell me what she’s like,’ she said.