I think about telling her. For four and a half songs.
We find a car park and walk through the campus, coming to a stop under the shade of a tree outside the stoic off-yellow Law Faculty building. There’s a band playing, and the air smells faintly like freedom. I breathe in deep and watch as Emilia disappears inside.
I wait, clutching a shiny course brochure while a sun shower starts up. It’s humid – the claustrophobic Brisbane kind that clings wet to your skin even when you’re asleep. Baked flower petals hiss across the cement and stick to the bottom of my shoes.
‘Okay, I think I’m done,’ Ems says when she emerges fifteen minutes later. ‘Are you done?’
‘So done.’
We get lunch from a stand selling sausages in bread. There’s an amphitheatre cut big and grey into the hill directly beside it; we dump our goodie bags and sit down.
‘What do you think?’ Ems asks, taking a bite.
There’s a blond guy coming out of the admin building across from us – my heart stops for a second.
(Not him.)
I try to focus on Emilia and not on the chaos that has become my life.
‘I could definitely see us here,’ she prompts, wiping mustard off her cheek.
‘Yeah?’
‘Mmhmm. Having cute brunches we can’t afford when we should be at a nine o’clock class.’
I smile through the pain.
‘All you have to do is decide what you want to do,’ she finishes, flicking onion off her sausage.
‘Is that all?’
‘Preferences are due in a month. Have you picked yet?’
‘Working on it,’ I lie.
Her forehead creases. ‘Is something going on with you? You can tell me.’
Mind reader. I stuff half the slice of bread into my mouth. ‘No.’
She hesitates, watching me chew, then says bluntly, ‘Because your mum sort of asked me if we’ve kissed, when I picked you up.’
I drop the rest of the bread in my lap, appetite evaporating like a humidity mirage. ‘She what?’
‘Actually, she said, “Are you the flu-tongued assassin?”’
‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’
‘Don’t worry.’ She pats my hand. ‘I set her straight. My standards aren’t that low yet.’
‘God!’ I say again. My mouth is drier than the bread. ‘What a wishful … she’s in …’
Ems is watching me carefully. ‘Did you kiss someone?’
(Oh God.)
I look away and take a rushed breath, furiously picking petals off the toe of my shoe.
My pulse is so loud I wonder if she can hear it.
How do you even begin this conversation? There’s no dry run, no way to be sure of the outcome.
So I stall.
‘I mean … define “kissed someone”.’
‘Did you put your mouth on someone else’s mouth?’
‘Um. Technically, they put their mouth on my mouth.’
‘Technically?!’ Emilia explodes, then sees the terror on my face and reins herself in. ‘Wait. At Ged’s thing?’
I can taste metal. ‘Yeah.’
‘But wasn’t Jess the only girl there?’
‘Um.’
I watch it play out across her face. Agonisingly slowly.
Ems was with me when I sent a ten-page fan letter to Ben McKenzie from The OC’s PO box when we were thirteen. It’s why I chose her, both this weekend and in year two, but still.
This is maybe the worst wait of my life.
‘… It was someone from North?’ Her voice is soft.
I nod once.
She tucks her hair hard behind both ears. ‘So then … what? Did you … do you think …?’
My skin feels too small for body. I can’t say it. But I’ve come this far, and I have to keep this focused on me so she doesn’t twig the rest; Ems is even more protective of Len than I am.
I shrug helplessly.
‘Wow.’ Ems blows out a breath. ‘Sorry! But – wow!’
I can see her mind whirring, analysing which is the right question to ask first.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this? We’ve been together all day!’
‘Because I was freaking out about it! Am freaking out about it. And I was … I don’t know. Worried, I guess.’
Ems frowns deep and serious. ‘About what?’
I pull my glasses off and wipe them on my shirt. ‘Just – that things might be different, with us. Or, I don’t know – weird. Because it’s like a … development.’ I have to force myself to keep looking at her.
Her eyes go big and wet. Mine are burning. She takes my hand and holds my fingers tightly, even when I try to pull away.
‘Oh, Hen – no. You’re finally physically interacting with another human being – I’m excited!’
Something very heavy lifts off my chest.
‘But,’ she bites her lip. ‘Do you … like him, this person who kissed you?’
Panic pours down on my head. I yank my hand away.
‘Henry.’
‘I don’t know! It all happened kind of fast.’
‘Well, do you want to do it again?’
(No. Yes.)
Yes.
I grimace.
‘Then there’s your answer!’
‘What the hell do I do with that, though? With all this, like …’ I let it in for a minute, the swirling in me. ‘Looking at someone and just … remembering it all the time.’
‘Sounds to me,’ Ems says sympathetically, ‘like you’ve got a crush.’
‘Ew. No, I don’t.’
‘Okay. You’re blushing, but okay.’
‘I am not!’
‘You are! Henry Hamlet with a crush. The world’s not ready.’
‘I want to go home now, please.’
‘We definitely need coffee first.’
‘Home. Take me home—’
‘And then I’m gonna try to guess who it is.’
My stomach doubles over. ‘No!’
‘Also,’ she says, suddenly serious again, mascara smudged under bright eyes. ‘You know what I mean, right? About us. Sometimes I look at you and think: you could literally murder someone in cold blood and you’d still be stuck with me, probably forever.’
I exhale hard relief and let her have my hand again. ‘Back at you, kid.’
I’m definitely not saying who.
Probably forever.
When I get home, I go to Gatsby. (But only because we need to get our script done this weekend.)
I pull out my English notebook and lie in bed with the window thrown open, starting where Vince and I left off at the end of chapter two.
Nick gets stuck on a night out with Human Trash Tom Buchanan and his mistress, then goes off with the photographer guy, McKee. Even though it’s cooling down outside, my face is white-hot when I write in my notes: Nick in bed with McKee ... looking at photos ... then wakes up at train station.
Next up is Nick meeting Gatsby. I write: N describes G’s smile like this is a Kmart romance novel.
Gatsby’s nervous reunion with his lost love Daisy and Nick organising it even though he knows it’s a bad idea: N wants what’s best for G; for G to be happy regardless of anything else.
Daisy hitting Mistress Myrtle with her car and Gatsby taking the fall: N thinks G secretly fragile? Protective. Doesn’t tell him he was wrong to do that.
We’re basing our Nick script on chapter eight, the last time he sees Gatsby alive. N tells G he’s worth more than all the characters put together … Worships him?
Lastly, I flip to chapter two again.
Nobody got it, in class, why the Mr McKee scenes are the only bits of the book where the action’s cut out by dot-dot-dots.
I read through it ag
ain, chewing the cap on my pen and trying to think like a drunk novelist in the twenties. The thing is, Nick’s a decent judge of other people, but he’s also pretty delusional about himself.
Afternoon cold blows through the window. When I close the book, I’m shivering.
I hesitate for a minute. Then I add to my notes: Fitzgerald dot-dot-dots the stuff N doesn’t want to feel.
(Which is what, Hamlet?)
(… What?)
I throw the book over my face and inhale its paper smell until the room is washed by night.
After a while, I get up and go downstairs to sit with Ham. I pull him into my lap even though he’s too big for it now, his sweaty lavender-smelling hair tickling my chin.
‘Hen?’ he says with his eyes on the Disney channel.
‘What is it, buddy?’
He swivels to look at me. ‘Are the Jonas Brothers nice?’
‘Um …’ I try to pull my head into the moment. ‘Probably? Yep. Yes.’
‘Gran said they’re man-fat-heads.’
I translate that. ‘Manufactured?’
‘Yeah,’ he says seriously. ‘But I like them.’
‘Well, then you can.’
‘Oh.’
‘You can like whatever you want.’
‘Can I?’
‘Course, Hambam.’
‘Then I do!’ he declares, turning back to look at the screen.
Ham squishes into my chest like a log for a full hour. I almost manage to focus on him. (But of course, the best one out of these dudes would be called Nick.)
I flip open my phone and stare at Len’s number. I start to type r the JoBros even real until I remember nothing is right now, and throw my phone on the opposite couch.
Before bed I pick the notebook up again. I find a new page without switching on my lamp and try to write my way out of my thoughts, but all that comes is a mess of scribbled sentences all bleeding together:
I’m losing it because I kissed you /
Because I kissed you I might lose you.
10
Our monologues are due the following week. We spend most of our lunchtimes practising in the drama room, and opt to perform ours first up on the day.
Vince unravels even more than me.
‘Can’t believe I let you talk me into this,’ he spits when we’re standing side-stage.
‘You’re Gatsby,’ I remind him. ‘Literally all you have to do is die.’
‘I’m not like you, mate!’ he cries. ‘I can’t act. I dreamt last night that I sat up halfway through the performance and started talking.’
‘What’d you say?’ I ask.
‘I said, “fuck the police!”, but I think that’s just because – oi! Stop laughing.’
‘I’m not,’ I lie.
‘It’s not funny,’ he hisses. ‘I’m going to make a complete arse of myself, I know it.’
I put my hands on his shoulders. ‘You’re not, because I won’t let you. I’m not losing my A.’
‘You ready, boys?’ Ms H calls.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Vince whimpers. ‘Sorry, Jesus.’
‘Focus.’ I steer him towards the stage entrance.
We’ve brought Ham’s paddling pool in, filled and tugged to centre stage with Ged’s help at recess. Vince delivers his death soliloquy woodenly but word-perfect, then bursts the little packet of fake blood in his chest pocket and falls theatrically into the water while I wait in the wings.
I’m wearing grey slack-type pants and a white shirt with faded suspenders I got from Gran, and vintage glasses with lenses so strong I can’t see (even more than usual).
I/Nick rush into the scene, making sure my face hangs with the appropriate amount of devastation.
I start my speech off slow, building momentum. After a bit of effort, I even manage to make myself tear up. I’m relieved that it’s dead quiet when it’s time for the final lines.
I understand where Nick’s coming from. He’s proud and naïve at the same time. He resists how deep the connection with Gatsby goes – says he wants to stop lying to himself but runs scared, most of the time.
‘You were more myself than I was.’ I sob over Vince’s suitably lifeless body, then turn towards the audience. ‘We toil our days in vain dark, searching for a light whose very nature is to elude us: hope. You had it in spades, friend – and mine goes, here. With you.’
I lean into Vince’s wet chest. He doesn’t start trying to sit up/rise from the dead until the lights dim and the class are clapping half-heartedly.
‘Bravo, Henry!’ Ms Hartnett cheers.
We take our bows, linking arms under the shaky spotlight operated by a year seven kid somewhere up the back.
‘Gayest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,’ Jake Clarkson mutters.
‘Jacob!’ Ms H calls severely. ‘I have ears. And you now have a lunchtime detention.’
‘That was the point, dumb arse!’ Ged hisses hotly.
‘It’s called acting,’ Vince spits.
Clarkson drops his voice, and fixes his gaze on me. ‘Looked pretty real to me.’
I flush fury red to my eyeballs. ‘Yeah, it looked like an A. Same way yours is gonna look like a D.’
‘Ooh! A D,’ Clarkson repeats in falsetto. He and Travis crack up.
Ms H calls out the next group and Vince yanks me towards the change rooms.
‘So, nice job,’ Len says when we’re filing out for lunch.
I look up. (What?) ‘Yeah?’
The Boiyss run ahead, jumping on Vince and miming being dead.
Len stops walking. ‘Yeah. The bit about the two boats anchored together was cool.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’
It stormed this morning but it’s clear now, puddles on the footpath drying.
He reaches to pull off his school jumper. ‘Ah. Help,’ he says in a muffled voice when the jumper and his shirt are both half over his head, his face and arms swallowed by red wool.
Without thinking, I grasp the bottom of his shirt where it’s come untucked and pull down. My fingers brush against his bare back – the dimpled bit, right at the base of his spine.
And then I am thinking. A lot.
I’m thinking about muscles under my palm and acting, and how the skin of his face feels softer or at least it did under my thumb. I’m thinking about Jay Gatsby, and are we really all just walking around in jumpers made out of nerves because right now every single one of mine is switched on.
There’s no rulebook for this. I mean, who gets it this bad for their best friend, after one stupid kiss? It’s positively Shakespearean; the real Hamlet’s got nothing on me.
Len’s head finally pops back into view, hair mussed and his collar askew.
The sun makes his eyes glow almost green, colour threading through carefully, the way light does in water.
Martin’s emergency year level meeting about the formal takes place the next morning, all of us stuffed between two of the science classrooms with the adjoining wall collapsed.
‘As you know,’ he begins, ‘the formal is fast approaching. And due to some unforeseen admin complications, we now don’t have a venue.’ He stares at me for back-up.
I look up guiltily from scanning the pairs of eyes for Len’s. ‘Er, yeah. That’s right.’
Martin looks livid. ‘So,’ he continues through his teeth, ‘we’re taking a vote. Now.’
I find him then – back row, legs dangling, sitting on top of a lab table with Harrison.
‘Uh.’ I clear my throat. ‘Who wants to do the hotel function room and just pay the late booking fee?’
A few hands raise.
‘Okay. And, uh, the community hall?’
A few more hands.
‘Right, so … all those in favour of just using the gym, like they did last year?’
‘Weren’t we gonna do that anyway because then tickets are like ten bucks each?’ Ged pipes up. Len leans forward, laughing, to whack him on the shoulder.
‘Yeah.’
Fifty hands shoot up. Martin’s eyes start to water, his elaborate ballroom fantasy catching fire.
‘Right,’ I call it. ‘It’s decided, then! We’re having it in the gym. Thanks, everyone.’
This outcome is both good and bad. Good because it gets Martin off my back. Bad because it means all we have to do organisation-wise is consult the list of vendors the Sniffer gave us, and I have to go back to regular school programming.
Except not, at all.
The space between Len and I dissipates post-Gatsby. He pulls in close again, as close as we’ve ever been. We sit together in every class we share. We pair off in conversations at lunch, we argue in modern history. The other guys don’t question anything – it’s just balance restored, things as they should be. As they’ve always been.
They are for him, at any rate.
For me, it gets a bit … weird.
It’s physically painful, all of a sudden, to be near him. I try to write it off as just another aspect of our friendship, but I look for him. Constantly. I’m tense until I know he’s in the room. I clench my hands to keep from loitering by the lockers when I know he’ll walk past.
There’s something simmering under my skin too. It squirms in my chest every time I’m around him. And when I’m not. When I’m studying. When I’m sleeping.
I can’t even begin to unravel what that means, so I push it away. Blessedly, schoolwork consumes us in the coming weeks and I barely stop to shower, let alone think.
I put my uni preferences in – Creative Writing and Journalism, though I’m not sure of either, at both the big unis.
I squeeze formal and debating preparation into the limited free time I have, grateful for the excuse to keep my head as busy as possible.
Martin and I get special dispensation from the Sniffer to leave classes to confirm the caterer, decorators, DJ, etc. I milk it like an engorged cow, dodging the classes I share with Len as often as possible. The teachers are obliging, and nobody notices I’m barely ever where I’m supposed to be, except Finch, who can’t snitch because he’s doing the same.
Any leftover spare moments are dedicated to distracting myself.
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