There’s a football scrummage I don’t go and see, because I’m not a masochist. They play blokey movies in the auditorium instead of maths. Ms H makes us perform one last Shakespeare excerpt for her. I pick the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliet, because it feels most appropriate to summarise this year.
(Thus with a kiss I die.)
We clean the desks in our home rooms until there’s barely a trace of us left.
The seniors have Leadership Day on the last day of the year. My entire grade is herded into an abandoned staff room above shit block. The Sniffer pulls out all the stops and hires an external rep to keep us occupied.
There’s a lengthy video from the nineties to start, all about capital V Values. We do actual trust exercises for a while afterwards, Vince falling back heavily in my arms.
‘OW! Catch harder, Hamlet. God.’
I grunt and shove him upright. ‘How does one catch harder?’
‘Like this,’ says Ged, yanking Harrison sharply backwards by his blazer. Just before he hits the deck, Ged sticks his hands roughly through Harrison’s armpits and his knee into the small of his back.
‘Catching, not impaling!’ Harrison snaps, rubbing his tailbone and glaring at Ged.
After that, things get serious. For the middle session, a projected boxy Word Art heading appears on the whiteboard that reads GOING DEEPER.
‘Christ,’ Ged says under his breath.
The facilitator dims the lights and asks us to all sit cross-legged on the stained crimson carpet.
‘What would you say,’ he opens once we’re quiet, stroking his goatee pensively, ‘if I told you that you don’t really know anybody in this room?’
No-one answers him.
‘The answer I was looking for was … enlighten me! Which will be our theme for this afternoon. Enlightening your peers about your freshly minted young-adult selves, before you step out into the rest of your lives.’
The room is a groan.
‘A theme within a theme,’ I whisper to Vince. ‘Excellent.’
‘Kill me.’ He shakes his head. ‘Seriously.’
We split off into groups – The Boiyss gravitate together out of habit, save for one.
I (stealthily) find Len in my periphery. He’s expressionless but very bright, sitting back on his hands with one leg crossed over the other two groups down from us. Green socks.
Goatee man hands out butcher’s paper. ‘I want you to reflect on how you’ve grown this year,’ he says, weaving through the groups and narrowly avoiding the several rogue legs attempting to trip him over. ‘Perhaps focus on writing down one thing you’ve learned, and one thing you regret.’
The next communal groan has a lot of swearwords in it, but we half-heartedly do as we’re told. I grip my pen, unsure what to write.
Ged writes, luv hurts but life doesnt always. Keep trak of ur illegal tackles. Vince writes, Emo isn’t a look, it’s a feeling and not causing more anarchy then grins when I pull a face. Harrison puts, productive/destructive.
In the end, I go with, take the path of least resistance, purely because it fits both categories.
We sit looking down at our writing scratched into the crumpled yellow page. It’s not much; it’s a lot. The sum of this world that’s about to be over. A full stop.
Then we watch the final scene from a football movie to round out the message of growth, and Goatee dismisses everyone for a quick lunch break.
I don’t let myself look at Len again, but I do volunteer to stay back and clean up all the pieces of paper so I can perve-puzzle over his answer.
I roll the sheet from his group into my hands until I hit his familiar handwriting. All I can see without being totally conspicuous is CORDIUM.
(Huh?)
I stare at the letters until they blur, then give up being stealthy and twist the paper around so I can see what he’s put next to it: COR.
Is that Latin? I recognise it but don’t remember where from.
My brain sifts through memories haphazardly, until it lands on our term one poetry unit: Percy Shelley’s grave.
I scrunch the paper harder in my hands for a second. That’s all he took away from this entire year? Really? The Romantic stylings of Percy Bysshe Shelley?!
I think we had an argument about Shelley and cor cordium. I put forth … what was it? That his friends just wanted something cool to whack on the headstone? That it was an over-dramatic sainting of the dead.
Len totally took me down. He said it was meant to be a summary of the way Shelley lived, what he believed. Because it means … ‘heart of hearts’.
Everyone starts filing back into the stuffy Trust Growth Sharing Room. I hastily shove the papers away in a cupboard up the back.
‘For this final hour,’ Goatee man intones, ‘I want you to share what you wrote in the last – what you’ve learned this year. Introduce yourself, your pre-adult self, to your peers.’
I fidget, crossing and uncrossing my legs. My mind’s spinning off the charts while everyone gets up on ‘stage’ (a theatre block shoved against the wall) one by one.
Most guys take the piss, apart from Martin Finch, who makes such a go of congratulating himself he’s lucky not to get laughed offstage.
Jake Clarkson’s is a litany that ends with, ‘Yeah. I learned I’m a total legend, basically.’
Harrison and Vince pike it. Ged gives a brief spiel about football and girlfriends and passing biology, and then it’s my turn.
Walking up to the front, I’m thinking about Percy Shelley.
I’m thinking about Len, and all these sweaty sweary bodies between us.
I picture this week as a full stop.
I picture Seth Cohen.
A thought strikes me. I grab its rope, and then I’m climbing up onstage. Clambering, really. It’s definitely more difficult at North than it looked in Orange County. I almost fall.
When I look out at my grade with their uniforms already half taken off, I think that Goatee man has it wrong. These aren’t my peers. They’re just people – most of whom don’t matter and maybe never did.
‘Ahem.’ I’m projecting my voice but it still cracks a bit, for the first time in my high school public speaking life. ‘OI!’
‘Go ahead, son,’ Goatee says encouragingly. ‘Tell us what you’ve learned.’
‘Um,’ I start. ‘I just, er, just wanted to address something.’
‘What’d he say?’ someone hisses from a group near the front.
‘I think he wants to do one of his captain speeches.’
‘Didn’t they just elect the new one?’
‘God. So far up himself he can’t even see.’
I take a deep, deep breath. Down to my feet. ‘Er, no,’ I say. ‘Not quite. I just want to share something I …’ Pause, swallow. ‘Learned.’
I look out at the sea of faces for the one I need.
Len’s eyes meet mine. Green-blue-grey.
I take another breath. ‘We’ve been told a lot this year about figuring out who we are. And I still don’t have any of the answers I wanted. I actually don’t even think it’s possible to have answers at this point. Only questions. But I learned this year that the thing about questions is we get to choose the ones we ask ourselves.’
Most people in the crowd are either pissed off or amused. A few guys nudge each other and laugh.
Len doesn’t. After a beat, he inclines his head slightly. Go on, then.
I square my feet. ‘Um. I’m Henry Hamlet.’
‘We know that, dumb-arse!’ someone shouts. Then it’s dead quiet; everyone’s listening.
‘I’m a Capricorn,’ I say clearly. ‘I’m into writing, and debating, and …’ (Oh God, Seth Cohen’s elevator pitch had Death Cab for Cutie and mine’s debating, but there’s no turning back now.) ‘Kissing boys.’
My heart is
the only sound in the world.
‘I mean, technically it’s just the one, so far. Not that that’s important. He is, though. Important. The important part is I liked – like – him, as more than a friend, by a lot. And the only bit about it I regret is keeping him in the back of my head for so long.’
I look at Len again.
He’s watching me so steadily.
‘So – yeah.’ I let out a breath that’s almost a laugh. ‘That’s me. That’s what I learned. Thanks, I guess.’
When I brave another glance at the crowd, there’s a collective domino-effect of blank frowns and ‘whatthefucks’, but it’s peppered, unless I’m imagining things, with a sort of begrudging respect.
Eamon Matthews claps. Jake Clarkson’s mouth is hanging wide open. Travis Burrell’s too. Ged’s standing up, Harrison trying to pull him down. Vince looks like he just won a bet. Goatee man is frozen.
Ms Hartnett is by the door with her laptop poised on her knees. Her hands are cupped on both cheeks, as though she’s trying to stop her smile from flying off into the popcorn ceiling.
Len hasn’t moved.
My victory haze fans back like the Red Sea, awareness creeping in. Of how high up I am and the fact that I’ve just effectively declared myself, in front of all of grade twelve, after we broke up.
It’s so silent you could hear a chicken nugget drop.
There’s no sweet music, no fade out to credits like Seth had. Just the twin realisations of how many eyes are on me, and the fact that someone is definitely going to have to help me get down.
There’s movement at the back of the room. Len stands up and walks towards me. Purposefully, with his face set.
Everyone’s unwillingly transfixed, like we’re an amateur theatre performance that just got really good.
Len reaches up and takes my hand. Holds it.
Then I’m back on the ground.
Ms Hartnett jumps up. ‘All right everyone, off to period six! Come on – the bell’s about to ring.’
‘But Miss!’ Clarkson says.
‘Out!’ Ms H forcefully herds him and the rest of the boys away.
I look at Len. His jaw is tense, a hundred different things playing across his face. ‘Alarm’ is probably the one I’d pick if I had to choose. Me too.
He’s still holding my hand.
Then the bell rings, and he spins away to go to class.
I stare after him for a bit, my head humming humming humming.
Goatee man looks like he’s about to talk to me so I walk out too. I have a study period next, so there’s no-one to miss me while I re-gather my wits in the corridor.
IsaiditIsaiditIsaidit.
It’sout.
The world didn’t end.
But it’s still taking my bones a while to snap back into place.
Eventually I make it to the library. I slip into one of the far tables unnoticed, leaning against a bookshelf and breathing hard. There’s a weight missing from my chest; I can’t decide, yet, exactly how it feels.
I pull out my notebook and pretend to write. Then I check my phone for the time.
I don’t let myself think about him.
What he must be thinking. What I said. The way I said it.
My hand burns dully where he touched it. Then someone else touches it, and I jump out of my seat.
‘AAAH!’
‘Henry,’ says Martin. He’s standing behind me mottle-cheeked and urgent.
‘Finch?’
‘May I speak with you?’ he asks, eyes intense.
‘O … kay?’
We stare at each other in mutual unease, before shuffling over to the deserted nonfiction section. The librarian is watching us beadily, so we shift further back, towards a banner reading I Love Geo.
I dig my hands into my pockets and cough. ‘Uh. Sup?’
If I had any adrenaline left it’d join the party around now, but I feel like a deflated balloon. I want to go home. Whatever this shit show is going to entail, it had better be quick.
Martin pulls an atlas off the shelf. It’s got a blown-up picture of an iceberg on the front, a tiny peaked white top sticking out of the water and masses of fluorescent blue underneath. He flips through it for a bit before sliding it back into place.
‘I wanted to say …’
I tense and wait.
‘I never knew you had that much depth to you,’ he says in a shocked rush. ‘Or any.’
I raise my eyebrows as high as they’ll go. ‘Are you joking right now?’
‘No!’
‘Or just … weirdly trying to insult me?’
‘No. Sorry! That’s not what I meant!’ Martin looks as horrified by this situation as I feel.
‘What I mean is,’ he pushes on, ‘it was really … brave, what you just said. Did. Out there. It was sort of incredible, actually. I mean, I’ve never felt that way about anyone, not even close. And I just wanted to come and tell you that.’
‘What?’
‘I always thought you were just a pretentious, argumentative bastard,’ Martin continues, moving his head from side to side in disbelief. ‘And God, I’m … sorry, I suppose. That I didn’t look harder for what was underneath.’
I gape at him.
‘You never do know the full extent of someone, huh?’ he says. ‘We’re all icebergs.’ Then he sticks out a hand so sincerely that his blazer sleeve slips and gets stuck to his chunky watch.
Martin Finch is extending the literal hand of friendship. Maybe the world did end, after all.
Cautiously, I reach out and shake his hand. My palm is sweaty, and he doesn’t even say anything.
‘I mean, I am all those things you said,’ I stammer stiffly, trying to tether this back to some semblance of reality. ‘As well as … you know. Having depth or whatever.’
Martin shrugs. ‘And I am an insufferable know-it-all.’
‘You heard that?’
‘A few times. I have a bit of an eavesdropping problem.’
‘I’m sorry too. And sorry, you know – that I beat you for captain.’
‘Nah.’
‘You deserved it more.’
He smiles a bit. ‘I think what you just did sort of disproves that.’
‘Um … Thanks,’ I say.
‘We’re not going to be, like, bros now, are we?’ Martin jokes.
I smile a bit too. ‘Definitely not.’
He turns to go back to class, then stops. ‘It’s been a pleasure hating you, Henry.’
‘Back at you, Fin— Martin.’
26
‘You’re going.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are!’
‘I’m not! I don’t need to.’
‘Yes, you bloody well are and yes, you bloody well do.’
‘Billie,’ Dad interrupts. ‘I don’t know if this is the most productive way to handle things.’
I’ve decided, in retrospect and after sleep, that going to graduation is impossible. I’m sweltering in my bed underneath all the pillows in the house, a tiny breathing hole my only means of communication.
‘What do you suggest?’ Mum is whisper-yelling at Dad in the hallway. ‘Our son is graduating from high school today – we can’t just allow him to not go.’
‘I agree,’ Dad says soothingly. ‘I just think a bit of sensitivity—’
‘I am being sensitive!’ She’s whisper-shrieking now.
‘Guys,’ I say. ‘You realise I can hear everything you’re saying.’
‘Good!’ Mum snaps. ‘Then you can—’
‘I’ll handle it,’ Dad cuts her off.
Mum makes a frustrated sound, but retreats downstairs. ‘HAMISH! Are you dressed?’
The bed creaks as Dad sits down. I stay under my pillows, which I plan to keep doing f
or the entire night.
(Possibly for the rest of my life.)
‘Hen,’ he says tentatively. ‘Can you come out for a minute, mate?’
I heave a giant sigh and move the pillow covering my face aside. ‘I can’t go, Dad.’
Dad pats my foot. ‘Why not?’
I pull the pillow back over my face and stare into the cotton until it burns my eyes.
After intense deliberation, I mumble, ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Who?’
‘Len. Okay?’
Dad shifts at the end of the bed. ‘What’s he done? I know you’ve had some kind of fight, but surely—’
I sit up, rogue pillows falling to the floor. ‘He didn’t do anything! I did.’
‘You’re gonna have to unpack that one a bit more.’
I breathe out hard through my nose.
Dad folds his hands, the same hands as mine, under his chin. ‘Tell me.’
‘That your shirt is offensively bright for nightwear?’ I stall.
He blinks, unaffected. Dad genuinely doesn’t care what anyone thinks. It’s why his art is so good.
‘Give me something here, champ. I’m trying.’
I look up at the stars on the ceiling.
‘Len,’ he prompts quietly, and my gut twists. ‘Am I allowed to ask about it yet?’
I sit up straighter and rub my eyes under my glasses. ‘You can ask.’
‘Okay!’ he says, rallying. ‘Okay. So …?’
‘Um … Yesterday I sort of … told everyone. About me. About us.’
Dad’s eyebrows mash together. ‘Was it a secret?’
‘Have you forgotten where I go to school?’ I snap. ‘You can’t just be gay. Especially if you’re school captain, and about to deliver the keynote freaking speech. And it’s over now anyway, for good I think, even though I said … So it doesn’t even matter! Any of it.’
Dad frowns deeper, but he doesn’t interrupt my tirade.
‘Sorry,’ I say, flopping back down on my pillows. ‘I’m a shit. It’s just …’ I trail off and we sit there together for a while. When I can’t stand it any longer, I slap my hands against the doona.
‘You see, right? I can’t possibly go tonight.’
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