by Sarah Ayoub
I like the sound of her excuse and wonder if that makes me a bad person.
‘I get where you’re coming from,’ I say. ‘But there’s too much heartache and drama already. I don’t know if I want to go there.’ Except, of course, I desperately do.
‘Go out with me and make him jealous,’ Thomas says.
We all crack up laughing at the suggestion, including Thomas.
‘But seriously, Soph,’ Sue goes on, ‘I know you want to get over it and move on, but I don’t see how that’s gonna happen. I’m your friend and I love you, but I gotta dish it out. I mean, I can practically see the frisson in the air when you’re talking to him.’
‘The what?’ Jacob asks.
‘Sue’s been poking fun at Sophie about frizzing something or other for ages now,’ Nicole says, shrugging.
Sue laughs. ‘The frisson – you know, the thrill, the chemistry. She likes him, he likes her. Problem is, he’s scared to do anything about it now, because you’ve made it clear you want nothing to do with him. And you’re prepared to live in the shadow of what could have been, because you’re too proud to admit the ex doesn’t matter.’
‘What is it that you like about him?’ Thomas asks, sitting up.
‘Nothing anymore,’ I say. ‘He lied to me. But you know what, it’s not like it’s a big loss. We were always like this – friendly, then not. Getting on and agreeing about everything, then criticising each other like it’s Question Time in Parliament. We’ve always fought over dumb things.’ I continue harping on about it.
‘See, even now you can’t stop talking about him,’ Thomas says.
‘At least I can stop talking,’ I counter.
‘Yeah, not today, you can’t,’ he replies, elbowing me.
I can’t avoid Shehadie forever. I know this because he seeks me out just as much as I seek him out. And even though I don’t want to admit it to anyone, myself included, my fragile heart could use an explanation.
He finds me at my locker just after lunch. I’m frantically trying to find my unit of study outline for Business, hoping it will shed some light on what I should be revising for the HSC. The bell has already rung, and yet I can tell he wants to talk.
‘Sophie,’ he says, drawing out my name in a long breath.
My back is turned to him but I can hear his pain. The scorned woman inside me is overjoyed that I have the power to hurt him, and wants to whip around and yell and scream at him. But the seventeen-year-old girl just wants to know why. I go with the seventeen-year-old girl.
‘Why?’ I say.
He swallows. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know why you’re going out with her? Or you don’t know why you lied to me about it? Or you don’t know why you kissed me in public knowing there was someone else in the picture? Which of the above questions do you not know the answer to?’
‘I’m not going out with her, I swear!’ he says. ‘I swear to God, Soph, it was never like that. I’m not like that.’
I peer at him, trying to let the anger in me win the arm wrestle with the tears.
‘Don’t swear to God,’ I say. ‘Especially when I know nothing about your reputation.’
‘I can swear to God because I’m not lying,’ he says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. ‘And there are aspects of my reputation that I’d rather forget, but when it comes to Jen … Well, she and I have a long history that’s hard to explain.’
I turn my back on him and slam my locker door shut. ‘You have a minute,’ I say, still facing my locker. ‘Explain to me why you kissed me in the middle of the dance floor at a party in front of bitchy, gossipy people. When you know I’ve never had a boyfriend, let alone kissed anyone, so it might have meant something to me.’
He doesn’t say anything. I turn back to face him. There are tears in my eyes. ‘Tell me, Shehadie.’
‘I didn’t know you’d never been kissed.’
‘Is that all you can say? I trusted you, you bastard. Don’t say you didn’t know, because you knew everything. You knew me and my pathetic life and my struggles with my family and the dramas with my friends. You knew it all! That kiss was what I needed to be happy, you stupid, spineless, arrogant arsehole, and now it’s ruined like everything else. What kind of person kisses someone when they have a girlfriend?’
‘Will you just listen to me, Sophie?’ he says, exasperated.
‘Don’t you dare raise your voice at me!’
‘Shut up and let me talk,’ he growls, stepping forward and backing me against the lockers, one arm on either side of me. If it wasn’t so awful it would be sexy. ‘I’m not seeing her. It’s been over for ages, and even then it wasn’t anything. I’ve grown up with her.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘A history. This just keeps getting better and better. Just go away and leave me alone.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong! You gotta stop letting those stupid girls make you feel shit about yourself. You’re better than that.’
I stare at him through my tears. ‘Are you taking her to the formal?’ I ask softly, looking away so he doesn’t see the hope in my eyes.
‘Only because I promised her ages ago. She’s taking me to hers too. Not that I really want to go after that football game. It’s only because –’
My death stare cuts him off. ‘I don’t want to talk to you ever again,’ I whisper, shoving past him and walking away as fast as I can.
I’m halfway down a flight of stairs when he leans over the rail and yells out to me. ‘Come on, Soph, please.’
I ignore him.
‘Seriously, what about class?’ he says.
‘Stuff class,’ I say through my tears, and run to the toilets and vomit. Then I sit on the toilet seat for the entire period and cry.
23
I hate it when the truth makes sense
The next week the cops come back to the school to investigate a few leads. It’s all we can talk about. In Society and Culture, Mrs Cafree gives up hope of a normal lesson and asks us instead about our uni preferences. She gives me a funny look when I tell her my first choice is accounting at UWS, and I wonder if Dad is the only person on this planet who doesn’t know it’s totally wrong for me.
‘Well, good luck, Sophie,’ she says, then does her best to steer the conversation away from the police investigation by telling us how much she’s enjoyed the essays we wrote after our debate. I’m surprised when she singles me out, saying I put forward very clever arguments.
My high is cut short when Zayden sniggers at the back of the room.
‘What’s your problem?’ I yell out. ‘Seriously?’
‘I’m laughing because you just got commended for arguments that probably don’t make any sense,’ he scoffs.
A few people chuckle, but remarkably I don’t care.
‘To ignorant people like you, I’m sure,’ I respond.
‘Wow,’ Sue whispers next to me. ‘I like the Sophie who speaks up.’
‘Whatever,’ Zayden says. ‘You just keep telling yourself things to make you feel important.’
‘You know what, Zayden, I will. You, meanwhile, can continue to act like a thug. I’d suggest making the most of it while you’re in high school, because clearly you’ve already peaked and this is the best it’s ever going to get for you. Shame it’s practically over, ay?’
‘Sophie,’ Mrs Cafree warns.
‘Sorry, miss, but someone’s gotta say it. I reckon everything we think we know now is going to change when we finish school.’
‘You’re right about that,’ she says, smiling. ‘And at the risk of sounding like I’m taking sides, which I certainly don’t want to do, I must say that your essay made some very interesting observations on stereotypes. If you’re interested in that kind of thing you might want to look into taking some social science subjects at uni, or doing an arts degree.’
I nod vaguely.
‘What was your essay on, Sophie?’ Daniel Sleiman asks as we leave the room.
‘Um, I just wrote abo
ut how our parents needed to adjust to being here, but that our generation needs to mesh the old and the new together because we’re the glue between the two cultures.’
‘That’s really interesting,’ he says. ‘Good for you, Sophie.’
Later that afternoon, Sister Magdalena walks a group of us down to the school common room, where the police want to show us a few pictures. They’re probably afraid that if they do it in a bigger group, we’ll all stay quiet.
I feel nervous when I enter the common room, but I don’t know why. I doubt that I’ll know anyone in the pictures, considering I spend all my spare time inside my house.
One of the police officers, a hottie named Constable Christie, notices my concern and reassures me that they do this all the time and there’s nothing to worry about. Of course, he’s going to say that – he has no idea what it’s like to be a Lebanese girl torn between two worlds.
They show us what seems like hundreds of screen shots and eventually I start to relax. I have no idea who any of these people are.
‘Why did it take so long to get to this point?’ I ask. ‘The brawls were in January.’
‘It’s a long process,’ Constable Christie says. ‘We had to tie in what footage we had with witnesses’ statements about who was in the street. It was a busy night of celebration, and not everyone who was on the street that night was there to vandalise property.’
‘We go through mobile phone records, look at our notes and the footage from traffic cameras, then we speak to witnesses again,’ a female officer adds. ‘For example, if we identify a car, we’ll question the driver, which may lead us to a passenger who knows more. Maybe they remember another car that they parked behind or across from, which had persons of interest in it. Basically, we go down a range of different paths to get to the right one. We’re dealing with younger people too, so we need to make sure they’re willing to talk, and if they do that they’re not lying. We check everything.’
Rita’s in our group and chooses that moment to speak up. ‘Wait,’ she says. ‘Go slower, I recognise someone.’
‘Okay, think carefully,’ Constable Christie says. ‘We’ll take as long as you need.’
I roll my eyes as Rita starts talking about how she’d seen two boys at a party. I bet she’s just trying to impress the cops with how popular she thinks she is. I start to doze off when I hear a gasp from Sister Magdalena behind me.
‘Oh, wow,’ Rita says. ‘That’s a boy in our class. His name’s Zayden. And look, Sister, there’s that Abdo guy from Year Eleven.’
‘And Mr Yacoub from Year Ten,’ Sister Magdalena says slowly.
On the screen, a group of boys from our school are standing in front of a shop. With them, looking like he’d rather be somewhere else, is a boy I’d know anywhere.
‘Can you zoom in?’ I say in shock.
The boy is attempting to cover his face with his hoodie, but I recognise all five foot, seven inches of him.
‘Who is he?’ Constable Christie asks, looking at me.
I can see Rita is about to answer for me. Rita, who’s just sentenced an entire group of boys from our school to police questioning. Rita, who has a jubilant look on her face for having gotten me at last. I can’t give her the satisfaction of saying it. So when she opens her mouth, I beat her to it.
‘That’s my brother,’ I whisper, and the world comes crashing down around me.
‘I don’t know why I went,’ Andrew says. ‘I thought it was stupid. But all these other boys were going and they were all fired up. That Malouf guy sent us all text messages – he said we were insulting our culture if we didn’t go, and my friends were all saying he was right. So I just went along with them.’
I feel sick to my stomach as I listen to my brother’s excuses for what is probably the dumbest thing he’s ever done in his whole life.
Andrew and my parents are in the living room, but I can hear them talking from my spot at the top of the stairs. I peer through the railing and see Dad sitting in an armchair, head bent, hand on his chin, his index finger and thumb resting on either cheek. He looks as if he’s trying to hold his mouth closed when it very much wants to yell about the latest failure of his family. He’s been sitting in the same spot for hours, ever since he found out that Andrew had bowed to peer pressure and become a vigilante for a cause he had no idea about. I’m glad Sister Magdalena called with a warning before the cops arrived, otherwise they may have gotten here only to see Dad kill his only son with his bare hands.
‘I honestly wasn’t thinking,’ Andrew says. ‘I just wanted to do something. They made me feel as though our family was being attacked.’
‘Oh, this is not about your family, you stupid boy!’ Dad yells, rising from his seat. ‘This is about you and your stupid decision-making. Your failure to think things through. Your inability to see past your own selfishness. Where was your brain that night, Andrew? Didn’t you think of the consequences? Couldn’t you have stopped for one moment to contemplate how your mother would have felt if something had happened to you? What if you had hurt somebody and had to go to prison?’
‘I wouldn’t have gone to prison, I’m not old enough –’
‘But you are old enough to know right from wrong! Even Marie is old enough to know, and she would have made a better decision than you. People were injured that night. People were attacked while going about their everyday business. How would you have felt if someone had attacked me while I was taking out the garbage, would you have liked it?’
‘No! But we were trying to prevent that from happening in the first place. The mob –’
‘The mob was you, Andrew,’ Mum says quietly. She’s sitting opposite Dad, next to the son they both thought could do no wrong. ‘All of you young boys, barely hatched out of your eggs. The country was outraged at those men in Cronulla – drunk, disorderly, uneducated. And then you and your silly friends had to go and be exactly like them, and worse. What did you achieve, you silly boy? You lost sight of everything we raised you to believe! How many times have we taught you to be like our Lord in a confrontation? If you had turned your other cheek that night, Andrew, this would not have happened.’
‘Oh, what did I do, Lord, to deserve such punishments?’ Dad wails. ‘Is this a penance for some great sin? Why the constant shame upon my family? My sister, her boyfriend and a mseebi we got rid of years ago. A son who thinks it is okay to be a warrior fighting for a stupid situation he knows nothing about. A daughter who does a disservice to her family and her community by airing their dirty laundry instead of protecting them and being the silent woman she ought to be. Laysh hal aybie ya Rub?’
I don’t know how, but suddenly I’m standing in the living room too. ‘Why a shame of this magnitude, Dad? I can’t believe you don’t know. Stop acting like you’re so innocent in all of this.’
Dad glares angrily at me, and Mum gasps loudly. Even Andrew – sullen, proud and arrogant all at the same time – looks shocked; he stares at me with his mouth gaping open.
‘Half of this is your fault,’ I say. ‘Do you ever prevent Andrew from going anywhere? Do you ask him a hundred questions before he goes out to a party, or wait for him until he gets home to see if he was lying to you? Do you tell him that no one will marry him if he asks to go out for coffee with his friends at night? No. Just because he’s a boy, he’s allowed to do whatever he wants. Because he’s almost a man, no one can interfere in his business. You’ve never butted into his life or told him he couldn’t work, or have fun, or made him study subjects that you think are suitable.
‘You’re so busy disciplining me and the girls, and complaining about Leila and her Asian fiancé and her stupid tattoo, that your son thinks he can do whatever he wants in life without any consequences. Just because he’s a man. Well, that’s not how things are in the world, Dad. As you can see, that attitude has finally caught up with him.’
‘Wli, Sophie!’ Dad says. ‘How dare you!’
But the words are tumbling out of my mouth before I have
a chance to process them in my brain.
‘And don’t tell me I’m doing a disservice to our family and community. For the zillionth time, I was just a witness. Not that it matters anyway, because anyone who breaks the law or does something terrible deserves to be punished. It’s the way of the world. You wouldn’t be accusing me of doing a disservice to my community if Andrew had done the right thing.’
Dad is silent, his face red, his eyes bloodshot. Mum sits on the corner of the couch, weeping, breaking my heart. Dad is about to speak, totally enraged, when Andrew cuts in.
‘She only thinks like that because of her Aussie boyfriend,’ he blurts out. ‘She was never like this before, only since she started seeing him.’
The whole house is quiet. Dad looks at me like he doesn’t know who I am anymore.
‘I’m not going out with an Aussie guy, you idiot,’ I say to Andrew. ‘He’s my friend, he’s in my class and he’s half-Lebanese. His name is Shehadie, and he probably knows more Lebanese words than Leila. Plus, he actually knows how to spell the name of his mum’s village. Don’t you dare act high and mighty, because the stupid boys that you hang out with have made him feel like shit since he arrived at our school. He took it like a true Christian, like a man, which is something you could learn from him.’
Dad points his finger at us. ‘Shame on both of you!’ he yells. ‘Get out of my sight! I don’t want to look at either of you.’
‘Fine,’ we yell at the same time.
But where Andrew runs up the stairs to his room, I run out of the house and into the pouring rain. I can’t believe what’s just happened.
I see Viola’s bike in the front yard and grab it and hop on, pedalling as fast as I can, far away from all my problems. My Aunty Leila and her wild ways. My crush and the girl he can’t leave behind. My mum and her passiveness. My dad and his ignorance. Everyone’s ignorance.
I ride without knowing where I’m going. The rain pours down and drenches me, and I pray that it will wash away every negative thing I’m feeling because I’m sick of fighting a tide that’s always dragging me under.