by David Burton
Her face hardened and she turned to me.
‘David,’ she said. ‘Shut the fuck up.’
More than anything, I wanted to fix her. I attempted to understand the pain and dissect it. I took her suffering on as a personal mission. What sort of friend was I if I didn’t? But nothing worked. I thought many times of asking for help, but this seemed like the ultimate betrayal. Mary had made me promise not to tell anyone, and I was terrified that if I let the secret out I would lose her forever. Simon was just as bewildered as I was, and the two of us were forced to sit and watch our friend unravel, with me trying to put the pieces back together like a mad man.
Going to school started to make me feel sick again. But this time I wasn’t worried about my own health, I was worried about Mary’s. I was certain I would show up one morning to a school assembly and the principal would take the stage and begin with something like, ‘I’m afraid we have some very bad news…’
My own mood started to plummet. At home I was introverted, grumpy and prone to anxiety. But I was too worried about Mary to notice.
Mum and Dad, who were all too familiar with the mechanisms and symptoms of depression, began to suggest that I needed help. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d seen someone for black moods. But I insisted that I was fine. It became terribly important to me that I didn’t accept help. I thought I needed to prove that I was functional and independent. At the time, my brothers’ attempts to fit into their high school were causing a lot of stress, and Dad was in the middle of some professional woes. I was desperate not to be a burden; I wanted to be ‘normal’. Just what that meant I was yet to figure out.
My appetite was almost non-existent. Mum began packing more extravagant and dessert-filled lunches, but my lunchbox would be returned each day, almost untouched.
‘You need to eat,’ she insisted. ‘You need to see a doctor.’
After many months of Mum’s repeated requests, I relented.
‘I’ll go and see a GP, but only if that’s the end of it. I go and see him and then that’s it.’
With no other choice, Mum agreed.
Our GP was an elderly and gentle man whom the family had seen for years. Mum booked an appointment for one day after school, and she escorted me into his dark office.
‘So,’ he asked me, ‘what’s the problem?’
I looked to Mum. I certainly wasn’t going to elucidate. After all, I was ‘fine’.
‘Well,’ Mum began with a sigh, ‘he’s not eating anything like he should be. He’s anxious, and he has a lot going on at school. He’s not sleeping. He’s not communicating, and we’re worried. I think he’s depressed.’
The GP smiled, and looked to me.
‘What grades are you getting in school?’ he asked.
I shrugged. Grades had never been much of a problem for me. I told the truth.
‘A’s. The occasional B.’
The doctor looked at Mum.
‘He’s not depressed.’
I won.
My performance of ‘fine’ grew in boldness. Drama classes were my chance to let off steam. I’d approach each scene without fear, letting go and performing everything at ten times the normal size. I was the funny, crazy drama guy before, but now I was manic.
If anything, that was the version of me that seemed to help Mary the most. It made her laugh. I would count how many times she laughed during the day, attempting to track her mood. I kept a chart in the back of my maths book. Anything over a dozen was a good day. But it didn’t seem to affect how much she cut herself.
The marks on her wrist got more savage. She could turn at any moment.
One day, she flew out of control. Simon and I were teasing each other, stealing each other’s hats, and attempting to get Mary to join in. At first she was laughing, but when I took her hat she became red-hot with anger. She grabbed my hand, and pressed her nails into the skin of my arm. Tiny dots of blood appeared.
I dropped the hat in surprise.
‘Ow!’
She snatched the hat from the ground and pushed it on her head.
‘God, Mary,’ Simon said. ‘Lighten up.’
But Mary didn’t say anything. Her face was wild with fury and her eyes were suddenly shiny from tears. She stormed off in the direction of the toilets. After a few moments, Simon and I reluctantly followed her. She emerged from the toilets ten minutes later, her face clear and smiling.
‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Before I had time to press her further, the bell rang for class. It was like nothing had happened. But the sleeves of her jumper were hooked around her fingers.
Not long after that, Simon and I were swapping notes on our crushes. I had moved on to another pretty girl, and Simon was way more interested in the opposite sex than he had been in the past. We were discussing how we should approach the recipients of our clumsy affection. Would they like us in return?
I turned to Mary. ‘Who do you like?’ I asked. It was the perpetual question at the heart of a lot of our gossip.
Mary looked at me.
‘You,’ she said.
The word echoed into a stunned silence.
Me.
Right.
I did what any proud male teenager does in the face of intense vulnerability.
I ran.
‘Sorry, I’ve got to go prepare for my next class,’ I said. And I physically ran away.
I was jarred by this news. I had honestly never considered it. The implications cascaded through my head. I thought about my conversation with her just before the revelation: I had been talking about a crush on another girl. Danielle. Or only last month, Christine! Actually, bugger that morning, that whole week, and the week before, the whole time…
I’d been talking about girls constantly, but never about her.
I began a very slow and delicate process of letting her down. Unfortunately, I was not exactly an expert at turning away love interests. I had never been attracted to Mary. As much as I wanted a relationship with someone, the idea of a relationship with her was frightening. What if, even then, I couldn’t make her happy? I would surely be a failure of a boyfriend. I would make an even more awful boyfriend than I was a friend.
I pulled myself together and walked back to Mary. I apologised. ‘I’m just a little surprised,’ I said.
Mary nodded and looked down.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I just think we should be friends, yeah?’
Nothing. Her hair was over her face.
‘I’m sorry I talk about other girls. I didn’t know how you felt.’
She nodded slowly.
And then I asked the question I already knew the answer to.
‘Do you ever cut yourself because of me?’
Nothing.
And then she nodded.
I felt time slow down. I felt empty. Breathless. Floating.
The bell rang, and we went back to class.
We didn’t talk about it.<
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That afternoon, I called Simon.
We both ended up in tears. The pressure had become too much. The two of us were fighting to keep this girl alive. I had failed at my mission. In trying to be kind, I had in fact made things worse. I was responsible for this awful situation.
‘I told my parents about it,’ Simon said.
‘Yeah,’ I sighed, ‘I guess I should tell mine. It’s just we swore we wouldn’t.’
‘I know, but we can’t keep going like this.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They said we should tell someone at school. They want us to talk to the counsellor, or the principal.’
‘No way! She’ll never speak to us again. She’ll kill herself,’ I said.
Simon’s voice sounded weak on the other end of the phone. ‘But Dave, she could kill herself anyway.’
Mum called me for dinner.
‘I gotta go,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow and we’ll figure it out then.’
We hung up.
The secret was starting to get out, and it was getting harder to find reasons to keep it hidden. No matter what Simon and I did, Mary was miserable.
That evening, after the twins had finished their spaghetti bolognese and left the table, I told Mum and Dad everything. They listened quietly. When I was done, Mum spoke. ‘Simon’s parents are right. The school should know. Mary’s parents should know.’
I was terrified that this would happen. Mum had a track record for meddling, and the last thing we needed was her making a phone call to the school or to Mary’s mum.
‘No, Mum, please,’ I pleaded. ‘Please don’t do anything. I’m serious. We don’t know what she’ll do.’
‘It’s not your responsibility, mate,’ Dad said. ‘You’ve done everything you can.’
‘But no, please, don’t call or do anything. Please. Just give me some time.’
Silence. Mum considered.
‘Something’s got to be done, David. She’s in trouble. And it’s not your responsibility to save her,’ she said.
‘But I’m her friend! And we made a promise not to tell anyone!’
I wasn’t even really convincing myself anymore. I was so tired. Tired of making Mary Laughter Charts in my maths book. Tired of chasing after her. Simon, Mum and Dad were all saying the same thing: it was time to talk.
It felt like failure.
The next morning, without Mary knowing, Simon and I talked to a teacher, who then took us to the counsellor. The anonymous, placid woman listened to us with compassion.
‘You are both good friends,’ she said, ‘and you’ve done the right thing. We’ll take care of everything now, okay? There’s nothing for you to do except keep being Mary’s friend.’
I sighed. ‘I doubt she’ll be our friend after this.’
‘Well, that’s her decision. But she’s lucky to have you both.’
We sat for a moment in silence. Simon and I were shell shocked.
The counsellor smiled. ‘Okay? Time to go back to class, I think.’
Four minutes later we were back in English, studying a Shakespeare sonnet.
I guess, somehow, they did take care of everything, although I never figured out what happened after that. I assume they must have told Mary’s mother, or got Mary in to talk. We never spoke to the counsellor again. It all felt so anti-climactic. Had Simon and I just betrayed our best friend? Or did we save her life? No one told us.
The next day, Simon and I approached Mary.
‘Hi,’ I said nervously.
She didn’t look up from her book.
‘I’m sorry, Mary. Can you tell us what happened?’
Nothing.
‘We just wanted to help you.’
It didn’t matter what we said. Mary was no longer speaking to us. We kept trying throughout the day, but nothing happened.
According to Mary, we were gone.
Simon and I moved to sit with another group at lunch, and Mary disappeared at lunchtimes.
This was four weeks before the end of year ten. The only thing that stopped me from reaching back to her was my parents’ calm insistence that I had to let her go and live her life. Her happiness was not my responsibility. I had done the right thing. I had told the truth.
Besides all of that, school and friends suddenly became fun again. Lunchtime was easy and stress free. I had forgotten what it was like to not have to worry intensely. But I felt guilty about not feeling more guilty.
Mary and I never spoke again. Mary left our high school at the end of that year and transferred to another school across town. I heard rumours of her putting on a New York accent and pretending to be a refugee from the 9/11 attacks. But that was the last I heard of her. I never saw her again.
When I think of Mary now, I think of our first playful interaction, her pale round face looking up at me, eyes warm, finger raised and pointing at my inky heart. She opens her mouth to speak, with genuine concern: ‘Did you cut yourself?’ she asks.
5
Sweet Sixteen
Right. I needed a shag.
I wish I could put into words the cataclysmic mix of hormones that is the infinite lust of a teenage boy. It’s almost incomprehensible. I yearned to be an adult. I dreamed about my eighteenth birthday, where I’d suddenly have unlimited access to adult shops and pornography. When I was fully grown, I hypothesised, I’d be able to throw myself into all of these things without guilt. I’d have absolute freedom. I would wank for marathon sessions throughout each day. Now I find the thought of such things absolutely exhausting. I’d be such a disappointment to my teenage sexual self.
Actually, let’s go back, to the very first time I learned about sex. When I was ten years old, my father sat me down to explain the facts of life. Slightly concerned by my increasing exposure to adult sitcoms (Friends, Seinfeld), he decided it was time to take me out for a manly chat. We sat on the front verandah, and he proceeded to give me a biology lesson. It was clinical, it was accurate, and it was essential. (It also, by the way, included the words ‘some people are gay, which is fine’. Store that information for later on.)
Enthralled by my new knowledge about the human body, I proceeded to pass on the message to my best friends at the time: three sisters who were younger than me and who lived next door. The girls were bewildered by my new vocabulary. I impressed them with all kinds of new words, like ‘sperm’ and ‘ovum’ and, stirringly, ‘urethra’. I walked away feeling very happy with myself. I was so damn smart. Those girls were lucky to have a friend like me.
When I told Dad that I had told the girls, he turned pale. He trudged next door to explain the situation. I don’t know how the family reacted, but when Dad returned he had an urgent message for me. ‘That type of information is special,’ he said. ‘People can feel very funny about that kind of thing.’
I found the secrecy perplexing. Dad couldn’t explain to me why the family next door was afraid of this information, or afraid of what it could lead to. While Dad had given me an incredibly sound description of the process of sexual intercourse, he had left out two essential elements: sexual
desire is incredibly powerful and sex is deeply pleasurable.
Over the next few years, I got the message loud and clear. We don’t talk about sex, because sex is special. Those bullying kids in the playground who yell out ‘dick’ and the ones who kiss each other secretly are naughty and being silly. Sex is secret.
To assist with my adult education, Dad bought me a book (on my request). It was by one of my favourite authors at the time. Secret Men’s Business by John Marsden was exactly what I needed. The book brilliantly answered a lot of questions about growing up male that I was too shy to ask, but it also mentioned a word I had never encountered before. Masturbation.
Like I did with all words I didn’t know, I went to the dictionary and looked it up. I read the definition several times over, scarcely believing what I had read. My heart beat loudly in my chest.
This was an option?!
This is the story of how a young boy discovers himself, and how my high school years started. Ten hours before I put on my sparkling new Catholic high-school uniform and walked out the door to set upon a life that would lead me into adulthood, what did I do?
I masturbated. For the first time. Ever.
I remember the series of events with alarming clarity. I still had the dictionary in my hands when my Dad yelled out that there was time for me to take a bath before dinner. I went into the bathroom and undressed. I looked down at my penis. Somehow, in quite a short time and without my noticing, a lot of hair had grown around it, and it had almost doubled in size. It was one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve ever had: to look at my own body and see it in a whole new way.
I still didn’t quite understand ‘masturbation’ as a concept. It seemed dirty. With that thought in mind, I looked underneath the bathroom sink and found two disposable latex gloves. I put them on and got in the bath, and I masturbated.
It was short, powerful and confusing.
I had not thought of the actual, um…end result of the whole process. So when it happened I was surprised. I was also immediately ashamed.