by C. J. Duggan
“Thanks, Adam,” I said with a smile.
Adam paused; looking up past the floppy, dark mop of hair, he winked.
“I got your back.”
***
Of all days to do what I did, it was clear I was seriously on a death wish or a fast track to expulsion. I couldn’t have taken her diary on any other day than a Monday, a day where the whole school gathered at the indoor basketball courts for assembly. With Adam nowhere to be found, I clung to Tess, my eyes down as we shuffled in.
“I should have wagged,” I mumbled.
“Oh yeah, that would have gone down well,” said Tess, who was horrified at my admission of what I had been up to in the girls’ toilets. “Seriously, Ellie, you just have to ignore them, they’re not worth it.”
It was easy for her to say, she wasn’t the school whore.
We avoided sitting right at the back of the courts, seeing as that was reserved for the Year Twelves' posse; instead, we chose far right in the corner so we could at least see potential enemy attack.
“Where’s Adam?” I said, mainly to myself, as my eyes darted around the crowd, hopeful to find him and yet fearful to lock onto Sarah Norman.
“You know he’s late to everything.”
“True,” I admitted, although it still didn’t make me feel any better.
Had he been discovered in the girls’ toilets? Red-handed with a shredded diary? Oh God, I felt sick. Adam always had my back, it was true, because I always tended to need someone, either Tess or Adam because I was always in these ridiculous situations, if not with Sarah then someone else. I was a magnet for disaster and after each heart-pounding moment of trouble I always swore I would change, that things would just be different if everything turned out right. I would be a good girl, who would study hard for good grades like Tess, I would stop thinking about boys, and it would be head down from now on. It was what I was praying for right now; I would be good if Adam showed up, if Adam was okay and on his way, scot-free. My heart pounded, kicked up to the next level when I saw Sarah and her friends make their way through the door.
“Oh God.” I gulped. Causing Tess to do a double take in the direction I was looking.
“Okay, be cool, there is nothing they can do here.”
Meaning they couldn’t pummel me to death with all these witnesses; somehow I didn’t feel very comforted by this.
Where the hell was Adam?
I hadn’t seen him since this morning, given I had spent most of my time loitering around the music room where anyone of any notoriety was bound not to find me, especially Sarah.
I had sent Tess on a mission to find him at lunch but to no avail, which was strange. Usually if he wasn’t with us he could be found at the cricket nets or playing hacky sack with the boys. But he was nowhere to be seen.
Brent Shaw, another Year Eleven cricket-playing boy, sat down in front of us.
“Hey, Brent, have you seen Adam?” Tess asked, tugging the back of his shirt to grab his attention.
He turned, brows skyward as if surprised by the question. He shrugged first, seemingly knowing as little as we did until he actually spoke. “Someone said they saw him at the back of the library.”
Tess’s mouth gaped as if to ask another question but the words wouldn’t come. I’m certain by the frown on her face she wanted to ask, “Are you sure?” Tess looked at me, her dumbfounded expression mirroring my own.
Adam in the library made absolutely no sense. And at the back of the library was designated for the study alcoves, where all the hard-core students sat in intense silence doing homework or cramming for exams. This definitely was no place for Adam.
Before we could voice exactly that the PA system screeched to life with ear-piercing feedback as Principal Morris drew everyone to attention, and assembly began.
***
I had all but given up on Adam, until eight minutes into assembly when the door to the sports centre flew open and in strolled a cool, casual Adam. He knew the game; he always locked eyes with Mrs Pattinson, the grumpiest of all the teachers, and gave her a little wink as if to say “Sorry.” She always did the little pursed lips and shake of her head, but it was really disguising a smile and the ‘Oh, Adam’ roll of the eyes, as if he was just a lovable rogue, and to all the teachers he was; he could charm his way out of anything.
It took him only a short moment to lock eyes onto where Tess and I were sitting. It was good to actually focus on something different, to avert my eyes to Adam walking and stepping around people instead of being uber aware of the daggers Sarah was giving me in my peripheral vision.
Tess and I scooted apart, so Adam could plunk himself between us. It was our usual move; somehow since Year Seven Adam was always reserved for the middle.
“Studying? Really?” Tess whispered. “Please tell me this was just a nasty rumour.”
Adam smiled, placing his full attention on Principal Morris.
“I was just finishing a little assignment, you don’t have to sound so surprised.”
Tess looked at me again and we shared the same uncertain look, before turning forward and pretending to give a damn over who would get certificates for the math whizzes of Year Nine.
***
With Adam and Tess by my side I felt invincible, like, do your worst, bitches, as I lifted my head high as we slowly edged our way out of the centre after another mind-numbing assembly. Through the doors and home free it felt, even though it wasn’t quite the case: nothing was ever that simple.
“Give me back my fucking diary,” came a voice from behind me.
Shit.
I stopped, turning to face a rather pissed-looking Sarah. I raised my brows with innocence.
“Sorry?”
Sarah stepped forward, getting up into my face. “You heard me. Give it back!”
“Back off, Norman,” said Tess in a rather timid, unconvincing way; still, she tried. Adam merely stood next to me, looking amused by the showdown. Seriously, give him a bucket of popcorn and you would think he was at the movies. He was so entertained.
I felt less confident now, even surrounded with, give or take, three hundred students from Onslow High; make no mistake in thinking they wouldn’t love a girl-on-girl fight. It would be their favourite blood sport.
And what could I say? “I don’t know what you’re talking about?” When I had as good as snatched the diary from her hands; yeah, there was no denying my involvement. Maybe I could buy time, play dumb, momentary amnesia; yeah, this was going nowhere fast.
I had nothing to say, no smart-arse quip to come back at her with, and mercifully I felt Adam’s grip on my upper arm pulling me into a walk. I did a double take of his hold.
“Maybe you should check your locker before you go throwing around accusations,” said Adam.
Something sparked in Sarah’s eyes—surprise, relief, I wasn’t sure. Adam was as good as frogmarching me out the door.
“Are you for real?” I asked him; surely what he was saying wasn’t possible. Was he buying me more time?
“I was always pretty good at jigsaw puzzles,” said Adam with a broad, cheeky grin.
Tess gasped. “THAT was your assignment you were finishing up?”
Adam squinted up at the sun. “Took me hours; I’m hoping for a certain A plus.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, causing the chattering crowd to shift around us as we blocked the path.
“You didn’t,” I said, blinking with disbelief.
What he was saying wasn’t possible; there was no way he could have pieced, taped, glued—whatever he did—those pages together and have it back to a fully functional diary, it just wasn’t possible. I should know; I destroyed the bloody thing.
“Oh ye of little faith,” he said.
I bit my lip, my anxiety twisting my insides. “Isn’t this just putting the evidence of what I have done straight back into her hands?”
They’ll probably fingerprint it, no doubt.
Adam slung his arm around my shoulder, ju
st like he had done a million times before, as we walked toward the Year Eleven locker room. “Oh, I don’t think you have to worry too much; I think the heat is going to be well and truly off you for a while.”
Adam’s reassurance didn’t reassure me at all, and his confidence was just downright confusing, until we walked into the locker room. The centre of hype, gossip, chat and drama through the day, the locker room was always about chaos, but today it was a different kind of chaos. There was something different, something happening. I read it all over Macey Dodman’s face as her murderous eyes affixed onto a sheet of paper she held in her hands with a white-knuckled intensity.
“Macey Dodman smells like cabbage?” she read aloud.
I tried to spy on the paper she was holding, but my attention was quickly averted to the slamming of the locker opposite.
“What the fuck?” yelled Hayden Banks, the residential sporty meathead of Year Eleven who was also holding on to a bit of paper.
“O-oh,” said Adam as I picked up one of the many pieces of paper that were littered throughout the locker room, my mouth aghast as I recognised the very familiar and aggressive slant of hand writing. My eyes lifted to Adam who was busying himself plunging textbooks into his bag out of his locker.
“THIS was your secret project?”
“I know nothing.”
The full weight of the situation really started to unfold as I looked around at the cluster of people pawing, laughing, swearing, crying. Oh God, was Laura Whitehead crying? I could only imagine what had been said about her.
I picked up a wayward flailing sheet of what looked like a photocopied diary entry, with only jigsaw grey lines as evidence of tampering.
Adam was a genius.
Tess stepped closer to Adam. “You photocopied her diary?”
Adam’s sweet smile morphed into a devilish grin as he turned fully towards us, and our horrified expressions.
“You didn’t,” I said; despite holding the incriminating evidence in my hand, I couldn’t quite believe what he had done.
Adam shrugged in that cool, casual way he always did. “Only the juicy, mean stuff,” he said, zipping up his bag and hooking it over his back.
“Turns out you’re not the only one she has shit to say about,” said Tess, as her eyes trailed over another sheet about Mrs Patterson’s face moles.
“Holy crap,” I said, my mouth ajar in disbelief.
“Yeah, well, geez, Ellie, it’s not always about you, you know,” Adam joked.
And just as he was about to push past me, the crackle of the PA system came to life.
Sarah Norman, can you please come to the main office, Sarah Norman.
In one comical moment, Tess and my heads snapped around to lock eyes on Adam, thinking he might be concerned or surprised; instead, he simply smiled.
“You didn’t,” I accused.
I didn’t wait for his response; my eyes trailed over Adam’s shoulder to where Sarah stood, red-faced and rather dismayed in the entrance to the locker room. I kind of felt sorry for her, that perhaps Adam had gone too far.
And then Sarah’s teary eyes locked on me, burning with a palpable rage.
“You fucking whore!” she screamed.
Yep, okay, so I really didn’t feel sorry for her.
Before I could even blink, Adam was exiting the locker room, stopping up short beside Sarah, breathing out a laugh with a headshake.
“I think you’re going to need some new material, sweetheart.”
Sarah’s murderous gaze lifted to Adam—if looks could kill, Adam would be a dead man—but he stared her down, until she broke from his amused eyes and pushed past him, tearing her way toward what could only be assumed was the main office as the PA sung out her name once more.
I stood there, stunned into silence, blinking at the piles of paper that were littered around my feet now, except this time they weren’t shredded by my hands.
“A-Adam, I …” I lifted my eyes to where Adam stood, drifting into confusion as I suddenly realised: he was gone.
My knight in shining armour had left the building. I shook my head, breaking out into a brilliant smile.
“What’s so funny?” asked Tess, who seemed to still be in a form of shell shock.
I sighed. “Adam Henderson, always picking up the pieces of my life … LITERALLY.”
“Well, at least you know he has your back,” Tess added.
I caught a glimpse of Adam in the distance, walking across the schoolyard toward the gate, his hands in his pockets, striding with an air of innocence. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, that’s what he said.”
Chapter One
I thought leaving Onslow would be the answer to all my prayers. That leaving behind all the small-town nostalgia would suddenly transform me into this extremely mature grown-up. New job, new flat, new town would all equal a new life, right? Then why was I sitting in the middle of my lounge room floor on a Friday night in tracky dacks, baggy T, and my long blonde hair swept up in a high ponytail in the messy look that wasn’t wholly intended? Crying into a glass of wine and procrastinating over a pile of unopened boxes in the hall. Yeah, a month into my move and I still hadn’t finished the unpacking phase. No rush, I thought, I’m going nowhere fast.
“Ha! Ain’t that the truth?” I said, squinting into the empty wine glass.
Four weeks, FOUR bloody weeks I had been in Maitland and I still hadn’t ventured out of my own shadow. Aside from not trying anything new in my life, there was something I was trying out, something that I promised myself not to do.
Go back to Onslow for the weekends.
Something that most did when they started out at uni or landed a job in the big, bad city. Maitland was only a two-hour commute to Onslow, so as big and tough as all my fellow school chums thought they were, they still commuted back home for Mummy to do their washing and for Daddy to fuel up their car. Well, not me; if I was going to seek out independence, then I was going to do it right, even if I was desperately lonely and missing home. Ha! Actually missing Onslow: the girl who by all accounts was the last fledgling to leave the nest; well, aside from my ex, Stan, but he had his parents’ business to tend to, so that gave him some form of street cred. Never did anyone look at Stan and think tragic.
Since finishing Year Twelve, two life-changing things had happened: My best friend, Tess, moved across country to be with her boyfriend, something I didn’t support at all, mainly because I was selfish, not because I didn’t think they belonged together. When it came to Toby Morrison, there was nothing you could say that was bad about him; he was practically perfect, which is why he and Tess worked. They were the golden couple, the kind you would expect to find on the cover of a Bonds catalogue; although I was happy for them, they also made my heart twang with a deep-seated jealousy, never more so than when Toby had proposed to Tess in the most epic way. Rooftop at the stroke of midnight into the new millennium: fireworks and tears; it was beautiful and I was happy and sad all at once. Happy for Tess and her amazing new life, but sad that I had lost a part of me, had lost my best friend. Even though Tess assured me nothing would change, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. Everything was changing. It was the big reason why I was forcing my own change, to get out of Onslow and away from all the happiness that surrounded me.
The second life-altering moment was Adam. When he joined the army it rocked my world like nothing else; I guess I came to believe that Adam would just do what his brother Chris was doing: run the Onslow Hotel and just be there, getting me drunk on the weekends and making me laugh. Even as I sat in the confines of my flat, I couldn’t help but wonder, like I did every weekend, if Adam and the boys would be at the Onslow right now. I shook the thought from my mind.
Come on, Ellie, get your shit together. So what if they were there? Need you remind yourself that you were still mad at Adam; no, make that furious at him for not coming to say goodbye? For not being reliable enough to come to my farewell party, to stand me up without any
given explanation. I had waited on the edge of the driveway outside the Onslow Hotel calling his mobile, worrying that something was wrong. Adam was often late but I would never have believed he wouldn’t come. And then of course I remembered back to when he had joined the army, and what an utterly crap penpal he had been. It had been one of many but one of the most serious fights when he had come back to Onslow. In typical Adam style he returned as if nothing had happened; he simply walked back into my life with that cocky, confident smirk on his face, the one I had wanted to wipe off his face with my fist, I was so mad.
It was one of the bigger reasons I decided to stay away this time: to punish him. That, and ignore all his messages, messages I found myself flicking through on my phone with a smug smile on my face.
Adam 8:05 p.m.
“Ellie, I’m sooooorrryyyyyyy.”
Adam 9:01 p.m.
“Elliiiiieeeee, what are you dooooooing?”
Adam 10:48 p.m.
“Ellie-Ellie-Ellie-Ellie!!!! Come on, answer me!!!!”
Adam 12:04 a.m.
E
Adam 12:04 a.m.
L
Adam 12:04 a.m.
L
Adam 12:04 a.m.
I
Adam 12:04 a.m.
E
Adam 12:05 a.m.
“Please don’t make me use your middle and last name.”
Adam 12:10 a.m.
“Fine! You may have won the battle, but you have not won the WAAAARRRR.”
And this was the general one-sided exchange that had continued from the moment I left Onslow. Tess thought I was being overly cruel, that he really was sorry for standing me up, that I should just get over it. But it wasn’t just about getting over it; there was more to it than just punishment. I kind of liked Adam’s texts; I had never heard from him so much in my life. In some sick way they were a link to him, a very one-sided link, one I didn’t know how long would last if I didn’t answer. My thumb hovered over the reply button, staring down at the last message, tempted to reply as I read his latest addition over and over.
Adam 7:09 p.m.