Every Lie I've Ever Told

by Rosie Waterland

  I had caught the train to Penrith with my friends before so we could go to the movies, but this was different. To get to Westmead you had to change trains. And then I had to figure out where I was going. And then I had to talk to the doctor by myself. And then I had to figure out how to get the train home again. I just wanted a mum who drove their eleven-year-old daughters to stuff like this.

  ‘Mum, just drive me. Please,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to say to the doctor!’

  ‘Oh you’ll be fine!’ she said. ‘He’s just giving you the results of the X-ray, you don’t have to say anything. And just call me from a payphone if you get lost. Reverse the charges!’

  She wrote down the name and address of the doctor on the back of a used envelope, gave me money for the train and dropped me at the station.

  When I got off the train at Westmead (after one incorrect attempt at changing trains that saw me head in the wrong direction for twenty minutes), I had no idea where to go. Despite Mum’s assurances, the whole suburb wasn’t ‘just hospital’. I found a map on the station wall that pointed me in the right direction, but I just couldn’t find this damn doctor’s office. I kept looking at his name on the back of the envelope, hoping I was missing some crucial detail that explained why I couldn’t find it. Like the next time I looked at it, I would say, ‘Ohhh! His name is Peter, not John! I’ve been looking for John! No wonder I can’t find it!’ But I wasn’t confused about the name. I was just lost. And my back hurt.

  Not really knowing what to do, I finally found the main entrance of Westmead Children’s Hospital, and approached the massive front desk. A friendly woman looked down at me. ‘Hi, sweetie. Have you lost your parents?’

  I wish.

  ‘Um, no,’ I said, clutching the envelope. ‘I can’t find the office I’m looking for. Can you tell me what floor it’s on? My appointment is really soon.’

  ‘Your appointment?’ she asked, looking confused. ‘You have an appointment? Just you?’

  ‘Yeah I have an appointment with a specialist about my scoliosis. Do you know where this office is?’

  I showed her the name and address.

  ‘Oh. Sweetie. That doctor doesn’t work out of the hospital. He has his own rooms in a building separate to the hospital. It’s on this street but about ten minutes from here.’

  I wanted to cry. I was so confused and Mum told me it was in the hospital and now I’m going to be late and I really don’t want to walk for another ten minutes and why don’t I have the kind of mum who just takes me to doctor’s appointments and doesn’t make me get the train and look stupid in front of this desk lady when I’M ONLY ELEVEN?

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Um, which way do I walk when I get outside?’

  ‘When you walk out the doors, take a right,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

  I wandered up and down the street for another half an hour before I finally found the right building. The waiting room was filled with kids and teenagers, all sitting with their parents. And me.

  The doctor called me in, and looked around the room when he saw only me get up. I walked straight into his office.

  ‘Ah, is it just you today?’ he asked, as he closed the door.

  ‘My mum had to work,’ I said quickly, picturing her currently lying in bed listening to ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ while on her second bottle of wine.

  ‘Sit down, please,’ he gestured. I had been awkwardly standing in the middle of the room. ‘How did you get here? Did your mum drop you off?’

  ‘No, um, I caught the train. And then walked from the station.’

  ‘That’s quite a long walk,’ he said. ‘I hope you didn’t have to come far on the train?’

  ‘Just from the Blue Mountains,’ I replied, avoiding his eyes.

  He stared at me in silence for a few seconds. Like there had been a glitch in the matrix in his office and his brain was trying to compute the nonsensical situation in front of him.

  ‘Well, okay,’ he finally said. ‘Let’s look at your X-rays, shall we?’

  He told me that I had moderate scoliosis, and after that I have no idea what he said. I just kept smiling and nodding (exactly like I do now when someone talks about politics). He said something about a brace and physio and exercises and needing to see him again. Then he pulled out a voice recorder to say what he wanted his receptionist to type in my file. He started with, ‘Patient Rosanna Waterland. Eleven years old. Rosanna has attended the appointment by herself today . . .’ He suddenly stopped recording.

  ‘Actually, I can finish recording this later,’ he smiled. ‘We’re pretty much done here. Can you please ask your mum to call me? Just so we can go over your results and what needs to come next. Are you . . . Will you be okay getting home?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know the way now.’

  It wasn’t the worst thing my mum had made me do, by far, but there is nothing like knowing that the person you’re talking to really pities you. That doctor, and the desk lady before him, really, really pitied me. And I felt like it was my fault. Like I just needed to act a little more confident. I just needed to look at the map a little more carefully. This whole thing wouldn’t have looked as bad if I had just handled it better.

  When I got back to my local station, I called Mum on the payphone (‘It’sRosieI’matthestationpleasescomeandgetme’), and settled in for what would be at least an hour wait.

  Considering I couldn’t even get my mum to drive me to the doctor (and she never called him by the way, so here’s hoping moderate scoliosis doesn’t get progressively worse!), I wasn’t hopeful that she or Brian would drive the one-hour round trip to pick me up after cross-country regionals. So not only was I doomed to humiliate myself by competing in a race I had no hope of finishing, I wasn’t even sure how I was going to get home afterwards. This is why I never run.

  Two hundred kids lined up at the starting line. All of them were stretching and wearing sweatbands and jogging on the spot. I was not a natural fit in such an environment. I was petrified of doing something stupid to reveal my ineptitude, like running in the opposite direction to everyone else when the gun went off. I just stood quietly, and tried not to make any sudden moves.

  Then the time came. The gun went off, and everybody started running. I figured I could at least blend in for the first couple of hundred metres, but within about thirty seconds, I was lagging behind. And within about a minute, I was barely keeping up with the section of kids who were clearly there on some kind of special program. I think one of them may have been missing a leg. And he was beating me.

  I was already exhausted, and I just wanted the whole thing to be over. I had been excited by my green ribbon, but this was just getting ridiculous now. I was not built to run. Plus, I really, really didn’t want to. So, remembering that before the race, they told us medical attention would be available as needed throughout the course, I did the only thing I could think of to do.

  ‘Fuck this,’ I thought, and took a dive.

  It wasn’t a particularly convincing one, since I was scared I would hurt myself if I actually fell over for real. So basically one second I was running, and the next . . . I just sort of sat down. I fell dramatically into a comfortable sitting position, put my hand up, and waited for the medical staff.

  A very enthusiastic young guy with a walkie-talkie made his way over to me. ‘Hey! Are you okay? What’s happened?’

  I hadn’t really thought of that.

  ‘Oh . . . Um . . . Ow . . . My . . . Ankle? My ankle really hurts! I twisted it and then I fell! I heard a crack . . . sound, thing.’

  ‘Can you take your shoe off?’ he asked, reaching for my foot.

  ‘OW! No! Please don’t touch it! Um, ow! Oh, owww. I’m in so much pain.’

  Now, I figured at this point he’d help me limp back to the starting line, then someone would call my mum or Brian, and given my horrific injuries, they’d have to come and pick me up. That way I’d get a lift home, and I’d be able to forever maintain that I was on track to win t
hat race if it hadn’t been for my damn injury. I would be the athlete that could have been a legend, if everything hadn’t gone so horribly wrong.

  Then things started to take a turn.

  ‘Yeah, we’re going to need the ambulance here,’ enthusiastic young guy said into his walkie-talkie. ‘Possible ankle fracture. At least a bad sprain. Student is in severe pain.’

  Uh oh.

  Within a few minutes, the ambulance showed up. They put me on a stretcher and loaded me in the back. This was all getting away from me very quickly. We then drove around the cross-country track, picking up other kids who had succumbed to injuries. There were about six of us sitting in the ambulance by the time we got back to the starting line. I studied their faces – I reckon about half of them had an ‘injury’ similar to mine. As in, a ‘fuck this’ injury.

  Those kids were weak though. When the ambulance workers asked them if they were feeling better after sitting for a while, they sheepishly said yes and left. AMATEURS. I was committed to this. I was not saying I felt better until I knew someone was coming to pick me up.

  ‘Oh! Owie. It hurts so much! The pain I am in! The pain!’ I may have been overdoing it.

  ‘Look, we’re going to have to take these two to get checked out at the ER,’ someone said, gesturing to me and a guy who actually looked really hurt.

  Shit.

  We were on our way to the hospital before I’d even had a chance to consider my options. This train had officially left the station. There was no turning back now.

  It’s very hard to explain to an ER doctor what is wrong with you when there isn’t actually anything wrong with you. When they finally convinced me to take my shoe off (after I had to take a second to remember which foot I’d injured), they took one look at me and knew I’d caused barely, if any, actual damage during my ‘fall’. The only indication that I’d hurt myself was my constant wailing that I’d hurt myself.

  They wrapped the foot in a tight bandage, to discourage me from screaming in pain every time I moved it. Then they called my house, and about an hour later, Brian turned up and took me home, where I kept limping for two weeks, refusing to take the bandage off even when I showered, because I was committed to making the whole saga seem real. I’m not sure if anyone believed me. But those are the lengths I will go to, to avoid having to run. And getting that lift home was a bonus too.

  Lifts from Brian were rare. That’s why, when he offered to take me away from the house one night, I jumped at the chance.

  I was about thirteen, and Mum had been drinking all afternoon. You knew it was bad when she started playing the same song over and over again on full-blast. Also when she started to make cruel comments about your face and/or general existence. Brian had copped the brunt of it that day, and by the time Mum was onto her third box of wine, he’d had enough. He needed to go to an all-night nursing shift in the city, so he decided to leave a little earlier just to get out of the house. He wouldn’t be back until eight the next morning, and hopefully by then Mum would have turned back into Sober Lisa, who was actually quite a lovely person.

  Brian asked me if I wanted to come with him. I could hang out at his work, watch TV and sleep in the nurses’ station. ‘C’mon, Rosanna,’ he said. ‘Don’t stay here with her. She’s just going to be like this all night.’

  I could hear her randomly yelling something incoherent from the other room. I wanted to go with Brian, I really did. But Rhiannon had moved out, and both my little sisters were home. Tayla was five and Isabella was three. I couldn’t leave them alone with Mum, could I?

  It was only about 5pm; Mum still had a lot of drinking to do. I had spent countless nights like this with her in my life, and I had survived, but . . . That didn’t mean it was okay to leave Tayla and Bella there, did it? They were just so little.

  ‘Do you want to come or not?’ Brian asked me.

  I really, really wanted to go. I wanted to get the hell out of that house and as far away from Drunk Lisa as possible. Drunk Lisa made me anxious. Drunk Lisa gave me toxic butterflies.

  I decided to leave. I reasoned if Brian thought it was okay for him to go, then it was okay for me to go too. I mean, he was the adult, right? I didn’t really believe that though. I knew it was wrong to leave two little girls with my mum that night. I knew it was selfish. I knew that something awful could happen. But I still decided to leave. I just didn’t want to be in that house. I was so tired.

  I told Tayla to look after Bella, and that we’d be home in the morning. Then I walked out the front door and closed it behind me, leaving a five-year-old and a three-year-old to fend for themselves in a house with a woman who was so drunk she could barely stand.

  I vividly remember sitting on the back of Brian’s motorbike, staring through my helmet at the front door, knowing that something bad was going to happen. I just knew, as we drove away, that the life we had together in that house was never going to be the same.

  And I still left.

  When we returned home the next morning, the house was empty. During the night, Mum had decided to go out drinking with a friend, leaving Tayla and Bella home alone. Close to midnight, Bella came down with a fever. She was crying, and sick, and Tayla couldn’t find anyone to help her. So, in what is one of the bravest things I’ve ever heard of a five-year-old kid doing, Tayla picked Bella up, took her out into the pitch-black night, and dragged her through the bush to the house next door. This was an isolated street in the Blue Mountains, not a busy neighbourhood – I used to be terrified walking around there at night, and I was thirteen. But Tayla knew she had to do something. She was the only person that night who knew she had to do something. She knocked on the door as hard as she could and waited for someone to answer. She just needed an adult, any adult, to help her sick little sister. She just needed someone to take care of her.

  The neighbours answered. Police were called. Family services alerted. I was right – nothing was ever the same again. The night I left was the last night we would all live in that house together. I had broken the rules: our home life was meant to be a secret, and I had let the secret get out. Now we were caught.

  All because I had left my little sisters alone.

  I haven’t had bad sex since I promised myself I wouldn’t put up with it.

  (Ha.)

  Porn has broken the brains of men, and it is drying up the clits of women everywhere.

  That’s what was going through my head the night a man actually spat in my face because he thought it was sexy. Because porn had told him so. The seven-year-old me who accidentally figured out how to orgasm would weep for the current state of sexual affairs. What a tragedy.

  I made a pact with myself, when I was about twenty-six, that I wasn’t going to put up with crappy sex anymore. No more faking orgasms, no more pretending I was enjoying myself when I wasn’t. The pleasure of the woman is just as important as the pleasure of the man, and I wasn’t going to forget that. If I was allowing a peen to enter my vagina, then the owner of that peen had damn well better treat the experience like the absolute privilege that it is.

  Unfortunately, this sexual pact with myself happened to coincide with the exact moment a lot of young men forgot how to have sex like real humans. And if you hook up with randoms for fun, as I am sometimes wont to do, then coming across one of these broken-brained men is par for the course. They have been brainwashed by porn. Pornwashed. I am living in an age of Pornwashed Millennials, and I’m not sure we can dial it back.

  The first time I realised there was a serious problem was when I had a one-night stand with a 21-year-old. I was almost thirty. I’d never slept with someone that much younger than me before, but he was cute, and funny, and the party we were at was two streets away from my house, which was perfect for me because I really like penis and I really hate walking.

  We made it into my bedroom, and did that awkward thing where you undress and wonder how the hell they do it so gracefully in the movies. Hands down, every single time I’ve had sex, there’s bee
n an awkward moment where the two of you have to split apart for a second to get some of your clothes off, especially shoes. I’ve never pulled off a ‘start ripping off clothes in passion and continue taking them off each other seamlessly while walking to the bed at the same time’ situation. I’m not entirely convinced it can be pulled off, actually. Just like sex standing up. Seriously – how do you angle the penis upwards into the vagina? That’s how it works, right? Right? Oh god. I don’t know anything. I never have. When my first boyfriend asked me if we could ‘sixty-nine’, not wanting to look clueless, I said ‘sure thing’ in my sexiest voice, then proceeded to thrust into him while counting to the number sixty-nine. He stopped me when I got to about fifteen, and said, ‘No, Rosie, it’s not. . . Well first of all you need to be facing the other way.’ So I turned around, sat on him again, and kept counting.

  Sufficiently naked and in bed, my new 21-year-old friend reached down to my lady garden and immediately pulled away, saying, ‘Whoa.’

  ‘What?’ I said, in the panicked tones of someone whose genitalia just appeared to actually frighten a person.

  ‘It’s just, you’ve got a bush!’ he said, giggling. ‘I’ve never seen one.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I asked, although I wasn’t really surprised by that. This was a conversation I’d had a few times. It would seem that most men of today expect a lady to have ripped her pubic hair out by the roots, in a painful procedure that leaves her looking like a pre-pubescent girl. I got a Brazilian wax once, as a surprise for my boyfriend at my high-school formal, and after experiencing what was possibly the worst pain of my entire life so far, I decided I would never put myself through that horror again. I let the hair grow back and kept it that way. I just figured it didn’t bother me, so if I was ever going to remove it again, it would only be to please myself. And no way was I going through that kind of torture again for myself. My motto with men had always been, ‘Well, if it bothers you, then kindly step away from my vagina.’ I haven’t had a guy step away yet.