by Sean Kennedy
Before Emma knew it, she and Alya were in a taxi on their way home, and it was only when they were dropped off that she thought of Mal, waiting for Emma to come back and finally giving up and looking elsewhere for a superhero to claim.
It was a Shakespearean tragedy, because Emma didn’t even know who Mal was and whose friends she belonged to so she could try and track her down. Even months after the fact, she couldn’t stop thinking about her. Emma went to every stupid party after that, hoping to see those intense eyes again. She didn’t expect her to be dressed as Malcolm Reynolds—not least because it would be weird if that was how she rolled every day—but Emma could never mistake those eyes if she got to see them once more.
But she didn’t. Maybe “Mal” had never existed and was just a perfect dream created by Emma to chase off being lonely. Luckily her killer schedule of training and games didn’t leave her a lot of downtime to dwell upon her beautiful gender-bent Captain Reynolds.
Especially when it turned out there was new drama afoot.
“Did you hear?” Blanca asked Emma during practice. “Trish is coming back!”
Emma kept her expression as icy cool as possible, even though her pulse was racing. “I thought she had a scholarship to study in LA?”
“She did, but it was only for a year, and she’s decided to come back home.”
“Oh.” That was an understatement.
“And guess what?”
Emma could guess a lot of things, but none that she would say. “What?”
“She’s bringing her Yank girlfriend!”
“What?”
“I know, right! She’s a dyke.”
Emma definitely wasn’t expecting that. Not the lesbian thing, because, well, she would have to be pretty clueless to not know Trish was a lesbian when she was going down on Emma. You would have been the most unobservant of girlfriends if you didn’t notice that small detail.
“I guess when some people come out, they do it spectacularly,” Emma managed to say.
“I know, right?”
So, Trish was headed home. With girlfriend in tow. And apparently out. This was a headfuck of major proportions.
“Didn’t you know her back in Melbourne?” Blanca asked.
“Not really.” Which Emma guessed was true, in a way. She didn’t know the current Trish well at all. She may not have even known the past Trish that well either.
“Yeah, but the lesbian world is a small one.”
“Not small enough, apparently.”
No, not small enough.
She had a month or two before she had to deal with the drama of an ex-girlfriend reappearing in her life, however. So Emma did what she always did, and that was push it right to the back of her mind and try to forget it was happening. She knew she didn’t have feelings for her still. She had been relieved when she heard Trish was on an exchange program in America. By the time Emma got to the AIS, it meant she didn’t have to worry about seeing Trish around campus. Their breakup had been a bitter one, but Emma had gotten over it. She just had no desire to ever see her again. Especially when the closet case that broke up with her came back to town as a celebrated dyke with a hot partner.
At least Emma was distracted when her cousin Carl came up for a visit. He was staying at the AIS, as they had a youth hostel on site. It was more expensive than the other hostels in the city, but his meals were included and gave him the ability to dine in the canteen with Emma. She had hugged him so violently when he got off the plane that she winded him. Carl seemed pretty oblivious to her newfound clinginess and instead scrabbled around in his backpack.
“Got a present for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” she said automatically, and was presented with the latest issue of The Footy Record, which had Micah on the front cover. “No, really. You shouldn’t have.”
“Shut up,” Carl said good-naturedly. “I knew you would want one.”
Emma was a bit scared by Micah’s biceps as they glistened underneath the gleam of the photographer’s lights. He was starting to pack on the muscle and didn’t look much like the tall and scrawny arsehole he was when she first knew him.
“Okay, I did,” she admitted. “I guess he looks pretty good.”
“I can’t believe I know him. Nobody ever believes me when I say I do.”
“You often try to impress people with the fact you know a footy player?”
“Hey, it works.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose and smirked.
Emma couldn’t resist giving him another hug.
“Hey,” he protested before hugging her back just as hard. “It’ll be you on a cover soon enough.”
“I doubt it. Nobody gives a shit about women’s hockey. Especially in comparison to the AFL.”
“I do,” he said, releasing her.
They started walking to the baggage claim. “Oh, really? Do you brag about me as much as you do about Micah?”
“More, actually.”
He was so earnest Emma knew he was telling the truth. No wonder he was her favourite cousin.
But she had to admit, even though she didn’t want Micah’s celebrity and all the aggro that came with it, she still wished she could have a cover of her own someday. Just to show she had made it and deserved the faith people had put in her over the years to try to achieve her dreams.
She knew more than anybody else that she should be happy with the fact she made it this far. Some kids didn’t, and would die to be in her shoes. But now she was here, she wanted more. She was sure Kyle and Micah would understand that, as they felt it too—Kyle especially, as Micah was definitely eclipsing him as well.
Nobody wants to be in somebody else’s shadow, unless they’re that chick who dies in Beaches and gets to have Bette Midler sing a song about them.
But fuck that. Emma wanted to be Bette Midler. Let somebody else be the girl in the shadows.
“Earth to Emma,” Carl said. “What are you dreaming about?”
“How I have the best cousin.” It was half true, even if she didn’t tell him about her detour into vintage, weepy-chick-flick territory.
“Yeah, right.” But he was chuffed anyway. “You just had that look on your face like you’re about to sing ‘Wind Beneath My Wings.’”
He knew her too well.
ALYA WAS in the common area when Emma brought Carl up to show him her digs. They didn’t even get to her door.
“Hi, Alya,” Emma said, giving her a perfunctory arm rub.
This only made her burst into tears.
Emma could see Carl jump back slightly. He wasn’t good with emotional girls. Or emotional guys. Or anybody on some visible spectrum of upset. She was actually surprised he had managed Micah for a whole year, as that was often Micah’s default mode. Or it was last year. Now things had changed. But Micah still didn’t seem settled—just less melodramatic.
“Who’s this?” Alya choked out.
“My cousin. Carl.”
“Good. So you haven’t gone het on us.”
Carl coughed back a laugh, and Emma pointedly ignored him. “No, Alya, I haven’t.”
“Good.” Alya reached into her sleeve for a dishevelled and sopping collection of tissues. “Because you know that happens.” She loudly blew her nose.
“What happens?” Carl asked, and Emma wished he hadn’t. Alya was still in the pity stage of breakup grief and looking for conspiracies in every corner. It didn’t help she had recently heard Kerri was moving in with her fuck buddy.
“Lesbians suddenly turn straight and they leave you for a guy.”
“I think that’s actually called bisexuality,” Emma pointed out.
“No,” Alya said, as if such a thing didn’t exist and they weren’t in a dorm that was full of evidence of it. “There are lesbians who turn straight. And they fuck with your heart.”
Desperate to get the conversation away from bi-erasure, Emma pointed out, “But Kerri didn’t do that to you. She got with another girl.”
This only started A
lya crying again, and Emma apologised profusely, wishing she had never even said a word.
“You know, Emma, you are the worst at giving advice,” Carl said.
“I wasn’t actually trying to give advice. I was making an observation.” By now Alya was in her arms, drenching Emma’s sleeve with her tears. Emma patted her back as if she were a baby trying to burp.
“No, your cousin’s right.” Alya pulled back and looked at Emma with disappointment. “You are the worst.” She left them to retreat to her room, closing the door heavily behind her.
“Should you go and talk to her?” Carl asked.
Emma shrugged. “She’s been like this for ages. There’s only so many times you can talk over the same thing without any change. She has to ride it out.”
“You are filled with the milk of human kindness.”
“Ugh, someone’s still humble bragging about their score on their Lit exam, Lady Macbeth.” Emma headed to her room. “Come on.”
“Best Lit score in our region,” he reminded her for probably the nineteenth time.
“Yeah, well, as Hamlet said, ‘piss off.’”
“Technically, he didn’t, but I guess you could get points for a contemporary translation or adaptation?”
Emma shoved him into the wall, and he dropped his bag, chuckling to himself. He caught sight of the national hockey rag lying on the table. Emma inwardly groaned. Trish was the cover girl, the bold type announcing “Hockey’s New It Girl OUT on the Field.”
Carl picked it up for a closer inspection and huffed to himself.
Emma chose an “I’m completely fine; don’t you dare worry about me” tone, which perhaps wasn’t as light as she wanted it to be. “Not the most original magazine banner, is it? They must have thought about it for all of four seconds.”
“I don’t even think it was that much,” Carl said. “How can you even stand it being in here?”
“Because I’m over her, that’s why.”
“No one is ever completely over their ex. They still probably fantasise about their downfall and eventual death.”
“Wow. No wonder you’re single. And you’ll have to stay that way, for the safety of the general public.” Emma snatched the mag off him and threw it facedown into the bin.
“Yeah, you’re really over her.”
“It doesn’t mean I want to see her face peering up at me.”
“So she’s definitely coming back, then?”
“Yes, unfortunately the exchange wasn’t permanent. And before you say anything, I’m over her, but it doesn’t mean I want to be her hockey buddy either.”
Carl shrugged. “At least you’ll have a weapon.” He picked up one of Gwen’s hockey sticks that were always left lying next to the couch, no matter how much it annoyed everybody else. “I reckon that could crack a skull pretty well.”
“When did you turn into a serial killer? Come on, let’s get out of here.”
He threw the hockey stick down, in much the same manner as Gwen did, and left it behind him without a second look.
Chapter 3
EMMA WAS over Trish, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t blindsided her when Trish said she wanted to end things between them.
The day it happened began just like any other. But that’s what people always think when they look back, don’t they? Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Emma had woken up that morning, made herself toast, with Vegemite, and a strong coffee, and gazed out the window for a while, enjoying the peace and quiet of an empty house. The day stretched ahead of her, promising relaxation now that school and exams were over, and she was looking forward to a date that night with Trish.
Then the doorbell rang.
She was happy to see Trish standing there—why wouldn’t she be? It was strange that she was there now when they had already made plans for later on, but that just meant more time together. Right at that moment it wasn’t a bad thing in Emma’s book.
So what if her kiss was a little halfhearted at the door? Trish had never been big on PDAs, and she was nervous around Emma’s parents, especially when Mrs. G. found out a) that her daughter was a lesbian and b) had a girlfriend when she caught them in the carport together. Oh, and Trish was only supposed to be Emma’s “maths tutor.” That had taken quite a lot of explaining. It turned out the Goldsworthys were surprisingly cool about it all, at least the being gay thing—the passing off her girlfriend as her maths tutor thing not so, even though they had never actually dished out any money for it. Looking back, how could they not tell anything was up?
“Do you want a coffee?” Emma asked, leading Trish into the kitchen where half a slice of toast was still waiting. “Or I could make you something. I was just finishing breakfast.”
Emma turned back to find Trish standing uncomfortably behind the kitchen counter, keeping it between them. She munched on her toast as casually as she could, wanting to keep the normalcy that had been her morning so far.
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “I mean, I’ve already had breakfast.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Can we sit down?”
The pang in Emma’s stomach wasn’t from hunger. In fact, now her toast and coffee were turning to sludge and stirring indelicately. “Okay.” Okay? Was this all she was going to be able to say?
Trish sat opposite her at the kitchen table. She didn’t reach for Emma’s hand or do anything that could reasonably be taken as affectionate. “I think you know what’s coming.”
“Christmas?” Emma suggested weakly.
She sighed. “Come on, Em. Don’t make this even harder than it has to be.”
It sounded like it came from a script. “What?” Emma wanted her to say it. Not to sugarcoat it or “try to let her down gently.” She was going to have to get it all out, and own her words.
“We knew the moment I got into the AIS what that would mean for us.”
“Yeah, it meant we would do a lot of car and bus trips and try to see each other as much as possible.” Emma wasn’t going to let her off that easily.
“No, that was what you suggested.”
“And you agreed.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t actually agree.”
“But you didn’t say anything to deny it.”
Trish took a deep breath. “What, you wanted me to say it right there and then? How cruel would that have made me?”
“Say what, Trish? You haven’t said anything.” By now Emma was practically yelling, which she hated doing in an argument. It made the other person have the moral high ground because you were the one losing your cool. But it was so frustrating, because Trish wasn’t saying it—
And then she said it.
“I think it’s best we break up.”
She sounded so cool, calm, and collected. Rational. Emma thought of how Micah and Kyle had been the same when Micah found out he was drafted by the Dockers and would have to move to Perth. Yet neither one of them seemed that happy about it, even now with both having new boyfriends.
“Say something,” Trish said.
Now she was trying to give Emma her own medicine, as she was unable to get any words out.
“You know how much I like you—”
Before she got her placement in the AIS, she used to say she loved Emma.
“—but it’s just not going to work out.”
Emma found her voice again; it was its natural self—snarky. “You know I’ve heard of these things, and maybe you have too. They’re called long-distance relationships.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ve heard of them.” Trish was getting snarky as well.
“And you don’t even want to try that?”
Trish didn’t even sigh this time to attempt sounding somewhat sorrowful about the whole thing. “Best just to rip the Band-Aid off straightaway, don’t you think? Why prolong being miserable?”
“So what you actually mean is you just want to go to a new city and fuck around with the new girls without having the guilty conscience of a girlfriend back home cramping
your style,” Emma told her.
“That’s not it.”
“Seems like it to me.”
“You’re being childish.”
That’s when it occurred to Emma. “Oh, that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Enlighten me.” Trish was now pure attitude.
“You don’t want to have the high-school girlfriend when you go over there. How embarrassing it would be for you!”
“I don’t want any girlfriend when I’m there!” This outburst seemed even to shock Trish herself, like a truth had been revealed she hadn’t been consciously aware of.
“Oh, really.” The snarkiness was like a tennis ball being lobbed between them—Trish served it and Emma returned it, the power shifting with each play.
“It’s just, I want to focus on the sport for the moment. Just make sure my head’s entirely in it, and I don’t want to be choosing between that and a girlfriend—”
“Emphasis on the girl.” Emma didn’t know exactly why she said that, but it struck home.
“Well… there is that.”
This was the perfect situation where Emma wished she had the talent of only raising one eyebrow. Such a simple action that would say so much. Instead she had to settle for saying, “Oh. You’re not a lesbian anymore?”
Trish rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that shit.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“Just, I’m—”
“Going back in the closet?” This was a joke, surely.
She put her hands up, whether to stop Emma or plead for peace, Emma wasn’t sure. “No, I’m just keeping my private life private.”
“That’s how homophobes work. You don’t talk about anything personal, while they can say anything they like. Gay people have to hide, and straights get to pretend there are no gays around to wreck their sport or movie watching. You’ll be the excellently neutered silent dyke.”
“When did you get so bitter?” Trish asked. “You’re barely eighteen.”
The age thing again. Trish was really trying to put distance between them. “Haven’t you noticed? I’ve always been bitter.”
“Yeah, I see that now.” Trish looked at Emma like she was somebody she had never met before.