Outside In

by Chrissie Keighery

  Sam found it quite amusing, their dramas. Especially the not-speaking when they were on the phone. That was a classic. Lauren would lie on her bed in the next room. There would be a clump of words, followed by huffing, then silence. Why didn’t they just hang up? It was all pretty funny except when Lauren ended up crying. When that happened, Sam would put on his headphones and listen to his iPod.

  ‘Sam?’ There was something different about Lauren’s tone. Normally, she hissed his name. Now her voice seemed soft around the edges. Her sitcom face wasn’t so sitcom anymore.

  He’d never really thought about what had caused all those silences. What made his sister cry. It was kind of crazy that he hadn’t because he seemed to be thinking about stuff all the time.

  ‘If you’re gonna like someone…’ Lauren played with the hem of her dress. She twirled it around her fingers until it looked like the material was going to split. ‘Make sure it’s someone who likes you too.’

  Man. It was hard enough to try to decipher his own feelings. How could he know how Meredith felt? By looking at some lame website? Like, was the bum fluff comment supposed to relay some hidden meaning? That she liked him enough to notice? Or did it just mean that she had noticed?

  Lauren sighed as she got up. It seemed like she had given Sam a part of herself, and had become exhausted in the process.

  Sam thought he should feel like something had been unlocked. Like she’d given him a key to the truth about how relationships worked.

  Instead he felt like he was standing, toes over, at the edge of a cliff.

  Sam walked in a straight line and thought in a circle. Kind of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. Rubbing your stomach and patting your head.

  There were options. He could stir Meredith, give her some of her own medicine. He could say, for instance, ‘Hey, Moo. Your boobs are certainly getting bigger. Maybe you should think about a bra?’ Or, ‘How are your periods coming along? Giving you any grief?’

  The thoughts tugged at the sides of his mouth, turning them up just a little. It wasn’t something he would ever actually do. Anyway, she probably already wore a bra. It wasn’t the kind of thing Sam normally noticed. And she was probably used to getting her periods. Probably wasn’t any big deal for her.

  He could avoid her, and that seemed the safest option. It wouldn’t be that hard. Home group was the only time today that he and Meredith would be in the same room. He could miss that, if he dawdled some more. It would mean a late pass. One point, where three meant a detention. It was worth it. Wasn’t it?

  It would help if he knew himself. If he had a freaking clue who he was.

  Sam put his bag under the park bench and watched the ducks paddle across the lake. He checked out the giant, life-sized chess set with its carved kings and queens and knights and of course pawns. They did a lot of work, those pawns. But ultimately they were expendable. They were there to provide a safe course for all the important pieces.

  Home group would be just about over by now. Sam lifted his bag, hooked it securely around both shoulders, feeling the corner of his science textbook in his back. He ignored the path and walked instead on the perfect lawn.

  He could see a bike flying down the path. As it came closer, clearer into view, he realised who was on it. There was no mistaking the way that Jack rode. Long legs pumping, coming right up towards his chin. He’d slung one handle of his backpack over a shoulder, the other flapping against his back. The bike was too small for him. Under anyone else it would look ridiculous. Under Jack, it was a statement.

  Sam stepped onto the path. Waited. Jack didn’t slow down. He glided through the curve in the path, and upped the tempo on the straight.

  It was Sam’s job to stay still. To test his nerve. Like standing against a wall while a knife thrower hurls his wares all around you, forming the shape of the body before you step away.

  As he came closer, Jack leant back on the seat. He lifted the front wheel into the air and thudded it down a couple of centimeters from Sam’s school shoes.

  ‘Hey, Sambo. You wagging?’ he said.

  ‘No, well, kind of. You?’

  ‘Nah, just late. It’s only home group.’

  Sam knew Jack had two late passes, and this one would result in a detention. But he didn’t mention it. Jack wouldn’t care, he took that sort of thing in his stride. Sam would have stressed about it.

  ‘Mum wants to know if you’re coming for tea on Monday,’ Sam said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Lamb.’

  ‘Yeah, then.’

  Sam waited for a minute. He’d been meaning to ask Jack something and decided now was as good a time as any. ‘Have you told your dad about the basketball scout coming?’

  ‘Nah,’ Jack said easily. ‘I’ll tell him closer to the date. That way he might actually remember it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam agreed with a shrug and a nod. ‘That’s a good idea. What does coach – ’

  ‘You’re bleeding, mate. Above your lip,’ Jack interrupted.

  Sam ran a finger over the space. He noticed Jack’s upper lip had stubbles. Little dots of darkness impressed into his skin.

  ‘I shaved,’ Sam admitted, wiping the little coagulated lump on his school pants. The cut bled again. Sam felt around his pockets and found a tissue that had gone through the wash.

  ‘So Meredith got to you, hey? Yeah. It’s a pain in the arse, shaving,’ Jack said.

  Sam didn’t know that Jack had heard what Meredith said. He wondered whether Jack could have helped somehow. Mates sticking up for mates or something. But how? How could Jack have helped?

  Jack’s pace was quick, even though he was pushing the bike along beside him. Sam had to hurry to keep up. He glanced sideways at his friend. Jack was taller, broader in the shoulders, better looking. He was more … everything.

  For a while, there was no conversation. Just a comfortable silence, the click of bike wheels, the bird calls. Jack was still walking, still looking ahead of him, when he spoke.

  ‘Sambo, what do you reckon Jordan would say if I asked her to go out with me? Do you think she likes me that way?’

  There was a moment where Sam almost laughed out loud. Jack must be joking. The girls at school were practically a smorgasboard for Jack. He could pick out whoever he wanted. Man, he’d been out with Tylah Peer. She was not only in the year above them, but she was probably the hottest girl in school. She could have been on magazine covers. Tylah was a bit stuck-up maybe, and Sam had never really been able to say more than two words to her, but she was definitely hot.

  But Sam gulped back the laugh. He could see now, from Jack’s grip on the handlebars, the whiteness of his knuckles, that he wasn’t joking. He really wasn’t sure how Jordan felt about him, really wasn’t sure what she would say. It was unreal that Jack could honestly be unsure of himself. It sort of released something in Sam. A tension he’d been carrying around in his shoulders.

  There wasn’t much time between Jack’s question and Sam’s answer, so it was amazing that so many thoughts could swim around his head.

  ‘Well, apparently you can tell if someone likes you,’ Sam began. ‘Statistics suggest that 85% of people hold eye contact for up to ten seconds longer with the person they like.’

  Jack stopped walking. His head tilted as he took in what Sam had said. Then he released a laugh, and shook his head.

  ‘Geez, Sambo, you are a serious geek!’ Jack paused for a moment. ‘But it’s actually kind of cool.’ He began moving again, and did a walking wheelie. Jack released a hand from the handlebars to deliver a massive corkie to Sam’s arm.

  Sam bit the inside of his lip to stop the grin as he rubbed his arm.

  Jack was letting him into something. A club of sorts. Sam was now a guy to ask advice from. Sam was now a guy who shaved. Eventually, he would have stubbles impressed into his skin.

  It felt pretty un-geeky, actually.

  It was a strange morning. Sam’s thoughts flipped around like fish in a buck
et. Slippery. One minute, he felt like he desperately didn’t want to run into Meredith. Then he was weirdly disappointed when he didn’t.

  It wasn’t until recess that he spotted her. Or her back, anyway. Her school dress against her knees as she walked. Her shiny ponytail, a hint of red in the brown that he’d never noticed before. And the indentation of a bra under her dress.

  Definitely a bra.

  Sam found himself walking in the opposite direction, down towards the basketball court. He had a sense of escaping one second. Eclipsed the next. How could he want and not want at the very same time?

  From the court, as he played basketball, he could see the shape of her on the slope with the other girls. She was far away. Too far away? He did a slam dunk, wondered whether she saw it. He wanted her to.

  The bell rang.

  He could take the pathway up to the lockers. He didn’t actually need to walk up the slope. But that’s what Jack was doing. Drawn like a magnet to Jordan, and not questioning it. Just moving towards her.

  Sam took a deep breath as he walked along with Jack. His feet seemed to decide for him. Not his mind.

  The girls stood up as he and Jack approached. Meredith’s dress was bunched up. Sam noticed a splash of freckles on her thigh before she pulled her dress down. She arranged it around her legs in a way that seemed unusually self-conscious for Meredith.

  Only then did Sam’s brain start ticking again. He could change direction. He could cut his way over to the footpath.

  Except that it was too late. Would be too obvious.

  There were five steps between him and Meredith. He froze. She stepped down towards him as the others moved off.

  ‘Sam, you did it,’ she said, quite gently. ‘You had a shave. Geez, you shouldn’t listen to me. Nobody else does.’

  They were separate enough from the rest of the gang that no-one else could hear.

  ‘No nicks, no cuts,’ she stirred. ‘Well, maybe one!’

  She reached out towards his lip. Sam caught her hand and twisted her around into a headlock. He lowered his arm, running it along her side from her shoulder to her waist. His movements felt like they were in slow motion.

  She started to say something jokey.

  ‘Can you … I mean … is it possible for you to shut up every now and then?’ he asked.

  ‘Nup.’ Meredith ducked down. Slipped out of his grasp. His arms felt empty. A symptom?

  She ran up the slope towards the others. Sam watched as her ponytail jiggled from side to side. He stayed behind, standing still to preserve the feeling of holding her.

  She was only a few metres away when she changed direction. She turned back down the slope.

  Back towards him.

  She stood so close to him. So close, and for once, she wasn’t talking.

  Meredith leant into him. Her lips grazed his. And they felt soft against his own, and smooth, and it felt as though Sam was in a dream. It could have been two seconds or ten minutes. And he might have been blushing or he might not have been blushing.

  But one thing was for sure. Kissing Meredith was right. His body told him. The actual cells in his body told him. In a rush that whooshed inside, from his toes right up to his head.

  ‘Go, Sam! Go, Moo! Oi, oi, oi!’ The shouts came randomly from the gang on the slope above them.

  And even when Meredith started back up the slope, Sam just stood there. He felt like something had changed. That there had been a shift inside. He felt that he didn’t need Google to research it for him anymore.

  Meredith liked him, Sam. He liked her back.

  It was a lot to take in all at once. A shave. A kiss. But maybe it was time for things to start changing? For all that to happen, and maybe more?

  Finally, it felt like he was starting to get it.

  This strange life stuff.

  meredith

  Meredith lifted the doona. She could feel it already. An alien trickle. But the blood on her pj pants was proof. It wasn’t as if she didn’t expect it. She’d had the cramps. The weird sensations, as though her whole body was reduced to one space in her guts.

  She switched on her bedroom light, then the light in the hallway. She walked down to the bathroom, which was where it always was. A second set of footsteps followed, and her dad was at the bathroom door, wiping sleep out of his eyes.

  ‘Moo, what are you doing up? Are you OK?’

  ‘I got it.’

  ‘Oh …’ he paused. ‘Oh, really?’ He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. He was whispering like they were together harbouring a great secret.

  ‘So, do you have everything you need?’ he asked. ‘It’s all in the white bathroom bag under the sink.’

  He had bought the stuff ages ago and left the bag in the cupboard, while it seemed to happen to everyone except for her. And Cecilia, of course, but Meredith could tell why it hadn’t happened to Cecilia. She was dancing her body into nothing.

  Meredith peered inside the bag. There were pads and tampons. Even a booklet called Changing Bodies. It all made her feel a little giggly. As though she might look down, suddenly, and see her body covered in fur. Or sprouting a tail.

  ‘Yep, it’s all good, Dad. I’m just going to have a shower.’

  He nodded, all serious. ‘You do that, Moo. That’s a good idea. That’s what you should do.’

  He was trying to make a statement, but the last bit sounded more like a question.

  Meredith breathed, deep and even, as she ran the shower. She stepped over her brother’s footy gear, a dirty lump on the tiles. A mud cake with sock candles.

  Finally, she was under the spray.

  An hour ago, she was a child. Now she was something else. A woman? Really? It seemed so strange, and she couldn’t help wondering if getting her period was somehow the result of kissing Sam. Maybe the two things were linked in some weird way?

  Kissing Sam had been, well, an impulse. A sudden urge that she just went with. A sudden urge that turned out … really nicely. Sam was so sweet, she already knew that. But it had been a discovery that the kiss felt so good.

  It felt like everything was happening at once, too much to think about. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, she knew that already. She put a pad inside fresh knickers. It had ‘wings’. Like a bird, or an angel, or a sanitary pad. She stuck the wings around her knickers to secure the pad. Her pj pants were soaking in the laundry. She put on the new ones she’d brought in from her bedroom.

  Tampons might be harder, but she didn’t need to use them yet. Anyway, the whole thing wasn’t rocket science. Wasn’t like she needed a live demo.

  She took the booklet back to her room, though. Just in case she’d missed something.

  Rain tapped on the roof. Insistently. Like it was trying to get in.

  Her dad hadn’t gone back to bed. He stood at her bedroom door, tapping his fingers on the doorframe, little finger to big. Meredith wriggled under the doona, pushed the booklet deep down under the covers. He stopped tapping at the index finger, midstream.

  ‘Dad, really, I’m fine.’

  ‘We could ring Aunty Lisa. She would come over. If you have any questions …’

  Aunty Lisa would purse her lips. She was the original inspiration for one of Meredith’s best faces, the cat’s-bum. Aunty Lisa would narrow her eyes, and her tone would be whiny, as though she was sick to death of everything. Her whole being an indicator that life was just something that had to be tolerated.

  ‘Well, Meredith.’ Meredith’s impression was perfect. ‘Congratulations. You are finally a woman. Later than other girls, but at least you got there. Darling.’

  The crow’s-feet around her dad’s eyes crinkled with his smile. ‘You’re a shocker, Moo,’ he admonished.

  ‘Really, Dad, I’m like the second-last girl my age on the planet to get it. If I have any questions, I can just ask my friends.’

  Meredith turned over on her side. Her dad walked in, leant down and kissed her on the temple. Meredith detected a certain glistening i
n his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Moo. I’m sorry she’s not … Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Anything at all.’

  Meredith looked up at the giant poster on her bedroom wall. It covered the space where the photo had been. Chosen for size rather than content. It was some boy band that Meredith wasn’t even that into. It was annoying that thoughts of the photo should jump into her head now. She wished she could just erase the memory of it. Of her.

  She would not let herself go any further down that road. There was no point. If she let herself slip, she would fall down that black hole. She’d been there enough.

  She wished the memories would just go away. But there they were, back again.

  When it happened, she had been three quarters of the way through grade six. It wasn’t a particularly special time of year.

  Spring, when the world woke up after a long winter.

  When her mother woke up and left them.

  Meredith had sunk, then. The poor little girl. Abandoned by her own mother. It was like a neon sign around her neck. Canteen mothers gave her extra in her lunch orders. Like compensation.

  Normally the other kids looked to her to make up fun games, but that all changed somehow. They kept their distance. It was as if they carried their parents’ lectures around with them. That somehow they thought it might be contagious. Their mums might also vanish. They let her have the best swing without an argument. The first turn at everything.

  The curse of kindness had followed her everywhere.

  It had been such a relief to get to high school, and she chose one that none of her primary school friends were going to. She needed to shed the old skin, snake-like. She had already started practising how not to appear sad. How to be bubbly and light.

  She realised that if she was bright in the face of darkness, things started to change. People reacted differently. Meredith could hide the black hole so no-one would know about the tender stretch of pink heart that covered its opening. She would be the clown.