Beautiful Mess

by Claire Christian

  He steps onto the porch and throws the can in his hand—hard—and it bounces on the concrete and lands with a heavy spray on the road as I slam the door.

  ‘Fuck you, Ava,’ he shouts.

  Gideon strides towards me. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No.’ I start pacing. ‘I’m so angry. He hasn’t talked to me in weeks since…the thing he did, and what? He thinks I’ll just let him in and hook up with him like nothing happened?’ Gideon makes a weird sound, but I keep rambling. ‘He just doesn’t listen. He doesn’t think. He just gets shit-faced and acts like a jerk.’

  ‘He is a jerk.’ Gideon shakes his head.

  ‘But he’s not. He’s just. We feel the same way.’ My voice is strained and the tears sit in my eyes—ready to spill, just not quite yet. ‘I wish you could’ve met her. Properly’—then they start—‘and I wish you could’ve met me then too, because I feel like when she died, I died too. Or a bit of me did. My heart, maybe.’

  Gideon hugs me tight, he lets me cry and he doesn’t say anything. It’s just all too heavy, like a dead weight on my chest. Like my throat is closing up and I can’t breathe.

  Lately I’ve been caught out by these moments where things are…good. Great, even. When I am happy with this hilarious boy who writes poetry and makes me laugh. And just as quickly as I feel good, I’ll remember or I’ll think of her, think that this is something I should tell her because she’d love it. All of it. She would’ve laughed her mad cackle and said something like ‘I love this shit,’ getting all giddy. She’d have wanted to know every single detail and she’d want me to repeat them over and over. I pull away and look at Gideon and he looks back at me with his floppy hair, expecting something and nothing all at the same time, and I’m petrified.

  ‘Like you said, I’m broken. My heart. Is broken. So any of this. With you. Is just—’ I stop. I hate myself. I hate what I’m saying even as it leaves my mouth.

  Kelly would’ve yelled at me about sabotage, and told me to grow a set. Just go for it, like she would have done. Well, in her up moments she would. Her good days. Then we’d have to work out plans upon plans to get her out of the situations she got herself into—like the time she wrote Andre Daar a love letter.

  We were in Year 8 and Andre was in Year 12. He hadn’t been in Australia long, a year maybe. He was from Somalia and didn’t speak much English, but he beatboxed so all the kids at school thought he was cool. He was amazing. Is amazing. He’s been signed to some label and works with big musicians now. Kel used Google translate to write a letter in Arabic and on Friday afternoon she put it in his locker. By Sunday night I was standing at school in one of Lincoln’s hoodies holding a crowbar and a pair of tin snips because we had to get the letter back, which we did. No one ever found out it was us who’d busted Andre’s locker open. Mrs Bryan did a big rant at assembly about equality and multiculturalism, so everyone was led to believe that the great act of locker vandalism was in the name of hatred. No one ever found out it was actually in the name of love. Misguided love, but still.

  Andre never knew that there were two girls in Year 8 who learned to say I love you in Arabic just for him.

  Kel learned it just for him; I learned it because she made me.

  ‘So, yeah. Gideon, I just—’ and he interrupts me.

  ‘Do you know what the Japanese do with broken things?’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘They put them back together. But they fill the gaps with gold. They reckon the breaks are just a part of their story. That the cracks should make the piece more beautiful.’

  I pause. ‘You can’t fix it, Gideon.’

  ‘I know.’

  And I can’t fix it either. Because every time I think about the fact that she’s not coming back my heart breaks again, and I hate this melodramatic shit so much. I read the blogs and the forums online and I see myself in all of them. They tell me it’s normal. They say that time heals all wounds. But that’s bullshit, it’s just a stupid saying.

  Time heals some wounds. Other wounds are too big. Some wounds kill you. Sometimes you don’t even have a wound. Sometimes it’s just your blood, or your brain, or your chemicals that make you sick. And sometimes your blood or your brain or your chemicals, or whatever it is kills you.

  I look at Gideon. ‘Sometimes I think. I don’t want to kill myself, but if I died. That would be okay.’

  ‘Ava.’ He sits on the floor next to me.

  ‘No. That would make all of this okay because I wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore.’

  Neither of us says anything, he just stares at me.

  ‘Gideon. I’m so tired. I hate crying. I don’t want to cry anymore. And you are so. Weird and—’

  ‘Attractive?’ He says this so fast that I half-smile through my snotty tears.

  ‘Awesome. Kel would’ve fucking loved you. She would. She does, probably, I don’t know. I hate that past-tense shit. God. I don’t even know what to say when I talk about her.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say most of the time. No one I love has ever died.’

  ‘Well, it sucks balls.’

  ‘Yeah, I gathered. But maybe it gets lighter?’ He grabs a handful of Skittles off the ground and starts making patterns with them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The weight. It doesn’t go away. But maybe you just work out how to carry it.’

  ‘Like the box?’

  ‘Like the box.’

  He’s made an ‘A’ out of the Skittles on the carpet. He doesn’t look at me, just at the Skittles. I feel better. Slightly mystified. But better.

  ‘Should we write a poem now?’ I joke.

  ‘We can.’ Gideon looks at me and smiles. ‘Roses are red. Violets are blue. Gideon thinks Ava is pretty… sometimes,’ he says, holding my gaze for like a tiny moment before looking back down to the carpet.

  ‘That’s it?’ I giggle through my nose, as my stomach tenses. ‘That was awful.’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘It didn’t even rhyme.’

  Gideon laughs loudly and I look up; take a big deep breath in. ‘You’re a good friend, Gideon.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nods with a little tight smile.

  ‘Do you know what the Japanese do with good friends?’ I say.

  Gideon laughs again. ‘No, do you?’

  I nod and I kiss him. I kiss him because I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more than I want to kiss Gideon right now and he kisses me back and it just keeps going. It’s the best kiss I’ve ever had. That is until a car horn beeps and Gideon breaks away and looks out the window. It’s his mums. His face flushes bright red and he gets up and walks out the door to the car without saying anything at all. Just gets in the car and they drive off.

  What just happened?

  We kiss and he doesn’t say anything. Was he embarrassed? Maybe he didn’t want to, maybe his mums pulling up was the best thing ever so he didn’t have to untangle himself and let me down gently. But I am no stranger to unwelcome kisses, and it definitely did not feel like that…It’s like he’ll let me in, then close up, and then I’ll let him in and I’ll run away. I just wish I knew how he felt.

  I stand up and that’s when I see it, on the carpet. Gideon’s feelings written in Skittles.

  G 4 A.

  The same few thoughts have been running through my head on a loop. Ava kissed me. I kissed her back. Ava and I kissed. It was awesome. But then another series of thoughts run on repeat. You ruined it. You’re a fucking idiot. Why did you walk out like that? What kind of crazy person kisses the person they like and then just… leaves?

  That would be me.

  I pace around my bedroom trying to work out my next move, trying to work out how to fix it, but I don’t know what to do, so I call the only person who can help.

  ‘So,’ says Annie, ‘tell me about this girl.’

  So I do. I tell her about Ava. I tell her all about Ava, because I’ve attempted to maintain some kind of cool with everyone else, but there is noth
ing cool about me around Annie. She knows I had my very own My Little Pony collection when I was seven so I could play with her and her friends. She knows that I cried hysterically in the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven. I was twelve. She knows about the time I vomited all over myself going around a roundabout. Annie already knows I’m just incredibly uncool, so, I gush like an idiot. I tell her all about Magic Kebab, and our letters, and our kiss. I probably spend a good five minutes on things that Ava finds funny and the way she laughs and I tell Annie about the way she makes me feel: ‘Like my stomach is going to twist itself up so tight with giddiness that it’s going to fall out of my belly button.’

  ‘Wow. Have you told her these things?’ Annie smiles after I finish another longwinded rant.

  ‘Well, no. Not really. She knows. She’d know, yeah?’ I ask.

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘So, I should tell her?’

  ‘Absolutely. We all deserve to be fawned over, Gids. Tell her and don’t walk out again. Stick around for the good bits.’

  This induces nothing but a wash of fear. I thought this fear would go away once Ava and I kissed, but it hasn’t. Is this what relationships are? Just a perpetual sense of dread? Why don’t they talk about this in the romantic movies?

  ‘Stop thinking about it, and just tell her,’ Annie says. ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen?’

  I think about all of the bad things that could happen. That list is actually quite easy to imagine.

  Annie continues, ‘The worst is that she doesn’t feel the same way. Yeah, that’ll bruise, but so what? Is it going to change the way you feel about her?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Then do it.’

  We pause. ‘Okay, that’s your heart. Now tell me about your brain,’ Annie rests the iPad on her knees as she puts her hair up into a high ponytail on the top of her head.

  ‘It’s getting better.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Things are. Not like the last times, Annie. It’s different. It’s still…’ I try to find the right word. ‘It’s still shit.’

  ‘How poetic,’ Annie laughs.

  ‘Shut up,’ I say, smiling at her, ‘I’m okay. Just—’ I stop myself.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nah. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  It takes a while to get it out. Mainly cause I don’t really know what I’m trying to say. I tell her that school is so pointless and that all of my uni applications are in, but when I think about next year now, I just feel totally numb. I used to think of moving and studying as the way out. As when my life would begin. I’d put so much emphasis on just getting through Year 12, on getting into uni, that now it’s happening and it’s so close, it just doesn’t feel urgent anymore. It doesn’t feel exciting. It just feels…nothing. Which completely freaks me out because what if it’s not what I want? What if there is nothing to be excited about or look forward to anymore and what if this is the way I’m going to feel about things for the rest of my life?

  ‘So, don’t go to uni,’ Annie says, matter-of-fact. ‘If it doesn’t feel right, don’t go.’

  I scoff at her. ‘And do what? Work at Magic Kebab?’

  ‘No.’ She pauses. ‘Come here.’

  ‘For a holiday?’

  ‘Maybe. Or come and live here. With me.’

  I just look at her, feeling my forehead crease. ‘You’re not serious. I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because. Ava. And—’ I stop, I can’t think of any other reasons.

  ‘That’s it. That’s your only reason?’

  This is classic Annie. She’s too smart to fight her corner, she just asks well-timed questions in the hope that you’ll work it out for yourself.

  ‘Come and have an adventure, Gids. Work out what you want. Write. Meet crazy people. See things. Feel some things.’

  I don’t say anything, and in an instant Robbie pops into my head. ‘Fill your cracks, kiddo.’ What a completely crazy idea. What would Ava say? She’d hate it. My mums would hate it. I couldn’t…

  ‘Just think about it. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Now, aren’t you gonna ask me about me?’ She moves the iPad to show me some guy with a big beard sound asleep next to her.

  ‘Annie!’ I yell, totally grossed out. ‘Has he been there the whole time?’

  ‘Gideon, meet Mario,’ she smirks. ‘He’s Italian.’

  I start laughing. ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  Annie pokes at the bearded man and he opens one eye. ‘Good morning beautiful,’ he says with a thick accent while my eyes bulge out of my head. I can feel my cheeks flush, I’m so embarrassed.

  ‘My brother wants to know if you’re my boyfriend.’

  Mario registers the iPad in her hands and makes eye contact with me. I probably should smile, I guess. Or maybe wave. I don’t know. What’s the polite thing to do when you meet the Italian man in your sister’s bed? Mario takes the iPad out of Annie’s hands, still lying down, and holds it directly above his face.

  ‘Hello, Gideon, lovely to meet you, I’ve heard lots about your poems.’

  He has? What has Annie told him?

  ‘The one about the dandelion is my favourite.’

  I wrote that for Annie before she left.

  ‘Now, to answer your question.’ He is smirking, but I can only tell because his beard moves. ‘I am most definitely not Annie’s boyfriend.’

  I hear Annie scoff and she reappears in the screen with her head on his chest.

  ‘There, that clears that up.’ She pauses. ‘I miss you, Gideon.’

  ‘I miss you too.’

  Then she hangs up. I don’t want to think about what happens after that.

  ‘You look hilarious,’ Ava giggles. We’re both wearing giant jackets and gloves. Today is the day we have to clean out the Magic Kebab cold room for Ricky. Today is also the first time we’ve seen each other since we kissed. The air between us is awkward.

  ‘Does it suit me?’ I say, posing with one hand on the shelf. My jacket is way too small and only comes down to my hips—I’m pretty sure it’s a ladies jacket, whereas the same jacket on Ava covers her knees. She pulls the hood up and I crack up laughing. ‘That’s a good look. Yes.’

  ‘You can’t even see my face.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say.

  Thanks Ricky, I think, because these stupid, cheapskate jackets have definitely, pardon the pun, broken the ice between us.

  We get back to checking use-by dates and throwing stuff away. A collection of the olive tins are six years out of date, which for some reason we think is hilarious. Then we find something in the back corner behind a box of meat that can only be described as alien. I’ve never seen anything with so many shades of mould on it.

  ‘I’m not touching it.’ Ava stands against the door as far as physically possible from the weird mouldy thing on the ground.

  I poke it with a bit of cardboard. What is it, even?

  ‘This is so gross,’ she laughs as I grab a rubbish bag from my back pocket and move with feline grace to pick up the alien with the bag, flip it inside out and tie a knot in it. I turn to Ava and bow.

  ‘I am like a freaking knight in shining armour,’ I say, then do what any boy in my position would do and throw the bag at her. She screams and whacks it back at me and the weird black plastic mould mound sits on the floor between us. Who will make the first move in the great cold-room battle? Ava laughs nervously as I lunge for the bag and pick it up one-handed.

  ‘Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,’ she squeals.

  ‘Okay, okay. I won’t.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes. I am a man of my word.’ I bend down and put the bag inside the giant bin we’re using and feel a large whack on my head. Soggy bits of lettuce start to slide down my face as Ava jolts past, laughing wildly.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ She looks around the cold room; she has backed herself into the far corner and
has nowhere to go. She pleads wildly for forgiveness as I take two strides towards her and stuff another clump of lettuce into the hood of her jacket and pull it up over her head. She looks up at me. We both stop.

  This is the closest we’ve been since the kiss. Ava pushes me up against the metal shelf and my heart starts to thud in my chest, she looks into my eyes with a kind of wry smirk. Leans up and kisses me.

  I kiss her back and notice the squeak of our plastic jackets colliding and oh my god I feel Ava’s hand on the button of my jeans. I stop kissing her to breathe in deep. I can feel the cold metal on my back but I don’t care—this is the hottest thing ever. I kiss her again as she pulls at the waistband of my jeans and her hand slides in and I’m trying desperately to keep my cool but then all of a sudden it is cool.

  Cold, even. Cold and soggy—as Ava has just dropped a handful of lettuce into my pants.

  I am completely pissing myself as I watch Gideon try to get the lettuce out of his jeans.

  ‘You are vicious! A vicious, depraved human being, Ava Spirini,’ he says, pointing at me. When I first got to work today, I was worried because things between us were so awkward. He couldn’t look me in the eye and I thought—he regrets it, for sure. But when we got into the cold room the awkwardness eased and we had a laugh and found our old rhythm. He’s a really good kisser. Like really good—I really, really like kissing him.

  ‘There is definitely still lettuce in my pants,’ he says, itching his legs, ‘it feels like slugs.’

  ‘Take them off then,’ I say and Gideon looks shocked.

  ‘I’ve heard about girls like you,’ he says.

  ‘Girls like me?’

  ‘Yes. Girls who lure unsuspecting boys into small cold spaces to take advantage of them. Well, my mothers raised me right, and I will not be another one of your conquests, Ms Spirini. I’ve got morals.’ He sits on a crate and starts to undo his boots.

  I pretend to focus on the arrangement of the tins on the bottom shelf but I’m watching out of the corner of my eye as Gideon wriggles out of his skinny jeans and lettuce falls to the floor. Lined up the side of his thigh, just like his arms, are the same thin scars. Not as many, but they march up his leg with meticulous precision. I can’t help it, I reach over and touch them as Gideon looks down at me with his pants in his hand.