Beautiful Mess

by Claire Christian

  ‘You need to back off,’ I yell, starting the march up the stairs.

  ‘Mate, we’re just worried,’ Susan yells after me, and Mum stands behind her, looking like the physical manifestation of worry.

  ‘You don’t need to be so worried,’ I yell, sitting hard on the stairs. ‘Fuck! I’m not broken.’ I wish they would say what they were really thinking. I wish they would tell me I’ve let them down or they’re angry or whatever, but they don’t, they just skate around the surface, too scared to rock the boat. Except I’m the boat and the waters are already pretty rocky, so they may as well go for gold.

  ‘I just have a broken heart,’ I say.

  ‘And hand,’ Mum says, her eyes welling with tears.

  ‘And hand,’ I say. I look at the cast. ‘But I’m not fragile. I’m just sad.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’ Susan stops herself. Then she says, ‘The last time you were sad…’ And she leaves it there. Climbs the stairs and sits beside me.

  And I realise what a giant idiot I’m being. They’re scared of losing me. I know what that feels like now.

  When I finally do get to my room to be quiet, I feel so completely out of it. Confused and sad and angry at myself. My hand hurts.

  I look at my cast. I feel like shit for fucking it up with Ava, for saying what I did, for not listening to her. Mostly, I feel like shit for being a bad friend. All I ever wanted was to be her friend.

  I bite my lip and think about her, and my heart starts to race and my stomach hurts, because I realise there’s nothing I can do. She can’t get what she needs from me.

  Everything is shit, but weirdly I feel okay. I feel sad about Lincoln. I feel bad about Gideon. I feel awful for ruining his formal.

  It was like my brain just got sick of me not listening, that it was just like, ‘ENOUGH,’ and it went off, flipping metaphorical tables and showing me how we actually felt.

  And then Gideon did some table-flipping of his own. Said some awful things and kind of…put the last piece in the breakup jigsaw.

  Now all I want to do is talk to him, to debrief about everything that happened. I want to know what he thinks and if he’s okay and I want him to make it better, to make me laugh. But he’s the one person I can’t talk to, because he’s the one who made me feel like shit. And I’m the one who’s made him feel like shit.

  I don’t know what I’m meant to do. I miss my friends. I feel completely alone.

  But maybe that’s the point: I don’t know how to be alone. And I feel like I should know how to do that.

  We talk about it in the end, me and Mum and Susan, after I’ve spent a couple of days in my room, marinating in my idiocy.

  ‘I need you to stop freaking out and walking on eggshells around me,’ I say. ‘Tell me I messed up. Tell me I’m an idiot or something. Stop pretending you’re not pissed off. You should be pissed off.’

  ‘I am pissed off.’ Susan nods.

  ‘I’m not pissed off. I’m just worried,’ Mum says calmly. ‘Because we’ve been to the edge, Gids, I know what it looks like to not have you, and that thought is just fucking unbearable. So, you know. I do mother you and I do worry and I hear what you’re saying but you also need to hear what we’re saying. We love you and we’re always going to worry about you and you need to just suck it up.’ She pauses. ‘You also need to not hit people like a stupid bonehead jock.’

  ‘Shit, Gids,’ said Susan. ‘You made her say fuck. It’s serious.’ And that smashes the intensity in the air and we laugh about it, and eventually we get constructive.

  We talk about what we can do better. We talk about my triggers and how this will affect my depression. We talk about me letting them in and not blocking them out all the time. About calling Robbie to get his advice, and also about finding a new therapist in town just so I can stay on top of everything.

  We talk about changing my medication. They tell me they need me to be honest with them. I tell them I need them to listen to me, believe me and trust me when I tell them I’m fine. I tell them that I can’t keep feeling like they’re going to crack every time I do something that isn’t sit in my room and be quiet. And I remind them that I’m not the same kid I was when I was fourteen. I’ve changed. I’ve grown.

  I think about that later, on my own. Everything that’s happened this week. Even apart from splitting up with my girlfriend and having my heart broken and acting like a massive douchebag, what I really can’t believe is: I punched Lincoln.

  Suddenly a smile cracks across my face. I HIT SOMEONE. I didn’t back down. I reacted. I made a choice and I backed myself, even if it was a disaster and senselessly violent dickhead behaviour but whatever, I still did it. I did something, for once.

  A weird wash of pride fills my chest and I laugh a little. I didn’t run away. I was actually brave.

  Right now, even though I’m feeling a million things at once, I realise I’m okay. I’m gonna be okay. I’ve been braver then I ever thought possible this year and it’s paid off.

  This is how I think I want to be from now on. Brave. Doing more, being more. I’m so sick of being passive.

  And I’ve got to keep sorting my shit out, because life is messy.

  But fuck, it can be beautiful.

  There’s a knock on the door. My stomach flips, praying it isn’t Gideon but hoping desperately at the same time that it is. I open the door and see the back of Lincoln walking down the front porch stairs, and there’s a single gerbera in a bit of brown paper on the welcome mat.

  He quickly spins. ‘Hey,’ he smiles.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Just wanted to leave you that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No, no; no need to thank me.’

  I look at the bright yellow flower and for a second I wish that this flower was from Gideon, not Lincoln. Go figure.

  I want to be mad at Lincoln. I want to tell him to leave. I want to jam the flower into his chest and turn quickly on my heel and slam the door. But looking at him with his hands in his pockets and sunnies on, biting his bottom lip all shy, I can’t do any of it. It’s like my body is in direct conflict with my brain. My brain is all like tell him to piss off, but my body feels all the ties of the history between us, all these little cords connecting us together. They’re impossible to break. He is a link to my past, to all of these feelings. He is central to most of my childhood memories and he is my link to Kelly.

  ‘You’ve never bought anyone flowers,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘Samia Jackson in Year 10. For Valentine’s Day. I even bought her a teddy bear.’ He smiles.

  There’s a pause. A pause long enough for some of those ties I thought I had cut the night of the formal to quickly reconnect, like some kind of wild vine that grows no matter how often you kill it.

  ‘Why are you here, Lincoln?’

  ‘Just cause, Aves.’ He stops. ‘Cause of this year, cause of it…all, yeah?’

  I nod because I know exactly what he means. I think it too. I’m sorry we did what we did, that we hooked up when we didn’t really want to, that we yelled at each other and said that awful shit. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell him how I really felt about Kelly dying, that I didn’t let him in. I’m sorry for what happened at the formal and for thinking that I could ever cut him out of my life. Most of all I’m sorry we let Kelly down.

  I sit down on the step and Lincoln edges towards me and perches tentatively next to me. We sit in silence for ages.

  I notice the bruise that pokes out from beneath his sunglasses and I gasp, pointing at it. He takes them off and looks at me; the skin around his eye is all different shades of purple.

  ‘We broke up.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  Lincoln scoffs and smiles. ‘Boy can punch, though.’

  We both laugh. Eventually it subsides and we’re silent for a moment.

  ‘Will we ever be friends again?’
/>   ‘Were we ever friends?’ He smiles.

  He’s right. We were never friends. He was always just Kel’s brother and then we got complicated, but we were never friends.

  ‘Can we be?’ I ask and I mean it, and without even hesitating he looks me in the eye and he says, ‘One day.’ And I know he means it too.

  ‘At a time?’ I smile.

  ‘Yeah, Aves, let’s take it one day at a time.’ He pauses. ‘Everything got really fucking messy, yeah? I don’t know much about anything right now. I’m angry all the time, at Mum and Dad, at you, even Gideon, but mostly it’s cause I’m angry with her. So mad. I keep taking it out on everyone else, and it’s shit. All of it.’

  My eyes sting as I bite my lip and he takes a deep breath, holding it together.

  ‘I’m just sorry.’ He looks at the ground. I touch his shoulder and breathe hard.

  ‘Yeah. Me too,’ I say, and then we don’t talk for a while.

  ‘You gonna come to graduation?’ he asks.

  ‘How are you even graduating?’ I smile.

  ‘Pure fluke,’ he shrugs. It’s not a fluke, it’s cause he’s smart.

  ‘Come?’ he asks.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I might tell everyone to get fucked.’ I stretch out my legs and listen to Lincoln laugh.

  ‘Come’—he looks at me—‘as friends.’ I smile and hold our eye contact for a moment and what passes between us is some kind of acknowledgment that things are going to be different.

  I look away, nodding. ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘They want to see you.’ He stands up, quickly squeezes my shoulder and starts to walk towards his car. Lincoln seems different, like something big has changed. I want to know why.

  ‘Oi!’ I yell and he turns his head. ‘Why now?’

  He smiles quick. ‘Cause I watched Lilo and Stitch.’

  ‘What?’ I crack up laughing.

  ‘Ohana, Aves.’ And he nods, gets in his car and beeps the horn twice as he pulls away.

  It’s classic Lincoln to create meaning from something so random. He hasn’t taken on any of the advice he’s been given or shit that people have done to try and help him and in the end the thing that cuts through it all is a freaking Disney movie. ‘Ohana’ means family, and family means no one gets left behind. I smile and feel pulses of happiness and relief as the knot that has been wound in my stomach because of me and Lincoln finally relaxes.

  I’m sitting behind two girls who were in my year; one of them is crying and the other is trying to comfort her. She’s crying about Year 11 being over and how she’s ‘so gonna miss the Year 12s cause they’re so amazing’. It’s taking all of my possible restraint to not tap her on the shoulder and tell her that none of them care about her and to stop being so fucking dramatic.

  I sit next to Greg and Tina, who saw me waiting on my own in the carpark. My plan was to just sneak in at the last second and stand at the back of the auditorium and then sneak out again, but Tina saw me and walked over. I thought for sure she was going to yell at me, but she didn’t say anything; just hugged me tight and kissed my forehead.

  I looked at Greg. ‘We’ve missed you, Aves,’ he said.

  I looked to the sky and willed myself to not cry, partly because I’m sick of crying and partly because I spent just that little bit of extra time doing my make-up today just in case I saw Gideon. I smiled and nodded and Tina held my hand as we walked into the auditorium and sat down.

  One by one the Year 12s shake hands with Mrs Bryan and get their certificate, and all pile onto these stands. I think about how they must be feeling right now. That’s it. No more school.

  I wish I was a year older. I wish I was standing up there with them. Mostly I wish I was standing next to Gideon and that everything was okay.

  I keep my eyes locked on him from the second he walks onto the stage. I just stare, hoping and praying that he’ll look at me. But he doesn’t. Not once. Just stares at the back of the auditorium, looking like he always does. Curls hanging over his eyes, a dark shield against the world; a slight smirk that looks like maybe he’s about to smile or vomit, it could go either way. He also has a bright blue cast on his arm. I wonder how he did it, how he hurt himself, and pray wildly that he didn’t do it on purpose. A wash of guilt fills my chest. If he did do it on purpose then it’d be all my fault. Just like he said.

  The Year 12s all march off the stage and take their seats in the first few rows as Marnie Albringer and some other music kids play guitar and sing some old song about friendship. The girl in front of me starts crying again because of some reason that I can’t even be bothered listening to. I stare at the back of her head and my eyebrows do the talking, telling her in no uncertain terms that she’s a dickhead. A couple of the boys hold up lighters and sway them in the air, but Mrs Bryan shuts that shit down pretty quickly, not before the entire auditorium has cracked up though, and Marnie looks like she’s actually going to murder them. I laugh a little despite myself, mainly because Mrs Bryan’s mouth looks like a dead-set cat’s bum when she’s pissed off.

  When the song is over the stage-management kids run around setting up another microphone and Mr Neville says some cheesy thing about lighters and songs and everyone cracks up again. I look at all the award boards on the side of the hall, reading names of the kids who won in the past, half-heartedly listening to Mr Neville’s next sentence.

  ‘I’m not sure if many of you will know this, but one of our seniors, Gideon Franks-Myer, has had a bit of success in the slam poetry world this year.’

  I feel my stomach lurch. Gideon will hate this, the attention. Will hate that they’re talking about him and that they’re going to make him get up and probably receive some stupid school certificate. I look to the front of the auditorium, scanning all the seniors for him, but I can’t find him.

  ‘Gideon has asked to perform an untitled piece today, so give him a round of applause.’ Over a thousand pairs of hands collide together clapping as I watch him stride across the stage. I can’t help it, my face cracks with a smile just at the sight of him. Then it fades. What is he doing?

  Gideon stands at the microphone with his eyes shut. I don’t think I’m even sitting anymore, more like squatting, hovering over the front of my chair staring at him. I feel nervous. I feel sick. A couple of kids a few seats up from me snigger and I stare at them. I want to get up and stand next to him and at the same time I want to run very fast out of the auditorium. He starts and it’s like someone has punched me in the guts; all the air leaves my body as I thud down heavy in my chair. This isn’t his poem. This is my poem. The one I sent him months ago. The one I wrote and gave to him and told him to read if he was confused. He’s memorised it. He’s performing it.

  she has a smile / she had a smile / everything changes between the ‘s’ and the ‘d’ / she has / she had / she had so many feelings / but they took them away / couldn’t feel anything / she’d say / what’s the point in being young if you don’t feel it? / like a million little fireworks exploding / she’d see the colours, but couldn’t marvel at the lights / see them take over the sky / but could only focus on the dark.

  her chemicals and their chemicals tried to find a balance / she wouldn’t stick to it / made her feel like she was flatlining / a life that was dull / no one can tell me that she didn’t fight / like a ninja she’d stick to the shadows / a black-plaited princess fighting demons in the dark / she’d shift shapes before your very eyes / appearing and disappearing / tricking and flicking switches to a life only one-eighth lived.

  she’s taken my secrets to her grave / taken my past with her / wrapped up in a carnation-covered cocoon / don’t tell me / everything happens for a reason / she’s in a better place / she was broken / such a waste / it’s because we talk about her like it’s a waste that we let her waste away / I’ll never let her waste away.

  she lost / now we lose.

  she didn’t want to end her life / she loved life<
br />
  she wanted to end her pain.

  I can’t move. Everything feels weird and it’s not being helped by the fact that everyone in the auditorium is silent. Like dead quiet.

  I inhale loudly, catching my breath, and it’s only when I do that I realise that the whole time he was up there I was holding my breath. I glance at the people in the other rows and they’re all just kind of stunned. Gideon nods and then walks to the side of the stage and applause erupts, like really truly erupts, and Mr Neville walks him back onto the stage and makes him bow and he smiles and bends his lanky body quickly and then a few people cheer and I don’t wipe the tears away that I know are running down my cheeks because I’m stunned too.

  Not because he did it, or because he was amazing, but because Gideon looks different. It’s not confident; he still looks awkward and nervous, like he always did. It’s something else. I turn my head to the side and look at Lincoln and Kelly’s parents and they hold each other’s hands tightly, they’re both crying.

  ‘Who is that boy?’ Tina asks me.

  ‘His name is Gideon.’

  ‘Was he friends with Kelly?’

  I nod and stutter out the word: ‘Yeah.’

  Mr Neville whispers something in Gideon’s ear and he laughs, like really actually laughs with his whole body and I think I know what it is that’s different about him. He looks like maybe, maybe he’s not scared anymore.

  I find him with his parents standing outside talking to Mrs Bryan. Susan smiles at me over his shoulder and taps his arm. He turns his head and sees me. I watch him swallow hard, turn back and whisper something to his mum and then stuff his hands hard in his pockets as he walks over towards me, looking at the ground. He doesn’t seem nervous though, not like normal—just thoughtful, like he’s thinking, a lot. Which really is normal.

  ‘You were amazing,’ some girl who is probably in Year 9 yells at him from a massive gaggle of girls as they walk past. I smile at him and he smirks, his eyes quickly darting over my shoulder to another group of kids talking and pointing at him. They wave, Gideon waves back, then he looks at me with his eyebrows raised. His expression tells me just how freaked out and weird he thinks all of this is.