Struggle to Forever: a friends to lovers duet

by Lilliana Anderson

  “Well that sucks,” he commented.

  I was still a little concerned by them. But, they were more inquisitive than anything. We sat around the play equipment, passing the joint, while they asked me a lot of questions about who I was, and what I was doing curled up in a tunnel.

  With nothing to lose, I told them about my situation. The girl, Tahlia ended up offering me the couch in her garage.

  “You can crash there as long as you like. My parents won't give a shit,” she said, her voice muted as she held in a drag. I don’t know if it was the wisest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I found myself nodding and thanking her.

  So, that’s where I‘ve been for the past month, living in a garage that smells like oil and car fumes, sleeping on an old couch with scratchy material and broken springs. But I have a comfortable pillow and a blanket to keep me warm, access to a bathroom with hot water and three meals a day. So, I can’t really complain. It’s better than the park. Anything is better than the park.

  Eight

  Tahlia is probably the most outlandish person I’ve ever met. She’s a little older than me at seventeen, with long straight blonde hair that ends in the middle of her back. She’s taller than me, has blue eyes and is as curvaceous as a cartoon character.

  She has this great confidence about her that I can’t imagine I’ll ever have. Her hips sway from side to side when she walks, and everything she says seems bold and untethered.

  Her dad used to be a biker and still wanders around looking like he’s in a gang—black leather jacket, old band shirt and a bandana covering his long and slightly greying hair that is always secured into a pony tail by a rubber band. Not the hair ties; those thick rubber ones they wrap your newspaper in.

  He fascinates me when I watch him talk as he constantly has a cigarette hanging from his lips that bounces around while he speaks in his gravelly voice. Somehow, it never falls and never seems to burn out.

  Her mum looks like a hippy. She always wears long flowing dresses with no shoes. She has long dark, dead straight hair and speaks delicately, like she’s always in a state of bliss. Which she probably is because hidden in their laundry is a row of well-tended cannabis plants.

  No one seems to care that I’m staying in the garage, or else they haven’t even realised I’m in there. So, whatever this arrangement we have going on is working. I’ve kind of just merged with their world like the rest of the people who hang around their house. No questions asked.

  “Why don’t you go to school?” I ask Tahlia once while we’re passing a bong between us and watching daytime television. I’ve never been into drugs but getting baked on the regular has become our thing. It helps take the edge off the shittiness of my life, and I think I would quite literally do anything to forget the family who left me.

  “Quit in year ten,” she says, holding the lighter to the bowl. “I hated that place. Couldn’t wait to get out.”

  “What are you gonna do instead?”

  She sucks on the mouthpiece as the water bubbles, holding it in for a beat before she speaks in a billow of smoke. “I’m doin’ it.” She cackles then hands the bong to me while she flops on the couch, still laughing.

  Staying here isn’t a completely free ride. We have to help her parents dry, cut and bag up the pot for those who visit with the intent to purchase. It seems to be a very lucrative business, as they have every mod-con you can imagine. No one wants for anything here. Even me.

  “I was thinking, Paige,” Tahlia says while we’re in her bedroom, flicking through fashion magazines and styling our hair to match the models. “You’re almost sixteen. I should take you to get your learner’s permit.”

  “Why? Who’s going to teach me to drive?”

  “Me. I can drive.”

  “Yeah, but you’re still on your provisional license. You can’t teach me until you’re on a full license.”

  “So?” She laughs, focusing on her image in the mirror as she twists up her hair and pulls at strands around her face. “We’ll drive somewhere quiet. And if we get pulled over, I’ll offer to suck dick to get us out of it.”

  I giggle. “What if it’s a woman?”

  She shrugs. “I’ll give her a good clit rub. We’ll all end up happy.”

  I laugh at her craziness and end up agreeing because it’s hard to argue with Tahlia’s logic. She has an answer for everything.

  “I’ll need to get my birth certificate first, though,” I say.

  She stands up and grabs her bag. “All right. Let’s go.”

  “What? Now?”

  “Sure. What the fuck else are we gonna do?”

  Catching a train, we head to the city to find the building that houses the office for Births, Deaths and Marriages.

  As with every government office, the line is huge, and we wait for nearly an hour. When I get to the front of the line, I hand over my form, and empty out all the cards I have with my name and old address on them to prove who I am.

  “Don’t you have a copy of your parent’s ID? It’s a lot easier with that,” the lady behind the counter says as I offer her the entire contents of my wallet.

  “I don’t have any parents to ask,” I tell her flatly. Her expression softens immediately, and she apologises to me like I just told her they were dead, and I'm an orphan.

  Thinking over what I said, I guess it kind of sounded that way. I don’t bother correcting her. I actually prefer her thinking that.

  She goes through all of my cards and counts up the point value of each one. I need a hundred points of ID to obtain my birth certificate, and I’m lucky to have just enough. God only knows how I’d get my birth certificate without it.

  Tahlia pays for the printout, and I’m handed my birth certificate, folded up in an envelope.

  Tahlia takes it out of my hands and looks over it.

  “Let’s find out about Paige Larsen,” she says as she reads over the document. “Why does your dad have a different surname to your mum?”

  “What are you talking about? They’re both Larsen.”

  “No,” she says, pointing at the paper and showing it to me. “Your mother has Larsen as her surname and Collins as her maiden name, but your dad’s surname is Ashdown.”

  “What?” I snatch the paper from her hands to look at it myself. “Who the hell is Daniel Ashdown?” I ask, more to myself than anyone else.

  “He’s your dad. It says right there,” Tahlia says, pointing to the paper again.

  “No. My dad is Oliver Larsen. This guy doesn’t even live in Australia. Look. His address is in the UK.” I jab at the page, indicating his address at the time of my birth. “There’s some sort of a mistake. I’m lining up again,” I tell her, heading back to join the queue

  She grabs my arm to stop me. “Paige. They don’t make those kinds of mistakes. Has your mum ever been to the UK?”

  I think back to a time when my mother was being unusually talkative towards me. There were these rare moments when we were alone when she forgot to hate me. She told me how she learned she was pregnant with me. She’d gone to London for work and her morning sickness was at its worst on her on the flight back to Australia. Not trusting the conversation, I thought she was going to tell me she should have taken it as a sign that I was going to be trouble. But she didn’t do that. She smiled, her eyes lost in some distant memory as she said, “It was the worst 24 hours of my life. I should have stayed in London. Had you over there.” Then she touched my hair, sighed and walked away.

  I remember feeling so confused as to what it was about.

  “Yeah, she has,” I tell Tahlia. “She was there for a couple of months or something, and she was pregnant with me while she was there.”

  “She was already pregnant? Or did she get pregnant while she was there?”

  I frown, trying to recall the details about the conversation. “I don’t know. I think she said she didn’t realise she was pregnant before she went. She was suffering from morning sickness on the flight home.”

&nb
sp; “Huh. Explains why she was always such a cunt to you. Mumsy was guilty ‘cause she bumped uglies with this Daniel dude and got herself knocked up.”

  “I don’t know why she didn’t just abort me then,” I mumble.

  “I dunno. Maybe she thought she could keep you like a souvenir. Pass you off as your dad’s—well, your fake dad’s—kid.”

  “I don’t know how. They’re all blonde like you and I’m…” I gesture to my face. “Not.”

  “People lie about stupid shit and they get real angry when they get found out. I mean, who is stupid enough to put the secret baby daddy’s name on the paperwork?” She pokes at the paper again.

  “My mum, obviously.”

  “I reckon you were born and this blond dad realised you weren’t his straight away.”

  “So why pretend to be my real dad all my life?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t fucken know.”

  I mull over this information as we make our way to the train station. Suddenly, it all makes sense. I have a different father. No wonder I don’t look like them. I must look like this Daniel guy.

  “Oh my god,” I exclaim, slapping myself on the forehead and stopping where we are on the footpath.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “What are you going on about?”

  “The reason they kicked me out. It had nothing to do with me. It never mattered what I did, they would never be able to love me because I didn’t fit. I’m another man’s daughter. I wasn’t the problem. They were.”

  “I could’ve told you that. Nice people don’t kick their daughters out of home. Simple as that.”

  Nine

  Eight months after the note

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table, looking at my new learner’s permit and scrutinising the odd expression on my face in the picture printed on it.

  “Happy 16th Birthday!” Tahlia sings as she walks over to the table with a chocolate cake she’s made.

  It’s a little lopsided, and the icing is dripping down the sides. I love it. I’ve never had someone make me a cake. It’s always just been a dried-out sponge cake brought on clearance from the grocery store. A real, freshly-baked cake is a gift all of its own.

  I can't keep the grin from my face as she places the cake in front of me. A few months ago, I thought I’d be spending this birthday on the streets. Wondering how I was going to eat, and what I was going to do if I needed to pee in the middle of the night. The fact I have a roof over my head, and someone who cares enough to make me a cake is phenomenal.

  “All right. Make your wish,” she says.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes, wishing to always have a place to stay. When I blow out the candles, she claps her hands before presenting me with a small black jewellery box.

  “You got me a present?” I squeal, opening it slowly to see what’s inside. Surprised, when I see it contains a small white pill with red lips printed on it. “What’s this?”

  “Molly,” she tells me, grinning.

  “As in ecstasy?” I roll the box around and watch the tiny pill tumble about inside. Nerves bubble the contents of my stomach as I think about whether or not I want to go down this road. I mean, people die from taking these kinds of drugs.

  “You’ll love it, Paige. I promise. I thought it was a great gift to celebrate you being legal and all.”

  I laugh. “I’m legally allowed to have sex. So, you present me with an illegal drug to celebrate. Isn’t that what they call irony?”

  “It’s what they call symbolic,” she grins, taking the pill from the box and holding it out to me between her thumb and index finger. “Take it. I’ll have one too. Take it and we’ll go and sneak into a night club. Then we can dance, make out with boys—maybe do a little more—until we can’t stand up anymore. It’ll be wonderful. Trust me.”

  Letting out my breath, I look from the tablet to her smiling face. What the hell? I shut my eyes and open my mouth, inviting her to drop the tablet inside. The moment I feel it touch my tongue, I swallow, not giving myself a chance to change my mind.

  “Nothing’s happening.” I frown after waiting a few seconds and feeling nothing.

  “Give it time.” She laughs, taking her own pill from the little baggy in her pocket and placing it on her tongue.

  “How many of those things do you have?” I ask, frowning at the bag of pills. I can’t count them because of the way she’s holding it, but there’s more than a couple in there.

  “I did have six, but now I have four. Two more each if we need them. Come on,” she says, standing up. “Let’s get ready while we wait for these to kick in. I asked my uncle if he’d take us, and he’ll be here soon.”

  “Nice uncle,” I deadpan, following her into her room. I wonder what kind of uncle would agree to this sort of thing.

  “He’s not a real uncle. Just a friend of my dad’s. He’s the one who hooked us up tonight too. He’s only 27, hot as all hell, and can get you in anywhere. He’s really well connected.” She fills me in while flinging clothing around her room as she tries to find the right outfits for us to wear. “Here, this one will be good for you.” She throws a gold sparkly top at me that has only one shoulder. I won’t be able to wear a bra with it, which sucks because I’m fairly busty.

  “Do you have something with sleeves or shoulder straps? My boobs will fall out of this one.”

  “No! That one will look awesome. We’ll leave your hair out and make the curls all glossy. Just tuck your strap in on one side. You’ll be fine.”

  With a bounce of my shoulders, I do as she says and put the top on, wearing it with my dark jeans and a black pair of Tahlia’s wedge heels.

  Half an hour later, we have our hair and makeup done, and we’re waiting for Tahlia’s ‘uncle’ to come and pick us up.

  “Should I be feeling something by now?” I ask her, realising that the little pill has made no difference at all.

  “Yeah, you should. Here take another one.” She hands me another pill, and I drop it down my throat, not anywhere near as nervous as I was the first time.

  Within seconds, we hear a horn beep out the front of her house and race outside.

  “So, how is your uncle going to get us into a night club?” I ask as we make our way towards the gunmetal grey VF Commodore that is still running in the driveway.

  “I told you, he’s connected. He’ll either have an arrangement with the bouncer, or he’ll have fake IDs for us.”

  Nerves skitter through my belly as she opens the car door.

  “Go on, get in,” she urges. I slide into the back seat of the car, and I’m greeted by one of the most attractive men I think I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

  “How’s it goin’?” he asks, twisting in his seat. His deep-blue eyes sparkle like sapphires as he looks at me appraisingly. “You must be Paige. I hear a ‘happy birthday’ is in order.”

  “Ah, yeah. It is,” I say timidly.

  “Well then, happy birthday.” He grins, winking at me. “I’m Jeff.” I nod in response, feeling my face burning under his gaze. I imagine I look nowhere near as grown up as I felt a few moments ago.

  “Just a little girl playing dress up,” I mumble to myself.

  “What did you say?” Tahlia asks as she slides into the seat next to me.

  “Oh nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  “You know that’s the first sign of madness, right?” Jeff points out with a grin as he focuses on reversing the car. I blush again.

  “We’re gonna have so much fun,” Tahlia says.

  “Are we ready to dance?” Jeff hollers as we take off down the street.

  “Hell yeah!” calls out Tahlia, leaning her head out the open window to let out a loud whoop as we round the corner.

  The excitement in the car is infectious, and I find myself joining in with their yells and singing along with the songs blaring out of the radio.

  I'm beginning to feel as though I’m floating on air as this warmth builds insid
e me, and the music seems to entwine itself around my body like a wonderful warm blanket. The lyrics of the songs are clearer and feel as though they're filled with a meaning that's directed only at me.

  This intense bundle of emotions flows through my body and overwhelms me, making it difficult to breathe. I let my head drop against the back of the seat as my eyes roll back and I press a hand to my chest. Calm down. I force a deep breath, my fingers moving against my silky soft skin as my entire body relaxes and buzzes. “Oh my god.” I run my hand down my arm. Never, in my entire life have I ever felt this good. Every bit of pain, every bit of hurt, every bit of longing, has drifted away, and I’m smiling. Smiling genuinely for the first time in my living memory.

  “I’m fucken off my face,” Tahlia stage whispers at me like it’s some massive secret.

  “Is that what this feeling is?” I wonder, suddenly understanding that it’s those little pills making me feel this good. “It’s wonderful. I could live like this.”

  “Touch my shirt,” Tahlia says. “It’s so soft.”

  “Touch my hair. It feels like clouds.”

  “Oh my god,” she says. “You’re so pretty.”

  Before I know it, we’re making out, but it doesn’t feel like kissing. It feels like we’re discovering a whole new world of texture. My mouth doesn’t even feel like my mouth.

  “Jeez, you two are lucky I’m babysitting tonight,” Jeff says from outside the car. He has the back door open and we’re somehow in a parking lot outside a club. When did we get here?

  I scrunch up my face in a frown as he helps us out of the car. “Babysitting? I’m not a baby,” I tell him, feeling genuinely confused.

  “Relax sweetheart,” he says, draping his long lean arm across my shoulders. “I can see you’re all grown up.” He takes a long index finger and runs it along my collarbone and down my chest, stopping just before my cleavage.

  I gasp, the physical contact doing something to me I can’t explain. And I can’t help myself, I turn towards him, wrapping my arms tightly around his slim waist. We stay like that for what seems like an eternity, and I feel a great rush of energy surging through my body. I don’t want to let go.