I’m staring at the little furrow in Alice’s brow. There’s something she’s not telling me.
‘Was that okay with him?’ I ask. It’s weird that I still don’t really know how he felt about that.
Alice shakes her head, as though she’s deciding whether to tell me something. When she finally speaks, everyone’s listening. ‘I’m not sure it’s the actual reason,’ Alice says.
‘Can you tell me anyway?’ I ask. ‘Please?’
Alice taps her foot. Then she ties her shoelace. Like she’s still deciding whether to say whatever it is that she’s thinking.
‘Well,’ Alice says slowly, ‘this is just what I think, okay? Archie definitely thinks you’re pretty. But he’s kind of … well, maybe he’s not sure that you guys have much in common. Much to actually talk about.’
‘We haven’t even had a chance to find out,’ I blurt out. ‘He’s always playing soccer, talking about soccer, or breathing soccer! We would have got a chance if it wasn’t for Eliza.’
Olympia unfolds her arms and throws her hands in the air. ‘Yeah, it’s totally Eliza who caused the problem,’ she says. ‘Obviously.’
‘Leo reckons Eliza has liked Archie for ages, and he’s not into her,’ Hazel says.
‘I don’t think it has much to do with Eliza,’ Alice offers. ‘It’s more … well, a combination of things. Archie was a bit surprised that you turned up to his house when he wasn’t there. And he does like to play soccer at lunchtimes. I think, maybe … maybe it was all just a bit too full-on for him.’
I close my eyes. Alice’s opinion sinks like a stone inside me. Needy Edi.
I see myself walking over to his place for a cooking lesson, convincing myself it would be okay. Feeling more at home there, with his parents, than I feel at my own house. Cancelling our caravan meeting for a dinner with Archie. Asking him not to play soccer at lunchtimes.
And it’s all been for nothing.
Alice is right. I feel sick. No wonder he dumped me.
I sit there quietly and I’m pretty sure the look on my face tells the others I don’t want to talk about Archie anymore. Alice leaves so there’s just the four of us again.
‘So, Limps,’ Hazel says. ‘How did it go last night?’
Olympia throws her head back and groans.
‘How did what go?’ I ask, because I have no idea what they’re talking about.
‘Oh,’ Jess intercepts the question, ‘I keep forgetting you weren’t there on Friday night, Edi.’ She gives Limps a little smile with raised eyebrows, like she’s getting permission to tell me what’s going on with Olympia. ‘Limp’s mum and dad were going to have dinner together last night,’ she says, and I already know pretty much what’s going on.
Olympia’s parents have split up, but sometimes they talk like they’re going to get back together. The worst thing is, Olympia’s mum tells her everything, and it’s like strapping her into a rollercoaster ride because Limps really wants it to happen and it never actually does.
Limps shakes her head. It’s awful that she directs her answer to Hazel and Jess. It reminds me I wasn’t there for her on Friday night. I was too wrapped up in Archie.
‘Well,’ Olympia says, ‘Mum got all dressed up. She left our place at seven-thirty.’
‘Yeah,’ Hazel says, ‘and then what?’
‘She was home by nine,’ Olympia says. She says it sarcastically, like she doesn’t care anymore, but I know she does. ‘They didn’t even make it to main course.’
‘I’m so sorry, Limps,’ I say, and I really mean it. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for her on Friday night. And I’m sorry that her parents keep doing this to her. It’s not fair.
‘It’s okay, Edi,’ Limps says, shoulders slumping. ‘Like, how many times? I’m an idiot to even go there in my mind. I just wish she wouldn’t tell me. Like, I really need to know how he drinks too much? How he’s not up-to-date with maintenance payments? And this is after she’s gone all gooey and told me that she still loves him, that he’s kind and funny and he’s still the one for her.’
Limps is looking right at me, wide-eyed, like I can give her some answers. It hits me hard. Limps thinks of me as her absolute best friend. And even if she can be a bit of a shadow at times, and she seems to be all thingy about me getting closer to Hazel, she’s always there for me. Always.
‘You’re not an idiot, Limps,’ I say. I grab her hand because I really want to transmit this, and somehow it seems the part of me that’s really sorry might be able to travel better this way. ‘Your mum shouldn’t tell you every little detail. She’s your mum, not your bestie.’
As soon as I say that, I think of my own mum. She’s definitely a mum, not a bestie. But maybe that’s not all bad?
‘That’s the weird thing about getting older,’ Hazel says thoughtfully. ‘You find out your parents aren’t perfect.’
Limps lays her head on my shoulder, and it seems she’s happy to listen to what Hazel’s got to say from this angle.
‘When Mum started going out with Jason, I just about lost it. I couldn’t understand why she’d want to go out with him and it was partly because he was so dreadlocky and spiritual, but it was also partly because I thought Romy and I should be enough for her. But, the thing is …’ She pauses and we all wait. ‘The thing is, once she got around to telling me how lonely she’d been, I kind of had to adjust and it was a bit like a crash course in growing up. And now I can talk to her better than I ever did before Jason came along. About stuff. About Leo. You know what I mean?’
‘My mum and I go for a milkshake after school once a week,’ Jess adds. ‘So we can catch up on things without the boys interrupting every five seconds. I get caramel usually, but sometimes I actually don’t get a milkshake and I decide to get like an iced coffee cos they make them with cream and ice-cream and …’
Jess is off on one of her tangents. I’m not really listening to what she’s saying, but there is something I can’t avoid paying attention to.
Hazel talks to her mum about loads of stuff.
Jess has a regular time with her mum to talk.
Limp’s mum tells her every little detail.
And my mum barely knows me.
‘I can’t talk to my mum about anything.’ It just bursts out of me. Like the lid’s been on this feeling forever and there’s too much pressure behind it. ‘All she and Dad care about is my grades. They don’t even want to know about anything else.’
Everyone is quiet for a moment. Limps lifts her head off my shoulder.
‘Have you really tried?’ asks Jess. ‘Like, my parents sometimes don’t listen to me properly so I tell them to focus if I have something to say, and then they know that they have to pay attention.’
I have to admit, it’s a pretty good question. Jess does that sometimes. You think she doesn’t get it, but then she goes right to the heart of things.
‘Well,’ I say, but I don’t say anything else. I’m thinking about Mum being all sweet when she came home on Friday night after Archie didn’t turn up. I think about her asking me if Archie was my boyfriend. How I cut her off. ‘I’m not sure.’ What I am sure about, though, is these girls. How they’re here for me even after I ditched them for Archie. How I love the way we share stuff, and how even just talking about my parents has made my heart feel lighter, and made me feel less lonely.
How I’m not going to make the mistake of ditching them again. If I ever get another boyfriend.
The door to the drama room slides open again. Pip looks in.
‘How did you go, girls?’ she asks. ‘Did you get through everything?’
I look at her, then around at my little family of friends.
‘Yep,’ Olympia says quickly.
Pip gives me one of her looks. The quizzical one, eyes squinted, head to the side like she’s trying to see inside me. I think of what she said to Dad at the parent—teacher interview about how I show emotional intelligence when I act. Remembering that makes me squirm under her gaze.
&
nbsp; I haven’t been showing any emotional intelligence with my friends. More like emotional retardation.
‘It’s good to get together and sort things out,’ Pip says. She could be talking about workshopping our skit, but I don’t think so. Like I said, news travels at our school and it could have travelled into the staffroom. ‘Sometimes things get complicated and you have to uncomplicate them,’ she continues. ‘It’s always nice to have friends, Edi. To help put the pieces together.’
I look at Pip and smile. ‘We didn’t get through everything,’ I say. ‘But we did get through a lot.’
After dinner that night, Dad goes into his study to work. Mum sits on the couch in the lounge room. She puts on her old-lady glasses and opens her book. Normally, I’d go into my room or the caravan, and go on Facebook. But tonight I sit next to her on the couch. Well, not right next to her. Our couch is pretty big.
I can feel Mum glancing at me over the top of her glasses. She does it three times, going back to her book and then doing it again, like she’s surprised I’m still here. Me too, I guess. It’s not like I have something prepared to tell her. She’s still looking down at her book when she speaks.
‘I had a boyfriend when I was your age. His name was Alistair.’
‘Really?’ I say. I must sound surprised because I can see the corner of Mum’s mouth twitching. Not a smile, but somewhere on the way to one.
‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘He played the guitar. He wrote a song for me.’ I. Can’t. Believe. What. I’m. Hearing. I guess I presumed that Dad was Mum’s first boyfriend.
‘What was he like? What was the song like?’ I feel like there are a lot of questions backing up behind these ones, but I don’t want to spook her by asking too many. Mum puts down her book.
‘He was sweet. The song was awful.’
I find myself edging closer. I know she’s only said seven words, but the seven words are different. Those seven words open a door. Well, set a door ajar, maybe. I decide to tell her something.
‘Archie broke up with me.’
Mum nods and she puts her book and glasses down on the couch and looks at me. Properly. I can tell that she’s already figured most of it out, without my help.
‘I’m sorry, Edi,’ she says. ‘He seemed like a nice boy. And it was nice to have some …’
Mum pauses and I wait for her to continue, but it’s like she’s run out of steam. She just sits there.
‘It was nice to have some boy energy in the house again?’ I say it as a question. I’m not sure whether we’re on the same wavelength. But I can tell we are when Mum nods.
‘Yes, Edi. Exactly.’
We sit there together in silence and, to me, it’s like we’re both remembering the way it was when Jai was here. Like we can hear his loud voice, his stomping footsteps, his laughter.
‘I miss Jai,’ I say eventually.
‘Me too.’ says Mum. She puts her hand on top of mine. It’s still a pet-type pat. But it’s more than that. I can tell there’s been a little connection between us. Just a tiny one. But that’s something.
I don’t see Archie at all the next day either. On Wednesday, I spot him. Well, I see his back once when he’s walking down to the oval with his mates, but that’s it. My heart lurches a bit when I see his back, his broad shoulders. But I’m okay.
It’s cute how the girls change direction so I won’t run into him. I can’t help thinking about how much work I used to put into accidentally running into him before we started going out. It’s weird that I’m trying to do the exact opposite now. Still, I’m happy to follow my friends.
After school, we all decide to go to the 7-Eleven for a slurpee. There’s about a gazillion kids in the 7-Eleven when we get there because it’s 7-Eleven’s birthday and the slurpees are free.
‘I’m going to start with cola, and then do raspberry and lime at the top,’ Jess says.
‘I’m having raspberry straight up,’ Hazel says as we walk inside.
‘I’m going to …’ I look up mid-sentence.
Archie is there. By himself.
He sees me, and there’s a flash of something over his face. There’s a little smile and his hand goes up like he’s about to wave.
My heart races. It thumps inside my chest. I’m angry with him because he hasn’t really tried to get to know me and he broke up with me anyway, but I’m also remembering. Remembering his hand on the small of my back. His touch.
There’s a little shake of his head and the smile is gone and his hand goes down.
I turn away from him. When I look back, he’s gone.
‘Oh my god,’ Jess says. ‘Are you okay, Edi?’
I nod. Try to slow my heartbeat. My hand shakes as I fill my cup.
‘He looked …’ Hazel says, touching my arm, ‘he looked kind of sad, don’t you think?’
‘He was the one who broke up with Edi,’ Olympia reminds us all. ‘So he doesn’t have the right to be sad.’
Jess and Olympia start to walk out with their giant drinks. Limps pauses to wait for me, but I wave them on and wait for Hazel.
‘I still reckon he looked sad,’ Hazel says softly.
‘Come back to mine?’ Hazel offers after 7-Eleven.
Jess and Limps both shake their heads. Their parents want them home. Mine won’t be there for ages, so I say yes.
I make sure I say a proper goodbye to Jess and Limps, so Limps doesn’t get all funny about me going to Hazel’s. It seems to work. It doesn’t take that much to make Limps feel more secure.
Hazel is texting Leo as the others walk off in the opposite direction. She seems kind of jumpy as we set off together. She keeps looking back behind her.
‘What’s up?’ I ask as we reach her house. There’s a bike on her front porch. It’s old and rusty.
‘That means Jason’s here,’ she says. She crosses her eyes and points to the bike. I have a feeling that she’s avoiding my question. I know why in thirty seconds when I see Leo walking up the steps to the porch. And with him … with him … is Archie.
I gulp. Then I reach out and give Hazel a very hard pinch on the arm. She ignores it.
‘Haze,’ Leo says. ‘I have to talk to you, urgently. Um … er, about this thing.’
I’m frozen. I think I’m staring. Archie is walking behind Leo as though he’s hiding. Then Leo grabs Hazel’s arm, almost exactly where I pinched her, and the two of them go inside.
I’m left on the porch with Archie and the bike. I don’t know which one of us is the most rusty. When Archie speaks, it comes out in spurts, like his vocal cords haven’t been switched on for a long time.
‘Ah, hi … Edi … I … I … wanted to … you know … talk …’
There’s a little bit of armour around my heart. I want to keep it there.
I half-sit against the windowsill, like it’s no big deal.
Then Archie’s mobile rings. He looks at the screen and mouths, Mum. Then he puts a finger up. ‘One minute. Please?’ he says.
I shrug again. I don’t know if I’ll wait. I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say.
‘Mum, we’re not going to take over his dinner. Rio has food of his own.’ There’s a pause and I can hear his mum’s voice coming over really loudly though I can’t actually make out what she’s saying.
‘No, we can’t just drop in there tonight. He might have people over.’
Archie’s mum.
‘Well, I guess he’s not really comparing it to our house, Mum. I think he just needs to do his own thing.’
Archie’s mum.
‘Yeah, I promise. Ciao.’ He looks at me and shakes his head and closes his eyes like he’s trying to block out his mum talking. ‘You too,’ he says finally. Archie hangs up and throws both arms in the air.
‘Mum’s been mental about Rio moving out,’ he says and he just half-sits next to me on the windowsill. ‘He’s my cousin, but he lived with us for three years. So now, he’s moved to his own flat with some mates and it’s like … it’s like Mum can’t hand
le it. She’s still cooking the same amount as she did when he was living with us. But guess who has to eat it all?’ Archie points to himself, and then continues.
It’s sort of mesmerising. I’ve never seen him like this before. So far, he’s been speaking to the air, but then he turns to me. ‘Honestly, Edi, she really has to get over it. Or I’ll be about thirty kilos heavier. Like, we all miss him, you know? I mean, he’s been at our place since I was eleven. It’s like, everywhere I look, there’s Rio not being there.’
I feel my armour melting away. I mean, yes, part of me is thinking that Archie is still totally hot. But there’s something else, something more. And I know we’re not going through exactly the same thing. Like, Archie’s mum sort of seems to overcompensate for Rio not being there, while my parents seem to undercompensate. Archie’s parents give him too much attention, and mine barely give me any.
Still, we’re both missing people. That much is clear.
‘I know what you mean,’ I say softly. ‘I have an older brother. He moved out last year. Not just away, but away away, to New York. It’s like everywhere I look, Jai is not being there too.’
Archie’s flecked green eyes look into my dark ones. Like he’s seeing me differently too. He turns his whole body towards me and moves closer, but not like he’s going to touch me. Like he wants to know more.
I think of how I felt in the caravan with Archie after he came over for dinner after training last Tuesday. I think of him holding me, and I remember feeling like we didn’t need to talk. I’m not sure about that anymore. It’s good, finding out something like this about each other. It makes me wonder what else there might be to discover.
‘When I was at primary school,’ I say, and I can tell Archie is really listening by the way a little frown comes across his forehead as he concentrates. ‘I used to pretend to forget my lunch. I’d take my real lunch in a bag, and leave my lunchbox at home. Then I’d get the school to ring home so Jai would bring it to school for me. I wanted everyone to see how cool my brother was.’
I Heart You, Archie de Souza Page 7