My Life as a Hashtag

by Gabrielle Williams

  I finished his other hand and held his nails up for him, so he could survey my handiwork.

  ‘Snakes,’ Jed said finally.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Snakes have fangs that come down when they want to bite into something.’ He turned his hands this way, then that, to get a better look at them. ‘And then they retract. Therefore, consider your theory shut down. Just like that. Boom.’

  ‘What theory?’ Anouk asked, coming over and plunking herself down next to Jed on his banana lounge, her wolf hat looking toothy.

  She picked up one of his newly black-nail-polished hands and raised her eyebrows at me, then put his hand back down on the seat beside her.

  Squashing every single one of my butterflies under her arse.

  #

  What happened next was Anouk’s suggestion.

  Hers. Not mine.

  ‘We should go for a swim,’ she said, tilting her chin at Jed. ‘How about how warm the water was in Merimbula?’ Reminding the three of us that she still had first dibs on him.

  Jed looked over at me. ‘You feel like a swim?’ he asked me.

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t exactly bring my bathers.’

  I knew I should go inside, leave the two of them to it. But I felt unable to leave Jed’s orbit. The feeling of his hands was still ghosted onto my thighs, holding me there.

  ‘Well, so … what exactly are you wearing, then?’ he asked, grinning at me.

  I frowned at him. ‘Is that a trick question?’ I pulled at my T-shirt, in a clear demonstration of what exactly I was wearing.

  ‘I meant underneath?’

  My butterflies surged into a mob, flying blindly inside my stomach. The way he’d said ‘underneath’.

  But Anouk was sitting on the banana lounge next to Jed. She had his initials drawn into love hearts on her iPad cover. His name and hers were intertwined down the margins of her schoolbooks. She had dibs on him. In French.

  ‘Just, you know, the usual,’ I said, trying to act like it was completely innocent for Jed to be asking me what I was wearing underneath my clothes.

  An everyday type of question.

  A bit of banter between friends.

  ‘Looks like you came fully prepared, then,’ said Jed. ‘I don’t see a problem.’

  Fully prepared? No. Swimming in my underwear with Jed and Anouk? No.

  A little extra detail here for you, if I may. Anouk and I go to school together; I already told you that. We do gym together, and we’ve been in changing rooms together. Which means I know something about Anouk’s underwear that you don’t, and I’m going to share it with you now.

  Although maybe I should let you in on a little something about my own underwear first, before I point out the little something about Anouk’s.

  The underwear I wear is completely normal. Plain. No lace, no crazy colours. Boy-leg pants and T-shirt bra in plain white or plain black are as exciting as I get in the underwear department. Anouk, on the other hand, has never stripped down in the school changing room to anything other than what could be described as hot tamale. I’m a Bonds girl (not Bond; Bonds). She’s strictly Victoria’s Secret online.

  There was no way I could even vaguely compete with Anouk’s Miranda Kerr angel-wings fluffy-feathers underwear. I stood up.

  ‘I’m not really your skinny-dipping type,’ I said, arms folded across my chest. ‘I’ll leave you guys to it.’

  But Jed grabbed hold of my elbow and brought me back down to my banana lounge. ‘How do you know if you’ve never tried it?’ he asked me, his chin dipping as he tried to look in under my eyelashes.

  ‘I can tell these things,’ I said.

  ‘But I think you’ve got the potential to be really good at it.’ My heart jolted. ‘Last swim of summer,’ he said, and he peeled his T-shirt off and shucked his shorts down his legs.

  It’s so much easier for boys. Boxer shorts look exactly the same as board shorts.

  ‘It’s autumn,’ I said, a churlishness clumping in my stomach as Anouk stood up in solidarity with Jed and slipped her skirt from her hips so it bunched on the ground at her feet, exposing lacy aqua-blue knickers. ‘Officially autumn. Mid-autumn, in fact. Not traditionally swimming weather.’

  ‘But it’s still twenty-two degrees or something,’ Jed said. ‘It’s definitely warm enough to have the last swim of summer.’

  I didn’t want to think about the moment when I’d pull my Radiohead T-shirt over my head and knock the world off its axis with my plain white bra; unzip my denim skirt and push it past my hips to the ground, to stand there in my don’t-bother-staring-because-you-won’t-get-a-big-thrill undies. And that wasn’t the half of it. Once we were in the water, my plain white underwear was going to turn completely see-through. And then, after that, I’d have to get out of the pool, giving the world an opportunity to be blinded by my skinny white body as it was flashed at every single person I knew.

  Photos to be taken. Posted wherever.

  But Jed thought I had the potential to be good at it.

  Butterflies, be still. Sit. Stay.

  Although what guy wouldn’t want to encourage two girls to strip down to their underwear and hop in the pool with him? No sane guy.

  I looked around me, trying to find salvation somewhere. There was a bunch of towels on another banana lounge nearby. I grabbed one of them and held it to me. Wrapped it around my shoulders. Wriggled out of my Radiohead T-shirt. Unzipped my skirt.

  I stood at the edge of the pool with my towel around me, Anouk on the other side of Jed in her aqua on aqua. Even the word ‘aqua’ sounded cooler, sexier, than ‘white’. Jed held my hand, but he probably was holding Anouk’s hand too; the three of us standing on the edge of the pool like paper cut-out dolls waiting to be mushed together when we hit the water.

  I felt my breath sharpening, rasping inside my windpipe as I thought about jumping in.

  I didn’t want to do this.

  I didn’t want to be here.

  But Jed thought I’d be good at it.

  He counted, ‘One, two …’ and on, ‘three!’ I watched from my side as Anouk jumped in, her arms stretched above her head in a ‘V’ for victory.

  But I couldn’t do it. Nothing victorious about me.

  I stood by the edge of the pool, Jed still standing beside me, holding my hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said, turning towards me. ‘We had a deal.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t. You go. I just don’t, I can’t. I’m too shy.’

  I kept my towel wrapped firmly around myself, shielding my underwear and myself from scrutiny.

  He put his hands on my shoulders and said low, so only I could hear him, ‘You’re not shy. I know you too well. There’s nothing shy about you.’ Which made me feel even shyer than if he’d said nothing. It was like he knew things about me that I didn’t even know myself.

  ‘Jump,’ he said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Jump,’ he repeated.

  I shook my head again.

  He turned back to the pool and looked down at Anouk. ‘How is it in there?’ he asked, grinning.

  ‘It’s good. Warm. Why aren’t you in here?’ she said to him. Not looking at me. Her eyes studiously not looking at me.

  He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, as if I needed warming up. ‘She piked it,’ he said.

  Anouk swam over to the side of the pool and got out; wrapped a towel around herself, the scalloped edge of her aqua bra visible. She dried herself, grabbed her clothes off the banana lounge and bundled them into her arms. Put her wolf hat back on top of her damp hair. Padded, dripping, past us towards the house.

  And into my ear as she walked past, in the quietest whisper, she said a little something especially for me: ‘Thanks, friend.’

  A snake-y hiss underlined her words. Draining my body like she was a vampire.

  There were two ways I could go forward, from that moment. I could follow Anouk into the party and make sure she was okay. Apologise. E
xplain that I hadn’t wanted to go in because I was wearing white undies that would go see-through as soon as they hit water.

  Or I could stay outside with Jed, me wrapped in my towel, our clothes mushed up in a bundle on the banana lounge.

  Let’s be honest: I’d won. Not that it was a competition, but I’d won. Jed wanted to be with me. He couldn’t have made it any clearer. The use-by date had expired. She couldn’t say he was hers anymore.

  Jed turned to face me, the lolly-blue of the pool echoing his eyes. ‘You wanna go in?’ he said. ‘Apparently it’s nice.’

  Just the two of us. In the pool. The last swim of summer-officially-autumn.

  Yeah, I wanted to go in.

  I’d sort Anouk out later.

  Chapter 4

  That Sunday morning, I woke up to the back of Yumi’s head.

  I looked up at her ceiling, thoughts of Jed settling happily inside my head. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth last night. Hadn’t wanted to remove any Jed-ness from my body.

  I could hear the rain outside, tapping against the window like there was a chance we might let it in.

  It was lucky it hadn’t rained last night. If it had rained, Jed and I wouldn’t have sat by the pool. I wouldn’t have painted his fingernails black. We wouldn’t have gone swimming.

  It had been so beautiful in there. Luke-warm bath temperature was how I’d described it to Jed. He’d laughed and said, ‘Where’s the soap?’ then brought me in close to him. His body running the length of me. Our legs tangling, his skin merging into mine, his arms around me, his hands flat against my back, gripping me, feeling me, keeping me against him. I could feel, in the water, how much he wanted me. And I knew how much I wanted him. My plain white underwear, his boxer shorts, were the only thing separating us.

  My heart thumped in my chest now even thinking about it.

  I grabbed my phone from under the pillow and opened Insta to see if anyone had put up any new photos from last night yet. I knew they probably wouldn’t have this early, but it was always worth checking.

  They hadn’t.

  I went onto Snapchat and scrolled through a jumble of moments: Hattie and one of the girls from Saint Columba’s, their arms around each other, raising their glasses to the camera; Hattie flopping out a rainbow tongue; Emile snapping a selfie of him and Yumi, his arm around her; another shot by Emile of Anouk with her hair wet, wolf hat on, towel around her shoulders, poking out her tongue like a cat. A video Yumi had put up, which made me laugh, of Liv and me doing dance-face – pouting our lips, narrowing our eyes, because the face you wear definitely makes a difference to how well you dance.

  There were millions of photos of Jed, taken by pretty much everyone who’d been at his party, including a couple I’d uploaded of the two of us sitting outside by the pool together. Jed and Emile had posted multiple shots of the house after everyone had left, too: the kitchen bench piled with cans, lolly-blue pool visible through the back door; the Gun licking the kitchen floor to clean up the chip remnants; Mason, their other best mate, asleep on the couch with his eyebrows coloured in and a moustache drawn on.

  ‘Stay,’ Jed had said to me just before I’d left, his arms around me, holding me close.

  ‘I can’t,’ I’d said, stepping back from him. ‘You know what Yumi’s dad’s like. He’s outside. I have to go.’

  ‘Tell him you’ve changed your mind,’ he said. ‘Say you’re staying at Hattie’s. Or someone’s. Somewhere. But stay here.’

  Yumi’s dad is our English teacher, and there isn’t a thing you can get past him. He always picks us up from parties (or calls and speaks to whoever is supposed to be bringing us home), knows exactly what’s going on, who’s who and who shouldn’t be hung out with. He’s like your nightmare parent, except for the fact that he’s really nice.

  He’d only let us go to Jed’s (no parents) on the condition that he came to pick us up at twelve o’clock, no arguments.

  Damn you, Mr Yumi.

  Of course his name isn’t Mr Yumi. We just call him that. Actually, Yumi Yumi would be a cute name. Yumi should change her name to Yumi Yumi.

  Hattie had posted a photo of her and Anouk back home after the party, the two of them lying in bed grinning up at the camera.

  Anouk didn’t look mad. That was a good thing.

  I wondered what Anouk had said to Hattie when they’d got home. About me. About Jed. She couldn’t be too mad. It wasn’t really my fault. Jed had wanted to be with me; I couldn’t help it if he wasn’t into her. She’d had plenty of chances, months since she’d first been with him at Merimbula. He didn’t want to be with her. It was as simple as that.

  She’d be annoyed but she’d be fine.

  I whispered into the back of Yumi’s head, ‘You awake?’

  ‘No,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Liv. You awake?’ I asked over Yumi’s shoulder.

  There was no answer from Liv’s spot on the floor.

  ‘Cute photo of you and Emile,’ I said softly to Yumi.

  Yumi flopped onto her back and took her phone off her bedside table then started scrolling, my head on her shoulder as she went through the various postings of last night’s party, including a couple of shots Anouk had posted on Insta that I hadn’t noticed when I’d scrolled through.

  ‘Imagine if Jed and I start going out,’ I said, lying back on the pillow and looking at the ceiling. ‘Then we can go on double dates together. And then Liv can hook up with Mason ...’

  ‘There’s no way,’ I heard from the floor. ‘I’m not ending up with Mason.’

  Yumi and I both started laughing.

  ‘But he’s so sweet,’ Yumi said. ‘And he’s not the ugliest guy in Year 12.’

  ‘Close,’ I said, ‘but yeah, definitely not the ugliest.’

  ‘If I wanted sweet, I’d go to the milk bar,’ Liv said, climbing up onto the bed beside Yumi, squishing me against the wall.

  ‘I could have had sex with Jed last night,’ I said, biting down on my bottom lip. ‘In the pool. God, I so wanted to.’

  ‘Me too,’ Liv said. ‘With Mason.’ And then she stuck her fingers down her throat.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re not into Mason,’ I said. ‘Imagine how much fun it would be for us all to go triple-dating.’

  ‘Ain’t gonna happen,’ Liv said.

  ‘Fine, then,’ I said. ‘Double dates are cosier anyway.’

  ‘Anouk was pretty pissed off with you,’ Yumi said, sitting up and resting her back against the head of the bed.

  ‘Well, it’s not my fault that Jed’s into me. I mean, seriously, she can’t keep dibs on him forever. He was so gorgeous. I seriously think we would have had sex in the pool, except for the whole house full of people,’ I went on. ‘I would have hated to get sprung.’

  ‘The only thing worse than you being sprung would have been being the person who actually sprung you,’ Liv said, pulling a vomit face to make her point.

  Yumi put her hands over her mouth and started giggling. ‘Omigod, I can’t even believe I’m about to tell you this,’ she said, shaking her head, then taking her hands away, a naughty grin opening her face, ‘but, okay … you know how we used to have a boat? Back when we were kids?’

  I nodded. Not quite finished talking about Jed yet.

  ‘So this one day, we took it out, right.’ She was still grinning, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. ‘Me and Mum and Dad and Wilder, and a few of their friends. And after we’d had lunch, we all got in the water to have a bit of a snorkel, and Mum and Dad put the paddleboard in the water, and whatever else they’d brought along.’

  I nodded, not really understanding what on earth this had to do with anything, but captivated nonetheless. Yumi didn’t talk about her mum much. The way she was giggling was making me start to laugh, even though she hadn’t got to the funny part yet.

  ‘So we’re snorkelling, me and Wilder,’ she went on. ‘We’re just kids, and we went a bit of a way from the boat, away from the others, and when I looked around I couldn
’t see anyone, but then I saw Mum and Dad in the water, their arms on the paddleboard, facing each other, talking. Right? So I started swimming over, yeah?

  ‘And obviously they didn’t know I was there, because they’re talking to each other, looking at each other, and they think I’m off snorkelling nearer to the boat, so I had this idea that I’d swim underneath them and surprise them.’

  Yumi started laughing fully now, hand over her face again, shaking her head like she shouldn’t be saying any of this but she was on a roll now and just had to keep going.

  ‘I swam under the water to them, and Mum’s legs … I can’t believe I’m telling you this, I’m still scarred … her legs were wrapped around Dad’s waist, and as I got closer, I saw that neither of them had their bathers on, and I couldn’t quite work it out because, you know, I was only a kid, so I went closer, and Dad’s, well, basically, yeah, so, they’re having sex, under the water, and I’m right there, snorkelling up to give them a surprise.’ And then she stopped talking because she was consumed with laughter, the three of us were, heads thrown back on pillows, laughing our guts out at the thought of sweet, young, unscarred Yumi snorkelling up to get a close-up of her folks having sex.

  ‘So, the thing is – my point is,’ she finally managed to get out, ‘if you and Jed had had sex in the pool last night, someone would have seen for sure. And they’d be scarred for life, right this moment, waking up this morning with the picture in their head of you and Jed having sex, never being able to get over it, never being able to look at you again without seeing that long sea creature going in and out—’ And the three of us kicked our toes against the sheets with the gross hilariousness of it, until our legs were bare and the sheets were rumpled at our feet.

  #

  It stopped raining late in the afternoon. We went down to the skate park, because Yumi had a trick she wanted to nail, and Emile was going to show her how to land it. And since Emile was Jed’s best mate, well … maybe just maybe he might be there too.

  ‘Hopefully Mason will be there too,’ I said to Liv in the tram on the way there, elbowing her.

  Liv bared her teeth at me like she wanted to bite me. Which was appropriate, because the T-shirt she was wearing had ‘Bite Me’ written across the front of it.