I hand over my ID card to the librarian at the circulation desk and look at the study room booking sheet. He gives me an annoyed look but takes my card and scans it anyway.
‘You can use room number four.’ He holds up four fingers.
I smile my thanks. Even things like eye contact and gestures were hard for me before I began with Dr Hayes. I guess that’s what she meant when she said I’d made progress. The biggest difference between my sessions with Dr Hayes and the other two psychologists was that her sessions were rarely at her office. In fact, many of our sessions took place at the chocolate cafe in Leura with the idea that my behaviour could be slowly changed through controlled exposures. If I’d been younger, Dr Hayes probably would’ve come to school with me and sat next to me while I played with the other kids in the sandpit. But when you’re a teenager, it’s not cool to bring your psychologist to school. Not that I can complain, I practically sampled the entire selection of milkshakes and iced drinks at the cafe.
The librarian leaves my card on the desk and walks off. Rude begets rude. The study rooms are along the back wall of the library. They’re only big enough for a single desk, but when you are inside it feels like you are far away from everything else. I take out my maths homework and start on the quadratic equations I didn’t finish in class. I love maths problems. Numbers are so cooperative.
An hour or so later, the librarian from the circulation desk taps on the window to signal that the library is closing soon. I check my phone. There’s a message from Mum. Be there in ten minutes, it says. I grab my stuff and leave the library.
When I walk around the corner, past the PE staffroom, I hear arguing. I freeze when I see West and two older people who must be his mum and dad. His mum is really beautiful, in an evil queen sort of way, and his dad looks like he used to be a football player. I haven’t seen West since our last ‘conversation’ after German, but he looks different, moodier somehow. I quickly step back around the corner so they can’t see me, then stand perfectly still so I can hear what they’re saying.
‘We’re so disappointed in you, West,’ says his mum. ‘You haven’t been to a single training meeting or practice this term.’
‘I can’t believe you came all the way down here for that,’ says West. ‘We could’ve talked about this at home.’
‘We had no choice. Your coach asked us to come in for a meeting. We’re all really concerned.’
‘Give me a break. I’ve only been back at school a few weeks. I’ve been caught up in other things. You guys are the ones who wanted me to be school captain. Besides, it’s just soccer.’
‘It’s not just soccer,’ says his dad, his voice is rough and intimidating. ‘You’re the best soccer player at this school, even this district. We’re not going to let you throw your talents away.’
‘I have other talents,’ mutters West. ‘I’m good at cooking. There’s weekend classes at TAFE I’ve been looking into.’
‘We’ve talked about this,’ says his dad. ‘You’re not going to work in the service industry.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re going to be a lawyer. All our family have been lawyers.’
‘That’s the worst argument ever.’
‘Let’s not get into this now. This is about soccer,’ says his mum. ‘Every Saturday since you were four, we’ve taken you to practice. Do you want all that time and money to go to waste?’
‘No,’ says West.
‘Your team is relying on you. Do you want to let your team down?’
‘I get it. Enough. I’ll go to the damn practice. You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a kid.’
‘Then maybe you should stop acting like one and live up to your responsibilities. Do you have the training schedule from your coach?’
‘Yep.’
‘Good. Then I have to get back to the office,’ says his dad.
‘Me too,’ says his mum. ‘You’ve got your car to get home?’
‘Yes.’
‘See you later tonight.’
I peer around the corner, in time to see his parents walk off down the hall. West watches them go.
Mum is already waiting at the front of the school when I get there. ‘Sorry,’ I say, as I climb in the car. ‘I wasn’t paying attention and I missed the bus.’
‘That’s okay,’ says Mum. ‘How was your day?’
‘It was good.’ My mind is so fixed on West that I can’t seem to remember what I did at school today. I can’t help feeling sorry for him, even though he’s a Royal, maybe more so because he’s a Royal. It’s like movie stars. We expect them to have perfect lives.
‘Thanks,’ I say to Mum.
‘For what, sweetie?’
‘I don’t know. Just everything.’
Mum reaches over and pats my hand. ‘You might not thank me in a minute.’
‘Why?’
‘Jackson has brought a friend home from school.’
‘Oh. Who?’
‘Andrew. You’ve met him once before.’
‘Is he staying for dinner?’
‘Yeah. He’s actually staying over. His mum is having a baby. She’s at the hospital in labour right now. But don’t worry. He and Jackson will spend most of the time in Jackson’s room, playing the computer.’
‘Okay. Can you drop me at the station?’
‘Piper.’
‘I’m joking.’ Sort of.
At home, Mum is right: Jackson and Andrew are nowhere to be seen. When I walk past Jackson’s room, I hear furious keyboard tapping and fourteen-year-old boys shouting ‘die’ at the computer. As uncomfortable as it makes me, I’m glad Jackson has brought a friend over. My brother and sisters usually go to their friends’ houses instead of bringing them here, and I know that is my fault.
In my room, I take out my unfinished maths homework but I can’t stay focused on it. All I can think about is how much I’m dreading dinner. I consider skipping it altogether, but I’m too hungry. When I was four, I refused to eat most things Mum made for dinner. This stubbornness is probably why when my teachers told my parents I still wasn’t speaking at school they thought I would get over it. I consider going downstairs and asking Mum to save me a plate of food that I can eat later, when everyone else is finished dinner. But I decide against it. I’ve used enough avoidance techniques already today.
Mum calls me down for dinner sooner than expected. Andrew and Jackson walk into the dining room, just as I’m taking a seat at the table. I lift my hand and wave.
‘Hi, Piper,’ Andrew says in return, his cheeks turning red. Am I imaging things or is he blushing?
‘Thanks for dinner, Mrs Rhodes,’ says Andrew as he helps himself to the fish cocktails and chips in the middle of the table still sitting on the paper they came in. The upside to having Andrew stay is that we get to have take-away. Mum hardly ever buys fish and chips.
‘Are you excited about the new baby?’ asks Mum.
‘Yeah,’ says Andrew, ‘but I’m not changing any nappies.’
Mum laughs. ‘Their father didn’t either. He literally turned green if he came even close to a dirty nappy.’
‘Do you know if it’s a girl or a boy?’ asks Tilly.
‘Nah. Mum and Dad want it to be a surprise.’
‘I only want to have girls when I have babies,’ says Tilly.
‘You can call them Nilly, Pilly and Millie,’ says Jackson.
Tilly throws a chip at him. ‘Ha ha ha, you’re so funny.’
Jackson picks up the chip that bounced off his forehead and pops it in his mouth, grinning at Andrew.
‘I only want to have kittens,’ says Evie. ‘Five, maybe six.’
I laugh involuntarily. Andrew looks at me and grins.
The conversation continues on about kittens. I want the tomato sauce next to Mum but it’s too far across the table for me to reach. All I have to do is ask Mum to pass it to me. I say the words over in my head, but even before I open my mouth it feels like there is a belt around my chest and it�
�s being pulled tighter and tighter. I’m talking to Mum, not Andrew, but the distinction is very fine. I eat my chips without sauce. The most frustrating part is the fact that I should be able to speak, not to Andrew but around Andrew.
This was one of the things Dr Hayes was trying to achieve in our sessions at the cafe – speaking to someone you’re comfortable speaking to when you can be overhead by others. When we first started, I couldn’t even have a whispered conversation with Dr Hayes at the cafe because someone I knew might see my lips moving. With Dr Hayes’s help, I was eventually able to have a conversation with her while the waitress placed our food down in front of us, fully aware that she could hear me speaking. That’s as far as I got, and since I’ve stopped seeing Dr Hayes I haven’t done a lot of this. SM is a one-step-forwards, two-steps-back disorder.
I glance at Andrew from across the table. I’m worried that if I speak around him, he’ll go back to Springwood High and tell people that he heard me talk. One of those people might know someone at St Mark’s, and it will get around that I spoke. Even during the visits to the cafe, where I hardly ever saw anyone I knew, I was worried someone from school might be there and hear me speak. That’s how messed up my brain is.
As always, Evie chatters away. If anything, she is more talkative when we have guests. I sit there, picking at my fish, only half-aware of the conversation until Evie taps me on the shoulder.
‘What’s his name, Piper?’ she says. To her, it’s just a normal family dinner. She’s too young to know why I’m silent when we have guests over or when we do other normal things, like go to the shops or the pool.
‘The funny hippo that was friends with the giant turtle in that movie we were watching.’
I know what she’s talking about. It was a documentary not a movie, and it was a giant tortoise not a turtle, but I can’t say either of these things.
‘I think I saw that part,’ says Mum. ‘Its name was Maisy, wasn’t it, Piper?’
I nod stiffly. Why can’t I do this?
The conversation continues on about Maisy, but I don’t listen. As soon as Mum and Tilly begin to clear the table, I get up and hurry to the bathroom. I close the door, then with my back to the wall, I slide down to the cold floor. Resting my head on my arms, I cry.
I wake up to the sound of Mum screaming downstairs. It’s an I’m-going-to-kill-you scream not an I’m-being-killed one, so I roll over and try sleeping through it. A minute later, Evie’s bellowing cry starts up and there’s no sleeping through that, even with the pillow over my head. I crawl out of bed and stumble downstairs to see who is murdering who.
This is the scene when I walk into the kitchen: Evie is sitting at the table, draped in a blue chequered sheet and sobbing; Tilly is standing behind her, holding a pair scissors; Evie’s blonde hair is scattered all over the floor; Mum is still screaming, ‘What have you done?’; Jackson is standing near the fridge with his headphones around his neck, looking amused; Dad looks half-amused, half-scared; Andrew is there too, standing awkwardly in the doorway.
From what I work out, Evie wanted a haircut and her obliging older sister gave her one. They couldn’t find the keys to unlock the salon out the back, so they found some scissors in the kitchen and an old sheet in the linen closet.
‘I think it looks cool,’ says Jackson. ‘Like Miley Cyrus.’
‘Wonderful, my six-year-old looks like Miley Cyrus,’ cries Mum, throwing her hands in the air.
‘It’ll grow back,’ says Dad.
‘Whatever. It’s not my fault,’ says Tilly. ‘She asked me to do it.’
‘It’s Mum’s fault,’ says Jackson.
‘My fault?’
‘Well, Evie has been asking for a haircut for months and you wouldn’t give her one.’
‘I was doing her a favour. She had beautiful long hair. Now look at her.’
Evie’s cries get heavier. I walk over and wrap my arms around her. I shoot Mum a look.
Her face drops. ‘Let’s go out to my salon and I’ll tidy it up,’ she says, removing the sheet from around Evie. ‘I can make you look less like Miley Cyrus and more like Emma Watson.’
‘Will you put on music?’ asks Evie.
‘Of course. I play music for all my clients. What song do you want to listen to?’
‘How about “Wrecking Ball”?’ says Jackson. Dad punches him in the arm. ‘Ouch.’
I can’t help laughing. Mum shoots us all a look before ushering Evie out of the kitchen.
I wander back upstairs, still laughing. There’s never a dull moment in this household. I consider going back to sleep but instead I grab my laptop and sit up in bed. I check my emails and then login to Facebook. The first thing I notice is that I have a new friend request. I immediately think of Cassie. Has she forgiven me? Does she want to be friends again? My heart is racing as I click on the Friend Request icon. But it’s not Cassie’s name and picture that pop up. It’s the last person I expect: West. It doesn’t say when the request was sent but it must have been from a lot earlier in the week, before I said no to tutoring him.
To be honest, I haven’t stopped thinking about him since I overheard the conversation with his parents yesterday. Maybe I judged him too harshly. I thought West was one of those entitled Royals who do what they want and take what they want. From the looks of it, where West’s future and free time is concerned, he has no control. He does what his parents want. Maybe they made him take German too. It’s almost guaranteed. I know what it’s like to need help and not be able to get it, or at least the right help. I’m definitely not the best-suited person to assist him but maybe I’m the closest thing right now.
How am I going to tell him that I’ve changed my mind about tutoring? I could write a note in German on Tuesday or I could message him on Facebook right now. It’s no surprise that I choose the non-confrontational option. My cursor hovers over the accept button. I click on it and then his page appears. His profile picture shows him at the finish line of the Colour Run, covered in every colour of paint. He looks happy and confident, like a typical Royal.
I scroll down his page. There are photos of West and the other Royals at the beach and various parties. There are also quite a few soccer photos West has been tagged in.
Before I change my mind, I click on Message and type:
The moment I click Send, I regret my choice of location. The problem is, there aren’t many options. It has to be somewhere we won’t be seen by other people. I don’t want them to start talking about us or see the whole thing as a joke, which rules out the school and the library. My house isn’t an option either because I don’t want my parents to get the wrong idea. The only other place I can think of is Peace Rock.
‘Relax,’ I say out loud. He might not even want my help after I turned him away. He might not even reply.
I close my laptop. As I’m trying to decide if I should do my German or history homework first, my camera catches my eye. I haven’t used it since school started. I was going through a roll of film every few days in the holidays. I’m still halfway through a roll I started at the end of January. There are photos of Tilly and Evie playing in the garden at the beginning of the roll that I want to develop for Mum’s birthday in a few weeks. I pick up the camera. Homework can wait.
A wave of dry heat hits me when I step outside, which is surprising because it’s still so early in the morning and it’s almost autumn. After walking for a few minutes, I consider going back to the house to get a hat, or at least changing into something that covers my shoulders more, but instead I keep walking. I won’t be out for too long. I’ll finish the roll and come straight back.
I head in the opposite direction to Peace Rock because I know there’ll be a mass of people there since it’s already so hot. The grass crunches beneath my feet as I weave between the trees. The air is still and smells like eucalyptus. I don’t take a single photo until I reach the lookout. With film, you need to make every photo count. You can’t just snap twenty photos of random things and delete the
ones you don’t like. You have to pick your moment.
The camera was a gift for my fourteenth birthday. I wanted a digital camera, but the moment I saw this old thing at a garage sale, I had to have it. I love the mystery that comes with using film. You never know what the photos will come out like until you develop them.
Most people don’t even know what film is now. The first time Cassie saw my darkroom she thought it was a drug lab. Dad built it for me so that I can develop the film myself and I picked up a lot of the equipment online second-hand. It took a fair few YouTube video tutorials before I got the developing and printing process right.
After Peace Rock, the lookout is one of my favourite places. It’s a long climb up a steep, narrow path, so it doesn’t get many visitors. I’ve taken a lot of photos from here in the past, but the bush is always changing so it’s never the same photo. That’s what I like most about it. There’s something about impermanency that is comforting. Nothing lasts forever. It sounds negative, but it depends on the situation. If you say to someone who is in love, nothing lasts forever then, yeah, you would be a wet-blanket-glass-is-half-empty-party-pooper but if you are alone and someone says, nothing lasts forever, then that’s comforting. The same applies if you have Selective Mutism.
I slowly walk out to the lookout, with one eye closed and the other peering through the small viewfinder of my camera. The rustle of leaves to my right catches my attention. I spin in that direction and press the shutter button. I have no idea if I’ve captured anything. By the time I lower the camera and my eyes scan the bush, whatever was there is gone. The evidence will hopefully be on the film when I develop it.
When I reach the lookout, I take a few photos, experimenting with different angles and aperture settings. The clouds are dark and heavy, so I make them my subject and focus on the intersection of the land and sky.
The Things I Didn't Say Page 5