‘I told you. It’s fine. Nothing happened. We just grew apart. I didn’t know she was back from Wollongong. Can we not talk about Cassie?’ I drop my face into my hands.
‘Please, Piper, don’t get upset with us. We just want to help you. While Dr Hayes is away, we want to look at other ways for you to get support. Think of it as an experiment. This is your last year at school and we want you to have options for next year. You’re such a smart girl.’
‘You think I haven’t thought about all this? It’s on my mind every day.’ My frustration turns to hot tears. ‘I don’t want to be Piper Rhodes, but you know what? It’s impossible for me not to be.’ I stand up and storm out.
My parents try to follow me but whatever they’ve got to say, I don’t want to hear it. In my room, I put on my headphones and turn up the volume of my laptop until they eventually go away.
About an hour later, I feel so terrible about the fight that I agree to go to the support group. I never asked to have SM but I’m guessing my parents didn’t ask for a daughter with SM either. I’m sure the last place they want to spend a Friday night is waiting outside a youth centre. Guilt sucks.
It just so happens that this month’s support meeting is this week. So on Friday night, as agreed, Dad lets me drive to the youth centre where the group meets. I imagine it’s one of those places that has table tennis, foosball and Xbox in a vain attempt to curb teenage pregnancies and alcoholism. I bet us anxious souls won’t be allowed to use any of the fun stuff. They probably make us sit in a circle and talk about our fears while the foosball tables mock us.
Since the meeting only goes for an hour, Dad says he’ll read in the car. He wants to walk me in but I ask him not to. Just before leaving the car, I make one last attempt to get out of this. ‘We could tell Mum I went in and instead go get some ice-cream,’ I say hopefully.
‘Nice try,’ says Dad. ‘But we can get ice-cream when the meeting is over.’
‘The ice-cream is me bribing you. If you want to bribe me, it’s going to need to involve cronuts.’
‘Cronuts?’
‘Yep, just wait till you try them.’
‘So where do you buy these cronuts?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll just have to drive around until we find them.’
I climb the stairs to the entrance of the youth centre. My heart is racing and I feel like I’m going to be sick. Dr Hayes would say this is a normal feeling. She’d be happy I’m here, if she knew. She suggested a support group to me once and I told her I would think about it but I didn’t really. I’ve just got to get through the first part and once everyone knows who I am and that I don’t speak, it’ll be okay.
I walk into absolute chaos. I was right about the table tennis, foosball and video games. A ping-pong ball flies past me. I’d say there are about a dozen people in the centre. I don’t know if they’re from the support group or just locals who hang out here. What if this isn’t even the right day? Mum said she rang ahead and spoke to the group leader but what if she heard wrong? I don’t take more than a few steps inside before a man in his mid-twenties with shoulder-length blond hair jogs over. ‘Hey, you must be . . . Piper! I’m Finn. I’m so glad you came.’
I give him a half-smile.
‘We’re just about to start. I’ll introduce you to the group.’
He calls out for everyone to take a seat at the circle of chairs in the middle of the room. And I was right about another thing. When everyone is sitting, Finn leans forwards and rests his elbows on his knees. ‘Hi, everyone. Nice to see you all.’
Everyone says ‘hi’ out loud, so I gather I’m the only one with SM. Just perfect.
‘We have someone new with us today. Everyone say hello to Piper.’
I look around awkwardly and wave my hand.
‘How about we introduce ourselves? I’m Finn. I suffer from claustrophobia.’
I’m trying to be open minded, but seriously? Surely if you have to take the stairs instead of the lift, you don’t need a support group. The girl to Finn’s right goes next. Her name is Maddison and she gets frequent panic attacks. Next along is Heath, who has OCD. There are nine other teenagers with conditions ranging from general anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder. They all seem like nice people.
‘So, Piper,’ says Finn, ‘can you tell us a bit about yourself?’
I look at Finn. Clearly someone didn’t get the memo. He tosses me a whiteboard marker so unexpectedly that I only just catch it in time. He points to the whiteboard. ‘Tell us about yourself.’
With the weight of the elephant in the room on my shoulders, I stand up and walk over to the whiteboard. I uncap the marker and write:
I turn and look at Finn for permission to sit down.
‘Okay. Now tell us something that actually defines who you are.’
With a sigh, I turn back to the whiteboard. Something that defines who I am? Who am I? I’m so determined not to be the girl who doesn’t speak, that I’ve never considered what’s left when you take that away. Finally, I draw a picture of a camera and turn around.
‘Very nice,’ says Finn. ‘Bring some of your photos next time for us to check out.’
I nod even though I know I won’t. I don’t show my photos to anyone outside my family. As soon as you start sharing things you’ve created, people start telling you if it’s good or bad. They offer ‘constructive criticism’. I’d rather just do what I love and keep it for myself. That’s the whole reason I don’t take art or photography as a school subject. It takes away the love and makes it a process, something you’re judged and marked on.
‘Thanks, Piper.’
After I sit down, Finn discusses an article he’s read where certain foods reduce anxiety, then he opens up the floor for sharing. Emmanuel breaks down and tells the group that his nightmares have come back. ‘They’re so vivid, I can hear my mum’s screams from the night she was killed.’ He chokes the words out and I want to hug him, but I’m too far away. The two people on either side of him hold him as he cries.
‘Try re-scripting,’ says Finn. ‘Before you go to sleep, tell yourself how you would want that nightmare to end. Turn it into a dream. Give your mother back the life that was taken from her. Have you tried drinking chamomile tea before bed? It might help you sleep more peacefully.’
Emmanuel nods and stops crying. I know that hearing his terrible story should put things in perspective for me, but it doesn’t. His sharing makes me feel even more hopeless. He’s seen such horrors and still he can talk about them. How can he be so brave and strong?
Finn picks an empty jar and taps it with his pen. ‘It’s been a while since we have written down our fears, so let’s do that now.’ He passes around stacks of Post-it notes and pencils. ‘I want you to think of your fears, big or small, and write each of them on a different piece of paper. When you’re finished, scrunch them up and put them in this jar to show that our fears can’t hurt us. No one will read them, so don’t be afraid to write anything.’
Around me, the others start writing. I stare down at the blank Post-it note. What am I afraid of? The obvious answer is speaking, but what else? I think about my parents, Cassie and West. What I fear most is letting them down.
When I walk into German, Frau Fortunat is standing at the door, all bouncy. ‘Take a seat Piper, but don’t unpack your things,’ she instructs with a secretive smile.
West is already sitting at our table. I’m surprised how quickly it’s become our table. It’s the only class where I don’t sit near the window. He’s wearing the blue woollen jumper that’s part of the school’s winter uniform. Today is the first cool day of autumn. I wore my jumper for the first time this morning but took it off before the end of second period because it was so itchy. I think it needs a few more runs through the washing machine. But as I sit down next to West, looking so good in the school jumper, I’m conscious of the fact that my arms, covered in goosebumps, look like plucked chicken skin and I really wish I hadn’t left my itchy-as-hell jump
er in my locker. Tanvi even offered me her spare one at recess and I stupidly declined it.
‘Do you know what’s going on?’ West asks, looking around at the other students who look equally confused.
I shrug. By the way Frau Fortunat is acting, you’d think a German movie star was coming to visit. I’m not a huge fan of surprises, but I find myself nervously excited. My parents are full of surprises. We’re taking you to see a psychologist – surprise! We’re moving to Germany – surprise!
‘Okay,’ says Frau Fortunat, spinning around to face the class. ‘So the reason I’ve asked you not to settle in is because today’s lesson is not going to be here. This week we are extending our food vocabulary, particularly learning how to order food in German, and I thought it would be fun to start with a cooking lesson. So we’re heading to the hospitality room to make kartoffelpuffer, potato pancakes!’
I lean forwards on the table, as if I’m about to jump over it and hug Frau, forgetting that I’m supposed to be a seventeen-year-old who doesn’t get excited over lame stuff like potato pancakes.
West notices. ‘They’re that good, are they?’
I nod enthusiastically.
When we lived in Germany, they were my favourite food. They’re called pancakes but they’re mostly made of grated potato, so it’s not a runny, cake-like mix. Our neighbour used to cook them for us every afternoon when we got home from school. She even made apple sauce from scratch to go with them. I loved living in Germany. I loved the food, the people, the whole feel of the place. All my psychologists, including Dr Hayes, have asked me if going to Germany made my SM worse. It was actually the opposite. I spoke more to my classmates and teacher in that year than in my two years of school before we left Australia. It wasn’t a lot but it was more. I was able to whisper to my teacher and I had two American friends I talked to normally. It was the coming back to Australia that was difficult for me, making my SM worse.
There’s an excited buzz from the front row as Frau Fortunat hands out the recipe. One side is in English, the other side is in German. ‘Kartoffelpuffer wouldn’t be kartoffelpuffer without apple sauce, so we’ll make that too.’
That’s when I notice the ten-kilo bag of potatoes next to her desk and a few bags of groceries. I feel a rush of warmth and gratitude towards Frau Fortunat. I decide to make her the best kartoffelpuffer she has ever tasted.
‘Shall we get started?’ asks Frau Fortunat. The class answers by getting up and rushing to the door. West and the two other boys in the class carry the bags of food to the hospitality room. Without waiting for Frau Fortunat to assign partners, the class separates into pairs as we enter and claim workstations. West and I pair together without a word said.
West starts opening drawers and cupboards, pulling out everything from a frypan to a spatula and laying them out on our bench. I feel awkward, standing there and watching, so I collect the ingredients we need from the front of the room. When I get back to our workstation, West is tying the strings of an apron he’s now wearing. ‘Frau Fortunat said we have to wear these.’
I see an apron sitting on the bench and I put it on.
‘Wow, you look amazing,’ says West with a grin.
I throw an oven mitt at him, but he dodges it.
‘Easy, Glenn McGrath,’ he says with a laugh. He hands me the peeler. ‘Potatoes or apples?’
I point to the root vegetable and West takes care of the apples. We peel away for a minute or so in silence. West is almost finished his two apples before I’ve even finished half a potato.
‘It’s easier if you peel towards yourself.’ He demonstrates on his apple.
I try it his way and it is easier. I remember overhearing him telling his parents about the weekend cooking classes. He was right; he is really good at this stuff.
We put the apples on the stove and cook them with sugar, mixed spice and lemon juice. While I grate the potato, West chops an onion and he doesn’t even cry, which makes me wonder if he’s human. Seeing as though I’m clearly out-skilled, I step back and let West put together the pancake mixture. He hardly even looks at the recipe, let alone follows it.
On the rare occasion I’ve been in our kitchen to bake a birthday cake for Cassie or something, I’ve always been precise with the measurements. If it says forty grams of flour, I’ll use the scales to measure the exact amount. West on the other hand, just tips the flour straight from the bag and into the bowl of potato and onion. His method annoys me and impresses me at the same time. Maybe it explains why he’s not so great at German. Languages are a bit like recipes; there are rules that need to be followed precisely, like steps. You can’t just throw in a bit of this and a bit of that.
West must see the look on my face or the way I am clutching the recipe. ‘Trust me,’ he says. ‘Hey, can you heat some oil in the frypan?’
I nod and get on to it. In the workstation next to ours, Amy and Josh are arguing about who gets to flip the first pancake. It’s quite funny to hear. At least West and I don’t sound like that.
Because the mixture is mostly grated potato, you have to mould the pancakes into shape. West scoops out a big spoonful of mixture and moulds it into a thin pancake, then places it in the pan. I shake my head and take the spoon from him. When they’re thin they turn out very crispy, but the pancakes are so much nicer when they’re soft in the centre. I add another heaped spoonful of mixture to the second pancake, flattening it only slightly. I make four pancakes altogether.
‘Okay, now the apple sauce,’ says West. It comes together in minutes – smooth, silky apple sauce. Using a teaspoon, West scoops out a blob and passes the spoon to me.
Lowering my eyes, I lift it to my lips. I let out a soft mmmmm noise without meaning to.
‘Is it good?’
I lift my gaze and nod. It tastes like autumn.
Smiling, West turns back to the frypan and flips the pancakes. I can’t believe how quickly he moves in the kitchen, with full faith that the little pancakes won’t burn when he isn’t watching them. They’re not even slightly overcooked or undercooked; they’re a perfect golden brown. West puts the apple sauce and pancakes onto a plate. ‘How do you say “let’s eat” in German?’
I watch his face change the moment the words leave his mouth. It doesn’t fall; it crashes. ‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ he says, running his hand through his hair. ‘I forgot. It’s just . . . I feel like you do talk, even though you don’t, if that makes any sense. Sorry.’
My stomach twists. I grab the recipe and a pen, then write in the corner: Guten Appetit.
West reads the words over my shoulder. I turn my head and smile at him. We’re so close that I can see a faint scar above his eyebrow. Even without his touch, I feel a soft fizzing inside me. This should not be happening. West is a Royal and even if he wasn’t, this still shouldn’t be happening.
Panicking, I step back, just as Frau Fortunat arrives at our station.
‘These look great,’ she says, admiring our plate of kartoffelpuffer. ‘May I?’ she asks.
‘Go for it,’ says West.
‘Mmm, these are fantastic,’ she says after her first bite. ‘I don’t know what you two did differently, but wow.’ She takes another mouthful heaped with apple sauce and closes her eyes, her face soft and dreamy. She walks off with the look still on her face.
West smiles at me. ‘Guten Appetit,’ he says.
‘Piper!’
Mr Hill hurries down the hallway outside the science rooms towards me. I haven’t seen him since that first lesson in modern history at the beginning of the term. I thought he’d been scared away, never to teach at St Mark’s again. Clearly, I was wrong.
I freeze. What does he want? Is he going to try and make me speak again? I hear my Year Six teacher, Mrs Reich’s voice in my head. She got her kicks out of asking the class a question, then calling on me to answer, even though I didn’t have my hand up and, more importantly, couldn’t answer. She’d threaten to keep the whole class in at lunch until I answered the question
. There’s nothing like the terror of someone forcing you to speak; it’s like being under water and fighting to break the surface as your lungs are running out of air.
Mr Hill catches up with me. ‘Piper, can I have a quick word with you?’
I nod stiffly and we move off to the side. I try to appear calm and serene. Mr Hall doesn’t look like he’s going to pin me to the wall and force me to speak. He actually looks as nervous as I do and he keeps tugging at his earlobe.
‘I feel terrible about how I spoke to you last time I was here,’ says Mr Hill. ‘This is my first year of teaching and I was very nervous that day. But that’s no excuse. I should’ve seen how uncomfortable I was making you.’
I blink several times. Mrs Reich never apologised for her behaviour and she was quite aware of the fact I had a disorder.
‘When I was at school, I had a stutter and I hated it when teachers asked me to answer questions in front of the class. I hope you can forgive me.’
I meet Mr Hill’s eyes and smile, trying to say no hard feelings. ‘I’m glad I got to speak to you. I’m starting a teaching block here next term. But don’t worry, I’m not on history. I’m teaching science. Well, anyway, thanks for the chat, Piper.’
Mr Hall walks off and I head in the other direction to geography, until I hear my name being called out again. This time it’s West. He jogs over to me.
‘I wanted to check that we are okay for this afternoon. Four o’clock at Peace Rock?’
I nod.
‘Awesome, got to run. I can’t be late for English again.’ He says the last part as he’s jogging off, backwards, making me laugh.
When I get home, I quickly change into a yellow summer dress and head to the door. Mum stops me in the kitchen, wanting to know my opinion on colour samples for repainting the salon. I tell her the answer I know she wants to hear to cut the conversation short. As I close the door behind me, I feel a bit guilty for not giving my honest opinion. I’ll tell her tonight that maybe hot pink is a bit too much for a wall colour.
The Things I Didn't Say Page 7