‘Don’t say it’s over,’ she shouts, trying to grab the other girl’s arm.
The girl in the soccer uniform pulls away. ‘I’m sorry, Taylor.’
‘But I love you. You said you loved me too.’
‘I was drunk,’ says the other girl, burying her face in her hands. ‘It was fun, but I’m not a leso.’
‘Stop lying to yourself.’
‘Me lying? At least I don’t walk around with a boyfriend, pretending I’m something I’m not.’
The other girl gets in her car and drives off, leaving Taylor sobbing in the empty parking space. I know I should get out of there before she sees me but I can’t move. I’m trying to process what I’ve seen. Is Taylor gay? Would she really do that to Mark? Of course she would.
Suddenly, Taylor turns and sees me. ‘Great. You.’
I hold up my hands in submission.
She wipes the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I guess you saw all that.’ Taylor laughs dryly. ‘So now you’re going to go home and make a video about what you saw. I suppose it would be easier if you did. You know, I envy you, Piper. The person you love, loves you back. And you don’t have to hide who you are.’
I look at Taylor’s face, her eyes puffy, her foundation patchy. I should feel sympathy for her, but I keep thinking of poor Mark. She’s obviously confused, but that’s no reason to cheat on him. He has only ever been nice to me, probably the only one of West’s friends who has been. He’s going to be crushed and humiliated when he finds out. If he finds out.
I know what I have to do. I see a stick lying on the ground a few feet away. I pick it up then smooth out a patch of dirt with my foot. In the dirt I write: Tell Mark or I will. I drop the stick and walk off.
When I get back to the bleachers, West is doing some cool-down stretches. A few minutes later, he comes over with the soccer ball in one hand and a water bottle in the other. Sweat glistens on his forehead. ‘You were gone for a while. Is everything okay?’ he asks.
I nod.
‘Want to get a drink before I drop you home?’
I grab the ball from under his arm and start to dribble it around in circles.
‘Hey,’ cries West, trying to steal it back from me. He doesn’t have to try too hard. He scoots off with the ball, a playful smile on his face. I try to steal it back but he dodges and evades me. I run after him and attempt to push him away from the ball.
‘Foul,’ cries West. ‘Free kick.’ He takes a short run up and kicks. The ball sails just inside the left goalpost.
West runs around with his arms in the air.
I clap wildly.
West jogs off to get the ball. ‘Your turn,’ he says when he returns.
We walk to the middle of the field and West places the ball on the ground about twenty metres from the goalposts. It’s an easy shot. Before West can give me any instruction, I kick the ball with all my might. It sails off to the right. I screw up my face.
‘That’s okay,’ says West. He runs off to get the ball. ‘This time look between the goalposts. Not at the ball.’
I stand in front of the ball and focus on a spot between the goalposts. Without taking my eyes off it, I kick. This time the ball flies straight and lands right between the goalposts.
West holds his hands around his mouth. ‘Score!’
I jump in the air. West catches me in his arms and spins me around. And I do feel lucky.
West drops me off at the kerb because if he walks me to the door, Evie will hear us and he’ll never be allowed to leave. We both have essays due tomorrow so we don’t have time for her. When I unlock the front door and step inside, Mum appears in the hallway. Her arms are crossed and her lips are set into a firm line.
‘Can we see you in the kitchen for a minute?’
I follow with a sense that I’m in trouble for something.
‘I sent you a message to say West and I were staying back at school. Did you get it?’
Mum nods. ‘This isn’t about this afternoon.’
‘Okay,’ I say slowly, as I take a seat at the table across from Dad.
His face is unreadable. He doesn’t say anything, not even hi, which is not a good sign. Mum sits down and folds her arms. ‘We got a call from West’s parents. Apparently, a friend of theirs saw you both at Jervis Bay on the weekend. He rang to say you left a house light on when you left.’
My stomach drops. West is going to be in so much trouble. My brain goes into overdrive. Should I deny being with him? His neighbours don’t know who I am so maybe I could make out that he was there with someone else.
‘You told us you were staying at Tanvi’s. We’re so disappointed in you for lying,’ says Dad.
‘I’m sorry.’
Mum exhales loudly. ‘If something had happened to you, either of you, no one would’ve known where you were.’
Tanvi knew, but there’s no way I’m going to say that. ‘I know. It was stupid of us.’
‘We had a long chat with West’s parents and we all agree. We think it’s best that you and West take a break from seeing each other, at least until after the HSC exams and West’s soccer final.’
‘Are you serious? You can’t ground me for two months. That’s not fair.’
‘We’re not grounding you,’ says Dad. ‘We’re suggesting that your study and other things should come first. We know what it’s like to be falling in love and it’s a big distraction. You’ve proven that by sneaking off for the weekend.’
‘You don’t know anything about our relationship,’ I say, almost shouting. ‘West is not a distraction.’
‘How much do you really know about this boy?’ says Dad.
Someone coughs. It’s not Mum or Dad. We all turn towards the door. ‘I would never hurt Piper,’ says West, standing in the doorway.
‘What are you doing here?’ asks Mum.
‘Evie let me in.’ West holds out my phone. ‘You left this in the car.’
I stare at him in horror. How much has he heard? I panic at the idea that he heard me shouting. Now things are a hundred times worse, if that is even possible.
Dad takes my phone. ‘Thank you for returning that. It’s probably best if you go home. I imagine that your parents will want to talk to you as well.’
‘I don’t think I need to hear it from them too.’ West turns and walks out.
I get up and follow him out to the verandah, but not before shooting my parents a look. I catch his arm before he gets to the stairs.
‘What are we going to do, Piper?’ he asks.
I shrug. I have no idea.
West sighs. ‘When are we going to get past this? I just heard you talking. A lot.’
And you think I’m happy about that? I want to say. ‘This’ is not just a bit of jealously or a difference of opinion that I can get over.
‘Forget it,’ says West. ‘I’ll see you later.’
I wish he’d turn around and come back, but he doesn’t. He gets in his car and drives off.
Mum, of course, is waiting for me inside. This is their fault. I know I lied, but they should trust me to make my own decisions.
‘Thanks a lot,’ I say as I walk past her and up the stairs to my room.
I lie on my bed, close to tears, next to my phone and wait for a message from West. Maybe I should message him? What did he mean by forget it? Are we over? No, he said see you later. What about our parents? Maybe it would be easier if we were over? This thought brings on the tears finally.
After an hour of waiting, I can’t stand it any more. I start typing West a message but before I’ve finished, one comes through from him.
I bite my lip and count the seconds. Will this work, even if we want it to? Every possibility – good and bad – comes rushing at me.
On the second Saturday of September, I pass my driving test. My dad was right; all that driving to and from the support group really helped my driving hours to add up. To celebrate, my parents let me use their car. I tell them I’m picking up Tanvi and goin
g to the movies. They’re suspicious that I might be seeing West instead, but I tell them they can come along if they want, which is enough to convince them.
I don’t feel bad about lying because I’m still angry with them. Their plan has been working. Other than at school, I haven’t seen much of West, which is why I’m planning on surprising him. He told me his parents will be at a fortieth birthday party and that he is spending the night at home, studying.
I leave home at five and head to the supermarket. I cruise through the aisles with a shopping trolley. I’m not sure exactly what food West likes to cook with or even what food he likes to eat. Other than dinners at my house and school lunches, we haven’t had many meals together. I’m not sure what he would pick off a restaurant menu. I grab a cut of beef, a selection of vegetables and a few other random bits and pieces. I’m hoping West has basic ingredients at home.
I pay for the groceries and I feel strangely independent, pushing a trolley through a car park on my own. I even manage to remember how to get to West’s house. I press and hold the doorbell. West opens the door a few moments later. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I didn’t pick you for an annoying doorbell ringer.’
I laugh and dangle the car keys in the air.
‘You got your licence?’
I nod quickly.
‘That’s awesome!’ West wraps his hands around my waist and kisses me on my lips, then my forehead, then my cheeks until I can’t stop laughing and push him away.
‘Do your parents know you’re here?’
I look away.
‘You want to come in?’
I hold up my finger and run back to the car. West follows me. I open the door to the back seat to reveal the bags of groceries.
‘What’s all this for?’ he asks.
I hand him the grocery bags and pull out a piece of corrugated iron from the back seat that I’ve been working on all week.
‘Zilla’s,’ West reads off the sign. ‘Are you serious?’
I nod.
‘You’re amazing,’ says West.
He hugs me with both hands full of bags. I take the rest of the bags out of the car, which are filled with things to set up the ‘restaurant’.
West is already in the kitchen, unpacking the groceries when I come in. ‘I can’t believe you got pecorino cheese. Did I tell you how amazing you are?’
I bite my lip, pretending to think.
West laughs.
All the ingredients are laid out on the benchtop. ‘I think I’ll make seared beef with a cauliflower puree and a roasted vegetable stack layered with pecorino.’
I give one single approving nod. There was no way I would have come up with a menu like that with those ingredients. I sit on a stool and watch West organise the kitchen, taking out pots and pans, getting this on to boil or that on to heat. When he pulls out an extra apron, I shake my head. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’s not hard.’
He entrusts me with the cauliflower. I hack away at the white tree-like vegetable, cutting it into rough chunks. It’s a good thing it’s going to get pureed.
‘Hold the knife like this,’ he says, positioning my grip on the handle. ‘And try to tuck your fingertips under so you don’t take them off.’
I finish with the cauliflower, fingers all intact, and put it in a pot of boiling water. In the same time it took me to destroy a perfectly good vegetable, West has managed to evenly slice the other vegetables for the stack, get them roasting in the oven and has started searing the beef. The way he works in the kitchen is quite simply beautiful. Leaving West doing his thing, I go off to the dining room to set up the ‘restaurant’.
First, I take down an awful red-and-black painting and in its place I hang the sign, Zilla’s. I’ll put everything back to normal at the end of dinner. Then I start placing all the odd bits and pieces I collected from home around the dining room: an old glass lamp, mason jars, clocks. Then I cover the dining table with a black-and-white striped tablecloth that my mum happens to hate. I even brought grey shagpile cushions for the chairs, another set of items I found in the cupboard where Mum condemns the gifts she doesn’t like.
I’m not sure if it’s what West meant by modern industrial but I think it looks pretty good anyway. By now, the smells from the kitchen have filtered to the dining room.
‘Just in time,’ says West when I step back into the kitchen. ‘I need you to taste this puree.’ He holds the spoon out and I put my mouth over it. I moan and close my eyes. The puree is so smooth and creamy.
‘Okay, I think it’s all about ready.’
West points to the cupboard where the plates are kept and I get them out. I place them on the bench carefully because, like everything else, they look like they’re worth a lot of money. The way West presents the food on the plate would make you think he has been cooking in restaurants for years.
‘What do you want to drink?’ asks West, opening the fridge. ‘We’ve got sparkling apple juice, lemonade and red wine.’
I reach into the fridge and grab the apple juice. West carries the plates and I carry the drinks into the dining room. ‘Wow,’ says West, looking around. ‘I can’t believe you did all this.’
I turn around and shrug. West places my plate down and pulls out my chair.
‘I hope you like it.’
It’s one of those meals where the food is so good no one talks, even if they could. The meat is tender and juicy. The cheese in the vegetable stack bursts with flavour, tying the roasted vegetables together in one delicious mouthful.
When we finish eating, West leans across the table. ‘No one has ever done anything like this for me before. Thank you.’ He kisses me softly.
There’s one more surprise I have for West. It’s the photo of me from the circus; he’d forgotten to take it the night we printed it. I’ve put it in a black frame, nothing special. I pass it to West. He looks at it for a long moment, puts the photo down on the table and takes my hand.
‘I love you, Pi.’
I love you too. The words are so clear in my head. I need them now more than ever to come out. But they don’t. My chest aches. My jaw aches. My heart aches. West looks at me, waiting for a reaction. I don’t know what to do so I kiss him but the kiss is stiff and awkward.
The hurt and sadness in his eyes is unmistakable.
‘It’s okay,’ says West, taking my hand. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’
He says it as if I’m choosing not to say I love you in return.
I close my eyes and feel myself crumbling inwards. I knew it was coming to this. We’ve been trying to be like a normal couple but there is nothing normal about us. We’ve been fooling ourselves. I can’t keep putting West through this. He deserves better.
I stand up suddenly.
‘Where are you going?’
I pull myself away. I can’t stay.
‘Piper, please don’t go. Piper, wait!’
I don’t stop running. I get in the car and drive. It’s hard to see the road through my tears, but somehow I make it home. I turn the car off but I don’t get out. The steering wheel presses into my forehead as I let the tears fall into my lap. I feel like I’m going to dissolve; there will be nothing left of me. Whoever said it is better to have loved and lost lied. How can this be better than never loving at all? It’s too painful.
Headlights from a car in the street light up the inside of my car. For a terrifying and hopeful moment I think it might be West, but the vehicle continues on. I get out of my car and it takes all my effort to reach the front door.
‘Is that you, Piper?’ calls Mum, as I make my way up the stairs.
‘Yeah,’ I reply, my voice strained and high-pitched.
Mum appears. Her smile drops when she sees my face. ‘What’s wrong? Did something happen at the movies?’
‘I didn’t go to the movies. I went to West’s. I broke up with him for good. So yeah, you got what you wanted.’
Mum looks like someone watching their house burn down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she croaks
. ‘We’re just down here if you need us.’
When I get to my room, I bury my face in my pillow and I sob, huge heaving sobs. No less than ten minutes later, there’s a knock on my door and Mum comes in. ‘Piper, it’s West. He’s here to see you.’
I lift my head. Part of me knew he would come. I fight the urge to run downstairs into his arms. ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Honey, he looks really upset.’
No matter what I do I will hurt him. If I refuse to see him, I’ll break his heart. If I go downstairs, we’ll make up, but how long until something like this comes up again? It will never work. I can’t give him what he needs. It will hurt now but he’s better off without me. He can find himself a proper girlfriend, someone like Indiana.
‘Tell him I don’t want to see him.’
Mum shuts the door. I try not to think about him waiting downstairs, but it’s impossible. It’s not just his heart that is breaking.
It takes every part of me, every bit of strength and all my willpower, to keep West away. The messages from him don’t stop until I close my Facebook account and throw out my SIM card. My parents let me take the next few days off school, so I don’t have to see him there. It’s the last week of classes for seniors anyway before the holidays. Then it will be STUVAC and exams. All teachers will be doing is giving us their final exam tips and pep talks. And of course the talk about how even if we don’t do as well as we hope in the exams, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t need convincing on that; this feels close enough to the end of the world that failing an exam would be nothing.
West doesn’t give up. He stops by my house every afternoon, asking to see me. Every time my parents answer, they tell him that I don’t want to see him. I listen from my door. They speak to him gently, which makes me feel so much more horrible. Then I watch from the window, as he walks back to his car but not before leaving something behind: a cronut on the verandah swing, Post-it notes stuck to the tree outside my window with P + W written on them.
Each time I find something left by West, I’m reduced to a puffy, wet mess. I feel like one of those Japanese anime characters I could never understand, with tears that pour down their face in giant waterfalls. I can’t even bring myself to go to Peace Rock, not without West. I spend most of my time in my room studying, hiding. The furthest I go is the backyard.
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