Please Don't Hug Me

by Kay Kerr

  Love, Erin

  31 October

  Dear Rudy,

  I saw Dr Lim today, and it’s Halloween. Those two things don’t really have anything to do with each other so I don’t know why I wrote them like that. This letter isn’t off to a good start. I would start it again but I’m down to my last piece of paper in this notebook and I’m in a comfortable position on my bed. So deal with it, Rudy. You’re dead, anyway.

  Mum mentioned you today, but not in a sad way. It was maybe the first time I’ve heard her do that. She thought some actor on a new television show looked just like you. He didn’t—he was much better looking. I guess that’s her love-heart eyes filtering things for her. It was nice.

  I got the feeling today Dr Lim thinks I’m a bad person, which I don’t think a psychologist is even allowed to think about a client, but she hasn’t said it directly so she’s probably not officially out of line. We talked a lot about the Byron Bay incident, which is what I’m calling it now, even though we were supposed to be talking about grief, and change, and Schoolies, and graduation. But the incident was more urgent.

  She asked me why I wanted to ‘hurt my friends’. See what I mean? I explained I didn’t plan to hurt them, obviously, I just got mad and said that hurtful thing. She wasn’t buying it. ‘You need to take more responsibility for turning your thoughts into words, you thought them AND you said them,’ she said.

  And she’s not wrong about that. She also said I need to apologise, which I said I will do, because I am actually planning to, I just don’t know how to start. Instead of helping me to figure that out, she did this whole thing with a plate.

  She picked up a floral china plate from her desk, it had crumbs on it so she must have used it for a sandwich. Then she threw it on the floor like she was completely nuts. It shattered into a dozen pieces and probably dinted the floorboards.

  ‘If I picked up all these pieces and glued them back together, would the plate be the same as before?’ she asked.

  It took me a few seconds to realise she was teaching me a thing. I wonder how many plates she has broken over the years to make this point. It was all very dramatic.

  So yes, I told her I understood, apologising is not the same as not having broken the plate in the first place. I think she could have made the same point without breaking the plate, but I guess I’ll remember it more this way. And in the psychology world, I’ve broken a lot of plates.

  Did you ever worry about metaphorical plate-breaking, Rudy? You did kind of break a few plates in your time. But you were always kind, so you probably were well ahead on balance. My account is in the red, it seems.

  Love, Erin

  2 November

  Dear Rudy,

  Saying sorry is hard. You always made it look easy. Mum seemed to come away from your apologies liking you more than if you hadn’t done the bad thing in the first place. I could never pull that off. I think it’s a charisma thing, and it helped you were always genuinely sorry, too.

  Today some people had exams, but I didn’t have any. I went in for study block and Dee stayed home so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her and say sorry. Jessica Rabbit and Pointy Kathy acted as though I was invisible, and I mean really invisible. They said things like, ‘Did you hear something?’ when I talked and wouldn’t look at me. In the end I went to the library for the second half of lunch and studied. It was a bad day, and I didn’t have anyone to bring me donuts. My cringe list turned into more of a total cringe feeling today, because everything that happened was cringeworthy. I’m stuck in that feeling. I usually only have it for an hour or two at night, where all the bad things wash over me. But this is like a cringe skin that I wear and people think it’s my normal skin.

  And it turns out Vicky Rabbit phoned Mum to convey her displeasure with my ‘unacceptable behaviour’ on the trip, which was not a great thing to come home to. I thought Mum would take my side at least a little bit, but apparently not. She hates the word I used more than she hates her daughter being left in a garden bed in the dark for two hours. She asked me to apologise to the girls in person and write an apology note to Vicky before dinner. I don’t think it was the kind of request I had a choice about. The thing is I really am sorry. I am angry with myself for using that word, and with anyone who jumps so quickly to label girls sluts. Wanting to hurt people is not good, and it feels like maybe I’m not as good a person as I’d like to believe either. The things my brain says about me to myself all feel true. I am a bad person.

  I shouldn’t have bought into what I hate so much about the guys at school when they are telling stories of their weekend conquests. They always use that word, when in reality there were two people involved in the interaction. Why does one get labelled a slut and the other get high-fived? I’ve listened to conversations about which girl has an STI, who has slept with more than ten people, who has lost their V card. There is never an equivalent rumour about a guy. A guy who has slept around never seems to have trouble finding a girlfriend when they want to go steady, but for a girl labelled slut it’s a different story. And these were the same guys who would call girls ‘cock tease’ and ‘frigid’ for not sleeping with them. Now I have joined them in judging girls, and that’s the worst part.

  Here’s my rough draft.

  Dear Vicky,

  I am sorry I called Jessica and her friends sluts. It was an awful thing to say. In this day and age women should be free to sleep with whoever they want, whenever they want, and receive nothing more than a high-five, in the way males do from their mates when they ‘score’. Girls are complicated, fully formed human beings who deserve better than I gave. It was sexist of me to use a slur aimed at devaluing the female gender. Also, thank you for a great weekend.

  Regards,

  Erin

  Luckily enough I got on a roll writing the letter and had it done before the shepherd’s pie was on the table. Mum said she would post it, so I hope Dee and I will be on talking terms before Schoolies. Otherwise sharing a room will be awkward. Unfortunately saying sorry for something is not the same as not having done the thing in the first place, as Dr Lim went to such trouble to explain (as much as I wish it were). Mum said she hoped Vicky would still talk to her at pilates class.

  Oliver and Dad were eating in silence, and they were very focused on what was on their plates. I think Dad didn’t like thinking about girls my age having sex, because that would make him think about me having sex, and he would prefer me to be eight forever. Ollie doesn’t really understand, he just doesn’t like it when the air is tense at the dinner table. It was tense tonight. I’m trying to be better at being in those feelings, and so here I am. I’m in them.

  Goodnight, Rudy.

  Love, Erin

  3 November

  Dear Rudy,

  I was worried Dee might use the whole slut incident as a ‘get out of jail free’ card to end our friendship, so I got Mum to drive me around to her house tonight after dinner. We stopped at the shops on the way so I could buy a few things. I sometimes think I don’t give Dee many reasons to be my friend, not really. I am quiet and heavy where she is loud and light and lots of fun. I think she’d like a loud, light, fun best friend more than someone like me. I wish I could be softer, and warmer and more affectionate. I feel all those soft, warm, affectionate feelings but instead of gifting them to those who deserve them the most, like Dee, I squirrel them away for myself as comfort. I think the things I should be saying, and say the things I should keep as thoughts.

  When I got to Dee’s house no one answered the door so I had to leave my sorry present for Dee on the front lawn. I had hoped to give it to her in person, and ask her how her day was. When I’m having a bad day, or recovering from an outburst, Dee brings me donuts because I like donuts and they make me feel better. Dee likes donuts too, but they are not her favourite and she doesn’t want to eat them when she is having a bad day. What she does eat when she’s sad, like the time her dog had to be put down, or when she broke up with her boyfriend but re
ally wanted him to stop her and win her back, is Top Deck chocolate. It’s the chocolate block with the white chocolate on top and the milk chocolate at the bottom.

  I decided I should give her as much Top Deck chocolate as she has given me donuts since my diagnosis when I was twelve. I figured one block of top deck was probably worth five donuts, and I think Dee has probably brought me 300 donuts in the past five years, so I bought sixty blocks of Top Deck. The shop owner had to go out the back to get more, but he also gave me a discount because I was buying so much. It cost $240 out of my Schoolies savings, but if it means Dee will forgive me I don’t care.

  I arranged the blocks to spell out SORRY outside Dee’s bedroom window. I was a bit worried her parents would be mad that someone had littered their front lawn, but then I figured Dee would know it was from me and chocolate isn’t really litter anyway, it’s a treat. I tucked the card I had bought for her under the block of Top Deck at the start of the letter S. The card had a picture of a cat wearing sunglasses, because Dee likes that kind of thing and inside I wrote ‘How was your day?’ because I know I sometimes forget to ask her how her day was and she is always happy when I remember.

  Mum didn’t seem to mind that I spent $240 on chocolate and that I sort of littered someone’s lawn with treats, because she knows I need Dee to forgive me. She patted my arm when I got back into the car, and didn’t annoy me with questions on the drive home. I was worried maybe Dee wouldn’t be coming to school tomorrow, and wouldn’t find the chocolate until midday when it was melted, but when I was lying in bed going over my cringe list that is more of a cringe skin these days, I got a text from her. It just said: ‘Lucky formal is over.’ I think the fact that she texted me, and made a joke about getting fat, is a good sign. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for more good signs.

  If you’ve got any say in that kind of thing wherever you are, please pull some strings for me, would you?

  Love, Erin

  5 November

  Dear Rudy,

  I’m not going to see Dee for a few days, not until we have our English exam, so I’ve got plenty of time for overthinking things. I sent a heart back to her text about the chocolate, and I’m waiting until I see her again to talk about it properly. Nothing can be mended over texts, and it’s likely I’d find a way to make things worse if I tried. The limbo is agonising, but it feels like pain I should be going through for what I said. I deserve a bit of suffering.

  A thought popped into my head today, something that hasn’t occurred to me before. I was just thinking about death and how it happened by accident for you, and it probably happens that way for a lot of people. There are car crashes and house fires and heart attacks all the time. Even if someone dies of cancer because they smoked all their life, it’s not like they really saw it coming. They just forgot to think about the consequences of inhaling toxic smoke for most of their lives, you know? So, if it’s likely I’ll die by some accident that’s out of my control, do I really want to live my life by accident as well? Because that’s what it feels like I’ve been doing for the last seventeen years. I’ve been going along with things, not making choices, worrying and living inside my own head so much that everything that seems to happen to me is an accident. And I want to start living my life with a little more purpose. I have a feeling if you were around, you’d feel the same.

  I had a four-hour shift at Robins today and my stomach hurts from laughing so much. I laughed at least once every five minutes for four straight hours, which is like fifty laughs. I didn’t think of my cringe skin, or my grief, or what I said at Byron once. A tiny sliver of self-esteem broke through the murky haze I’ve been walking around in like a light beam and I feel as though I can breathe again.

  Aggie and I were rostered on together and we had to move the sale items from one side of the shop to the other. Sundays can be really quiet, so it’s a good time to get stuff like this done. The sale rack is where designers’ mistakes go to die. It’s where the hideous, ill-fitting, bad-patterned, horrible, itchy things take their last gasping breaths before they get shipped back to the warehouse and probably become landfill or couch stuffing. Every time the Robins designers try something new or trendy it ends up here. Everything asymmetrical, anything with a peplum and pretty much every horrible thing with a cut-out side or back is sent to the sale rack eventually.

  Aggie turned around from the accessories wall wearing a pair of sunglasses with the lenses pushed out. Her hair was in a top knot and she was wearing a scarf as a shawl.

  She put on a quivery voice and said: ‘Good morning Dolores, how is your cat Peggy going?’ It took me a moment to realise she was in character. I grabbed a scarf and tied it around my head. I did my best old-woman voice and replied something about Peggy going on medication for being a flat-earther. It didn’t make any sense, but that was kind of the point. Aggie snorted and had an equally ridiculous reply: ‘I’ve just discovered my Daisy is a climate-change denier so I think she’s going to have to be put up for adoption.’

  Maybe it all sounds a bit ridiculous, but I think laughing like that and being silly with a friend who doesn’t think I am weird is really good for me. I didn’t add one thing to my cringe list for the whole shift, and I felt light in a way I haven’t for a long time. I do sometimes laugh and feel light with Dee, but lately I’ve been feeling more heavy than light because I think I’m not a good friend to her. I’ve only ever bought her favourite treat for her once. With Aggie it feels like our talks make me a good friend to her, because she can ask me questions and take my answers on board. We can be silly together because we’re not surrounded by Bens and Jessicas like I am at school. Aggie isn’t just silly though, she’s also really smart and gives good advice. I told her about how I think that now looking back, my relationship with Mitch wasn’t a good one, and she agreed. She called him toxic. I know that’s something you tried to tell me, and I’m sorry it took a new friend to make me see it.

  I explained how Mitch didn’t ever have the words to cheer me up, or take the time to try and understand me. I told her how I know now Mitch never intentionally hurt me— he was just lacking something…intrinsic. And Aggie said something that was a little thing to her but a big thing for me. She said I need to take the time to work out ‘what Erin is worth’ before I try to find someone worthy of me, or who I might be worthy of.

  We didn’t laugh about that, and we didn’t laugh when a customer came in looking for pyjamas for her mother. Aggie asked if she could help and the woman said no. She gave Aggie a rude look and then she came to ask me where the pyjamas were. I told her Aggie has worked here longer, and that she had a better eye for these things, but instead of listening the lady just kind of threw her hands in the air and left. It was odd and Aggie was quiet. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened, because I naively didn’t think that kind of racism existed anymore. Aggie says she encounters it everywhere, and I told her the lady was probably the kind of person to write lengthy posts on Facebook complaining about the plastic-bag ban, as if that is the worst thing happening in the world right now. Aggie snort-laughed and things felt okay again. You would have realised what was going on sooner than I did, and you would have probably said something awesome to shut down that old bigot. I’m going to try and figure that stuff out sooner in future.

  Love, Erin

  6 November

  Dear Rudy,

  Wow, today was a good day. The kind of day where I only miss you in small ways. I finally got to redo my driving test, and there was no Cowgirl Glenda or confusing instructions or anything. I had a good feeling as soon as I got to the Transport Department with Mum, because my instructor was an old man named Paul, who had kind eyes and kind words. And he didn’t yell at me at all, not even once. He was skinny and tall like Dad, but with more wrinkles and less hair. Old Paul gave really good instructions and told me when to turn with plenty of time to change lanes.

  We drove to the point for three-point turns and then around the giant roundabout. The plants
in the middle were still looking a bit flat from where I had driven over them last month, but if Old Paul knew about that he didn’t say anything, and he told me to take the second exit, which meant going around the roundabout and continuing straight ahead. After that we went to the car park at the swimming pool and I did a parallel park and Old Paul said it was perfect. I kept my hands on the steering wheel at 10 and 2 like I was supposed to and stayed at the speed limit and when we got back to the Transport Department Old Paul said I’d passed. So I’ve got my licence. It feels better than owning a horse.

  Mum was so excited she clapped and gave me a hug with her whole body. I had to have my photo taken for my licence, which I had forgotten about, and my hair was messy and my face was flushed, but I don’t care because I’ve got my licence and I can drive anywhere I like now. Mum said I could drive her car when she’s not using it, as long as I make sure to fill it up with petrol when the gauge gets down to half.

  When we got home, Dad knew I’d passed before I’d even told him, I guess because he could see it on my face. Mum was busy making a chicken stir-fry for me because it’s my favourite. While Mum was cooking and Dad was sitting in the kitchen talking to her about work that needed to be done in the garden, Ollie and I had a really good game of Spiderman and Batman open a restaurant. We came up with silly names for the dishes they served, like Spider soup and Bat pie. Oliver told me I should get a Batmobile for my first car, and I told him maybe I would.

  ‘Remember when Rudy got his licence,’ Oliver asked, and everyone looked down at their plates. I don’t know if you ever knew how worried Mum and Dad had been, when you disappeared like that. You were gone for two days and I don’t think they slept for either of them. They left the outside light on at night, and when the next-door neighbour’s cat made a noise in the bush outside, Mum went out with a torch, looking for you. She saw the cat, and she knew it wasn’t you, but she kept looking anyway. Then you just walked into the kitchen like nothing had happened, and put on some toast.