Love-shy (29 page)

‘Well, you've certainly been busy,' he said at last.

‘I don't ever want to go back to school again,' I said. ‘And I don't want to be a journalist anymore. I think I might get a job selling fish.'

‘Fish?'

‘Fish. Wrapped in newspaper. That's all it's good for.'

Dad smiled. ‘I reckon there's one or two things you should try before you give up entirely and run away to become a fishmonger.'

‘Like? What should I do?'

Dad looked at me. ‘Do you want my honest opinion?'

I nodded. Dad got up and left the room, returning a moment later holding the cordless phone and a post-it note. He stuck the post-it on my desk and handed me the phone.

‘I think you know what my honest opinion is.'

I bit my lip. Dad dropped a kiss on my forehead and left my room, shutting the door gently behind him.

I crawled off the bed and sat at my desk with a sigh. I wanted to turn on my computer, but I didn't. I didn't want to be close to the internet, in case I was tempted to read Nick's latest post. I didn't want to see it. I wasn't interested anymore. It would probably be about me, and I didn't think I could take any more cruelty.

I stared at the wall, where I'd pinned up a card containing the Nine Principles of Journalism. I sighed. I'd probably broken them all. Number seven stood out particularly.
Its
practitioners must maintain an independence from those they
cover.

I hadn't maintained any independence from who I was covering. Not even a little bit. I'd got involved. I wasn't an independent monitor. My loyalty wasn't to my readers. It was to myself. At some point, I'd stopped talking to Nick for the lofty purposes of research and journalism, and started talking to him because I wanted to.

Because I liked him.

I'd been such an idiot.

It was ridiculous, because I
didn't
like him! I was in the middle of some kind of grotesque, romantic fantasy where I'd rescue Nick from his self-made prison, and he'd be eternally grateful and love me because of it.

That was wrong. It was kind of creepy.

But I
did
want to help him. Because if I could help him, then maybe I could help myself, too. We both thought we were safe in our little glass terrarium worlds, sheltered from cruelty and judgement and spite. But we were also sheltered from the
good
things, too. Such as love and friendship and feeling as if we belonged somewhere.

I wanted to help Nick out of his glass globe.

The problem was, I'd been doing it all wrong. I'd been trying to break the glass of Nick's terrarium to let him out, as though it were a prison. But if you break the glass, all the plants are suddenly exposed to the world and they die. It wasn't a prison; it was more like a protective shell.

I had to coax Nick out slowly, show him that he could grow and flower in the outside world. That it was tough for
everyone
out here, but because we could work together and draw strength from each other, we could grow bigger and better and brighter than we ever could if we stayed inside our little glass globes.

I knew what I had to do.

I turned on my laptop and navigated to
PEZZ
imist.
blogspot.com
. And then did something I'd never done before, in all my visits to Nick's blog. I clicked the Comment button.

I filled in the required fields, and paused at the Username box. Then I smiled a little and wrote
POPtimist
.

22:14
Hi. It's me.
I am the opposite of shy.
Things don't make me anxious. I'm never nervous. I have a good life where both my parents love and support me. I have no trouble speaking to members of the opposite sex. But I've never been in a relationship. I've never really kissed anyone (although there have been a few embarrassing attempts).
I've never been in love. I can't imagine being in love. I can't imagine letting myself go, losing control. Giving myself over to someone else so completely that I'd feel a part of them. I don't think I could do that.
I am rational. Cynical. Aggressive. Fearless. Ambitious. Confident. I don't want anyone to ever see that I'm weak. And it means I push people away. I don't let people get close to me because I don't want them to beat me, or to see me fail.
So even though I have a very different life to you, I think we might be in the same boat. We're both alone. Even though I am the opposite of shy, I think we have more in common than I ever could have imagined.
I'm sorry if I hurt you. I really didn't mean to. The thing is, and it really frightens me to admit this – I did want to kiss you. I didn't do it to play games or to hurt you. I did it because I like you. Because I've been reading your posts and getting inside your brain, even though you didn't know it. And then in real life you were so different and anxious and nervous, but as we got to know each other you started to relax. And I liked that. I liked you.
So I'm sorry. And I hope you'll forgive me.

I hit Post and then closed down the browser and chewed my lip for a moment before picking up the phone and dialling the number written on the post-it Dad had stuck to my desk.

‘Hello?'

I took a deep breath. ‘Hi, Mum.'

‘Penny? Is that you? Is everything okay? Is your father okay?'

I didn't say anything for a moment. She'd asked after Dad. She thought I was calling because something had happened to Dad. And she was worried. I could hear it in her voice.

‘Penny? Are you still there?'

‘I'm here, Mum. And everything's fine. I'm fine, Dad's fine. We're all fine.'

But I didn't feel fine. It had been two years since I'd called my mother ‘Mum'. Two years since I'd heard her say anything about Dad. I couldn't help it. Tears slipped down my face, big fat tears that had been waiting behind my eyes for two years.

‘Are you sure you're okay?'

I sniffed. ‘Mum,' I said. ‘I miss you.'

Mum was quiet for a moment too, and then I heard her voice, all quiet and wobbly because she was crying as well. ‘I miss you too, Penny. I miss you every single day.'

I took a deep breath. ‘And Dad? Do you miss Dad?'

Mum was quiet for even longer. ‘Of course I miss your father,' she said. ‘Of course I do.'

‘Then why don't you come
home
?' I said. ‘Come back. And you and Dad can be friends again. I even think you'd like Josh.'

‘I can't, Penny,' said Mum. ‘I still love your father. I don't want to see him with someone else. And I have a new life here now. But if you wanted to, you could come here. You do know that, right? There's always room for you here, and I know you're starting Year Eleven next year but we could find you a really good school . . . '

‘Thanks, Mum,' I said. ‘But I don't want to live in Perth. I like it here. I like living with Dad and I like my school and . . . '

I was going to add ‘
my friends
', but I thought about Nick and it felt as though something were squeezing my heart.

‘But Mum?' I said. ‘I'd like to come and visit. Maybe in the holidays?'

‘I'd like that very much, Penny,' said Mum. ‘Very, very much.'

We talked for a bit longer. Mum told me about her job, and about the beach down the road from her house. It sounded nice. I told her about school, and even about Nick and the love-shy project, and my Debating meltdown.

After I'd said goodbye to her, I lay down on my bed and had a proper cry. It felt good, letting go of stuff that I'd been holding on to for years. And once I'd let it go I couldn't figure out why I hadn't done it sooner. Eventually I calmed down, and felt kind of wobbly still, but strong. I turned back to my laptop. It was time to write.

18

I
DIDN'T WANT TO GO TO
the social. I didn't want to see all the people I went to school with who weren't my friends. And they weren't. Oh sure, they respected me. But they weren't my friends. I'd never hung out with any of them just . . . normally, at their house, or out to see a movie. Only for extracurricular stuff and big parties that everyone was invited to. I hated the fact that everyone knew I had no friends.

I hadn't spoken to Rin, Hugh or Nick all week. I hid in the library at recess and lunch, and kept my head down in all my classes. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to them – I was just scared of what they might say. Scared they might reject me.

I wasn't really needed at the social anyway. Someone else from the paper could take photos of the best and worst outfits – that was all people wanted to read about. Nobody had cared about the piece I wrote last year on the spiking of the punch, and the effect that alcohol has on the teenage brain. Or the piece the year before about the meningitis epidemic that hit after everyone made out with everyone else. There was no point in being a journalist, all people wanted was gossip and trash.

So I wasn't going. I didn't even go to school on Friday. I stayed home in my pyjamas and watched daytime TV. When Dad and Josh arrived with about seventeen different types of curry, garlic naan and a jigsaw puzzle of the Eiffel Tower recreated in cheese, I dragged myself off the couch and settled happily at the table with a steaming plate of saag paneer.

I'd told Dad about my phone call with Mum. He knew I was still pretty upset about everything that had happened, and he'd clearly told Josh too, because there were no probing questions about my love-life, and no raised eyebrows about my pyjamas and unbrushed hair. We chatted about stupid things and laughed. Josh told us about how he'd tried to help the old lady in his apartment building to take her rubbish out, and that she'd called the police and accused him of being a thief and stalker. Dad told us about how one of his contractors had picked up a Portaloo from a film-set, but not checked to make sure it was empty first, and had driven the film's star actress all the way to the sewage processing plant, locked inside.

I was considering a second helping of chicken makhani when there was a knock at the front door. Dad and Josh both looked at me, so I poked my tongue out at them and went to answer it.

It was Rin. She was wearing an explosion of pink and white lace with a short tutu skirt, and about forty strands of pearls around her neck. Her hair was all twisted up and curled around her ears, and she wore dainty pink slipper-like heels.

‘You look amazing, Rin!'

‘You weren't at school today,' she said, taking in my pyjamas and curry-stained fingers. ‘Are you okay?'

‘I'm fine,' I said. ‘I just didn't really feel up to school today.'

‘But you're coming to the social, right?'

I glanced down at my pyjamas and fluffy slippers. ‘Um. No. Not feeling very social.'

Rin frowned. ‘But you
have
to come,' she said. ‘You organised the whole thing! It's not the social without you. And anyway, my parents are only letting me go if I can go with
you
. They think you're responsible and a good influence on me. And the thing is . . . ' She took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, Hamish kind of asked me to go with him.'

‘Hamish did
what
?'

Rin nodded, blushing. ‘He asked me for my phone number last week at school, and then he called me on the weekend and we talked for like an
hour
. Did you know he's really into manga? Anyway, he asked if I wanted to go with him. And I said yes! I mean, I know he's strange and talks about weird stuff all the time. But he's just shy. Like me! And he's into anime and has seen all of Miyazaki-san's films. And I
like
him. And I want to see him at the social, and dance with him and then maybe he'll kiss me and be my boyfriend, but I can't do that if I can't go to the social, and I can't go to the social if
you
don't come with me.'

Wow. Hamish and Rin. That part of the plan had actually worked. But I still couldn't go. There was a chance that Nick might be there. Or might not be there. And I would feel anxious either way. I thought back to the conversation Nick and I had had about fear. I'd told him that nothing made me anxious or afraid. What a terrible lie.

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I just can't.'

Rin's sweet and shy expression hardened, and her lips pursed. She grabbed me by the upper arm and steered me back into my apartment.

‘Hi, Mr Drummond,' she said grimly. ‘Hi, Josh. Please excuse us for a moment.'

She frogmarched me into my bedroom and flung open my wardrobe door.

‘Hmm,' she said, flicking through shirts and jeans. ‘There isn't much to work with here. You get in the shower, I've obviously got a lot to do.'

I blinked. And then I did as she said. It had been a very long time since anyone had told me what to do. It was kind of refreshing. Making my own decisions and bossing other people hadn't always worked out well for me. Maybe it was time for me to be bossed around for a while.

When I came back into my bedroom, Rin was standing over a pile of clothes, holding a purple chiffon monstrosity I'd worn as my cousin's bridesmaid a few years ago.

‘I hope you're not seriously expecting me to wear
that
,' I said. ‘It looks like a shower loofah.'

Rin smiled. ‘Of course not.' She reached inside the dress and yanked out the purple slip I'd worn under it. ‘You're going to wear
this
.'

‘What?' I said. ‘But it's
underwear
.'

‘Trust me.'

Rin found my one and only non-sports bra (conveniently also purple, as it had been purchased for the aforementioned wedding), and some black leggings and ballet flats. While I was getting dressed, she vanished back to her own apartment, and returned carrying a gold cardigan-shrug thing, a tonne of jewellery and a giant sack of makeup. She put gold stuff on my eyelids, and applied mascara and eyeliner, and then gave me some purplish lip gloss. Then she put a handful of apricot-scented gunk into my hair and scrunched it around.