What Does Blue Feel Like? (7 page)

He wants to see me again.

My heart lifts a little at the prospect.

We send text messages back and forth

until I run out of credit,

and, like the pathetic person I am,

I reread them over and over.

So much for sleeping tonight.

Jim's friend sits on his desk, feet hanging out the

second-storey window of his bedroom. (Convenient in

earlier years, but he hasn't had the need to sneak out in

a long while.)

 

He's not thinking about jumping, just sitting there smoking

(a slower form of suicide, he thinks wryly].

 

He is wearing his jacket, the same jacket he was wearing

the last time he saw her, the same jacket he slipped

around her as she shivered (and she smiled at him,

glassily, blearily-eyed, and kissed his cheek).

 

He thinks of that kiss on his cheek. He hadn't thought that

a kiss on his check could ever be enjoyable, synonymous

as they were with old aunties with wrinkly skin, hairy

chins, perfume like the air freshener in toilets, and fuchsia

lipstick that stuck to his skin. But that kiss . . .

(He starts telling himself off for acting like a schoolkid now

and letting his smoke burn down.)

 

Smoke finished, he hugs his jacket around himself, nestles

his head into the folds, smelling a mix of his own natural

sandalwood scent, boys' deodorant, and there! Lingering

faintly, a smell of sweeter spice, her perfume (he never

knew girls could smell like that, so much nicer than the

sickly flowery scents he'd always smelt on girls).

 

He thinks of her, thinks of Jim.

Thinks of how he wanted Char as soon as he met her.

Thinks of how much he wanted to bash Jim when he went

out partying the night that Char had the abortion.

 

His mother calls out in her loud, squally voice, ‘I can smell

smoke up there! You're not on the fags again, are you?'

Char's teacher is going on about the power of thought. He's

old and wiry, with a balding head and an ever increasing

handlebar moustache. He's one of those teachers who

thinks that the more philosophy his students hear, the

better. The students call him ‘Yapper', and he knows it, but

doesn't mind. And he (gasp) uses swearwords!

‘Your mind is a palace,' he says.

 

‘Even if everything else has turned to shit around you,

your mind can be your treasure chest,' he says.

 

‘No one can ever tell you what to think. It's the ultimate

freedom you have in this world,' he says.

 

‘Did you know your mind can only hold one thought at a

time? It's worthwhile making sure it's at least half

interesting,' he says.

 

‘And did you know if you tell yourself something often

enough, you'll start to believe it?' he says.

 

‘There is an old Indian story about how each of us has two

wolves living inside us. A good wolf and an evil wolf, each

fighting for survival. The good wolf represents harmony,

tolerance, peace, happiness, all things good. The evil wolf

represents hatred, jealousy, spite, malice, all things evil. We

determine which one survives by which one we feed,' he says.

 

‘We feed them with our thoughts and actions,' he says.

 

‘Which wolf are you feeding?' he says.

The girls from class are talking at lunchtime,

speculating that another girl in the grade,

one who's been away recently,

is pregnant.

They chatter about pregnancy and babies like girls

for whom it

has never turned into a nightmare,

the girls who have never felt that something within their

bellies and been scared,

so very scared.

Char feels like an outsider.

She can't imagine what it feels like to be pregnant

because she knows.

She can't join in the spiteful giggles and catty gossip about

teen pregnancy.

She's been there.

She can't do anything much

except stare wistfully from behind her sunnies.

Every word they said

stabbed me like a knife

twisted at my heart

hacked into me just a little more.

 

Every word they said

made me feel so guilty

because I am so bad.

What kind of person kills their child?

 

Every word they said

made me hate Jim a little more.

How could he have put me in this position?

And then I hate myself even more.

 

Every word they said

stabbed me like a knife

twisted at my heart

shrivelled my soul — just a little more.

Char wags the rest of school.

She sits in a park,

cursing herself for wearing eyeliner that stings her eyes,

when she cries,

for having the gall to have an abortion,

for not hating herself enough for going through with it.

I am such a bad person, she thinks.

I'm damned to hell no matter what I do.

I was pregnant. Pregnant.

I would've had a baby. A child. My own.

A mixture of tears and snot runs down her face.

She fumbles in her bag for a tissue, when something

flickers out of the corner of her eye.

A woman in a straw hat sits on a blanket,

a baby lying in her shadow.

They look so happy in their own little world.

For just a second, Char thinks of the ‘what-ifs'.

It's like rubbing salt into the wound.

even the voices in my head are fighting.

 

I shouldn't drink tonight.

Drinking won't fix anything.

It could even make my problems worse.

 

I should drink tonight.

I don't want to fix anything, I just want to forget.

 

But I can be such a sad drunk.

What if I get shitfaced and decide to walk in front of a car

or something?

 

But I can be such a happy drunk.

Maybe I'll forget all of the shit and remember how to have

fun and be carefree and laugh.

 

I've got no one to drink with.

And besides, it's about time I stayed at home for a night

and not worry my mum.

 

Drink with Jim's friend.

Besides, it's a Friday night, and I haven't been at home for

a Friday night since I was about fifteen. Mum will be more

worried if I stay at home.

 

I shouldn't but.

‘Heading out tonight, Char?'

her mother asks,

trying to sound nonchalant.

‘Probably,' she replies,

mind elsewhere.

Her mother keeps probing, and

she knows she should make an effort to sound

less vague,

more coherent,

more like a perfect daughter.

Her mother

silently

stifles

a scream.

Sometimes,

talking to her daughter is like

drawing blood from a stone.

I meet up with Jim's friend at a party.

Discover he has a name — Guy.

The kid who's having the party has never been

cool or popular.

One of those kids you don't really notice at all,

a bit of a misfit.

His parents have gone away

and he figures now is his golden chance,

his ticket in the door to coolness.

Char feels slightly sorry for him.

All he'll get is a trashed house and a hangover.

And by Monday morning,

he'll be nameless,

faceless,

again.

I'm sitting in a lazy circle,

playing drinking games,

getting drunk

drunker

drunkerer.

Guy has disappeared

but all of a sudden he comes back,

sits down,

arm slung around my shoulder.

Other kids have come with him.

They're lighting joints, I think.

Guy plants a smooshy kiss on my cheek and purrs,

‘Something stronger?' in my ear.

I've always wanted to try dope.

The kid having the party comes over and sits down.

‘No pressure, OK?' says the guy with the joint in his hand.

‘If you want some, stay. If you don't, leave.'

Everyone looks around,

but no one leaves.

Jill from my class is handing me another shot as the joint

comes around.

I down the shot, breathe, and close my lips around the

joint, breathing in.

I've seen enough movies to know you're supposed

to hold your breath.

As I breathe out, I cough and hack and make

an idiot of myself.

My lungs are rebelling against the rebellion.

The joints are like the best kind of medicine.

I don't care about anything and I've forgotten

all my problems.

I'm soooooooo relaxed my lips won't even work properly.

Everything seems OK again, and I sink into the

cushiony lounge.

Why didn't the doctor prescribe me this?

 

I wake up,

head pounding,

mouth dry.

Strange bed,

strange room.

An arm over my chest.

Guy!

He's beginning to wake as well.

There's a knock at the door of his room.

‘Shit!' he hisses.

I slide down into the bed, pulling the covers over my head

as the door opens.

It's his friend, who crashed here last night,

the one who gave us the lift home.

I stick my head out of the covers,

and he laughs and laughs.

On Monday morning

a special assembly is called.

But I've already heard what happened.

That geeky kid who held the party drank too much and

did drugs, they said.

The marijuana flipped him out, made him crazy.

The cops found him wandering the streets in his dressing

gown carrying knives and razors in his pockets,

broken beer bottles clenched tightly in his hands.

He'd been put into the mental ward of the local hospital,

strapped down,

medicated.

His parents were sedated too.

Of course, we didn't hear any of that at assembly.

Instead,

the principal warned us about drugs.

Told us about how easy it was to slip into psychosis, to

believe in things that weren't real.

Told us about how easy it was to get arrested for

possession and go to jail.

Told us about how easy it was to do something stupid, to

drive a car and kill yourself, or somebody else.

I wondered how it happened that I had such a good time,

and this kid ended up with more than he'd bargained for.

Maybe it was like Russian roulette, and I'd got lucky.

The bullet had hit someone else this time.

I start hanging out with Guy on weekends,

but I don't do any more dope.

I tell him about the kid at the party,

and he doesn't offer it to me again.

At one party, Jim is there.

I'm sitting on Guy's lap,

lovebites covering my neck,

his hands wrapped around me.

Jim looks at me, eyes cold,

hard,

accusing.

I ignore him.

It was his fault we broke up,

not mine.

Jim gets drunk,

kisses another girl.

He looks proud,

looks at me triumphantly,

as if he's proved something.

They're standing close enough to us that I can reach out

and grab him.

‘Do you want a fucking medal? You've got quite a talent for

kissing other people. Like how you went out the night I'd

had the abortion and cheated on me. Why don't you just

fuck off.'

Jim looks shocked.

The girl slaps him, walks away.

And Guy grins at the drama.

I'm good at shocking people.

I tell Guy about it later. About how bad I feel.

He says that guys don't really understand. To them it's not

a baby until they can hold it in their arms. But that's no

reason to justify what Jim did.

He says I'm not a bad person.

But I don't believe him.