What Does Blue Feel Like? (4 page)

Char grimly pulls a crumply bit of paper out of her pocket.

It is a sketch of the butterfly.

She wants the tattoo just above her bum, where her

parents won't ever see it.

Hell, they'd ground her for life

if they knew she was even in here.

Jim signs the consent form, because he's eighteen.

It's not so bad, not really.

It sounds like a dentist's drill

and the pain is just like getting stung by a bee,

a million times over.

I missed an exam when I had that sickie on Monday

and

because I don't have a doctor's certificate, I

failed.

But

I reckon I would've anyway.

I'm so fucking stupid.

The school counsellor calls Char into her office

because of her grades.

Because of the blackness under her eyes

that just won't go away.

Because everybody, everybody in the school says that

Char and Jim drink too much.

Because she might as well be walking around with a sign

on her head that says
In Danger
.

So yeah, I'm crap at school.

(Why don't you just call me stupid, lady?)

So yeah, I can't sleep real good. (Who does?)

So yeah, we go out and party.

(Why is that anyone else's business? And it's not like

we're the only ones at those parties anyway.)

So yeah, I'm not doing so good right now.

So yeah, it's really none of your goddamn business.

So yeah, can I go back to class now?

Bronwyn still sits next to Char in some classes, because

she can either sit there or with the computer geeks

who ask you out whenever you sit next to them.

So she sits next to Char, and today

Bronwyn talks.

She tells Char about her job,

her latest boyfriend,

the fight with her parents last night,

how much her streaks cost,

how this term has really been a bitch.

Char isn't listening, not properly.

When the bell rings she gets up and

leaves the room,

leaving

Bronwyn in the middle of a sentence,

mouth open.

Char doesn't go home that night.

She stays with Jim instead,

almost forgetting to call her parents and tell them where

she is.

Her olds aren't impressed

of course,

but they don't know

how to say no.

Jim's parents are home,

but they leave them be.

Unlike Julie and Paul,

these parents are the kind

who don't mind what their teenagers get up to

as long as it isn't dangerous.

Jim's mum says,

‘There's a lot of worse things in this world

than your kids having a few drinks at home,

and besides

it's better if you learn to drink

somewhere safe

than in a nightclub or pub.'

Char knows

her mum would have a fit

if she heard Jim's mum say that.

Luckily for Char,

that isn't going to happen.

They wake up on the floor.

Late for school.

Char is wearing her bra and undies, and yesterday's

smudgy eyeliner.

And Jim is wearing yesterday's school shorts.

Char is still sick,

and she ducks into an old lady's rose garden to spew

on the way to school.

She looks like shit, she knows,

but can't really bring herself to care.

She can feel eyes on her from halfway across the school.

It's that nosey old bat of a school counsellor.

Char knows that she is being

watched.

Very carefully.

 

When Char goes home,

her mother watches her.

She can think of many things she wants to say to this

strange (stranger) child

but nothing will come out.

She wants to yell and scream until her throat is hoarse.

She wants to say, ‘What's worrying you, baby? Talk to me.'

She wants to shake Char until she snaps out of it.

But she can't do it all at once

and she can't decide what to do first.

So she just watches.

Very carefully.

I'm haunted.

Haunted hunted haunted.

Stalked.

Like some exotic animal wanted for their fur.

So I move stealthily around floorboards, furniture,

but the eyes are on me.

I get so paranoid

that I check my desk, cupboards, under the bed,

for cameras and microphones.

Parents these days are high-tech.

Highly into being sneaky.

I wouldn't put it past mine.

Char reads an article in the newspaper

about how drinking can age your skin,

make you fat as it

poisons your body,

kills your body.

It's probably all rubbish, she tells herself,

but her tummy protests that thought.

She's been feeling sick for a while now

and her body really doesn't feel too good.

But neither does her head.

As she's about to get into the shower

Char glances, then looks, really looks in the

bathroom mirror.

She's pale, paler than normal.

Black under eyes that keeps creeping further south.

Blotches on skin.

She touches one, gingerly,

resisting the urge to squeeze.

There are little lines under her eyes.

Surely not wrinkles!

The mirror is full length

and hides nothing.

Her stomach is bloated

and her skin is dry.

‘Stupid fucking newspaper,' she mutters,

and steps into the steamy water.

Instead of sleeping tonight,

I think about what that newspaper article said

and I think about my own body.

I've been so tired lately I could sleep for days.

I throw up long after the hangovers are over

and my boobs are really sore.

That always happens around my period ...should've

maybe had that by now.

When was my last one?

Fuck. I turn the lights on and grab the calendar.

Fuck. Eight weeks ago.

Fuck. That has to be wrong. No ...that's right, it was the

swimming carnival and I refused to do it. What kind of

school has mandatory white swimming togs?

Eight weeks ago.

Fuck. Jim doesn't wear a condom, not always.

Fuck. He always says that the amount of alcohol we drink

would make us infertile and, anyway, half the time I'm too

drunk to realise whether he puts one on or not.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Jim and I look at the home pregnancy test for a long time.

It's still in its box

but neither of us really wants to know the answer.

We're in his room, with the door locked

even though there's no one home.

Eventually, he takes it out,

reads the directions,

then passes it to me.

We head towards the bathroom.

It's embarrassing, trying to pee in a little cup

and I'm scared I'm not doing the test right,

even though you only have to hold the stick in there.

I wait, five minutes,

and both little blue lines come through.

One to say the kit wasn't faulty

and one to say that I'm pregnant.

Jim bangs on the door, wanting to know if I'm OK

but I can't talk, can't move, can't breathe.

Somehow I unlock the door.

Don't even notice the cup of pee on the floor.

Jim doesn't either.

His eyes flicker back and forth,

like a pendulum,

back and forth,

between my face and the stick.

He knows what those little blue lines mean.

Jim says.

I don't want a baby.

I'm too fucking messed up for one.

I've probably half killed it, anyway, with all the alcohol.

They showed us slides, in Health, of what babies look like,

at different times, you know?

And until about three months they just seemed like

little blobs of blood to me.

It's hard to care about a little blob of blood.

Especially if you don't think about it.

Jim doesn't want a baby either, not yet anyway.

He says he's not ready to be that responsible.

Neither am I.

I stay at Jim's that night,

forgetting to ring my parents and tell them where I am.

When I go home after school the next day,

they don't even ask,

just give me baleful looks.

I go into my room,

lock the door.

Jim said he'll make the appointment for the abortion,

pay for it,

that it's the least he can do.

I've never felt more like shit in my whole life.

I grab the bottle of sleeping tablets out of my desk drawer,

tempted to take them all.

But there are only three left.

I take one

and climb into bed.

It's only 7:30

but that doesn't matter.

Later that night,

Char's mother picks the lock

and looks in on her sleeping daughter.

She doesn't know what to do with her.

Doesn't know what's
wrong
with her.

Doesn't know how they managed to screw up so badly.

Julie has, ashamedly, searched through Char's room for

drugs.

And breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't find any.

She also, ashamedly, rang the school today

when Char didn't come home last night,

to ask if she'd turned up to school.

And she made Paul ring Jim's house

to ask if Char was there.

She's not on drugs,

she is going to school,

and she isn't wandering the street.

So it can't be that bad, can it?

She lies awake that night,

trying to pinpoint the exact moment

when she and Char stopped talking, really talking,

but she can't remember anything.

Anything significant, that is.

A hundred thousand picky petty fights come back

to haunt her.

Not letting Char go to a party at the house of a friend

she didn't know.

Grounding her when she snuck out of the house and went

anyway.

Fighting with her every step of the way on parties, clothes,

piercings, sleepovers with boys, not drinking until she

turned eighteen.

She knew the teenage years were supposed to be

hell for parents

but weren't they supposed to ease up already?

Where was that great relationship, that even closer

mother–daughter bond that parenting books promised?

Liars.

She thinks, My daughter hates me. And I don't know why.

I don't even know her any more.

I feel

numb.

And I don't want to

leave my room

eat

shower

go to school

go to class

breathe.

But

Mum thumps on the door and shrieks, ‘Char. CHAR!!!'

I have to roll myself out of bed,

fall onto the floor

and pull myself up.

 

In the shower

I turn the water as hot as I can stand

and adjust the shower head until the water needles my skin

until it stings my skin and makes it red,

makes it hurt.

I poke my stomach and a little niggling thought comes

about what could be

and what I could have.

But

Tim thumps on the door and shrieks, ‘Char, hur-ry up.

Come on, you cow!'

 

I want to shriek as well.

But

I get dressed

and go to school.

No one says anything to Char

about the black eyeliner she's wearing.

It's against uniform requirements

but she's at school,

trying to take notes,

listen in class.

It looks like a huge effort for her.

Teachers cluck in the staffroom about her,

watching how Jim seems especially tender with her,

how Char seems not-quite-OK today

(more so than usual).

No one thinks teachers notice things like that,

that teachers
watch.

And no kids have figured out the staffroom windows are

tinted for that explicit reason.

They're not going to pick on the black eyeliner,

not today,

not when it has streaked down her face because

she's been crying.

Numb the pain.

Take it away.

I'll sell my soul.

Sell every sense I have.

Just take it fucking away.

 

Can't eat.

Can't sleep.

Can't think.

Can't breathe.

 

Take this pain away . . .

and you can have my soul.

I go to the clinic.

I wear big sunglasses

so the people standing outside yelling at me

can't see my eyes.

 

Jim holds me up,

stops me from falling,

basically carries me in.

 

I stumble over the doorstep,