“Oh,” she says, perturbed, “Jude is here.”
I swipe the heel of my hand under my teary eye, “Yeah, he is. We’re doing maths.”
“Looks like it.”
“Shell, do you want to come in?” Jen says, “We were just taking a break if you wanted to talk about something.”
“Um, no, I’ll talk to you later.”
“No, come on,” she holds out her hands and beckons her over to us, “Come and chill out with us.”
Michelle’s journey to the bed is stilted, like she can’t imagine something more awkward than sharing space on a mattress with me, and I am awkward too, discomfort in my stomach as she occupies the patch of bed to Jen’s right, while I sit on her left, one earphone still dangling from my ear.
Jen slings arms around us both, “I wish you two would just hang out,” she says, “Wah! It’s so silly, yeah, Michelle you’re, like, doing the emo thing right now and Jude has decided to be a Rugby Wanker, but why does that have to divide us? At the end of the day you’re both immigrants, and I’m gay. We’d be the ideal friend group,” she nudges us with her knees, “outsiders, yeah?”
“Jude is not an immigrant in the same way. He’s white.”
“His grandmother on his dad’s side is Portuguese,” Jen says diplomatically, and we both roll our eyes, “God, I’m joking, I know it’s not the same,” She snatches hold of my face, “But look at his complexion, hm? Can’t you see it a little bit? That lit-from-within skin? God, he’s so pretty.”
Michelle makes a face, “Um, I think I’m going to go out and hang with Evan.”
“Isn’t that what you and Debra were shouting about just now?”
She goes a bit red, and eyes flit to mine for a moment and make me wish I wasn’t here. “Yeah, mam doesn’t want me to go out but like, she can’t really tell me what to do.”
“Okay, well, suit yourself. You’re missing out here though, Jude was just singing My Chemical Romance to me, and it was gorgeous.”
It’s my turn to feel embarrassed, “Clearly you’re not missing much. Um, have fun with Evan.”
“Yeah, I will,” She stands up and adjusts the hem of her black mini skirt, “Do I look okay, Jen?” Her tights have loads of holes in them, but I assume she wants them to be like that so I don’t give any insight.
“Yeah you’re hot. Go get rode.” She gives her a playful slap in the bum and she’s gone. We listen to her boots thunder down the stairs, then the slam of the front door. Debra screams at her to come back, or at least put on a coat. She does neither.
“You’re so weird around Michelle,” Jen accuses me as we resume our trigonometry lesson, “Why do you do that? You just stop talking.”
“I don’t know. I guess I can sense that she doesn’t like me.”
“She would like you if you talked to her.”
“I don’t know, Jen. If she was going to like me she’d probably have done it already,” I scan the page of equations for something that looks familiar, and can’t even remember what we were working on. “I think I must have done something, or maybe she just doesn’t like the kind of person that I am.”
“But you’re the sweetest, nicest, cutest boy alive,” Jen protests, “That’s not it. I think it’s just a clique thing. She’s just used to hanging out with a certain crowd of people. She doesn’t think that the people who play sport are going to be nice to people like her.”
“Well, I hate that then, because it’s not true. Being on the school rugby team and not having greasy hair doesn’t make me an arsehole by default.”
“What you just said does.”
“What?”
“Saying she has greasy hair doesn’t really help your case.”
“It’s not Michelle who has greasy hair. I was thinking about the other people who hang around the back steps of the lunch room.”
A snort, “You can say Evan.”
“Yeah, Evan’s hair is greasy sometimes. But like, so what, I guess. He doesn’t have to wash it,” I find a doodle I did earlier in margin of the maths book, a little drawing of a guy with lank hair flopped over one eye and a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. “He also doesn’t have to be an arsehole, which he is, by the way. Not me.”
“Evan is actually pretty nice.”
“Hm.”
“I think you should make an effort with him. I think he’s just cagey, and I think if you took time to hang out with him and talk to him then you’d see that you actually have a lot in common, you know? He’s got really good taste in music, and he’s funny, and he likes to draw.”
“Yeah, I know, he and Michelle sit down at the back of my art class and scribble pictures of crying eyes and wilting roses and shit for the whole hour.”
“They’re so deep and romantic like that,” She says wistfully, and I can't tell if she’s joking.
“Right.”
“I think if you make an effort with him then you and Michelle can get closer and then we’ll all be like a big happy family. The perfect little friend group, hm?”
I snicker, “So I’d be going through this effort for your direct benefit?”
“Of course,” She says, rolling over to her back and shooting me a grin, “Who else would it be for?”
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