“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.
She smiled, a brave-girl sort of smile, the kind she always gave me whenever Mum and Dad were fighting when we were little and she was trying to cheer me up and let me know it was all going to be okay. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I reached out to clasp her hand, wanting more of her and afraid to ask for it. “I’m your brother.”
“You know what I mean.” She squeezed back.
“Yeah. Yeah I do.”
She pulled away, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going to go home.”
I was going to say let’s go together, and then I realized, we didn’t live in the same home together anymore. “All right.”
“I love you, David.” Her eyes were shining, and they said it all. The words meant nothing, everything, and I fought the urge to reach for her again, to give into what I knew was wrong and wanted anyway.
“I love you, too.”
I think she heard me as she was ‘rounding the corner. I hope she did.
–
Mum and Dad were at work, and all my stuff was already over at Julie’s. My room was completely empty, with its sky blue carpet and glowing stars on the ceiling, looking as stuck-in-time as Dawn’s had when she’d left.
There was just one thing left to do. I took a large rubbish bag and headed out to the shed. They were all still there, the dirty mags I’d hidden so Mum and Dad wouldn’t find them. I’d been so afraid of being discovered. And now…
I grabbed a handful of magazines and shoved them into the bag, my eyes stinging, my vision blurred. The pages were slippery, and one of the magazines slid out of my hands, spilling onto the floor. Naughty Bits. I picked it up, flipping through, remembering how many times I’d come out to this shed to look at these pictures, imagining what it might be like to be with a woman like this.
There… there was the page. Dawn’s writing in the margin, fat and curly with a heart over the “i”: “She looks like me.”
She really did.
I tore the page out, folding it carefully, and put it into my back pocket. Then I finished bagging the rest, swiping at my eyes before tossing the heavy bag into the bin with the rest of the rubbish.