Runner-Up -- Senior Section
Winner -- Jane Franklin Hall Prose Award
The Friends School
There was blood on the windscreen when we left Bellerive, running up the curve of the glass with how fast we were driving. I was fixated, watching the steady progress up the shield like a child racing raindrops. I couldn’t look at him, not while I could still feel him shaking. I couldn’t stomach the sight of the same blood I was hypnotised by staining his white knuckles where they gripped the steering wheel.
They were scared. When we finally stopped driving and pulled into a gas station he noticed. I was still glued to the passenger seat, eyes locked on nothing, blood long washed away. I was too dazed to realise where we were, too far gone to recognise when he left the car to pay for petrol or when he came back until soft hair was nuzzling in the crook of my neck. “My hands are fucked.” He mumbled; tongue sounding thick in his mouth. He ended up standing lamely at the open door of my side, and I cleaned the grime and puss out of the deep gouges, fingers twitching every time the disinfectant brushed too deep.
I spent nearly a month in that far-gone state. I don’t know where we went, or what we did, I just sat in the passenger seat, watching scenery roll by through the blur of tears. After a while, I started to wake up, be more conscious throughout the day. I felt him when he would press cool car keys into my hand, pull me from my place into the back seat and tug the ratty quilt over us. I started to squeeze him back when he held me.
Things got better once schools ended and suddenly the sight of two teenagers haunting the dark corners of Hobart City was less incriminating. So, we spent less of our days in the car. I started to move myself around without the constant crutch he had been. It was hot – that point where it’s too hot to wear seatbelts. When they could blister your already scorched skin for attempting to keep yourself safe. When I would pass him the silver keys with my shirt over my hand. We covered the back in towels, that were somehow still salty from our time at Haley Beach, and spent our afternoons lying in the heat. He would come back from whatever job he had found. Tired, less talkative than his usual quiet self. We lay together in silence, soaking up each other’s presence like photosynthesizing plants. It felt like healing.
He never told me where he worked, how he made money. I’m not sure I was in the sort of state where I was thinking about it. He got payslips though so it must have been actual work… Or maybe that’s just what I hoped. He did so much for me back then… he always had. He was a protector. He would make a great father.
The one thing we never brought up was fathers. He must have suffered for so long when I was out of it. So many nights, I woke up with a jolt. He lay next to me, shaking despite the humidity and muttering, I’m sorry sir- please- no. I’ve never seen him cry, but those nights were the closest. I would bundle him in my arms and drown out his pleas with what I hoped were soothing words. I pressed kisses on his skin like I was branding him. I hope they branded him. That he can still feel them to this day. Because I know he’ll still dream like that.
Fixing the car's radio that July was the best investment we ever made. That winter we spent every afternoon curled in the back seat, wrapped in our doonas while house music and the voices of news anchors washed over us. Sometimes he would talk about what we were listening to. Other times we would just sit there, listening to Kevin Rudd’s droning voice outline the new plans to avoid the economic crash the rest of the world was suffering.
We ended up in Derby. He threw me the keys in Campbell Town and told me to take him somewhere green. I was in the right mind to be working and we had enough to stay there for a while – take ourselves away from everything. It was still warm at night, despite autumn’s best efforts, and we spent the evenings sitting on the roof of the Ute. A doona wrapped around us as I pointed out stars, drawing steady lines between them, telling their stories. We both spoke softly while we were there like we were intruders on the great natural palace of the bush. In those truly silent hours after dark, when even the nature surrounding us stilled, he would lean close. Breath tickling my neck as he listened to my stories, hanging off each word like he was hypnotised by them.
I cherish those moments now, as fragile as glass I wrap them in my heart and remember when he was soft. When his eyes crinkled with the most ghostly of smiles. When he would let himself snore softly on my shoulder. When I had him safe in my arms. When he was safe.
He didn’t let me do a lot of protecting. I think he thought I was weak. Not meanly – not like he thought less of me – just… he fought, a lot. Latching onto any chance to release everything he bottled up into blood and bruises. It was mostly in school; he was a bit rabid when he was fifteen but that was then. He wasn’t going to go brawling with strangers when we had found that mythical freedom in a 1997 Toyota Hilux.
The only time he fought while we were away was one May, in a caravan park in Snug. I was in the park shop when there was screaming outside and the sound of breaking glass. I ignored it at first, I know I’m no one to talk but, well, you know the type of people in those places. We’d seen enough angry junkies for me to brush it off. That was until the old woman who ran the place came in, squawking at me to get outside. He was storming out of a crowd when I saw him, jaw set and eyes dark. Before I could think I grabbed him. He started when I did and for one blood-chilling second, I thought he was going to hit me. Then he went limp and let me drag him back to our spot.
We ended up in the past. He was sitting in the passenger seat while I stood in the open door of the car, cleaning the gashes he’d made in his knuckles. Like we hadn’t gone anywhere. I think that was the first time I thought it or… realised it, is probably truer. Realised that all the miles, all the places, all the running didn’t actually do anything. That after all the time… he was still as trapped as when we first escaped.
It was my fault he left. I don’t think I pushed him away – it’s more like I frightened him. Like when you startle a fox by stepping too loud when you’re just trying to get closer to it. The wrath of winter had forced us into firm refuge in the car. Holding each other close in the deadly night only to wake up to a mockingly cold sun filtering through a build-up of frost. That night the windows were hazed with condensation on our side instead, the cold window hitting the air warmed by our passion. He lay on my chest, bravely naked shoulders exposed while the rest of his modesty was kept under cover of every piece of fabric we owned. We were both calm, my fingers running through shaggy curls and eliciting small soft noises from him. “I’d love to have you in a proper bed,” I confessed, closing my eyes to indulge in the image, “carry you to our bathroom, wash you up after.” He didn’t say anything back. I thought he was asleep. I woke up alone the next day, our nest of warmth lacking all his clothes.
I saw him in Ouse a month ago. I bought a second-hand BMW last year, a small car, I can’t get in a big one without feeling homesick. Well, being second hand, I realised quite quickly it could do with a once over in a shop. I dropped it off with no contact, went to pick it up about a week later and there he was. Same scruffy hair and odd posture, like he didn’t know what to do with all of his limbs. The tattoos he always talked about painting his arms. His knuckles cut up and bloody. He looked me in the eyes, it felt like a kiss. He threw me my keys, it felt like goodbye.