You’re Tired, Stop When You’re Done’ in a very aggressive font. She works sixty hours a week managing her own business, and she started introducing Lucy to people as ‘my little champion debater and future lawyer’ from when Lucy was about twelve, before Lucy had even joined the school debating team.
Lucy’s mother is…a lot.
But now my parents have dropped this break-up bombshell and performed an elaborate charade for the better part of a year, I can no longer be soothed by the idea that my mother is less damaging than Lucy’s or Zach’s. My one life advantage is gone. I have family issues now, along with everything else.
‘I can’t believe we never noticed,’ Lucy continues.
‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice.’
I can’t dwell on this too much because it makes my stomach feel squirmy in the same way it does when I think too hard about my existence and what will happen after I die. It was my Wizard of Oz moment—my parents pulled back the curtain, and what I saw there makes me feel sick.
‘But do you notice now, in hindsight?’ Zach asks.
‘No. I always thought they were perfect, which means my entire idea of what constitutes a happy relationship is irreparably damaged. I need to be in some kind of pre-couple’s therapy right now, heading off my own future marital problems before they start.’
Zach and Lucy exchange a ‘she’s spiralling’ glance that I pretend not to see.
Zach’s older brother Alex walks into the room then, followed by his friend Owen Sinclair.
Alex is nineteen and has just finished his first year as an apprentice chef. He and Zach are eighteen months apart in age, but they were only a year apart in school, because Zach was bumped up a grade in primary school when they moved from Perth to Melbourne. That’s Zach’s role in his family: The Smart One, The High Achiever, The Smug Grade-skipper. I might be an only child, but I’ve figured out that siblings tend to occupy roles in their family. Alex is The Irresponsible One Who Kisses All The Girls And Can Make Delicious Gnocchi From Scratch. Their two younger brothers are The Shy One With The Face You Can’t Say No To (Anthony, age fifteen) and The Dinosaur-obsessed Attention Seeker (Glenn, age twelve).
Alex moves through the world with the effortlessness of a well-liked, first-born son. He has a hot ex-girlfriend, a seemingly endless supply of grey V-necked T-shirts and hundreds of people he could classify as friends. He’s the kind of generically popular male that I instinctively avoid.
I don’t like Alex. No, that’s not true. Alex has never done anything mean to me. In fact, he once offered me the last slice of pizza, and another time he was walking through the room when Zach and I were arguing about something and he said ‘Natalie’s right’ as he breezed past. But I still don’t trust Alex, because he’s the kind of guy a girl like me is naturally wary of. My default assumption is that he’s probably thinking something negative about me.
Alex’s friend Owen Sinclair is a slightly safer kind of popular guy, because he’s so openly preoccupied with himself. He’s not thinking bad things about you because he’s thinking good things about himself. He’s tall, baby-faced and surfer-blond, uncomplicated, and he seems to be clueless about anything that’s not happening directly in front of his eyes. Girls love him, and he loves them back. He once did something obscene—I’m not sure exactly what—with a girl on a park bench in broad daylight. He can play the guitar and almost dunk a basketball. He sometimes wears his hair in a man bun. And his middle name is Macaulay, because his parents’ favourite movie is Home Alone. That’s everything I know, have overheard or somehow gleaned about Owen Sinclair.
‘Hey,’ Owen says, sitting down next to me. I’m pretty sure he’s never spoken directly to Lucy and me before. I’m pretty sure I’ve never made eye contact with him before. Owen Sinclair is like the sun. I’ve never looked straight at him for more than one second.
‘Hi,’ Lucy says.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘What’s happening?’ Owen says.
‘Nothing much,’ I say.
‘Cool.’ Owen leans back on the couch, running his arm over the back of it so it almost, kind of, could be construed as putting his arm around me. I mean, his arm is not around me, but if it slipped off the couch, it—momentarily—would be.
I drop my face a little, so Owen is seeing my best angle. After two rounds