Page 72 of Unnecessary Drama

‘Is anybody going to ask about my hand?’ Lauren says.

‘Go straight down to the beach and get some salt water on it,’ Nanna says.

‘Do not do that,’ Mum says. ‘Keep it bandaged.’ She kisses Lauren’s forehead, and links one arm through mine and the other through Lauren’s.

‘Both my girls are home. We’re going to celebrate,’ she says.

‘Champagne?’ Lauren asks hopefully.

‘Scones,’ Nanna says. ‘And a pot of strong tea.’

‘God, please don’t let them be date scones, the only thing worse than a scone is a date scone,’ Lauren moans theatrically.

‘They are date scones,’ Nanna says.

We walk inside, and it feels like layers of me are falling away. Like I’m putting down my sword and taking off my armour, until I’m stripped back to family Brooke, old Brooke, home Brooke.

31

I’m the only one awake. Lauren went to a friend’s house, Mum went to bed early because she is trying to reset her sleep schedule after a few weeks of night shift, and Nanna went to bed early because that’s what you have to do when you get up at 5 am every day for no reason. I’m still up, with only Minty the Siamese cat for company, staring at my laptop and a blank Word document, trying to rewrite my story from scratch. I need the perfect opening line, I decide, and then the rest will just flow.

She used to be such a nice girl. Delete.

Jane wasn’t a dog person. Delete.

She hadn’t spoken to him in a year. Delete.

I like all of these first lines. They are all perfectly good first lines. But the weight of expectation, of finding an equally good or better second line, and third line, and fourth line, and then building a whole story around it, is too much. It’s too hard. I’m not cut out for this. With all of my other subjects, I can just study harder, learn more, and be confident in getting better. But writing is slippery—I could do it every day of my life and never be any good and, even worse, not realise I’m not good. And what is good? Who decides? So much of who I am and how I want to see myself—on the inside, the real me—is tied up in the idea of being a creative person, a Writer. I sit and stare at the blank page and will myself to be braver.

There’s a quiet knock at the front door. The barest rap of knuckles, like the person knocking is regretting the knock even while they do it. I should be scared, it’s way too late for anyone to be knocking, but I feel safe here, at home.

I can see a familiar tall silhouette through the glass.

I open the door, and Jesse is standing there. I’m wearing my old fluffy bathrobe, the one I deemed too ugly for me to even consider taking when I moved to Melbourne. Even though we live together in the same house, I feel exposed by him seeing me like this. This is Home Brooke, truly at home Brooke, in a way I never am in our share house.

He’s standing there in my doorway, one hand loosely on the frame, wearing his glasses, and looking cuter than I want to admit. Why does he look so good in doorways? Does he know this and deliberately position himself in them? Does he practise? Or do I just have a thing for men standing in doorways?

It takes me a second to notice the expression on his face. He looks sad, and vulnerable, in a way I’ve never seen before.

‘Hi,’ I say.

‘Hi,’ he says.

I smile and wait for him to tell me why he’s here.

‘I had a fight with my dad,’ he says, in a tone that he’s trying to make sound normal, a bit cheerful even, a joke. But his voice trembles the tiniest, tiniest bit at the end.

‘Come in,’ I say.

He follows me in.

‘Is this okay? That I came here?’

‘Yes. We’re friends.’

‘I know you said that but—’

‘We’re friends Jesse,’ I say firmly.