It’s the day after. Jack races to school for what becomes the most defining day of his 14-year-old life. Just two more episodes after this, before school term ends. Probably the strangest, most eventful term ever.

16 May 1996

I don’t have much, but I have this diary. Problems are in transit until my pen puts them here. I need to let go of this book and start trusting people, I know that. Maybe one day I’ll grow up, grow some balls, get out of here. For now, it’s all I’ve got.

I will find this entry the hardest of all, I reckon. That sounds pretty self-important. I don’t mean it like that. God knows my problems aren’t that big. Not any more.

I’m listening to the rain on the roof, as heavy as everything that happened today. My task is to write the rain on paper, ink to the end of the night. My pen is a fire-stick draining the rain. A nice idea. But there’s too much rain.

Afternoon classes were cancelled. At school, students huddled under awnings. Parents arrived with umbrellas and one by one the groups got smaller. I wanted to be in class like normal, but everything was fucked. Mum had been crying. By the time she came to get me and Myles, we were quiet. What was there to say? They said everyone has different reactions: shock, or nothing at all. They said ANYTHING was OK. Bullshit. Anything? I have a firm belief that it will never, ever be OK.

Mum was great. She held Myles’ hand in the car and he fully lost it. He did that silent crying, the kind where all you hear in your ears is the roar of the sea. We pulled over for ages. Mum stroked his hair and said shhh, and ‘it will be OK’.  What else was there to say?

Windscreen wipers went thud, smack. ‘What-about-me?’ I thought.

Dad was waiting in the kitchen with tea. It was wrong being home. I didn’t want to be. The phone rang and Mum disappeared and reappeared, every time with more tissues. Myles said he wanted to be back at school with the other Year 12 guys. I said I wanted to be alone, so I came in here to write.

It’s dark now. Moths keep banging themselves on my light. Myles has gone to a friend’s. They say I’m one of the best writers in my year. But I’ve never written something like this. ‘Every one has their own version of history’, says Mrs Dickson. This is mine.

Running. All I remember before school was running. I needed to find him. I was letting it happen again: putting Jin out of my mind, avoiding the idea of him, just like I did with Snowy. That was going to change. I swore it to myself.

I ran to the Music Centre. Sometimes he plays piano in one of the rehearsal rooms. I ran around the oval where he sometimes studies but he wasn’t there either. I went to the library but a sign said ‘closed’. I looked in all the dunnies near the pool. Squads were called off, so Snowy was there with a group of swimmers. Seeing him reminded me of yesterday and made me sick and sad. I didn’t stop. He looked hurt, but I didn’t have time. My sole focus was Jin. I went to all the locker rooms and to Mrs Dickson’s office, but she wasn’t there either.

My chest felt like it was covered in shrinking plastic.

Mr Gregory was late for first period, English. I sat up the back with Adrian and Zach. They were throwing pencils across the room and generally being dickheads. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Excruciating. Twenty minutes. Half an hour. Finally Gregory came in and we stood. He’s an old guy with a comb-over and a stoop and everyone makes fun of him. But I think he’s a decent teacher.

‘Sit’, he said. He hesitated a second too long.

‘Some of you’, he said, ‘would have heard already, some of you not yet’. A murmur went through the class.

What was I thinking right then? Come on, I have to remember. The world was yelling to do something, but I sat paralysed.

‘When someone takes their own life, it’s called suicide, and it’s very hard to explain. It’s a sickness, it’s selfish. You’ll hear all sorts of things today, and you should only believe what I’m going to tell you and what happens at the assembly, nothing else’.

Hot sadness took over my face. I was about to lose it.

‘Counselors are here for sessions with Year 12 students. If you need to talk to someone, the school counselor is available for Year 9′.

He continued, shaking his head. ‘A star student. If this can happen to the best, god help all of us’.

My mind raced ahead of me. I missed something. Everyone started talking. Counselors for the Year 12 students? Why Year 12?

Zach was next to me. ‘Who?’ I asked him.

‘Who what?’

‘Who’s he talking about?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Tell me’.

‘Mitchell Lewis, dead shit’. Mitch Lewis. ‘In Year 12. The runner guy’.

‘What? Not Jin?’

‘Jin, your orchestra boyfriend? What are you talking about?’

‘He’s not my boyfriend’. Where-the-hell-was-Jin? ‘What happened?’

‘Lewis jumped in front of a train on the main line. Fucking went everywhere, they had to close the station for hours. He had a fight with someone in Year 12 before on the phone and just jumped’.

‘Mitchell Lewis. I know him’, I was shocked. ‘He used to say hello to me’. Nice guy. Nice smile. I thought he was really hot. One of Myles’ friends.

‘Him. But he was perfect’, I said.

This sounds unreal, I know. Way too much like a story. I bet when I read this back when I’m 30 I won’t believe it happened like this, just a day after Jin gave me the letter. But it did. Nothing could be more true. I wouldn’t lie about this. Not here.

Some guys were laughing. Zach and Adrian included. AS IF IT WASN’T SERIOUS. AS IF IT WASN’T THE WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN.

‘Show some fucking respect’, I stood up. Stupid silence, like they were stunned cattle.

‘Jack’, Mr Gregory began.

But I pushed Zach’s books off the desk and shouted, ‘Arsehole. You never think about anyone but yourself’.

Running again, so hard I didn’t feel the rain. Through the middle school, along the balcony past the science classrooms to where the senior school starts. I reached the last classroom on the left. I was focused again, like I’ve never felt before.

I looked in. Where was he? There were circles on the floor and soft talking. I searched for black hair. There, in one of the groups at the back.

‘Miss, excuse me’, I said. Twice in a row, a room of stunned students. ‘I need to talk to Jin’

Mrs Dickson paused and said, ‘You’ve got 3 minutes’.

I spend so much time trying to work out what I’m feeling to write in here. But this feeling was a million small and different things, and I’ll never be able to write how it felt. But this is what happened: when he got outside and away from the door I grabbed him and gripped the skin on his back so hard he could have bled. A laugh blew right out of him. Part of me wanted to scrape bits off him into the wall.

This isn’t word for word. But it’s how I remember it.

‘I thought you’d done it’, I said. ‘I thought it was over’.

‘But I didn’t’.

‘You were going to be like Mitch. You could’ve been gone in a second. Do you realise that?’

‘I’m not dead. I’m here’.

‘You have everything. I’m not the only one who cares’.

‘I know’.

What happened next: I still don’t know what to think.

He kissed me on the lips. Wow. Even writing that sounds really gay. I felt a rush all over; so gay again. I only imagined Snowy doing that, never Jin.

‘I thought of you, and I didn’t do it’, he said. Too unreal, too much like a story. But it’s true.

‘Everything is changing so fast’, I said.

I always think of Jin as serious and quiet. He sulks for days if something is up. But there and then I saw more. This is going to sound really full on, but I noticed the way his eyes were deeper and browner. I noticed how he knew where to put his hands, like he was way older, even though he was 16.

There was nothing clean or simple about the way I felt. All I knew was that three minutes ago I thought he was dead, and now he isn’t.

‘I can’t act like everything is fine’, I said. ‘Is there anything more I need to know?’

‘Some one told me once to change the word ‘love’ to ‘care for’, and it becomes better, more active’, he said. ‘I care for you Jack. Like no one else’.

I thought about Mitch Lewis. So successful. I wanted to be like him. He was going to do well in the HSC. Poor Myles. I have to see Myles.

‘I don’t want anything to happen to you’, I said. ‘Ever. Promise you’ll never do that’.

‘Promise’. He smiled. I think it was the first time I’ve ever seen him smile.

I saw Mrs Dickson watching from the door. ‘Jin, you better come back inside please’, she said.

I gave Jin the letter I wrote last night and he left.

This here is the first draft of it.

To: Jin Jiminy Jin Jiminy Jin Jin Jeree,

Jack

Before Mum picked us up from school, Jin gave me this letter he wrote in English.

J,

J

It’s still raining. There’s still so much more to write. But Myles has just got home and he needs us all right now. See ya.

Go to Episode 13: Exams

1 Comments

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February 10, 2010 12:27 am

Zico

What beautiful letters between J & J…

“and if it goes wrong I’ll wait, and maybe some day it’ll happen between us” made me cry…