This is the final episode of “Fourteen: The Complete Diaries of a Teenager in Love” for this season. All your questions about Jack and Snowy are finally answered. But it wouldn’t be Jack if he didn’t have a few surprises up his sleeve.

8 June 1996

Before I write to Snowy, I need to set the record straight about everything that’s happened. You know how I talk a lot about ‘that night ’? I’ve never explained it. It’s why I can’t forget and it’s why he’ll always be important. So much of this book has been writing history as I see it. So here goes. I can’t stop now. This is the true story of what happened that night. Let’s call it One Australian Summer.

It was Latin. The 10th of February, 1995. I ripped some paper and wrote, ‘I love you’.

All the prying eyes could see if they wanted, so I crumpled it into my pocket and shuffled my books.

The air stunk. Guys ran around like seagulls at lunch. A game of touch on the astro below the grandstand with a tennis ball or an apple; there was always an argument. Then the sweaty periods before school spewed us into pools, cold cordial and rooms with ceiling fans.

No one was listening. They hated it. So did I. I was in Year 8. First term, nearly Valentine’s Day. A time of love and fantasies on long, hot Australian nights, wanting someone to fuck. Dying to get out of school and into the water. Or better, I thought: into the sexy arms of the one I loved and would kill for.

Love: It was the feeling of fidgeting, shooting spit-balls at the nerd while the teacher wrote declensions on the board. It was the feeling of punching a hole in the ozone layer. It was the feeling of the sun beaming a single beam into Latin, right down on me.

‘Learn the first column of page 85 and bring it to class on Monday’, Mr Gorski said. ‘Stage 5 Latin test next week’.

Homework stepped up in Year 8 but I was ready for it. I already had Maths to study for and notes on ‘An Ancient Land’ pages 17-19 for History. I needed to colour my picture for Visual Arts and collect raw materials for Design. The weekend was going to be busy but I was organised.

Finally the bell. A cheer, a race for the door. One more class. School was on parade between class. Rumours circulated this morning that the headmaster would allow a ‘ties-off’ day. Seniors set up a sprinkler on the oval before being sent to the assistant deputy head, drenched.

The message came from the top: ties on, boys. All day.

I joined the throng. I was nervous in my chest and down my arms into the tendons of my wrist. I was going to do it, finally. Friday, 10th of February 1995. A day for the history books.

I spotted blond hair in the crowd up ahead. I surged forward and when I caught up, put my arm around Snowy’s waist.

‘How was Latin?’ he asked.

‘Crazy. He talks to himself’. I said. ‘In Latin’.

‘Why do you do Latin?’

‘To commune with the dead’, I did my best zombie voice. ‘When does carnival start tonight?’

‘You coming?’ Snowy looked surprised.

‘Myles is swimming the open relay’.

‘I’m swimming butterfly hundred’.

‘I thought you did backstroke’, I said. ‘Hog’.

I wasn’t going to see Myles. As if. Seeing Snowy swim could have dragged me from Perth: Body, swimmers, water. Boy, he could race. State rep and getting faster. I was jealous.

‘Did you train today?’, I asked.

‘First two periods’.

‘Lucky runt’. We walked up the stairs into the courtyard. ‘Kerrigan banged quadratics into our heads. Fucked’.

We came to the lockers.

‘You better get your novel. She went psycho last time,’ I said.

‘Shit! Almost forgot. Thanks.’

‘I’ll save a seat.’

I watched the clock tick half an hour and I realised something must have come up. Training? Music lesson? It was a free reading period, but most were sleeping. Heat had worn Miss Fletcher down. She was cool, though. She shot you a cynical smile when you did something wrong. I sat and thought about sex and romance and love for the rest of the lesson, listening to the fans.

I wanted everything out. There was no use denying it any more. I was in love with Snowy. I knew it better than I knew quadratics. I wanted to kiss him, touch him. I loved his hair, I wanted to be part of his eyes. He had the cutest bum in school. He smelled of Norsca Fresh or Rexona Sport.

At the start of Year 7, two things made me realise I was attracted to guys. The first was at a swimming carnival. I made myself not look at the swimmers, but couldn’t help it. They were so different to me, with their hard bodies. The second was when we were at a family friend’s. I went to the toilet and hanging behind the door was a Man Power calendar.

My feelings for Snowy began around fourth term Year 7. I had never felt that way before. I felt warm and alive. We did everything together. Sat together. Did homework together. Spent nights at each others’ houses. The end of 1994 came without me telling Snowy how I felt. I kept thinking of ways to tell him, but put it off.

We spent that summer together, swimming and mucking around at the beach. We saw Forrest Gump. At school, the start of 1995, things were different. I never saw Snowy. Different classes. He seemed to be ignoring me. I was the only one making an effort, and that hurt a lot. So, I decided to do something about it. Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, I thought.

After school that fateful Friday, I waited near the locker rooms. My heart raced, I saw the blond hair approaching. I was right. I saw music manuscript.

‘Lesson?’

‘Yeah, almost forgot again’.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and felt sweat build up. ‘I guess I’ll see you tonight’, I said. My mouth was dry. I bit my lip.

‘Suppose’, he said.

‘I’ve got something for you, Snow’. I pulled the piece of paper out and pushed it between his books. ‘Just for you’.

I walked quick smart. I went to the bathroom and locked myself in and shook for ten minutes. It was done. Now let the Gods decide.

Later, 5.30 in the afternoon, we were getting ready to leave home for the swim meet. Myles was nervous. He drank orange juice in the kitchen. ‘We’re going to be late’, he said.

Mum and Dad emerged with a picnic basket and esky. ‘I’m ready’, Dad winked.

Mum rolled her eyes. ‘OK darling. Let’s go. You good?’

‘Of course he is’, Dad said. ‘Aren’t you mate?’ He slapped Myles on the back but he was having none of it.

‘Righto’. Mum herded us out.

I listened to music in my room all afternoon. What if Snowy didn’t feel the same way? I remembered that Beatles song, ‘All You Need Is Love (la la la la la)’. I hoped it was true. I needed to experience love for the first time. I needed to get out of this closet. I needed to live gay. I needed to have a relationship. I needed to tell my friends. I needed to find out if I got burned. I needed to change.

But as we locked up and got in the car, I was scared as fuck.

We drove through the main gates of the recreation park where the swim meet was held and I was shocked by the closeness of my destiny. I wanted to jump out of the car and run home and forget my note. But I smiled at Dad’s jokes. Told Myles he’d do fine. Helped Mum with the basket.

We walked through the gate and bought tickets. The guy selling them was cute; must have been a swimmer from another school about my age. I smiled extra hard, but he didn’t smile back and I took that as an omen. Myles raced off. ‘Good luck’, we called after him. Mum sighed.

Mum and Dad set up rugs and picnics on the slope, digging out champagne and crackers. Fathers leaned on trees talking business. Mothers caught up and settled in for the night.

I sat on a bench behind the pool. To my right, swimmers were warming up in thick parachute tracksuit tops, bare legs and bathing caps. They swung their arms and made nervous shapes with their feet. There were five schools competing, all selective and private. I counted their flags lining the pool deck.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Snowy swung over the bench. ‘Didn’t think you’d come’, he said. I looked into his eyes, but had to look away.

‘Said I would’.

‘Adrian said he heard you crying in the dunnies’.

‘Family stuff. It’s fine now’. There were roadworks in my chest; surely Snowy could hear.

‘Don’t worry about it. At least your folks are together’. Snowy put his hand on my cheek. ‘Gotta go Jackie’, he said.

Then it was over.

I sat on the slope gnawing a chicken leg, watching the school team warm up. They were windmills, grasshoppers, then amputees. They split and I found myself walking there, hands in pockets. The first race was starting, but I didn’t even hear the gun. I was confident. All I could think about was Snowy, his hand on my cheek.

As I approached, he was sitting on another row of benches next to the pool under the awning with the other competitors. He took off his shirt. I could see his hard chest, I stared at his groin, then his legs. I felt dizzy, but I kept walking.

Snowy looked up.

‘Good luck’, I said.

He smirked, and gathered attention from the others. He rubbed his chest and his dick. He came closer, dancing next to me. He put his hands around my neck.

‘I got your note’ he said. There was jeering. ‘You like this, fag?’ He turned and ripped his swimmers down at the back. ‘Or this?’ He pulled his cheeks apart.

Some guys groaned in my ear, ‘Poofter’, and grabbed my crotch. I was pushed and fell.

Snowy took my hand, pulled me up and whispered, ‘faggot’ and laughed and I ran. Through the gate to the car park. I reached the car and hit the window and slid. I hit the gravel with my fists. I sucked each breath like it was my last.

The crowd cheered inside. Snowy won. I threw up next to the car.

Time passed, and the carnival was over before I knew it.

‘Are you alright sweetie?’ Mum held her palm to my forehead. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Just tired’. Mum sighed and coordinated bags and baskets.

‘Jackie, wait up’, I heard.

Snowy jogged up. Tracksuit. Blonde hair. T-E-E-T-H. He was king of the pool.

‘Congrats’, I said.

Deep down, I knew what he’d done and why. I got in the car and watched him shrink behind us.

*

Two weeks passed. The slowest two weeks of my life. Snowy went on school camps; days vanished without him. There was lots to do: I had a big project for Visual Arts. Maths exercises coming out my ears. History summaries to write. A design project to find unique materials for, and a giant hole in my heart to mend.

My thirteenth birthday was fast approaching. I wanted this year to be different. I had new friends, Zach and Adrian, who invited me to camps and taught me about their beliefs. But 1995 was already turning out bad. I marked 10 February 1995 in my school diary with the word IDIOT in red pen, right under my Maths homework.

When Snowy returned, it was the height of swim season and I barely saw him until I ran into him outside the Aquatic Centre after squads. It was the first time I’d seen him since that night.

‘Are you still coming to my birthday?’ I asked. I had invited him three weeks ago to the Lone Star Restaurant with Zach and Adrian and a few others. It served steaks and hamburgers and barrels of peanuts, and the waiters pretended to be American. The whole place was stuffed with bulls horns, cacti, saddles and had a bar with a tin roof. I loved it.

‘You don’t want me to come?’

‘I thought you changed your mind’.

‘Can I stay over after? I’m between houses’.

‘Sure’, I said. ‘Of course’. Everything was fucking normal. ‘I’ll ask Mum to call your Mum’.

It was a night like any other in our friendship. Snowy wore nice clothes; shorts and thongs and a surfy t-shirt. I could see his toes. Even his toes were cool. He wore glasses. He bought me a small card: the picture of a cow with her big pink nose in the camera, her ears sticking out sideways, and a sad look in her eyes. I studied every detail. ‘Close up cow’ was the description on the back. Copyright 1993.

He monitored me as I opened it. ‘It doesn’t say anything big’, said Snowy.

‘To Jack. Happy Birthday. From Snowy’, I read. ‘Wow Snowy, thanks. It’s a work of art’.

Later in the restaurant, we sat next to each other. He poked me. He threw nuts at me from the barrels. We were best friends.

On the way home in the four-wheel-drive, Dad turned the Pulp Fiction soundtrack up loud and we yelled the words to the street. ‘Girl,’ Snowy sang at me, funny and sleazy, ‘you’ll be a woman soon’. I was delirious on drums and slide guitar with all the roads blurring beyond the glass and Snowy holding my hand. Zach and Adrian had been dropped home; just us criminals were left in the back. I remember every song.

At home, Mum organised a mattress. ‘You guys sleep, don’t talk too late’, she said.

Snowy changed into boxers and saw me watching but didn’t react. He went to my desk in the corner of my room and looked through my collection of Mad magazines and played with the knobs on my stereo.

‘Jack’, he said. He faced away from me. I folded and put my clothes away in my walk-in wardrobe.

‘Yeah’.

‘I love you’.

He opened and flicked through magazines. I stopped and watched the outline of his back. With his head pointing down, his fringe hung in front of his eyes.

‘Aw’, I said. ‘That’s nice’.

A long silence followed. I dumped the clothes, went to the bathroom and vomited nuts, hamburger and Coke. When I came back, Snowy was standing at the bottom of my bed.

‘Jack?’

‘We’ve got to sleep’, I said.

‘What do you think?’

I couldn’t talk. I got into bed and turned around. ‘Good night’, I said. I switched off the light.

He put his hand on my leg over the blanket. ‘Jack, please’. But I moved away.

He went to the mattress on the floor.

‘Do you think two guys can love each other?’ he said in the dark.

I didn’t move. I didn’t answer. And the next day, on Saturday 25 February 1995, under my Latin homework in red pen, I wrote the word SCREWED.

2 Comments

Reply

February 16, 2010 7:42 pm

Ali

WOAHHH!!! Jack, help me, please! Put me out of my misery! What happens next??? You’re breaking my heart.

Reply

February 16, 2010 9:55 pm

Zico (@Twitter ID)

OMG… Bring on Season 2!