Chapter Twenty

8.3.26

April 2003

With Steve time and space are obscured as if by octopus ink.

We move from town to town, hostel to hostel, heat blazing our minds, burning me up inside.

He pulls at my favourite top, a psychedelic striped vest with a black silhouette of a fairy on it that I bought in Byron Bay.

'You're like a flashing neon light in this,' he says.

I twist away from him, so the fabric slips from his fingers.

'People are staring at you,' he says.

'Maybe I want people to stare.'

A bus driver loading our backpacks asks if we're travelling together.

'Yes,' I say.

Maybe he doesn't hear me. He looks to Steve.

'Yes, we're together,' says Steve.

The bus driver blows out a long, audible breath.

'Why did the bus driver seem surprised that we're together?' I say to Steve later.

He squeezes my bum. 'Because I look like I should be stalking you.'

Somewhere a Canadian man talks to me. About Sydney, the east coast.

'He's only trying to get you into bed,' says Steve when the Canadian goes. He drags hard on his cigarette. 'Why are you letting other men chat you up?'

'Of course he's not.'

He stubs his cigarette out, squashing it hard into the ashtray.

He rubs my knees. He says he likes feeling the electricity in them. He hits my knee.

'You have no reflexes,' he says when my leg doesn't move. He tries again, harder. I still don't move.

He laughs. There is something annoyingly child-like about the way he laughs, in its high pitch and the way he rubs his hands together.

We hire a car so we can explore off the beaten track. I don't drive so Steve has to do all the driving.

He starts singing Summer Holiday as we drive away from the town. He gets the words wrong. I correct him.

'So you do know it,' he says. 'Why didn't you join in?'

'Because it's a stupid song.'

'You're too bothered about looking cool. Why can't you just enjoy yourself and not worry about what other people think?'

I wouldn't enjoy myself singing Summer Holiday.

In a hostel the owner apologises that there are no double rooms available. We didn't ask for one.

'It's fine,' we say, 'we'll be fine in a dorm.'

'I can put you in a dorm by yourselves,' he says, 'so you can still...' His eyes flicker to me then he nods at Steve. 'But if more people come, you'll have to share.'

'It's fine,' we say again.

'What was he talking about?' says Steve when we're on our own.

'I don't know.' I don't want to say that he obviously thought there was only one reason Steve would be with me, only one thing I was worth. I don't want Steve to think that of me.

But in the night, as he says, 'This feels so right,' as he moves and sweats on top of me and I think of one of the few Guns N' Roses songs I know, It's So Easy, the line where Axl Rose sings about how right it feels as he fades into the night, I think maybe he already only sees my worth in that one thing.

But he says he loves me. Even when he's sober now. I say it back because it's too awkward not to anymore.