“Hey, hey, hey, what gives, Parker?” Adam glanced behind him before stepping into the cubicle and shutting the door behind him, snipping it closed.
Adam moved forward in the tiny space, his feet scraping amidst the shredded diary. I thought he would grab me by my arms and pull me to my feet, telling me to snap out of it. Instead, he crouched down to my level; the very same elbows that rested over the partition moments before were now resting on my knees. He pushed back one half of the curtain of hair that framed my face and pinned it behind my ear, smiling. I looked down at him, the sad, yet still humorous curve of his mouth. I waited for him to soothe me with words of comfort, tell me everything was going to be okay and not to worry. Instead he breathed out a little laugh and shook his head.
“You’re a bloody lunatic, Ellie Parker.”
I frowned, moving to unravel some toilet paper from the roll beside me as I blew my nose. “Gee, thanks. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
Leaning on my legs as leverage, with his bony arms he moved to stand.
“Ouch, watch it,” I snapped, rubbing my legs.
Adam sighed. “Come on, let’s get out of here before someone sees us and a whole other set of rumours circulate about us in the girls’ dunny.”
I momentarily flinched at the very mention of the word rumours; it didn’t take much these days for a rumour to circulate about all the supposed boys I had hooked up with at so-and-so’s party. Sarah Norman and her stupid minions had been the ones to generate most rumours. I looked down at what once used to resemble her diary, toeing the rubble with a little smirk; somehow I felt less guilty about what I had done now. Adam watched my foot, a small line of confusion pinching his brow.
“Wow, you really did a number on it.”
I sighed. “I am so suspended; right before exams too. Great.”
The Sarah Norman war had been happening throughout the year, and my less-than-cool-headed reactions to her had me on my very last warning. Vandalising student property was the final nail in my coffin, I knew it, and by the looks of Adam’s grim expression he knew it too.
“You really don’t do anything by half measures, do you?”
I shrugged. “She said I was a whore.”
Adam’s demeanour darkened; as much as he was light-and-carefree Adam who everyone liked, there were moments, usually ‘Ellie-related’ moments, that would cause all that good nature to slip away and be replaced by a burning anger. It was unnerving to see, but there was also a little piece of me that found it endearing, that caused my heart to tighten a little over Adam’s loyalty.
Through every poignant moment of my life there was Adam.
Schoolyard bullies, broken bones, first jobs, first loves, small-town dramas, heartbreak, summer road trips … it’s always been Adam.
That’s what best friends are for, right?
“Right, you get going. I’ll clean this up,” Adam said, rubbing his hand through his hair.
I laughed. “Right, always cleaning up my mess.”
But when Adam met my eyes, what I thought was just a joke became clear that he was deadly serious.
“Oh, A-Adam, you don’t have to—”
“Go,” he said, as if it wasn’t up for negotiation. “Before I change my mind.”
I stared at Adam for a long while waiting for him to tell me he was kidding, but he broke eye contact first, which had me moving to unclick the door. I carefully poked my head out to make sure the coast was clear. It was.
I stood halfway between the open door to the cubicle and looked back at Adam, making a makeshift bin out of his T-shirt and shoving the paper into the fabric.
“Thanks, Adam,” I said with a smile.
Adam paused; looking up past the floppy, dark mop of hair, he winked.
“I got your back.”
Of all days to do what I did, it was clear I was seriously on a death wish or a fast track to expulsion. I couldn’t have taken her diary on any other day than a Monday, a day where the whole school gathered at the indoor basketball courts for assembly. With Adam nowhere to be found, I clung to Tess, my eyes down as we shuffled in.
“I should have wagged,” I mumbled.
“Oh yeah, that would have gone down well,” said Tess, who was horrified at my admission of what I had been up to in the girls’ toilets. “Seriously, Ellie, you just have to ignore them, they’re not worth it.”
