Myths And Facts About Boys That Every Girl Should Know [#11]

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Myth Number Eleven: All Boys Like To Fight

Fact: Only if they think they have just cause or a chance of winning. Which, let’s face it, most of them do.

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The house was totally empty the next morning.

My phone alarm went off next to my bed – I’d moved since the afternoon – so I groped around for it, noticing through the early morning blur that my pillow was still wet. For a couple of beautiful, agonisingly brief seconds I forgot what had happened.

Then it came crashing back down on me, almost driving the breath from my lungs.

It was a testament to how tired and apathetic I was that the alarm actually got to the vocals part of the song before I turned it off.

“…It may seem at last day passing mean nothing
But the sun that set cause only pain
Violence in words like slashes wound deeply
Love is not when you feel only pain…”

I hit Snooze and lay back down on the pillow. The idea of school filled me with dread. I played with the idea of staying home for the next seven minutes before the alarm went off again, somehow triggering the memory that I actually had a relatively important Legal Studies exam that day.

Crap.

I groaned and got up, shuffling to the bathroom. The house was still unnaturally cold and quiet. Usually by a quarter past seven in the morning both my parents and Matty are up, making noises with the fire, breakfast stuff, coffee machine etc. Today, there was nothing, just cold emptiness.

Fitting.

“Whispers… I hear your – poison, flows in me…” I sang softly as I made my way out of the hallway to the kitchen, the song from my alarm running through me into the air. “Lost inside you, I’m not free of you…”

I opened the fire and stoked it briefly. “Break my bonds again…”

Trying to ignore the tears threatening to overwhelm me again, I ate breakfast and ironed my uniform before putting it on. I found that the resolute calm of yesterday was only just out of reach, so I settled for just taking deep breaths and hoping for the best.

Suddenly, the phone rang, surprising me with how shrill it sounded in the otherwise silent room. I got up to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, sweetie, it’s just me.” Mum.

“Oh, hey Mum.”

“Just calling to check you got up for school. Is everything alright?”

The question sounded so sympathetic I wondered for a second how she had possibly known. A lump built in my throat before I realised she couldn’t have.

I tried to swallow it but it didn’t really work. “I’m… everything is fine.”

She paused. “Are you sure?”

“Y-yes.” My voice caught on the word so I swallowed again and took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Ather, honey, you sound upset… has something happened? Is Callie alright?”

I was trying my hardest not to burst into tears; the last thing I wanted to do was show up at school, in front of him, with an obviously upset, red, puffy face. Besides, Mum didn’t know about me and… I mean, us… although I think she suspected.

Despite this I could feel my voice splintering as I tried to reassure her nothing had happened, and tears build up on my lashes.

She wasn’t buying it. “Honey, something is obviously the matter. Tell me what happened, it might make you feel better.”

My voice hitched in a sob. “No, it w-wouldn’t. N-nothing can m-make it better.”

By now I was crying, sobs slowly getting harder, and I could feel Mum’s concern like a tangible thing coming through the phone. I felt so bad for making her worry like that but try as I might, I just couldn’t stop.

“H-Hea-He… I d-don’t know where to start,” I choked out. “I was in l-love with him, and he said we c-could be together… and we were, I thought we were… then I got a m-message… a message… yesterday.”

“Oh, Ather, honey… do you want me to come home…?”

“I t-trusted him,” I went on like she hadn’t even said anything, “I would have trusted him with anything. How… how c-could he?”

“Did you tell Callie, I think she needs to know…”

“I can’t believe it… n-no… not yet. I will when I get… when I get to school. If I can sto-stop crying long enough to get there.”

Mum continued to make soothing noises into the phone as I sobbed. I heard her tell my dad, in even briefer words, what had happened, which only made me cry harder. The clock on the microwave told me I only had fifteen minutes to get to school before I was officially late, so I went and got some tissues and water to try and calm myself down.

“Mum, I better go, I… I have to go to school now. I’ll see you when I get home, alright?”

We both said goodbye and I hung up the phone, still wiping sore eyes. I caught a glimpse of myself in a shiny kitchen surface. Yuck. My face was disgusting. I am not an attractive crier.

I went to the bathroom to wash my face – it’s amazing what a bit of cold water can do for red puffiness – and fixed my hair. After another couple of deep breaths, I went back out, made my lunch, packed my bag and left, locking the door.

As I approached school in the car, a feeling of anticipation built. I could feel myself deliberately driving slower than I normally would, knowing all the while that what was coming was inevitable anyway. My stomach, palms and soles of my feet all started to tingle, almost to the point of nausea.

When I eventually arrived and walked in, though, there was virtually no one from my year there, including most of my friends. I looked around for a little while before the penny dropped.

Of course. The Science day.

We have multi-school Study Days for each separate subject we do for the HSC – but seeing as they’re probably pretty similar, they do Biology, Physics and Chemistry on the same day. Ergo, half my friends and year group in general (a lot of people do Bio) were gone. I almost sighed out loud with relief – he wasn’t going to be at school – almost cancelling out the pang of sadness I felt at Callie not being there. Now I had to wait to tell her until later today.

School felt sort of empty without everyone there. Because we are, as illustrated, the nerds, pretty much all my friends were gone. I still wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or bad thing. The only ones who really knew about the whole Me & Him situation were Callie and, I assume, Bert. It was fairly unlikely He had told anyone. I found that the less I thought or said his name, the less I felt like crying all over again.

It was a good strategy, I thought, which would work well until I was actually forced to confront him.

The bell rang and I sighed, slowly getting my stuff from my locker. We had a double of Studies of Religion first up and it was, I was sure, going to make today even shittier than it already had been.

The door was already open so I went in and sat down. Apparently due to the number decrease they were putting classes in together, so there were a few people there who evidently didn’t do science courses either: Bonnie, Geraaard, Silas and a couple of others among them.

Oh, and Isaac, who walked in with a huge yawn.

“Hope we’re not keeping you from your beauty sleep, Mr. Harlow,” remarked our teacher, Mr. Davis, dryly.

“Nope,” he exhaled, muttering just as sarcastically, “I love the smell of Bibles in the morning.”

“Well, that’s a shame, because we’re not using those today. Muslims follow the Qur’an, not the Bible. And seeing how Islam is the topic…” he let the sentence trail off.

“Oh, damn,” Isaac cursed emphatically as he sat down. “I was really looking forward to some
hypocrisy but I guess I’ll have to settle for some Jihad instead.”

“Alright, that’s enough of the intolerance, Mr. Harlow.” Funny, how teachers are all happy to banter with students until they can’t think of a retort.

“Right…” Isaac muttered under his breath, dragging out his books.

“Now, seeing as there aren’t a lot of us I thought some simple group work would suffice for the first period and then we’ll watch a documentary for the second. I’ll put you into groups of three - ” bearing in mind there was only about fifteen of us “ – and give you a topic… then you’ll summarise it and write it onto an overhead sheet for the rest of the class to copy down. By the end you should all have a good set of study notes.”

Greeeeat. Just what I needed.

“Do we get to pick the groups?”

“No, Tyler. I’ll assign them, otherwise some of you won’t get any work done,” Davis said with a pointed look in the direction of the back corner where him and a couple of his buddies, Simon and Will, were sitting.

This was just getting better and better. Knowing my luck, I’ll end up with total dropkicks who won’t do anything, therefore forcing me to work.

“Alright… groups… Erin, Doug and Simon, you’re Group One… Ather, Isaac and Bonnie, Group Two…”

Again I inwardly groaned. The universe, I concluded, must be actively working toward making me totally miserable. This was the absolute last thing I needed. Bonnie would just sit there and ask dumb questions and Isaac, I noted, had already put his iPod headphones in.

Nope. I was not doing this today.

I sat down and announced, “Oh, no you don’t, Harlow. I am not doing this, on grounds that I’m having the mother of all shitty days.” I felt a lump rising again but this time was able to smother it. “Sorry, but its up to you guys.”

Bonnie’s pretty face creased with concern. “Are you alright? You look like you’ve been crying…”

Jesus H. Christ. This was not making it any easier. “Yeah, I’m fine. No crying. Just a bad day.”

She just nodded. “Well, ok, I’ll do it.”

I looked at her in surprise. “You will?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m not as dumb as I look.” Isaac still wasn’t listening. “Besides, he’s not going to be any help.”

“Oh, I dunno… maybe if you tug your top down a little and batt your eyelashes he might reconsider…”

Bonnie snorted as Isaac turned around and goes “Hey!” indignantly.

“Don’t look so offended, your own girlfriend does the exact same stuff.”

“Shut up, Ather, you don’t know anything.” Isaac bit back, and turned back to a conversation he had been having with another group. I was taken aback slightly.

“Yikes…” I muttered. It was proof of my shitty mood that Isaac saying that actually got to me.

“Seriously, I can do it, it’s alright.” Bonnie said reassuringly, but I wasn’t convinced.

“Are you sure?” I asked, the doubt probably showing on my face.

“Yeah, no problem. We’re doing Sayyid Qutb, right? The one who was executed in ’66 for writing all those books that terrorists base their fundamentalist interpretations of the Qur’an on?”

“Um, yeah, that’s right… how… how did – oh, don’t worry.” I tried not to let my surprise show on my face.

Bonnie just smiled. “How did I know that? Like I said, I’m not as dumb as I sound sometimes. It’s… deliberate.”

I knew it. The dumb thing was an act. I nodded. “Right…”

“No, it’s not like that,” she said earnestly, like she was trying to convince me, “I don’t do it to get guy’s attention, that just sort of happens and, to tell the truth, is sort of annoying, but anyway, that’s not the point – I do it for the others in the class.”

By now I was totally confused. “Wait, what?”

“The stupid questions,” Bonnie said, “They’re not for me. Most of the time, I know that sort of stuff, it’s easy. But you know how sometimes people just don’t get things which seem really simple? I figure, well… why not be the one to ask all the dumb questions, and save the people that care about looking smart the ‘humiliation’?”

“Hang on… you ask deliberately dumb questions so people don’t feel stupid?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, have you ever sat in class and tuned out for a second, only to realise that when you’re back in the room, everyone seems to just know something, and you don’t?”

I nodded again. “Sort of, yeah…”

“Well, I’ve seen people ask those questions… people snicker, they look embarrassed, the teacher gives them that exasperated, ‘haven’t you been listening’ look… it’s sort of hard to watch, y’know? I figure if I ask them, they can go on looking like they knew all along, and everyone’s happy. I know that I know that stuff, so I don’t care about the looks. People sort of expect it from me now.”

I was dumbfounded. This was not something I had ever, in a million years, thought about doing, and yet here Bonnie was, performing what she obviously considered a humanitarian service. And it made sense, in a weird way.

“Surprised?” she asked.

“Very.” I answered without thinking. ‘Oh, wait, crap… I didn’t mean it like that…”

Bonnie just laughed softly. “It’s alright, I know how it looks.”

“Um, yeah… so why are you telling me this?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You just seem really cool, y’know, and for some reason I can’t really figure out, I don’t want you to think I’m stupid. You can be a little… harsh… on people like that.”

“I can?”

“Oh yeah. It’s in the little things. The looks, the little noises. You do scorn very well.”

I was shocked. Today was obviously someone else’s day. “Oh.”

Suddenly she smacked her forehead quietly. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry. I forgot you said you’re having a bad day. That must not have helped at all. Sorry.”

“It’s ok. I guess I may as well know now.”

“It’s not really a bad thing… just… yeah. Do you want to talk about whatever it is? The bad day, I mean.”

I started to shake my head slowly but words began to come out anyway. “Oh, it’s nothing, I guess… I got a bit of, um, bad news, by text message yesterday so I’m a little down…” I stopped before my voice could seize up again.

Somehow, she understood. “Oh, no… someone broke up with you by text? That’s horrible!”

I just nodded again, not trusting myself to speak. I was a still a bit confused at how we were even having this conversation. I mean, since when do I even talk to Bonnie, let alone any of this stuff. I’d told her what happened even before I told Callie. That was weird enough without the other bizarre confession.

Bonnie continued to make sympathetic noises while we completed the work and I contemplated our conversation for a lot of the second lesson (in which we watched a hilarious show which I’m not sure was meant to be funny – but it’s very difficult not to laugh when people are appropriating modern songs with Islamic context. I particularly liked the ‘There is no God but Allah, Allah, Allah, eh, eh, eh’ one…if you don’t get it listen to ‘Umbrella’ by Rhianna), recess, next classes (including the Legal Exam, which I was so prepared for.Not.)and lunch. It just spun me out. It was also a good way to keep my mind off what had happened. So contemplate I did.

It kept me sane – sort of – pretty much all day. I was able to get through a very lonely lunch break and then fifth period before being jolted back rudely to the present.

It happened when I was getting out my books from my locker. Around the corner I could hear footsteps, first one pair and then two. They stopped, out of sight, but I could still hear them and, more importantly, recognise the voices.

The first one almost made my heart stop.

“Dude, what the hell?” Heath’s voice rang out clearly, and I froze. Oh my God. No, I couldn’t face him now.

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” the other voice said angrily, and I was struck by how much it sounded like Isaac. Although I guess a lot of guys sound like him. His next words put paid to that idea, anyway. Isaac wouldn’t defend me. “As if you do that to someone. Treat a girl like that. You’re scum.”

“What are you talking about?” I heard a slam of body against wall, and then reciprocation.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, coward. You don’t dump someone by text, that’s fucking low.”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about. That’s between me and her, not you. Unless I was interrupting something.”

“Fuck you.” I heard rather than saw another push. I couldn’t believe whoever it was, was actually confronting Heath about it. No one has ever done anything like that for me. “That’s not how it is.”

“Obviously not by your choice. Too bad she wanted me instead.”

I heard a grunt of pain, like they were actually coming to physical blows, and felt a thrill shoot up my torso. Whoever this was was willing to fight Heath over it? Holy shit. I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding and was horrified to hear it catch in a quiet sob. The voices paused for a second.

Shit. I needed to get out of there. I shouldn’t even have been listening in the first place. I grabbed my pencil case and quickly locked my locker, then hurried down the hall.

I turned a corner before either of them saw me – I hope – and pressed my back against a wall for a second, just trying to take in what I’d heard. After a couple of deep breaths, I stood upright again, as calm as I guess I was going to get.

What is it with boys and aggression? I mean, it’s not that I wasn’t grateful, but… it wasn’t exactly going to solve anything.

All through sixth period, I went over the conversation again, and wondered repeatedly why someone would do that…

Or – more importantly – who.