Blind Spot by Robyn Dennison

Author:Robyn Dennison [Robyn Dennison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2023-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

18

DURING MY FREE period after lunch on Tuesday, after Kieran’s gone begrudgingly to religion and ethics, I sit in the senior common room trying to catch up on this week’s history reading, but mostly I stare out the window.

Chloe and Georgia come in from the locker room and walk towards the door that leads to the oval. Georgia’s arm is looped through Chloe’s, and they walk in sync. Chloe has silver bangles around her wrist. I hear them jangle.

As they’re nearing the door, Tyler Anderson calls out, ‘When’s ya next three-way, Chlo?’

And he and the guys around him crack up.

Chloe pauses mid-step—a tiny pause, something you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t already watching her—but keeps walking. She sneers at Tyler, gives him the finger.

Georgia says, ‘Fuck off, Tyler. You’re pathetic.’

And she goes to step towards him, to unlink her arm from Chloe’s, but Chloe pulls her back.

‘Leave it,’ I hear her say. ‘I don’t care.’ She doesn’t stare at the ground, she doesn’t hunch her shoulders, she doesn’t increase her speed.

Once they’re outside, out of sight of Tyler and his friends, I see her unloop her arm from Georgia’s. She plays with her bangles, rotating them in circles around her wrist. Then they disappear around the corner of the library.

‘Have you guys boned yet?’ Kieran barely looks up from his phone.

We’re sitting in the bush behind the oval. Kieran’s sprawled against a tree, one knee up, the other leg flung out.

I scrunch up my face. ‘I’m not talking to you about that.’

‘Is that a yes? Are you the bottom? Of course you’re the bottom.’

‘Fuck off, dickhead. We haven’t had sex.’ I fish out a cigarette and light it.

‘What about blow jobs? Hand jobs? Any jobs?’

‘What makes you so sure I’d be bottom?’

‘Ha. Get real.’

I exhale smoke in his direction. ‘I’ve only met the guy four times.’

‘Never stopped me.’ Kieran flicks his cigarette, ash falling onto the damp leaves on the ground around us. ‘Why would he invite you to his place, when his mum’s out, unless he wanted to bone?’

I wait, ignoring him. Then I say, ‘You go to Duncan’s party?’

Kieran smirks. ‘I made an appearance.’

I shake my head. I don’t even need to mention Stella.

°

Here’s the thing: there’s a reason why I haven’t told Kieran about Chloe.

On paper, he’s the person I should confess my secrets to, my best friend. But whenever I’ve thought about it—when I’ve been drunk and needed to get it off my chest, when we’ve been hanging at his house, stoned on the couch, when I’m awake at two am and I’ve thought about calling him—the thing that stops me is my fear that he might not think it’s a big deal.

I’m worried he’ll say: Sounds like a grey area to me. Or, That’s just what people our age do when they’re drunk. Or, Maybe that’s the only way she felt she could experience a threesome without being shamed, people are still judgmental of female sexual desire, you know.

But I know Chloe was unconscious. That, whatever happened, however wasted Lachlan and Ed were, they knew what they were doing.

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