Honey Blood by Kirsty Everett

Author:Kirsty Everett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Buggers

My hair was a sculpture of immaculate curls, held together by bobby pins and hairspray. I was wearing my first-ever pair of heels — black satin wedges. Of course, my only accessory, snug inside her silver, heart-shaped home around my neck, was Melissa. A friend of Mum’s had carefully measured my body and sewn me a red gown especially for the occasion. The night of the Year 10 formal was here.

We squished into the limo that we’d all chipped in for. Jake and his girlfriend, Sarah, sat next to me, and Ben, Jane and Geoff sat in front of me. Jake’s back was pushing against me as he sucked on Sarah’s face all the way from Kirrawee to Cronulla. The only noise in the back of that limo were their sloppy kisses. I stared uncomfortably into my lap, only glancing up at Ben and Geoff for a few seconds to see if they were squirming as much as I was. As soon as my eyes met Ben’s, he pulled a silly face at me, raising his eyebrows. Geoff poked his tongue out and mimed kissing an invisible girl next to him. I stifled a giggle, fiddled with my locket and looked back down at my lap.

* * *

We had arrived at the function hall in Cronulla. There were long tables covered with white tablecloths and yellow roses had been placed in vases in the middle of each table. All the tables surrounded a diamond-shaped dance floor.

‘Get a photo of me and Ashley,’ Debbie instructed me. Debbie, with a nudge from Jane and myself, had asked Ashley to be her date and he had said “yes”. Ben was Jane’s date. She’d asked him just like she said she would, so Debbie had had to follow through and ask Ashley. There wasn’t enough room in our limo so I’d decided not to bring Chris along as my date.

As the flash went off on my camera, I felt a pain like an invisible crone had scraped her fingernails across my spine. The pain was so sharp that it forced me to collapse into a chair. Not wanting to alarm anyone, I remained seated and sipped on some water. The song ‘My Sharona’ began pumping. Everybody was getting up to dance.

‘Kirst! It’s your song!’ Debbie yelled.

‘Are you gonna come and dance?’ asked Jane.

Shit . . . I’m not sure if I can stand up.

Debbie grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. The pain in my lower back intensified, but somehow I managed to walk towards the dance floor with my friends.

Oh, please let this go away . . . This can’t be . . .

To my alarm, right in front of Sarah, Jake grabbed hold of my hands and started to dance with me. In a matter of seconds, I pulled away from him. ‘It’s too hot to dance!’ I yelled over the music. I began weaving my way through the writhing bodies of my friends back to our table.

* * *

Debbie and I had told our parents we were sleeping over at Jane’s house after the formal.

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