This War Paint

Jane


I was still a virgin. There was nothing I knew more than that, nothing I was more certain of, nothing else I would put my life on. My entire world was full of lies and masks, but they couldn’t take away my idea about what was true and what wasn’t, I was still very much a virgin. No matter what David Armstrong said.

Still, it would have been nice for at least one other person to believe me. Going back to my house that night I was heavy with the knowledge that everyone in my small household had heard the rumour. Even my poor mother probably had, the news sailing in one ear and out the other as if it were just background noise. I crossed my fingers, tightening the bag on my back, before pushing through the front door.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Dad I found blocking the hallway as I slid off my shoes.

Helen’s hair was a blonde so fair it could have been white, the anomaly in a family of red heads. The light from our small windows bounced off it now as she faced me angrily. If I squinted just enough I could imagine her hair consumed in white flames, the hottest part of any fire. That’s what Helen was. The roughest edge in our family.

She didn’t take Mom’s illness well. In fact, she would deliberately spend as much times as she could outside of our home just so their paths never crossed. She couldn’t stand that Mommy wasn’t Mommy any longer, and she hated that we still kept her, as if we could return her to some shop and receive her back as good as new. Helen was fifteen years old. She was at a balance in her life, teetering on the edge of responsibility while still able to cling onto some shred of childhood. She chose that childishness to hide behind and neither Dad nor I pushed her for anything more.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

I frowned at her, dislodging the bag from my slumped shoulder. Tell her? There was nothing to tell; only that David was a liar, a monster, a guy who was bent on ruining me. They weren’t things I wanted to discuss with my baby sister, not when I’d come home with dark mascara stains and definitely not now in the middle of our hallway.

“The whole school had to find out at the same time I did,” she huffed “I thought we were closer than that.”

I should have told her the truth but she wouldn’t have believed me. She’d just see that Jane Hathaway trying to cover her ass, protect the shiny reputation she’d been compared to all her life.

So instead of risking verbalising anything, I shrugged and made to move past. Of course, Helen sidestepped me so we were face-to-face, her hedging me back in. I could pick out so many features that we shared – nose, eyes, cheekbones – but I couldn’t replicate the scowl she wore. I was unpractised when it came to looking angry. I could only make my big blue eyes appear innocent, only not even that battering of eyelashes would get me out of this hole.

“You lost your virginity to the hottest guy in school Jane. If I wasn’t so pissed you didn’t tell me then I’d be ecstatic for you! Was it romantic? I mean I know David said you did it in a bathroom but I’m sure anything with him would be romantic right?”

“Wrong,” I muttered.

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Why? Because I’m fifteen? Half of the girls in my year have already lost their virginity to some jerk,” Helen whipped fair hair away from her face. “I know what happens during sex Jane, I’m not a baby.”

“Because you’re my little sister,” I squared my shoulders “and I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Dad doesn’t know yet,” she caught me by the arm as I made to past again. “He’s been inside all day and I certainly haven’t told him.”

“Thanks.” For the warning. For not telling. For not pushing me over the edge any more. For not asking about my break-down in calculus. For allowing me to pass and seal myself away in our bedroom.

The first thing I did was crumple my body on the bed, my eyes drifting over Helen’s side of the room where everything was pristine. Mine, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Clothes lay strewn over every inch of carpet and beauty products were scattered in between like some kind of child’s collage. Maybe even worse than that. There was no creativity in my chaos.

So I lay there for a whole thirty seconds before I couldn’t take it any longer. I’d had the worst day, my eyes were probably still red-rimmed, but I couldn’t stand the sight of my room, the bland walls like some kind of prison. I had to tell Dad. Tell him the truth. If there was anybody I could tell that to it would be him.

My feet stuck to the carpet as I bolted downstairs, aware of the quiet murmurings coming from Mom’s room. It was probably her, propped up in bed, speaking to something only she could see, or listening to someone who simply wasn’t there. I didn’t have the strength to go find out. Couldn’t deal with any lesser of two evils. I bypassed and ignored it, reaching the kitchen door.

Dad was washing up. His hands submerged in the dank water, yellow gloves coiling up to around his elbows. Today was my day to do the washing up. I glanced guiltily at him before catching sight of Helen, purposefully staring straight at me as if her eyes alone could make me feel ten-times smaller than I already did. It worked. I was two inches tall standing in that kitchen.

“Hey Daddy,” I settled myself on one of the counters, far away from my sister.

“Hello my little angel. How was school?”

I rolled my eyes at his stupid nick-name and felt my throat tighten with what I knew would inevitable come next. The truth. It was hot on my tongue, suffocating and strong, something I could blur easily with sinister lies. I was used to doing that – it was easier.

All of the times I’d smiled when my heart was breaking for Mom. All of those moments I’d wanted to scream and yell and make a fuss but had just smoothed it down with some steady breaths. Every second after what David had done the very ground I’d trod seemed uneven, cracked. I couldn’t even look at him without wanting to throw up and run. Nobody knew it but things were crumbling apart around me. Today had just been too much and my mask had cracked for a split-second, long enough for someone to glimpse at the hurt. A complete stranger knew more about me than my own family. It was crazy. But then maybe Fraser Swank wasn’t a []complete stranger.

“It was… well it was pretty bad really.”

Dad stopped scrubbing a dish momentarily to turn his body, facing me head-on. He wasn’t used to hearing me complain about anything. Normally school was just perfect. My day had been perfect. My whole fucking life. But it wasn’t, I don’t think it had been for quite a while now.

“Oh, what went wrong?”

“Yeah Jane,” Helen’s words were sharp “just what went wrong?”

She was still mad. Maybe angry that I had achieved yet another thing before her, maybe jealous it had been with David, maybe just put-out that I hadn’t told her first. I couldn’t let myself look at her even for just a second because then I’d crumble. Her need to know would scorch me.

“This boy was being mean… he said some stuff that wasn’t true and there are rumours all around school.”

I could feel Helen’s risen eyebrows, her perplexed expression, her curiosity. I didn’t know if she believed me or not but regardless I had to continue.

But I never got the chance.

Mom appeared in the doorway, like a mirage of cream silk and pallid skin. It wasn’t hard to recognise beauty in her. The photographs eternalising it. It was her illness that had sucked it away, made those cheeks hollow, darkened those once-bright eyes. She looked like Helen in the frosted family photos – Helen with dark red hair and blue eyes. Now she was just a corpse of Helen.

“Remy!” Dad was startled “what are you doing out of bed?”

“It was cold,” she groaned. Dad shook his head as sweat dripped down his neck. It was summer and every window in the house was flung open in a desperate attempt to coax in some dead wind. It was far from cold. It hadn’t been cold in six months.

“Let’s get you back upstairs Remy and I’ll bring some extra covers too. Okay?” He sounded like a barterer, trying to persuade a potential buyer with his deal.

“Alright Stevie.”

We were all shocked then. Because she had gotten it right – Stevie was the name Mom had used to call Dad before everything happened. For a second she was ours again, for one beautiful moment. And then it ended as she started whispering to an imaginary friend to her left, smiling at invisible shooting stars.

“I’ll be right back Sweetie,” Dad shot me a weary smile before moving towards my Mom. He was cautious. She was known to bolt when she didn’t want to go back to bed. Then they were both gone and I was left with Helen in the tense silence.

Only, when I looked up to finally meet her gaze, she wasn’t there either. The place she’d been sitting was empty, the backdoor at the end left slightly ajar. It didn’t surprise me – it shouldn’t have really. Helen just couldn’t deal with Mom. Not this crazy Mom. She believed that if she avoided her then she’d cease to be there, trying so desperately to protect the memory she had of Remy. I could barely remember a before. There was only now, and I dealt with it.

When Dad finally reappeared he made for the unfinished dishes but I stopped him.

“I’ll do them.”

He didn’t protest, and I saw the grateful flash in his dark blue eyes. They were my eyes too if I looked in the mirror but I had never seen mine so tired. Bags pulled his down and dark swells made them look buried in his face. I felt sorry for my Dad. He was only forty and yet acted as a full time carer and a single parent.

“So what did this boy say to you? I can always have words with the principle; you know they wouldn’t hesitate to punish anyone who was rude to you.”

David had received a small tap on the wrist for talking out of turn during the morning announcements, and had been suspended from making them for a week. A small price to pay for my shattered feelings - a smaller one to pay for the way I would never be able to look at him the same.

“It’s nothing,” I said, pulling on the wet rubber gloves.

I’d chickened out, unable to put Dad through anything more. My ordeal was more than what most parents could take and he’d already had more than enough for anyone. I couldn’t tell him the truth. The truth was far too hard.

“You sure?”

“Yeah Dad, this friend helped me out anyway.” I’d only said it to placate my Dad. And dig myself out of the hole I had buried myself in. But, saying the words, they struck me as oddly true. A friend had helped me out.

“Well be sure to thank them and bring them round for tea anytime.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Fraser, Butch, in my kitchen sitting with my family around a table eating dinner. The bizarre mental image was too striking not to find funny and too ludicrous to not picture in the first place. I could only imagine what Dad would think, what he would say. Everyone knew Fraser was the bad guy in our town. Everyone believed that too, although I knew better, now more than ever.

“I think he has better things to do than eat dinner with me Dad.”