Chapter One
Be careful.
That’s what they all say because next thing you know, your boyfriend is sucking face with your bitch of a friend on a wooden bench on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and you’re trying to stop the tears from streaming down your face because you just happened to be taking a walk when you saw that cheating bastard stick his tongue down that hoe’s throat. I must be some sort of masochist or something because even though I’ve clearly seen enough, my stubborn two feet refuse to move from behind that rock that’s currently blocking those two from seeing me and my blurry tear shot eyes refuse to avert themselves.
“Tino! Someone might see us.” A giggling voice came forth from the benches—Amber.
Tino chuckled mischievously as he snaked his hand further up her dress. “Then we’ll be famous.”
She laughed harder in that annoying way people do when they’re trying to flirt, then relented, “Okay, one squeeze and that’s it.”
He complied. And I don’t need to tell you that it wasn’t just one squeeze. Oh no, not by the sounds of it. You really don’t want to know about the moaning and the groaning, the shifting positions, the stroking and throbbing, or the fact that Amber’s boyfriend is sleeping soundly in his apartment a few metres away and will never know of the dirty deeds that have occurred on this very bench. I don’t know whether I should pity the fool or envy him his naivety. Oh, how fortunate are the blind!
Later on in the week, I decided to confront Amber about her dastardly ways. I know I’m supposed to confront the boyfriend first, but I couldn’t face him at this time without my heart quivering and shaking and sighing. She took out her phone and handed it to me.
“When did it start?”
She shrugged. “Maybe one or two months ago.”
“Who started it?”
“Tino,” she said without missing a beat.
“I can’t believe it.”
A whisper of a smirk appeared on her face, as if she had expected me to be an idiot but not that much of an idiot.
If that wasn’t already bad enough, her phone then chirped with another message from the cheating bastard! With the fires of rage swelling inside the pits of my stomach, I threw her phone across the room. It shattered into shards of glass and metal with an audible crack, which made me a tiny bit happier. But just a bit.
“I hope the both of you rot in hell!”
That little smirk on her face never left as I stormed away.
I learned my first lesson that day—I had to choose better friends.
I confronted Tino a few days later, with pretty much the same outcome. He looked bored throughout the entire interrogation too, and didn’t deny anything, which I hadn’t expected to be honest. My heart which once quivered and shook and sighed now sank and deflated and despaired. It also curdled and exploded and burst, but none of that lasted very long when he stared at me so apathetically.
In the end, he said, “I guess I’m just not really into you.”
“Then why did you go out with me?” A croaky yet shrill voice erupted from the dry confines of my throat.
He rolled his eyes and replied, “Honestly, I only did it to get closer to Amber. Sorry.”
And without once looking back, he got up from his spot and walked away.
I lost many a good night’s sleep crying that summer.
When school finally came around, I was relieved to say the least. I know what you’re thinking, who feels relieved when it’s time for school? Nadine Plimpton, my best friend, looked at me like I had two heads on my shoulder as we met up at the front of our new school, Saltwater Bay College. “What the hell happened to you that you’re relieved school’s back?”
So I told her all about it as her face grew redder and redder by the second. We then went over our survival plan because the last thing we needed was the drama of last year, what with all the infighting and power struggles and backstabbing and whatnot, because who needs enemies when you have friends like these?
Saltwater Bay College is a bit of an oddity since it only teaches from Years 10 to 12, while most other high schools start from Year 8, and that’s because our only other school—Saltwater Bay District School, which taught from kindergarten to Year 9—was so old that it couldn’t withstand an extension. It used to be that anybody who was starting Year 10 had to go somewhere else to continue their schooling because we just didn’t have enough funding to expand. This made it really inconvenient, so in order to retain more people, there were all sorts of appeals and the government finally decided to build a new school and that’s how Saltwater Bay College came to be.
And speaking of friends like these, the order of things never changed from the district days. The boys and girls who were popular back at our old school are still popular now, and as much as I hate it, things are slow to change in small towns like ours. It’s a pretty town by the coast, but it’s a town so grounded in gossip that hardly anything goes by without the entire community offering their two cents, and you know they’re just doing that so they can cement their places in high society. That’s pretty much the case with the school, so when Nadine discreetly mentioned that she had a crush on Rory Mitchum, the class golden boy, it spread like wildfire.
“Ew, there’s no way he’d go for a whale like you!” Calliope-Rose Abernathy, one of the so-called “queens” mocked in her bitchiest voice. Her friends chimed in with similar insults. Soon the news reached the athlete himself and he replied with a socially appropriate, “What, her? That’s gross man!” Or that’s how the rumours had it. Not like it mattered anyway, because Rory was already going out with Rosalie Grace Darlington, the blonde beauty everybody expected him to go out with. She, to her defence, dealt with it gracefully unlike her friends and soon, to our relief, the matter blew over.
I avoided Tino and Amber like the plague, and neither of them really looked for me. She still kept up her relationship with her boyfriend Bao Hanwei, who seemed like he didn’t have a clue, but sometimes I found her hooking up with Tino in places where they thought were guarded from the public eye. Once I walked past Tino after one of those trysts and he looked annoyed, like he wasn’t satisfied with what they just did. Some days later, I heard by way of gossip that he wanted her to break it off with Hanwei, who was still clueless, the poor bugger. For that, Amber was rewarded the title of biggest skank of the year, which I found rather fitting. Karma bitches!
I think it amused me more than it should because after her branding, Tino ended their little affair, seemingly unhappy to be in a relationship with the biggest skank in the world and came looking for me to patch things up. Or that’s what it sounded like, according to his younger brother Lionel, who was in my class. He sat behind me and passed me a piece of paper, which said that Tino wanted to meet me after school to talk about things. I chuckled to myself, earning a nice glare from Lionel, who doesn’t like me that much. He doesn’t think I’m right for his brother and frankly, I’m starting to believe him. His sister is nicer to me though.
I showed the note to Nadine, who looked at it and rolled her eyes. “Honey, boys want one thing and only one thing, and that’s sex.”
I informed her that he could have all the sex he wanted with Amber.
“Okay, but he doesn’t want it if he’s getting it from the biggest slut in the world.” She amended, laughing.
“So what should I do?”
She thought about it for a while. “It’s probably better not to go. Save yourself the heartache and hang out with me.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
I received another note from Lionel the next day, as well as a text message from Tino. Nadine read both and shook her head, tut-tutting at the desperateness. Then she leaned over and whispered, “Have you heard? Rory and Rosalie have broken up—he’s going out with Quinn now.”
“Quinnley Ly?”
“Yep.”
“What a player.”
Nadine nodded, then gleefully whispered, “That’s not even the best part. I heard Calli-Rose is pissed off about it. She’s been trying to get with him for years. Years!”
I laughed out loud at this new piece of information. Of course she has! Calli-Rose is more obvious than the white elephant in the room, and much nastier to boot. To make matters worse, she was Quinn’s best friend!
The teacher glared my way and I quickly shut up. Calli-Rose also looked this way and I tried very hard to hide the smirk that tugged at my lips. It’s not often you get the upper hand over the head honcho, and I planned on cherishing it for what it’s worth. I think she saw a hint of it anyway because if looks could kill, I’d have a dagger in my head.
Nadine, who was much braver than I, flipped her the bird. This time I really couldn’t hold back the laughter.
“Right, quiet the two of you. Save it for lunch.” The teacher scolded, levelling another glare.
“Yes, Mr Stephens.”
We spent the remainder of his English class trading gossip in the form of notes and ignoring his dirty looks.
I met with Tino after school against Nadine’s best judgement. He was waiting behind the sports shed of the oval in his AFL getup, which consisted of a guernsey in the school’s colours—red, white and green—as well as red and white shorts, looking very much like the baby of a Christmas tree and a candy cane. Footy training was about to start.
He was tying his shoe laces when I arrived, looking as stony as I could possibly muster. When he saw me coming, he casually stood up and smiled. “Hey Em.”
“Tino.” I nodded.
Putting on his best charming smile, he started, “Listen, training is about to start so let’s make this quick. I’m sorry for what I’ve done and I know you have every right to be angry with me, but I want to make it right with you.”
“Uh huh, and how do you plan on doing that?”
His charming smile waned a little, but he marched on. “Amber was a mistake, I’ll admit that, but the person who I truly want to be with is you. I realise that now.”
“Right…” I rolled my eyes. “Sure you do.”
“I’m serious.” He took my hand.
“Did you tell Hanwei what you did?”
His eyes widened a bit.
Sighing, I shook my head. “Poor guy.”
“Are you going to tell him?” He let go of my hand.
I shrugged.
He looked like he was about to say something when the man himself jogged up to us, all smiles. “What’s up Tino, Em!”
“Hey Hanwei.”
Ignoring our lack of enthusiasm, Hanwei continued, “Are you guys psyched for the big game this Friday? You’ll be there right, Em?”
I twisted my face. “Is that the one you have with Esterwell? You know how I feel about football.”
Hanwei punched me lightly in the arm. “Aww come on, me and Tino are playing. Support your boyfriend!”
So, so clueless.
“Uh, haven’t you heard, Hanwei?”
Panic flashed before Tino’s face.
“Heard what?”
“We’re no longer to—”
“We just had a little fight!”
Hanwei looked at us with sympathy. “Damn, that’s rough. You’ll be okay, yeah?”
Tino nodded.
“That’s the spirit. Righto, I’ll just be going then.” He patted Tino’s shoulder. “Oh, and Em, why don’t you stay for training?”
“And watch a bunch of sweaty boys chase after a rubber ball? No thanks.”
He threw his head back and laughed good-naturedly. “One day, Em. One day I’ll get you to like footy. Mark my words”
With a wave, he jogged back to where the other boys were, passing a football between each other.
“If you hit this guy’s balls with it, I might reconsider!” I called after him.
I could hear him chuckling all the way.
Amber is so lucky, I thought. A nice guy like Hanwei, who is as good-natured as he is sporty is hard to find and doesn’t deserve to be cheated on. Completely different from the douchey sportsmen you hear about these days.
Anyway, I turned my attention back to Tino, who was smirking at my little half-joke.
“Well, you didn’t have to go that far.”
I shrugged.
It was hard keeping up appearances, especially when Tino did that smirk of his. He looks hot with that smirk and he knows he does, and that’s why he does it, but still. It was hard, but I wasn’t about to be charmed by him again.
“Anyway, I gotta go to training, but just think about it, okay?”
“Hmm.” I looked at my watch. “Crap.”
He looked at me with a glint of mirth in his eyes. “Missed your bus, hey? Just stay for training.”
Heaving a deep sigh, I trudged beside him and sat on the grass while he ran laps with the team. Hanwei even gave him a high five.
That was how the coach found me. “Good on ya, Emerald! It’s always great when more females take an interest in footy. Here, help me keep score.”
And that’s how I spent my afternoon keeping score of a game where sun-kissed men run around in shorts chasing a ball made out of rubber. Stupid Tino.
It didn’t go as bad as I thought it would though. Yes, it was boring for the duration of the practice, but near the end, when I had scored Tino’s side higher, Hanwei came out of nowhere and tackled the ball out of Jack Smithers’ arms, then kicked it square in Tino’s nuts. He crumpled over the goal line. Coach blew his whistle and raised one hand while everyone laughed disbelievingly, signalling a behind (you only get a goal when the ball goes in without touching anyone), and I scored Hanwei’s team one point.
“That was a poor kick there, son!” Coach yelled after he had calmed down from laughing. “If you kicked higher, you could’ve scored a goal!”
“Just doin’ a favour for Miss Emerald there, Coach!” Hanwei yelled right back with a shit-eating grin. “She said if I kicked the ball in Tino’s nuts she would go to the big game!”
Coach looked stunned.
With six more minutes to the end, Rory scored two more goals for Tino’s side and everybody lowered their hands to their private regions whenever Hanwei had the ball, which he found amusing. He was then nicknamed “Ball Crusher Bao”. It stayed with him like glue and after that incident. Soon after that, word got around that some nobody called Emerald Teng had gone to the practice and witnessed the height of the football team’s camaraderie, and she was even on good terms with the seniors. It caused a bit of a scandal in my class.
The school newsletter photographer had snapped a picture of the boys training, as well as one of Hanwei kicking the ball into Tino’s privates, and the editor used both in her article about the Saltwater Bay versus Esterwell match that was to take place this Friday. The title of that article was, “Boys train their nuts off for big game this Friday,” which the teacher in charge wanted to change, but Mickey the editor stuck to her guns and assured her that nobody, not even the parents, would be offended. It went to print as it was.
That’s how I knew I was screwed.