Somebody Else ✔

Bad boys dont cry.

Jace.

Edited.

My father, the selfish bastard, was trying to get himself elected to state parliament.

This meant long weekends full of stuffy conferences and dinners too small to fill you up. The day after my last semester one exam, I slept off the anxiety in the car on the way up to the city. In my dreams the exam -- maths -- personified itself as some guy I had seen play Socrates in a daytime movie once, and chased after me, shouting a jumble of sounds I imagined Greek would sound like.

I awoke in a cold sweat, and my brother in the backseat snickered in the mirror. Damien, a class A little shit at times -- who hero worshiped Cole -- had tried to wear ripped jeans to the same event as the State Premier, and then screamed and kicked when dad said no. The compromise to get him into a suit was that he was allowed to wear thick, black, studded pieces of leather over his wrists. I reveled in being able to tell him he looked like a fucking wanker.

It was a particularly hot winters day, a cloudless blue sky stretched out before us as we sped down the highway to the city. With the windows wound down, the scent of sweet, burnt sugar and apples filled the car. I clawed at the leather interior of the car, trying to shut the window as soon as I could. "Do you smell that?" I gasped, toward dad who was mumbling along with the song on the radio.

"No."

"Smells like --." Mum.

I dug my teeth together and fiddled with the brochure on my lap. The Devon Clinic, it read, is a private hospital which provides a broad range of in and out patient treatment. Great. Dad had dragged me to the freakin' loony bin. The Clinic we holding fete -- sponsored by the Anglican Church across the road, and everyone, apparently was going to be there, Father had bought five minutes of speaking time before the State Premier -- much to the latter's annoyance. He had a plan though, he wasn't going to speak, no, that would be too obvious. Instead he was employing me -- buying me with promises of a car, of my choice. If it wasn't so tempting by itself, Damien's outrage was just as good.

I should've been reading over the speech, but I was stuck on the exams I had just sat and the ball the next day. My last exam, the day before, had been English; I had gone home and goggled the answers to the questions I remembered, which left me staring at the ceiling of my room until the sun rose.

Dad had to tap me on the cheek to alert me to the fact we had arrived. We spent the majority of the day at Devon Clinic. Unnervingly, it looked a lot like our house -- a mansion converted into a hospital. It was almost an estate -- carved out of marble and limestone, with a paint covering the window frames which shone like gold in the sun.

I got through the day at the nuthouse by hanging out with Tex and Vinnie. Tex was there as his grandma was being honoured for her work with abused women, and Vinnie's dad was the head doctor. To kill time we walked from the Clinic down to the closest servo and bought icy poles for the journey back. After we -- in our suits and polished shoes -- calmed my nerves by playing a three person game of cricket out in the street, in the twilight. Even if I had no clue even how to throw the ball the correct way.

All day, slow creeping anxiety over the speech chased after me. Speaking in front of people -- people I didn't know -- always made my gut churn. I had worked hard to overcome a stammer that was crippling when I was a kid, but it liked to rear its head whenever I spoke in front of a crowd. 

We had gathered in the courtyard. The beige sails, meant to keep off the sun, blocked out the stars. All the women wore variations of the same, calf length floral dress and the men wore matching blue or black suits. I held the podium in a grasp that turned my knuckles white. Shuffling the papers I held, I cleared my throat over the noise of the guests chatting among themselves.