When Dad’s booming voice stops and Mum’s feeble warble fades, I lean over and blow the candles out.
“Make a wish, make a wish!” Mum cries, clapping her hands as though what I wish for might actually come true. I close my eyes and with tears that burn the backs of my lids, I blow out the seventeen birthday candles wishing for Jake. I wish so hard that my throat aches and my jaw clenches tight enough to crack in two.
But wishes are complete bullshit because he never comes.
“You’re going to love it, Mackenzie.” Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end of my life. Dad confirms it as he sits on the side of my bed and looks down at me. He’s taken to calling me by my full name over the past two months. No one uses a nickname at Fucking Dick Head school. It’s not proper. “You just need to give it a chance.”
“Chance schmance,” I mutter.
“All the girls there will be just like you. You’ll make so many new friends you won’t know what to do with them all.”
I glare. I remove my hands from beneath the covers, rest them on top, and I glare hard. “What do you mean just like me?”
Dad’s eyes cut to the side and he shifts slightly on the bed. He looks utterly uncomfortable, as if answering my question is akin to getting a tooth pulled.
My lips pinch. “Dad?”
He offers me a shrug. “Just that they’re ready to be transformed into little ladies, like you are.”
His comment makes me so bitter it burns the lining of my stomach clean away. I’m not the daughter they wanted. But what about what I want? I don’t want to be a lady. I want to be myself. Strong. Independent. Smart. Someone nobody will dare to mess with. And not because she has three beefy, overprotective brothers to do her dirty work but because she’s lethal in her own right. Powerful and formidable. The game changer. The Queen on a chessboard.
“Dad?”
He sighs, his expression resigned. He’s clearly expecting another argument. “Yes, love?”
My eyes fall to the suitcases standing by my bedroom door. Bright white with pink trim, Mum chose them just yesterday. I’d wanted the Samsonite hardcase range. They were like the outer skin of a toffee apple. Shiny. Red. Delicious. Mum had called them harlot bags and after a battle of wills, I ended up with something deemed more appropriate. We left the store on edge with Mum grinding her teeth and me sulking.
At least I know what I want and I’m determined to work for it, or in this case … argue for it. But clearly it doesn’t count for anything. Raising a wilful daughter is hard work. They’re tired of it. Of me.
It leaves me hollow, a state of being which I thought wouldn’t feel much like anything, yet it hurts more than when I came off my skateboard and broke my arm. It’s a throbbing ache of hopelessness. The emotion is foreign and unpleasant. My usual demeanour is titanium, like the song. I’m bullet proof. Shoot me down, but I won’t fall.
But in this case I’m already down. The only way to get back up is to do something bold. Something wonderfully drastic. Something that makes my heart pound incredibly hard with both fear and excitement.
I have to remove myself from the equation.
I have to leave.
Once the realisation swims to the surface, the stifling thick blanket of control is gone and fresh air fills my lungs.
“What is it, Mackenzie?” my father asks again as I draw a deep breath.
I shake my head, my eyes moving from the suitcases and back to him. “I love you, Dad.”
He leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead, visibly relieved. “I love you too.” Then he pets my head like I’m a good little puppy. “See you in the morning.”
His feet are silent on the thick carpet as he crosses the room. Turning, he offers a brief smile before flicking off my bedroom light. The door is pulled closed and darkness fills my room.
It will be the last time I see my father as the person I am now. When I eventually return, I will never be the same.
MAC
I’m headed in the wrong direction. Somewhere along the city outskirts of Melbourne, I’ve lost my way. It’s taken me a whole hour to realise. Asshead. If I had enough money, I would have a phone. Instead I’m cursed with a paper map and I’m ready to gouge holes through it with the bobby pin in my hair.
After kicking a few rocks, I turn back the way I came. The heat is blistering my skin and the side of the road is gravelly and dusty, but I’m along the coastline and a cool breeze lifts from the ocean and flutters my hair, swirling my short dress around my thighs. It offers only a moment of respite.
Before I can stop myself, I stick out my thumb. Hitchhiking is stupid. I know that, but my legs are ready to fold like a bad hand at poker and the closest bus stop is a half hour away.
How did I get here? I can summarise it best with numbers: nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars of savings; one mobile phone, left by the side of my bed so I can’t be traced and hauled back home; one overnight bag; two long bus rides to Melbourne, paid in cash; seven hours spent sleeping at the backpacker’s hostel in the city suburb of St. Kilda; three pubic hairs found on the shared, unisex toilet seat—which made me question my adventure and my whole entire existence; four subsequent nights spent at the Travelodge Hotel next to Southern Cross Station; and seven hundred and twelve dollars expended on accommodation. It’s money well spent in my opinion, to have a bathroom void of strangers’ pubes, but my rapidly depleting funds will send me back to the hostel tonight.
The majority of my time here, besides sleeping, eating, and window-shopping along Melbourne’s famous Chapel Street, has been spent looking for Jake. Finding my way around occupies the rest of my time. Public transport in this city is like navigating the Bermuda Triangle, but I’m determined. Jake Romero once said he belonged to me. Well he still does. And I’m here to remind him.
There will be no Fucking Dick Head school. I don’t need to be a lady. I just need to be myself, and being here with Jake is where I’m going to do it.
The trouble with my plan is the lack of information on his whereabouts. The night before I left, I waited until my parents had gone to bed and the house was settled before creeping down the stairs and into the study. I made three attempts on the password, knowing it wouldn’t be easy. Mum approached internet security as if the FBI were intent on cracking her entire system. On the fourth try, I typed in AzaeleaBush3 at random for the simple fact she had planted three of them in the front yard just two days earlier. I know this because I offered to help. She turned me down, not wanting to risk my fresh manicure in the countdown to FDH. The password worked and her screen came to life.