He She It

fourteen: former good-for-nothing tosser

"I'm sorry, Grace, but I can't handle this baby."

Those were the words that ruined the atmosphere precisely forty minutes in to what was supposed to be a party to take Grace's mind off of the tiny human she was about to bring into the world - which been achieving its goal quite well until Ryan had proved that the loss of a limb had not, in fact, given him anymore of a sense of responsibility.

(Lilly had been depending on a cliche moral reform, the kind of story that got published by the trashy weekend magazines her Mum read to make herself feel better about her life. She could see the title now: 'former good-for-nothing tosser Ryan Kurosawa becomes a mature, responsible teenager fit to carry out his fatherly duties after losing a leg').

(It was a shame he hadn't, because the story would have been fantastic).

('Former good-for-nothing tosser remains useless, but is now a good-for-nothing tosser sans his left leg' didn't have quite the same heart-warming ring to it).

Next to Lilly, Eve was muttering a steady stream of expletives and occasionally offering a line of commentary on the whole situation: 'the dickhead better get a job, because he's paying child support for the rest of his life, bitch,' and 'Jesus Christ, my legs need waxing,' or 'Nat, is that supposed to be an elephant?' - the reply to which was almost always 'you must be blind, Eve, it's clearly a sausage dog.'

It was around the time of the making of the tenth sausage dog that Eve had lost her mini-skirt induced self-consciousness and risen from behind the sofa. Now, she was sprawled out on Grace's rug with her feet resting on the coffee table while she stroked her legs and wondered aloud 'how hairy was too hairy', a position that Grace was apparently too very, very pissed off at the father of her child to object to.

"Tell me the truth, Lil," Eve said, forcing Lilly's hand down her calf. "Should I invest in razors? Or maybe a self-waxing kit, I've heard they're g-"

"Eve," Lilly interrupted, giving her a pointed look and wrenching her hand away from Eve's leg stubble. "No offence, but right now I give exactly zero shits about your leg hair. Okay?"

"Okay," Eve muttered, and then turned to Amara, whose boob size had been boosted considerably by the twenty-something condom animals currently residing in her bra. "Hey, Ra, what do you think? Is my leg too hairy?"

"Your legs are fine, Eve," Amara said, swatting her girlfriend away as she came nearer, wielding what was supposedly meant to be a sausage dog. "Grace, on the other hand, isn't."

Everyone turned their attention away from the body part that had previously been holding their attention and towards Grace, who was now ordering her ex out of the door in a voice shakier than a mascara wand in Eve's hand. Ryan, apparently unaware of the fact that his presence was about to trigger a full-scale breakdown, was lingering near the door and trying to excuse his complete lack of paternal affection with a number of excuses, all of them equally shit:

"We haven't seen each other in forever, Grace. You'll find another boy to play Dad."

"Get out, Ryan."

"You can't really expect me to look after it. You know I was never good at dealing with stuff like that."

"Get out."

"I don't even like kids. I have other things I want to do with my life."

"Get the fuck out of my house, Ryan," she said, taking hold of the door handle in one hand and the balloon in the other. "And take your bloody balloon with you. It's going down."

He was barely out of the room before Grace slammed the door shut, her cheeks flushed bright pink and tears spilling out of her eyes. She took a deep breath, wiped the water from her face, and then beamed at her friends, all of whom had gone uncharacteristically quiet.

"Let's get this party started, then."

"Can we hold that thought for a minute?" Lilly asked, holding her index finger in the air and tapping her phone screen. "Brianna's calling me."

The fact that Brianna, who had avoided talking to Lilly at all for the last couple of weeks unless she absolutely could not understand the maths work, was calling her was odd enough by itself, but then she revealed that she was in fact calling on behalf of her boyfriend and made the whole thing ten times stranger - which in turn became even more odd when Michael asked to speak to Eve, who he typically only ever communicated with in gay jokes and crude hand gestures.

Lilly said a silent prayer that he wasn't calling to deliver one of his ingenius punchlines before passing the phone to Eve, who looked equal parts confused and terrified at the prospect of a phone call with the boy who had recently given her a nosebleed. She tapped the speaker phone button and held the reciever away from her ear, almost as if she believed he was about to reach through the phone and strangle her.

"Hey," he said, "I know this might seem kind of late, but I just want to apologise for being such a douchebag to you. You're a decent person, and I'm a fucking awful one, and I realise you probably want to punch me really, really hard, and I'm sorry, okay? I'm just really sorry."

Eve's eyes went a little wide towards the end of his monologue, and she mouthed a panicked 'what do I say?' at the other four in the room. She recieved four shrugs in response - evidently they had all been expecting Michael Brooks to call and apologise about as much as Natalie's sausage dog creations actually resembled sausage dogs.

So not at all.

"Uh," Eve said. "I - uh. I appreciate the apology, Michael, but why now? Why call me a faggot and spread rumours about me for years before saying sorry? What's the point?"

Michael sighed into the phone. Natalie gave another shrug and went back to giving Grace a particularly violent shoulder massage, which seemed to be doing more harm than good, because Grace had let out three shrieks of pain in the last five minutes and had now progressed to a constant dull groan. Michael sighed again.

"The point is, my Uncle tried to throw himself off a bridge yesterday," Michael said, and Grace got a brief respite while Natalie paused her massaging to listen, her mouth wide open. "He's my Dad's brother, and my family have given him a lot of shit for being... you know... gay, and I guess for the first time in my life I realised that I had the power to be so mean to someone that they'd try to kill themselves. So I'm apologising, in case you were thinking about chucking yourself into a river."

"I wasn't."

"Good," Michael breathed. "Good. I couldn't deal with two on my conscience."

"I hope your Uncle's okay," Eve said, partly because she did and partly because she really wasn't sure how else to respond. "And I hope you'll still feel guilty about this for a long, long time, Brooks. You deserve it."

"I know I do," Michael said. "I'll see you at school. Eve."