When we come out of my bedroom Ben is in the lounge dressed only in black jeans slung low around his waist. He's pulling a t-shirt out of his bag. I pretend to look down at my phone as I shuffle past in case he's embarrassed about being half dressed in front of total strangers.
"Hey," Finn says to him behind me. "I'm here for my joyride."
Ben laughs lightly, no hint of embarrassment in his voice at all. "Let me get some clothes on and we'll head out."
I keep my eyes lowered until we're in the kitchen and Finn's closed the door behind us then I flop into a chair.
"This is gonna be insane," he beams, sculling the juice I poured him earlier. "Do you wanna come?"
"As far as I've been told, the 1975 H.J. Sandman has a total of two seats." Ben had regaled me with a hundred facts about his car at the pub last night.
The door opens. Ben is dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans. He rattles his car keys at Finn. "Let's go, my man."
Finn's next to him in a heartbeat.
Ben clicks his finger at me. "Don't go anywhere. You're taking me on a tour of the 'hood remember? We won't be long."
My heart does a little jump in my chest. "I'll be here."
I get up and follow them to the door.
"Are you going home or coming back here?" I ask Finn.
Finn also clicks his finger at me. "I'll go home but I'll call you"—he glances between Ben and me— "about the stuff."
"You've got your Driver's License, right?" Ben asks.
Finn only got his license a month ago. He's saving up for a car of his own.
"Yeah," Finn grins; taps his pocket, "and now it's going to lose its virginity in a Sandman. Oh yeah, baby."
He laughs and Ben shakes his head at me. I close the door on Finn asking a dozen questions about the car and Ben answering just as enthusiastically as they head out to the road.
I know what I want to happen when Ben gets back.
I get myself ready for it.
***
The mixtape is in front of me on the kitchen table when Ben throws open the front door and drops his keys on the coffee table. He comes into the kitchen, sees me and smiles, holds his hair back into a ponytail while he surveys the scene. I've been sitting there for twenty minutes. Waiting. I've plugged the stereo in and pressed the cassette player open so it's gaping wide and ready.
"This looks serious." He sits opposite me and puts his phone down.
"It is."
"Okay then." He settles back in his chair and rests his hands on the table.
I push the tape towards him. "Tell me what this is."
Ben looks down at the tape. He picks it up carefully and runs through the list of songs, opens the cover, slips the tape out, then the cardboard sleeve. When he sees the note inside, his jaw tightens and I see him swallow heavily. He reads it over a few times and then places the tape down on the table between us with a slow hand.
"Did you give this to Mum?" I ask.
He rests his hands back flat on the table and looks directly at me. "No."
"If it wasn't you, then who?" I'm staring him down because I know he knows.
"I've never seen it before." He keeps his eyes locked on mine.
"But you know who gave it to her don't you?"
Ben puts his hand over the tape and slides it across the table. He checks the songs over again; doesn't say anything. Won't look at me.
"Tell me who gave it to her," I say, my voice starting to crack.
"Jenna, I'm sorry. If your mum hasn't told you, then it's not my place—"
Leaning forward, I grab his wrist with both my hands. He still has hold of the tape and it rattles as I grasp on to him. "Please, Ben. Please tell me. Anything. Give me something."
"I'm so sorry." Ben sounds genuinely upset. "I promised Abs—your mum—I wouldn't."
"I knew it," I sneer and pull my hands away from him. "I knew she told you not to tell me." I scratch my fingernails up and down on my scalp and try to make sense of my Mum and her decisions that make the empty ache inside me hurt even more. My heart pounds fast, smashing against my chest like waves against a breakwater.
"Jenna—"
"You know him, don't you?" I croak. "You know where he is – who he is. So why, after all these years, have you come back to my mum now—"
"Jenna—"
I can't listen to any more excuses. I grab the cassette. Open it. Fumbling to get the tape out of the cover I manage to shove the tape into the player and press play.
A crawling guitar riff bursts out of the speakers like a tsunami and the bass and drum beat kick in with a violent surge of notes that give me goosebumps.
Ben and I stare at the cassette player, stunned with the force of the music.
Nirvana.
I lift my eyes to Ben who reaches to shut the tape off but I hold my hand over the buttons so he can't.
He drops his palm to the table.
"I know this is only music," I sear at him over the top of the winding, gravelly intro that's soaring out of the tinny speakers. "But why does it feel so important?"
Ben stays quiet, rubs at his forehead.
The music keeps going. Harsh. Rough. Grazed knees and stinging lemon juice on a paper cut.
"Why did Mum freak out when you played that song last night?"
Kurt Cobain's gravel-rash voice chops through the thick air between us.
"I know this tape has something to do with my dad!"
Ben reaches across, pushes my hand from the player, shuts the tape off.
The air is heavy. Quiet. But my ears ring and my temples pound, filled with the angry music. "You were ready to answer my questions yesterday and she made you shut up, didn't she?"
Ben drops his head; pushes his fingers into his eyelids. "I know you're angry and I want to tell you so many things, but—"
I've been angry my whole life. Now I'm more than angry. "If you want to tell me so badly then tell me!"
Ben keeps his head down, eyes covered.
I wait.
He doesn't move.
"Now's your chance." I hold my shaking hands wide, trying to find a place to reason with him. "She doesn't have to know. I won't tell her you told me. I'll tell her I found out. From the internet."
Ben lowers his hands to the table. "I can't do that to her."
"Do it for me."
He doesn't say anything.
I'm done with him. I'm done with silence and secrets.
I throw my chair back and it clatters to the floor. Popping the tape out of the cassette player, I shove it in the cover then push it down deep into the pocket of my shorts. I scoop up my phone and the house keys.
"You're as bad as she is," I slice at Ben as I stalk to the front door. "You can have each other and whatever happened in your depressing past lives!"
I slam the front door so hard the windows around it rattle and grab my bike up from the porch. My heart's pumping fast and I need to get out of there before I really start on him about Mum.
Skidding my bike onto the tarmac, I pedal fast up the road. I really want to go for a swim. I want the waves to smash against me and drown out this anger and the sound of Nirvana ringing in my ears but it's too far to ride to the beach. I decide to ride into Tower Hill, our local extinct volcano. It'll be cool and secluded down inside the crater among the trees and there won't be anyone around. I don't need to go back home for ages. Not that Mum would notice if I wasn't there any way. She'll probably come home early from work today too, for the first time ever. Because Ben's there.
Everything's always about her. I'm always skirting around her, so she doesn't get upset. Always being quiet. Always hiding away and avoiding the things that matter. I can't stand it anymore. And now Ben is on her side, hiding things from me. Because of her.
I speed up the road and turn down the hill towards the entrance to the park. Veering across the main road, I bike down the gravel road to the gates. I forgot my helmet and I'm greeted with a 'No Bikes' sign at the entrance that I ignore. It's a steep and windy one-way road through the forest, past sweeping views of the whole park down to the base of the crater where all the kangaroos and emus are. Tourist buses go down there. Not angry seventeen-year-old girls on bikes with half flat tyres.
I don't care.
My fury pulses through me as I glide down the winding road. The wind rushes over me, into my ears and across my forehead. I need to get rid of my rage and energy and shut off the Nirvana song that's grating inside me. I pedal faster — as fast as my gears and legs will let me. My t-shirt flaps behind me. My thighs ache from the work. I grip the handles hard. I'm still boiling. Not at Ben anymore.
I fly down the hill and breath the fresh air and eucalyptus scent in and start to feel bad. I shouldn't have yelled at him. It's not his fault Mum's the way she is. Mum told him to keep his mouth closed. And he's her friend. He's trying to do the right thing.
My front wheel starts to wobble.
I grip the handles; try to steady the bike but I'm about to go over. I'm going so fast I can't break or slow down without the bike skidding on the gravel. The front wheel vibrates and I try to hold it. When I put my feet down to see if I can stop myself, my toes graze against the rough ground. I'm in trouble. I've got no shoes on. Idiot.
Jumping off the bike, I pray I land on the grassy verge that's coming up fast but I time it all wrong. I end up on my front with stinging grazes all down my shins and palms. Tears pour down my face as my bike hurtles off the road next to me, then drops to its side, the front wheel spinning.
When I eventually push myself up, I have aches in places I didn't know existed. I'm sure I haven't broken anything but I go to wipe my nose and my wrist throbs with a dull twinge. I'm still blubbing; sniffing like the little kid from the pool.
Using my better hand, I drag my phone out of my pocket. It's fine. The mixtape is in my other pocket, digging into my thigh. I tug it out. A straight hairline crack on the cover, but luckily that's all.
I want to call Minda. I want her to come. I want her mum to make me a cup of tea and rest her hand on the top of my head and tell me not to worry. I could call Alex — he'd be able to drive down and get me — but he's not around. I could call Finn but all he'll be able to do is help me drag the bike back up the hill.
I don't know who to call but I know who I have to call. Because there is no one else.
And then, miraculously, he is calling me.