SOLACE (condensed version)

2005

MARCH

Andy got beaten up after school yesterday. I walk to his house after school, and he has a black eye. I'm about to ask if it was that mean, fat kid but he says he doesn't want to talk about it, so we hang out in his room and read Captain Underpants and listen to music in silence.

When it's time for me to leave, he hugs me and lifts me off the ground before saying thank you.

"What for? I haven't done anything."

"You were here for me, when I needed you. Shit, Lex, I'm so glad you're my best friend."

"DON'T SWEAR!" Andy's mum yells from the other room.

Andy holds up five fingers and lowers one, counting down silently. I grin, I know exactly what he's planning. I count down with him.
Four, three, two, one.

"SHIT!" we both yell at the same time.

"I SAID DON'T SWEAR, YOU LITTLE DICKHEADS!" His mum yells, still in the other room.

We both laugh, and hug again.

JULY

Today, Xavier and I broke up. We dated for a week, and the whole time Andy refused to speak to me. Xavier said his life is too confusing, and he doesn't want a girlfriend. I wasn't upset and I don't care because now Andy is speaking to me again and having Andy as a best friend is better than having a boyfriend, any day of the week.

Andy and I talk on the phone for hours, about everything and nothing. He tells me about how he's started taking guitar lessons, and that one day he wants to write his own music and own songs.

I tell him about how dad is getting ready to move out of our house, that he's found a place a few doors down from my family friend, Liam, and that my parents are getting a divorce.

I cry and tell him I think something really bad is going to happen, and that I wish he was allowed to come for a sleepover.
He tries to cheer me up. He reminds me of the time I missed a bit of mushroom on my pizza and ate it by accident, and I couldn't swallow because it tasted so yuck and how I had to spit it out. He tells me about the time he crashed his bike in front of a group of pretty girls and how they all laughed at him.

He keeps talking, even when his words start getting slower and softer and soon there's nothing but the sound of steady, sleeping breathing on either end of the phone.
When we wake up, we're still on the phone to each other. We try to keep talking as we brush our teeth but we can't understand each other and I end up laughing so much that my mirror gets covered in minty foam.

SEPTEMBER

This is the first time I've seen Andy since I got back from school camp. I'm in such a good mood, and Andy says it's the happiest he's seen me be in a really long time.

I'm tempted to tell him about my dad, but I don't. Instead, we watch a TV show called NCIS and I really like it.

During the ads when we're making drinks, I tell him that I want to do forensics when I'm older; and he laughs and says that I'm morbid. He laughs even more when I tell him I don't know what that means.

I ask him what he wants to be when he's older, and he doesn't answer for a really long time.

After a few minutes of thinking, he just says one word, "happy".

NOVEMBER
Xavier just told us that he's gay. He told us that he'd been really scared to tell anyone, because he thought everyone would hate him. He thought because he goes to an all-boys school, things would be really different, and he didn't want to make people uncomfortable.

Our group's individual personalities are so obvious in our reactions, and Xavier laughs so much that he can't talk.

Ashleigh says, "Oh my god! I have always wanted a gay best friend!"

Casey says, "Which guy do you like? Is it one of us? Is it me? Who else is gay at our school?"

Andy says, "No shit! Is that why you and Lex broke up?"

I say, "Do you feel happier now? Like more yourself? How are your parents about it?"

Xavier brings out two sheets of paper, still grinning. He tells us he tried to guess our reactions to his news.

He unfolds the paper covered in smiley faces and reads out loud: "I bet Casey will want to know if guys would think he's cute and want all the gossip. Ashleigh will say something about gay best friends or painting nails. Alex will make it deep and meaningful, and Andy will use it as an excuse to talk about Alex, because he obviously has a crush on her."

Andy blushes, calls Xavier an asshole, and hits him over the head with a pillow. I ask him what the second sheet has on it. Xavier tells us it's what he thought our reactions would be, if we didn't accept him. Casey wants to read it, but Xavier doesn't want us to ever see it to because he cried as he wrote it, and he doesn't want to remember how worried he had been.

"I know!" Says Andy, "Let's burn it! I found a lighter in my brothers' room, I'll go get it!"

We cheer when Xavier lights it on fire, and when it's nothing more than ash, he turns to us and says, "Guys – you haven't realised the best part. Now the girls can say I don't get invited to the boys' sleepovers anymore, and their parents will feel bad and let me go to the girls' sleepovers instead. And the boys' parents have to keep letting us have sleepovers, because otherwise they hate gay people!"

"So...?"

Xavier rolls his eyes. "So, we can FINALLY have group sleepovers, at my house! All five of us! We just have to time the girls' arrival differently to the boys' arrival, so that our parents don't talk to each other and realise what's going on."

His grin is contagious. It doesn't take long for the four of us to grin back at him.

DECEMBER
All five of us are in trouble. Our parents found out our plans for our first ever group sleepover this weekend – which is New Years Eve. We're still allowed to go to the sleepover because none of our parents have organised babysitters, and Xavier's parents had already agreed to stay home to watch us.

After our New Years Eve sleepover, we're all banned from having sleepovers for two weeks as punishment.
The sleepover was pretty fun at first, we watched TV and swam in the pool. After dinner, Ashleigh and I got really mad at the boys because they stole one of the beers in the kitchen and shared it. We didn't drink any. We spent most of the night in Xavier's older sisters bedroom, which the parents said was the 'girls only' room for the night.

Later when we finally decided we weren't mad at the boys anymore, we agree that we should go find them. Just as we're about to leave the girls room, Ashleigh comes back from the bathroom crying because she got her first ever period.

She doesn't want the boys to know, so we stay in the girls room all night. We find some pads in the bathroom, but we don't know how they work so Ashleigh puts four of them all over her undies, and she sleeps in the bathtub because she's scared she will get blood on the bed.