The Question of Friendship

A question of Lara.

You know sometimes, Life can catch you by surprise. Not too often. As much as we like to kid ourselves, life's fairly predictable. It's shit. That's not pessimistic. It's realistic. Think about it.

Life is full of disappointments. That's why on your Aunty Mavis's favourite soap the guy they really want to end up with the girl they really want him to end up with never seems to end up with her. That make sense?

It should. Realistically, it's because the people who make the show know full well that you watch it waiting for them to get together. The second they do, you'll switch channels.

But think about it. How many happily-ever-afters are in the queues beside you at the local supermarket?

I can answer that for you. And you'll look at me and say something like, "well, this isn't the movies, buddy," or "oh, well, I'm sure that there's at least one. Not everybody is totally unhappy with their life." And that's true.

Even I can admit that everyone on the planet is capable, if not overtly, of that small nugget of happiness that could brighten their day. Nobody can be completely unhappy with their lives. But there's a shitload of people who can be miserable with their day to day existence.

Don't those people shit you? Course, me being the bitter old bastard, people shit me full stop. But the next time you walk down the street, look at the person walking towards you. Think they're a happily-ever-after? Are you?

I hope by now you're not expecting a Snow White story. This isn't one of those. This is a real story.

As real as the boil on your boss's ass, the surgeon's receipt on your neighbour's wife's boobs, and as real as the heartache that being best friends with a member of the opposite sex brings.

Yeah, this is one of THOSE stories. How life is unfair and then something happens, and everything changes, and the girl changes and shit hits the fan on 5.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? That's cool. I can go back. It's not like I can forget any of this quickly.

My best friend's name is Lara. She's funny, sweet, gentle, kind, all that shit. Ok, that was a little harsh. The bitch is perfect, ok?

She's gorgeous, and her smile breaks me, and she gives the best hugs, and the only thing that's not perfect about her is her gardening and her cooking, neither of which should ever be addressed without full body armour and a sturdy bucket or natural purge handy.

Me? I'm about fifty kilos too heavy and apparently too smart for my own good. My words stuff up sometimes, and as far as anyone can tell me, it's because my tongue doesn't move as fast as my mind, go figure.

So that makes it hard to get all the words out. It's an easy way to tell when I'm pissed though.

That's when I'm paranoid that someone is going to cotton on to the fact that I'm somewhat inebriated (completely paralytic through consumption of copious amounts of alcohol). I talk very slowly and annunciate everything clearly.

I sound like those funky penguins off Madagascar. Anyway, I'm losing track of it, aren't I? That's cool, you should have said something. I'm getting there, don't worry.

Lara's taste in men, as relationship options, is... questionable... to say the least. Her taste in men as friends is of course above reproach. But Wayne? Ech.

The guy makes my knuckles itch. I'm not a violent person. Really. But guys like that make them itch. It's not an allergic reaction either; it's a powerful urge to break his jaw.

This guy was so caring and loving and trusting that he deleted numbers out of her phone, including mine, and sent false messages, pretending to be Lara. What a peach, huh? Guess who was one of the first to be deleted?

Eventually, things got rocky between them, and Lara was suffering. Around this time, her father, already dying of cancer, took a turn for the worse, and Wayne's response was to complain to Lara that she wasn't spending enough time with him.

With her semi-caring boyfriend instead of her dying father. You hate him too, right? She lost her smile, and her laugh, and most of her friends, thanks to Wayne.

At this point, I'd had enough, and managed to get hold of her through her work. She was rather glad to hear from me, and we began to talking again. Soon, I found that she wasn't her old self.

So I took her out to the movies. We'd been apart for a while, but I thought that touching on the familiar with a friend she felt safe with would lighten her up. It's amazing how stupid we males can be.

When we were back together, near one another, I realised how much I ached for her while we'd been apart. It wasn't so much a conscious thing.

It's more like when you sprain your wrist, then the first thing you do next morning is use that hand to drag yourself out of bed. You don't realise it hurts, then you get an explosion of pain, and you suddenly realise.

When we were at the movies, we had fun. We threw popcorn at each other, stole one another's drinks, lollies. Acted like teenagers. We were close, so close I could almost feel it.

There was only a handful of people in the cinema, and I turned to Lara and smiled. "I think you should know...," I said quietly, and she leant forwards to hear me.

My hand closed over the open drink cup, and my fingers dipped into the lemonade and gingerly grasped an ice cube. "Hmm?" I jerked my chin down in the direction of the drunk in the front row, and Lara turned to see.

"I think that guy wants you bad." I grabbed the ice cube and went to push it down her top, down her neck, but the ice caught on her necklace, and Lara gasped, a smile on her face.

She shuddered and I gave a low laugh and moved the drink away from her reach. She pointed to her neck. "You have to get that." I smiled and shook my head. I held up my hands, one holding the drink, and the other holding my keys.

"My hands are full." She lowered her shoulder, and rose an eyebrow.

"Get it anyway." I smiled cheekily and leant in before she could stop me. I sucked the ice into my mouth and breathed in the scent of her skin.

She gasped and her breath caught in her throat as she gave a small sound. I stayed against her for a moment, and then slowly began to move my head up.

The taste of her skin had set fire to my spine, and I felt like I wanted to crush her against me and kiss her.

She was panting, and shaking, and I couldn't tell if it was revulsion or something else. I stared at her lips, but she was staring straight ahead. She turned slowly and we locked eyes.

I couldn't breathe or think and I could feel how much I wanted her. Her eyes lowered to my lips for a moment, then her lips parted further. Our heads were barely an inch apart, and I don't know now who leant in first.

We kissed, and it was tender, soft and beautiful. It was amazing, and wonderful, and so many things.

I slowly opened my eyes, and Lara stared back at me. She slowly closed her eyes and her face changed. The softness and tenderness left, and our lips parted. She looked away, and I shook myself.

I closed my mouth and swallowed, still feeling the gentleness of her lips against mine. "I'm..." I was breathing too fast, and leant back, seeing how much pain she was in.

I got up and she turned and looked at me. "Fuck. I'm sorry." Her brown eyes clouded with pain again, and I turned and left. She ran after me, and I held my hands up.

"I don't know what that was. I'm sorry, I didn't... I wasn't..." I shook my head again, and those eyes hardened.

"Don't you fucking make this all about you, Dan. Don't." I stared at her, and she hesitated, then reached tentatively for my hand.

"I... kissed you too. Why didn't you tell me about this?" I scoffed and shook my head slowly.

"I didn't know. Until I had to go through not seeing you. Until I realised how much..." Lara stared down at our hands, and I frowned.

"You're right. You kissed me too. Why didn't you tell me?" She bit her lip and turned, still holding my hand. We began to move across the theatre foyer slowly, and she shivered as we came out through the open doors.

"Because I don't know why it happened. And I don't know... how..." She trailed off as I draped my jacket over her shoulders, and stared down at it as I zipped it up.

"You know how when you're afraid, you think about things, and sometimes they make you more afraid, and sometimes they give you courage."

I didn't answer her as we began to walk through the car park and out onto the garden grounds. My car was parked on the other side of the park, and we barely spoke as we moved through the heavy dew as it fell.

"You're perfect, Dan. You're considerate, tender, gentle, loving. You're my best friend, and I wouldn't trade you for anything. I don't want to stuff that up." I took a deep breath and tried to decide how I felt about that. I didn't know if we'd stuff anything up. Had we already?

I nodded but didn't say anything, feeling that that was the best I could do. I didn't know how I felt, and if I didn't know, I had no right to ask Lara how she felt. She smiled and came back close to me. The scent of her floated to me on the cold wind.

"What are you doing on Cup Day?" I shrugged, still feeling. Don't know what, but I was still feeling.

"Dunno. The old man wants to go to a local race track, and some mates of mine want the whole crew to go down into Melbourne and see if we can get thrown out." Lara smiled.

"Plans of world domination finally getting Dave's attention?" I laughed and it rung false in my ears. I began to wonder if maybe I'd just lost an opportunity there. My mind was whirling around, and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

But I knew for certain that I didn't want to lose Lara, not as my friend, and not as my girlfriend. Girlfriend. The word sounded weird in my mind.

Lara tugged on my arm, and I came back to the present in a rush. We were standing beside my car.

"I'm glad that we sorted that out." I nodded, and she stared at her feet. I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out the keys. Lara reached up to unzip it, but I shook my head.

That night, after I dropped her off, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. One fact kept running through my head. I looked down at my stomach, and how my physique was far less than perfect.

I wasn't attractive to her. I got up and began to pace. Eventually, I made my way down to my basement, and stared at the rumpus room I'd created there.

I had weights there, exercise equipment that I'd never used, and a huge stereo. There were posters of my favourite wrestlers when I followed it; Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kane.

The men I wished I looked like. I switched the stereo on, and began to listen to the cd I'd left in there. It was the 8-Mile soundtrack, and I almost smiled.

I sat down on the rowing machine, and began to pull back on the weights and levers. I could feel the burn almost immediately, and my breath rasped in my throat.

I was so unfit that I'd barely even started and already I was hurting. I wrenched back on the handles and pushed with my legs. I gritted my teeth and snarled as I kept going.

Over the next two months, I fell into a pattern. Each night, I'd get home from work absolutely exhausted, and have a shower and go to bed.

I'd lie awake, trying to slow my mind down for sleep. Then, around eleven or so, I'd get out of bed, and go down to the basement, and furiously work out, as hard as I could.

Once I was exhausted, I'd go back up and crawl into bed. Almost everything in my life became much more intense. I was powering through all my work assignments like a madman, trying to fill my mind with anything but thinking about Lara.

I attacked my work with intensity bordering on fanaticism. The boss loved it, but Dave started to get worried. I wasn't sleeping well, just driving my body to the edge of exhaustion then slumping and falling asleep before waking up for work.

Dave was never one to hold off on a confrontation. A week before Melbourne Cup day, I answered the door at nine thirty at night, to see a very stern looking Dave with a six pack of beer and a bottle of tequila.

I looked at my watch and he spread his hands wide. "What? Intervention." I shook my head and let him in.

"What?" Dave cracked open two beers and set one on the table opposite him, and pointed to the seat.

"Intervention. You, you fuck, are going to sit down and talk to me about what the hell is going on." I gave a helpless laugh and shook my head in disbelief.

"Don't laugh. It makes me sick when you laugh and it doesn't show in your eyes. Dazz. What the fuck?" I stared at him.

"I'm going crazy." Dave nodded, and clicked the bottle of beer in his hand against mine.

"Amen. And?" I began to drink, and slammed the empty bottle down on the table. Dave frowned. "Maybe I should have brought more. Who's been drinking with you?" I cracked open the bottle of tequila and bought two glasses in from the kitchen.

"Nobody." Dave frowned again.

"Then you shouldn't be drinkin'. Bro, talk to me. It's Lara, isn't it?" I lowered the beer I'd been about to neck, and stared at him. Was I that transparent?

Dave shrugged. "Dude, it's hard to be best mates, platonic only, with a chick as fucking off-the-chain hot as that. So? What's the what?"

"I can't stop thinking about her?"

"How often do you talk?"

"Three, four times a week."

"You fucking slut. Ring me more. She still with Shit-for-brains?"

"Yeah. I don't know how to describe it man. It's like... like I...crave her, or something." Dave poured himself a glass of the evil worm and knocked it back hard, Dave style. "I can't stop thinking about her."

"Well, you're going to have to." I looked at Dave, who held up his hands. "Nothing for nothing, man. This chick is your best friend. I take it this is all over the thing at the movies?" I'd told Dave about it, and about how I didn't know how I felt back then. I nodded.

"You sorted it out, in her mind, then. What's it like when you talk on the phone?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what does she sound like? Is it cheeky, wistful, happy, what?" I thought about that for a while.

"She's hurting. She doesn't like the way that Wayne treats her. I can hear the pain in her voice." He looked at me like he didn't want to say the next part. "What?"

"You gotta remember, bro, you put her up on a pedestal. Now just try and think about that. Wayne may be treating her like shit, but she lets him. Last I heard, she wasn't running away from him in terror and fear."

I nodded slowly. "I know that. I do. But give and take are parts of any relationship. You put up with the bad so that you can have the good. I guess the good with Wayne is just really, really good." Dave exasperatedly slammed his empty bottle down.

"For fuck's sake, mate. You're comparing yourself to that sheep-fucking numb nuts and saying he's coming out on top? Have you looked in the mirror lately? Alice, at work?"

"Every time you come to visit me at the shop, she blows a gasket trying to bend over things, so you see her ass or her boobs. You've lost your cuddly stature, bud."

I looked down at myself, and pursed my lips. The spare tire was gone, and so was the spare anything.

My arms bulged thick these days, and I actually had a six-pack of my own. I looked at Dave's, emptying. My mate smiled as he tore another beer out of it.

"Everything below puts my lady killer bod to shame. As for above, well, plastic surgery can cure a lot these days. Come to Cup Day with us. We're headin' to one of the local tracks, now, not down into Melbourne."

"The race that stops a nation is going to see us all completely hammered. How's your old man?"

I shrugged, the ghost of a smile crossing my lips.

"He's good. He's brewing his own drinks these days. Retirements boring, when he's not out on the boat trying to land Jaws. He's got a new drink, calls it flysht." Dave gave a hooting laugh and grinned.

"Flysht, huh?"

"Yeah. Says it tastes like fly shit and gets you sloshed in record time." Dave smiled.

"I miss your old man. Haven't seen him in donkey's years. Hey, what track is he going to?"

I didn't know, and Dave moved on. It was good seeing him again for more than five minutes at work. It took my mind off Lara, at least for a moment. "Hey, so listen, Cup Day, yeah?"

I nodded. "Yeah." Maybe Dave was right. I went to ring Lara, then put the phone down. Dave grinned and handed me a full glass of tequila.

Two weeks later, I was up $600 on the races. Dave was completely plastered and loving every second of it. His plan to get me hammered had backfired when he'd arrived at my place drunk, and we needed to get there.

I couldn't handle drinking at eight a.m., but Dad thought it was a capital idea, so I drove down.

The raucous singing in the back as we arrived caught the attention of the security woman, who glared at Dave and Dad, who blew kisses at her in retaliation. She smiled and let us in, shaking her head. We were all dressed in our finest, or comparatively.

Dave wore a suit, and so did Dad, but I wore my Triple H homage; black boots, tight black dinner shirt, which I could now wear with pride, the same leather jacket I'd worn on my night with Lara, and a beret.

The beret had been Dave's last minute gift. Dad had shaken his head and taken another drink from his hip flask.

We stayed near the betting ring for several races, until Dad and Dave lost big on a horse named after them, and we decided to head out to the track for some entertainment.

The guys drowned their sorrows with Dad's hip flask, and the flysht began hitting them hard. Their singing was hitting hard, too.

We moved through the crowd loudly, and extremely happily. As we neared the podium, Dave spotted some guy we hadn't seen since high school, and yelled out to him across the ground.

The entire population of the racetrack turned and looked at Dave, who was energetically waving his hands. There were a few laughs, and then a commotion off to the left.

"Dave! Daniel!" We all turned as a young woman with dark, curling ringlets moved through the crowd.

Lara's normally straight hair was a masterful work of art, and I felt my face freeze up and lose expression as she came up and hugged me. She gave me a soft kiss on the cheek, and Dad swooped her up in his arm. "Hi Mr...."

"Greg, sweetie, don't you forget it. Here, have a swig of this." Dad offered Lara the hip flask, but I shook my head, and she declined. Dave gave her a one armed hug.

"G'day trouble. How's your entourage?" Lara grinned at him as she hugged him back.

"Drunk and rebellious and filled to the brim with hotties just for you." Dave flashed her a grin.

"Well, that's my cue. Time for some "Devastating Dave" action. Don't be long with my wingman, you."

Dad moved off to the betting pool, and probably the bar, and Lara and I were alone. She tilted her head to the side, staring at my face. I put on a false smile. Hers faded.

"What's wrong?" I shook my head, and she came in close. I hadn't seen her since the night at the movies, and I was anything but ok with us just being friends.

I just didn't know if that was what she wanted, too. I breathed deeply, and could almost smell her perfume amongst everything else.

"Don't lie to me, Daniel. You're not good at it. You've changed. Something's wrong, you're not yourself." I shrugged.

"Feelings'll do that to you."

"Feelings?" she asked. Then something happened to her face, and it became blank. "So I take it that...there's someone...there's someone?" And there it was. An out. A cowardly way out. But an out.

I wouldn't have to get down and beg, wouldn't have to demand to know who she would choose if it came down to the two of us.

I nodded and looked away. I rubbed my mouth with my hand, feeling the short bristles that had grown over the last couple of months. I'd trimmed them down into a vain, stupid little beard for today. I wondered if my lie had worked.