We walk to Clem’s place in silence and the house is locked up and dark.
I blow up the air mattress and drag the sleeping bag down from the top shelf of his wardrobe. Anywhere else would be hot and humid for a sleeping bag, but Clem’s parents have ducted heating and cooling and the house is almost too cold.
Clem hasn’t moved from the floor.
I roll over to face him. ‘I’m so full of pizza I can barely move.’
‘Hmph.’
I prod his arm and, after a moment, he prods me back. ‘You okay? You wanna talk about it? I’m good at talking about stuff like this.’
‘I know. I know you are.’ He sighs. ‘You’d think I’d be used to them doing this, but it hurts every time.’
‘They love you.’
‘I know they love me, in their own screwed-up way. Just not enough to actually make any time for me.’
We hear the sound of a car pulling up, the opening and shutting of the door.
‘Clem?’ his father’s voice calls up the stairs.
Clem sighs and stands up, going slowly downstairs. I can’t hear what they’re saying, just the low ebb and flow of voices belonging to people who no longer really know how to talk to each other.
I look around Clem’s room. People’s rooms fascinate me. Taylor had regularly thrown out everything in hers and redecorated with things she’d got cheap from the op shop. So much of Clem’s bedroom is just as it’s always been; the same toys and figurines he’d had on his shelves when I met him in kindergarten when he was still living in his old house. The same wooden aeroplane hanging in the corner. The same little chest of drawers, the same wardrobe.
Clem comes back upstairs, his feet heavy on the steps.
‘What did he say?’ I ask.
‘Not much.’ He pulls a wad of cash out of his pocket. ‘You can take my bed. I don’t mind the blow-up one.’
‘Nah, I’m all settled. Seriously. What did your dad say?’
‘I told you, not much. But he did give me money.’
I peer at it. ‘Bloody hell.’
Clem shoves it at me. ‘Take it.’
‘No way. It’s yours.’
‘I don’t want it, okay? I don’t want it. Take it or I’ll toss it out the window.’
I reach for it slowly and tuck it under the blow-up mattress, knowing that I’ll hide it in his room before I leave in the morning.
‘Have you read your letters yet?’
‘I will,’ I say. ‘After Christmas.’
Clem gets into bed and I must fall asleep, because suddenly I’m awake and it’s after midnight and I can hear both Clem’s parents moving around the house, arguing with each other in voices that aren’t quite low enough. I reach for my letters, which are tucked into my backpack. Clem is sitting on his bed with his knees up under his chin, listening to them and staring out the window at the trees and the sky and the moon.
I drowsily stretch up one of my hands and Clem reaches down and takes it.
‘Thanks for staying, Price,’ he murmurs. His fingers squeeze mine, just as I’m falling back to sleep.
***
I wake up to a squeal and Clem swearing. I sit up and blink as Clem’s mother drags him out of bed.
‘This is not on!’ she says. She grabs him by the arm. ‘How dare you? Under our roof! You’re a child!’
Clem jerks free. ‘Nothing happened, Mum! And I’m not a kid – I’m eighteen!’
She turns to me. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Stella. I’m calling your mother.’
‘My mother?’
‘She needs to know you’re completely off the rails.’
‘Off the rails?’
‘Both of you, stay up here. No touching. And keep the door open.’
I sink back down onto the blow-up bed, frowning. Clem puts his head in his hands and groans.
‘What’s happening?’ I ask, rubbing at my eyes.
‘Mum’s happening,’ he says.
She comes back into the room, looking calmer. ‘Your mum’s on her way.’
‘Um. Alright.’
She sighs and sits down at Clem’s desk. The books on parenting I’ve read say that it’s good to do that. That it makes parents seem more approachable and open, or something. It suddenly occurs to me that those particular types of self-help books are full of crap because there’s nothing approachable or open about Clem’s mother, right now. ‘I know you probably feel like grown-ups, but sex is a very adult thing, with adult consequences.’
‘Sex?’ I echo. ‘Huh?’
‘Mum! Oh my God! We’re friends!’ Clem bellows. ‘We’re just friends!’
‘Oh, please! Anyone can see the way you look at her!’ His mother rolls her eyes. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday?’
Clem goes bright red.
‘Mrs Liu?’ I say, my voice very quiet. ‘I promise you – there’s nothing going on. Clem was just really upset you both missed his birthday and I stayed to make sure he was okay, that’s all.’
Clem’s mother goes very still.
‘Mum, you’re so embarrassing,’ Clem says, burying his head in his hands. ‘You’re so old-fashioned! Girls and boys can be friends!’
She shakes her head. ‘Not when they look at girls the way you look at Stella.’
The buzzer sounds. ‘That was fast,’ she says.
I hear a familiar nervous laugh drift up from downstairs and the sound of feet across tiles. ‘My mum’s here now. Great.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Clem. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Mum comes into the room. ‘What’s all this?’ she asks. She’s gone blotchy and her hair’s standing on end, just the way she doesn’t like it to.
‘They missed his birthday yesterday, so I stayed over to make sure he was okay. I slept on a blow-up bed!’ I snap. ‘We’re just friends! You know we’re just friends!’
‘It’s all okay,’ Mum says, sitting down on Clem’s laundry hamper. Clem’s mother sits back down at the desk and crosses her arms.
‘Sex can be great,’ Mum says. ‘It really, really can. And you’re getting older. I get it. I do. But you’re still too young. You can’t understand all the consequences, not how you need to.’
I press my hands to my ears. ‘Please stop.’
‘Were you safe?’
‘Mum!’
‘Because I know it can seem like a great idea, but then . . .’
‘I know. I’m adopted, remember? I know what the consequences are! And, just for the record, if we were sleeping together – and, I repeat, we are very definitely not – we wouldn’t be dumb enough to get caught!’
‘I don’t think there’s much point going on,’ Mum says to Clem’s mother. ‘They’re not going to listen. C’mon, Stella.’
Clem’s mother nods. She points at us. ‘You’re not to be up here alone together, understood? I only want you in the living room. With the doors open.’
‘Because you can’t have sex on a couch,’ Clem mutters.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’