“They don’t care about me,” I retorted, angrily looking away. I hated that the second he knew my age, I was being babied.

“Hey now, birdy,” he whispered. I felt his presence close by, and then the clinking of the metal chains of our swings. “I don’t mean to upset you. Just lookin’ out for you.”

I turned back to look at him. He was rubbing his bearded cheek with one hand and putting out his cigarette against the metal pole behind us.

“Why do you even care?” I inquired curiously. “You don’t even know me.”

“Don’t gotta know you to know you, birdy. Just gotta be there to make sure you ain’t in shit you don’t ever wanna be in.”

What a strange answer. Was he high? He looked in control of himself. His eyes weren’t dilated either. Huh.

“How will you know if I’m in shit I don’t ever wanna be in?”

I felt his leather jacket against my cotton pyjama top and watched him angle his head so that it was mere inches from mine. I smelled the cigarette smoke as he breathed out, and a musky kind of cologne that was surprisingly pleasant. I had to shut my mouth so I didn’t stare at awe at his rough beauty. No one would have found this man beautiful. Why the hell did I?

“You’d be surprised,” he softly answered. “One day I might just pop outta the blue and you won’t ever know it. Might pull a few strings, dangle an opportunity in front of you. All the while you’ll be living life unaware of my intrusion.”

I was so fucking lost, it wasn’t even funny. Yet I was so mesmerized by his voice and face, I didn’t stop to swallow the words until long after. He didn’t know me, yet he acted as if he did. But that wasn’t possible because this was our first meeting, and, most likely, our last.

“How ‘bout headin’ home now, Sara?”

I shook my head, defiantly. “I’m waiting for my friend.”

His lips curved upwards into a smirk. “Alright, then, stubborn one. You can wait on your guy. Be careful, though. I don’t wanna see you lurkin’ around here on your own again.” Without expecting it, he ruffled my hair at the top and stood up.

My body screamed No! and my mind kicked back in relief at his departure.

“See you around, birdy.” And just like that, he was gone. Never learned his name. Damn shame. I sat in the stillness of the night a while longer, mulling his words over.

It was right then I wondered how he knew I was waiting on a guy.

Two

I hated high school with a passion. Jaxon promised me that he would look out for me and that it wouldn’t be as agonizing as people made it out to be. Lucinda loomed over my shoulder throughout the summer leading up to my first year. She was itching to have me looking the part of a high school teenage girl.

She sat me down the night before my first day and did my nails for me. I’d never had my nails done by her before – and not from her lack of trying!

“You need to stop biting these off, Sara,” she whined.

“You’re going to cut them off anyway,” I replied stubbornly.

“That’s not the point. You’re in the habit of biting them off, and I don’t want to dare see your new nails bitten off tomorrow. I’m doing these free of charge, young lady. Be grateful.”

I attempted to feel grateful, but her talking about nails was already making me want to chew them off again. She’d been extra attentive to me lately. She insisted I remove the hairs from my face, whining that my moustache was a sin to female humanity -- and don’t even get me started on what she said about my eyebrows…

She gave me my first make up kit and taught me how to apply it. It was a long process that I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to commit to, but she pushed and pushed until I relented and made her a promise that I would. She took me to the hair dressers and had my hair cut in layers. After my father had left, I had the freedom to let it grow. I never knew how thick hair could be, or how time consuming it was to wash it every night with Lucinda’s “rinse and repeat” method and shampoos she’d given me.

“We can put colour in it,” she’d said, combing her fingers into my dark brown wavy mess.

“Please don’t,” I begged. Her paying for the cut was already too generous.

She spoiled me rotten, and took me to some second hand shops for clothes. With the price on some of the items I wondered why on earth I’d grown up with barely anything in my closet. There was no excuse for my parents not to spend so little on me. How fucking petty of them.

“You see, Sara,” she started, going through the racks of the clothing store, “you find a second hand shop near the wealthy area. Rich people love to throw their clothes away, and you don’t want to miss out on that. Are you listening to everything I’m saying?”

She’d noticed I’d wandered off in thought. “Hmm?” I said, looking at her.

“Sara,” she sighed, “be appreciative of me. I have a lot of wisdom to share, but only if you’re listening. You’re like the daughter I never had.” A daughter you’re trying to vicariously live through, I thought with amusement.

“You need to impress the boys. After I’m done with you, I’m sure you’ll have your first date the same week you start.”

That didn’t give me pleasant feelings. I liked boys, don’t get me wrong, but I was just too timid around them. It was hard enough talking to girls my age; imagine my stumbling ass in front of a cute boy!

When I envisioned myself talking to a boy, I had all the wittiest lines picked out in my head. I imagined myself twirling my long hair with my impeccable make up on, wearing the best outfit I had, and flirting graciously without flaw to a smiling and enamoured muscular boy… And then I brought myself back to reality and remembered just how impossible that reality was. Imagination and reality were two entirely different dimensions. While I was a flawless rock-star babe in one, I was a complete shy scatterbrained mess in the other.

It also didn’t help I was in a phase that included men in leather jackets, buzzed haircuts and light beards! Or the fact that this phase had me intentionally walking past bikie owned shops in the hopes of finding that mystery swing man I’d met. Oh, how pathetic I was!

“You’re turning into such a pretty girl,” Lucinda said as she set my nails under the nail dryer. The heat soaked in pleasantly around the tips of my fingers.