Page 2 of Unnecessary Drama

I crack the door and peer out of the bathroom. I left my dressing-gown in my room by mistake, because I’ve never had to think about covering up as I go from bathroom to bedroom before, and now I have to dash through the house in a too-small towel.

I hurry down the hall, almost running as I get to the kitchen, but I skid to a halt when I see a man and a woman standing there holding boxes, as well as a pre-teen boy sitting on the floor in everyone’s way, playing a Nintendo Switch, and a younger girl wailing, ‘I’m thirsty, Mum!’ and a red-headed toddler holding a Barbie doll that is missing its head.

Harper widens her eyes at me, and I realise she had been knocking to warn me that there were people in the house.

‘This is Brooke,’ Harper says.

They smile and nod and say hello, busying themselves with bags and boxes and crying children, politely averting their eyes from my almost-nakedness. I assume they are new housemate Jeremy’s family. Both of the adults look very familiar: I’ve seen them before, but I can’t place them.

I manoeuvre past them in the kitchen, fake-smiling, acutely aware of the towel sitting barely a centimetre below my butt cheek and also dangerously low across my boobs. This is the second time Harper has seen my upper thighs in the space of twelve hours. I am all for body positivity—when you’re the lessattractive sister in a family you really need to be across that from a young age—but my upper thighs are the body part I’d rather not lead with when getting to know people. They’re just not opening-act material.

The toddler runs over to me, grabs a handful of towel and yanks, which makes the almost-naked situation even more precarious. I bend down awkwardly to remove his chubby little fingers, which have locked onto the towel with some kind of powerful death grip. I did not know children were so strong.

‘Bottom, bottom! It’s a bot!’ the toddler yells, pointing under the towel. Oh my god, where is this child’s mother? I look around in desperation.

‘Oh, here he is,’ Harper says, as someone else walks into the house, a teetering pile of boxes obscuring their face. ‘Brooke, this is Jeremy. Jeremy, Brooke.’

I am too distracted by the toddler’s attempts to humiliate and dominate me to be really paying attention.

‘Oh, no one calls me Jeremy,’ he says.

My head jerks up. Wait. I know that voice.

The box lowers and a pair of eyes appear.

Those eyes.

Then his whole face. Long nose, broad shoulders, shaggy brown hair tucked behind his ears.

It’s Jesse.

3

My heart is pounding and I’m trying to keep my face calm. My jaw suddenly feels locked and frozen. I’m trying to move it and I can’t, but no, I’m not going to panic. It’s fine. It’s fine! Yes, Jesse is moving into my house, but I will process this information calmly and rationally, and my jaw will unlock itself any minute now, my heart will slow down eventually and everything is fine.

‘Jesse,’ I say, my voice strained.

‘You two know each other?’ Harper asks. ‘I guess that makes sense: my grandmother found you both.’ She laughs, but emphasises the word grandmother just a little too hard, and I sense lingering resentment that she was not given the choice to find her own housemates. Harper’s grandparents live in my town, and they know my mother. And, apparently, Jesse’s father.

‘We went to the same school,’ I say, managing finally to get the towel out of the toddler’s tight little fist, but he immediately reattaches himself with both hands and yanks on it even harder. I look around helplessly for someone to intervene. If there was a checklist for the ideal babysitter, I would tick every single box for even the most overprotective parent, but despite this I have no practical experience and I really do not know what to do with small children. Are you allowed to pick them up if they’re not yours? Will they obey you if you speak in a firm authoritative voice, like a dog might?

‘Brooke, of course, you’re Michelle’s daughter,’ Jesse’s dad says, seemingly unconcerned about the battle I am engaged in with his child. His tone sounds disapproving, but it’s hard to tell if that is his voice’s natural cadence or a pronouncement on my mother, or both.

‘Yes. Michelle’s daughter. Hello.’ I’m dripping water onto the floor, and I try to casually wipe it with my bare foot and continue edging towards my room, toddler in tow.

Jesse still hasn’t said anything. He’s just holding the boxes, watching me floundering, an inscrutable look on his face.

‘Jesse, for god’s sake, you haven’t even said hello,’ Jesse’s father snaps. ‘How ’bout you set a good example for your brothers and sister once in a while, huh?’ That heavy disapproving tone again. I have a sudden memory of Nanna describing Jesse’s father as an unpleasant man. Admittedly, she has said this about at least half of the men in our town (including the lovely local GP who bulk-bills even though he doesn’t have to, the smiling brothers who run the butcher shop and give us extra meat for her Siamese cat Minty, and a widower who lives on our street who politely asked her out to lunch), but I think her assessment in this case was accurate. There’s a moment of silent awkwardness.

‘Sorry. Yeah. Hi Brooke,’ Jesse says, clearing his throat.

I last saw him maybe three months ago, on graduation night, but he somehow seems taller now.

‘Hi Jesse,’ I say, trying to look nonchalant and dignified while semi-naked and battling a toddler.

Jesse puts his boxes down and walks over to me. I’m worried about what he’s planning to do, but he leans down, says ‘Come here you’, and scoops up his brother, throwing him over his shoulder in a way that makes the boy scream with delight.

Jesse glances back at me, and our eyes meet. I narrow mine the slightest, slightest bit, a message to him, that…what? That I don’t want us to be housemates any more than he does, but I got here first and if one of us is going to leave then it should be him, that what he did to me five years ago remains the greatest betrayal and humiliation I have ever endured, that I still haven’t forgiven him and I never will. That’s a lot for a momentary, barely noticeable narrowing of eyes to communicate, but I feel like he got the general vibe.