You Don't Even Know Read Online Free PDF

the gap. “Alex, have you stopped squaring now?’
    My rage dissolved. “Yeah, Mia, I’ve stopped.” I pushed the chair back from the computer. “Sorry about that.”
    Mia slipped into the room. She stood in front of me, her small hand clenched in a fist.
    â€œWhatcha got there, Mi?”
    â€œMummy bought me chocolate after ’nastics.” She held out the fist and uncurled her fingers. Nestled on her chubby palm was a plastic penguin figurine from the movie she loved. “He’s for you.”
    â€œHe’s cool, Mi. But you keep him. Penguins are your favourite.”
    She shook her head. “Yes, but he’s for you. You swim like a penguin.”
    I smiled, remembering her endless giggles last summer when I swam the length of our pool under water, bursting through the surface at her feet, making penguin noises. At least the noises I figured penguins made. She had me do it again and again, until my lungs felt like over-stretched elastic.
    â€œAlex, can you teach me to swim like a penguin?”
    â€œYou have to learn other stuff first, Mi.”
    â€œTeach me that, then the penguin swim.”
    â€œOkay. Sure.” I closed my fingers around the figurine.
    Mia jumped and clapped. “Now?”
    â€œNot today, Mia. What about Saturday morning?”
    She nodded, face serious. “Saturday. Morning.”
    â€œDone. Saturday morning it is.”
    Mia hugged me and skipped from my room.
    I sat the penguin under my computer monitor and pumped out that stupid essay.

17
N EUROSURGERY H IGH D EPENDENCY U NIT , P RINCE W ILLIAM H OSPITAL
    â€œHe doesn’t remember what happened.”
    I don’t know who is speaking and I don’t care. It’s what’s being said that captures my attention.
    Doesn’t remember what happened.
    Remember. I grit my teeth and try.
    I remember anger.
    Sorrow. No not sorrow, something deeper, more painful.
    I remember slamming the front door, scared and pleased to have left my phone on the bed. Scared, because I felt naked without it. Pleased, because it meant a day of not being hounded by Dad about school and essays and manning up.
    I remember a tram ride. The city. Grey roads and buildings. Leafless trees and bedraggled gardens. Blank-faced people. The colour and life leeched from everything except my maroon school-bag.
    I remember sitting outside the State Library, swamped in a cold, desolate feeling that filled me so completely it spewed out my pores and whirled around me like sea mist.
    I remember grey people scurrying down city streets, hunkered down in coats and wrapped in scarves.
    I remember the icy murkiness seeping from me to them, consuming them so they shuddered as they passed.
    My head hurts. I yawn …

18
A LEX
    I yawned and staggered from my bedroom to the hall. Mia burst out her door, wearing her pink Barbie swimmers and goggles, which were almost over her eyes. The elastic strap had bunched up her hair at the back.
    â€œIt’s Saturday morning, Alex.”
    â€œYou don’t have to put on your goggles yet, Mia,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
    â€œYes. I do. Or the ’lorine will make my eyes sore.”
    â€œYeah, but you could leave them off until we’re at the rec centre.”
    Mia did a little kid groan and stamped her foot. “Why can’t you teach me at home, Alex?”
    â€œBecause the rec centre has a special pool for teaching kids to swim, and it has shallow areas where you’ll be able to touch the bottom, and it’s warmer than our pool.” Plus there was less chance of Dad and Ethan turning up and picking on everything I did. “Anyway, we don’t have a huge slide here, do we?”
    Mia’s grin dislodged her goggles. She frowned and pulled them off. “Stupid things,” she muttered, inspecting them. “Promise you’ll take me on the slide, Alex?”
    â€œAfter we’ve been swimming – cross my heart, hope to die.