Free The Byron Journals by Daniel Ducrou

working in the music shop and she came in to try out one of the drum kits. She played for ten minutes and by the time she’d finished she had a group of people gathered round listening. I was looking for a new flatmate and she’d just arrived in town, so...’
    â€˜And did you two ever…?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Sleep together.’
    â€˜Me and Heidi?’ He screwed up his face in confusion. ‘Yeah…Umm…but just a couple of times…’ ‘And how did it end?’
    â€˜I dunno. She broke it off and I hooked up with Jade. Until recently, things were kinda strange between us. Heidi’s a tricky one. She was a different person when I first knew her. Kinda prickly. Spent a lot of time locked in her room. It was only when she met Jade that she started coming out of herself a bit. The two of them used to be mad together.’
    Andrew spooned some rice into his mouth and tried to sound casual. ‘What happened to Heidi’s mum?’
    Tim stopped chewing and played with his food. ‘She hasn’t told you?’
    â€˜No.’
    He looked at Andrew. ‘But you know it was a car accident?’
    â€˜No, she hasn’t told me anything.’
    Tim stood up, fanning his mouth, and walked into the kitchen. ‘Sorry mate, it’s not my place to say. I guess she’ll tell you about it when she’s ready.’
    The girls returned late the next morning wearing the same clothes and too out of it to say much. Andrew followed Heidi into the bathroom and watched her undress and step into the shower. ‘How was it? Did you have fun?’
    She laughed. ‘Yep.’
    He studied her body for new marks or hickies. ‘Where did you go?’
    â€˜We went out to this stupid backpacker bar and danced to bad music…on the tables…then went back to Sam’s hotel, took heaps of coke and drank expensive wine. It was luuusssh!’
    He watched the steam drift out the open window into the hot, still day. ‘Heidi, what happened to your mum?’
    Water slapped onto the tiles at her feet and, if she heard him, she pretended she didn’t. He couldn’t stand being shut out like this; everyone seemed to know except him.
    â€˜Please, Heidi,’ he tried again. ‘I want to help.’
    â€˜Get out.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I said, get out. Now!’ Her voice quavered and Andrew saw she was crying.
    He headed into her room and stood there for a moment, uncertain. He changed into his board shorts, cursing himself for pushing her, grabbed his towel and left for the beach. When he returned a few hours later, Heidi was asleep in her bed, snoring quietly with the floor fan rotating beside her.

nine
    â€˜Who bought you the perfume?’ Tim shouted over the music, the empty box dangling from his hand.
    Jade laughed. ‘Don’t you like it?’
    â€˜I hate it. Who gave it to you?’
    Jade frowned. ‘Some tosser from work.’
    â€˜Some tosser from work?’
    â€˜Yeah, babe. Don’t get weird about it. We did a shoot, the company was happy. One of the photographers asked me what my favourite perfume was, and he sent it to me the next day.’
    â€˜Have you had coke already tonight?’ Tim asked.
    â€˜So what if I have?’
    Andrew pushed back his chair, abandoning the game of cards he’d been playing with Tim, and made his way to the stereo. Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’ was pulsing through the speakers.
    â€˜Can I please turn this down?’ he called.
    â€˜Don’t you dare!’ came Heidi’s voice from the bathroom. He hooked around the couch, squeezed sideways through Tim and Jade’s argument in the hallway and turned into the bathroom, the mandarin-vanilla scent of Jade’s perfume lingering in his nose—the same perfume his mum wore. Heidi was wearing a backless long-sleeved dress and high heels, her face close to the mirror while she applied