Free Peeling the Onion by Wendy Orr

beginning of independence. I wake up as excited as Matt at Christmas—today's the day I get out of bed all by myself, nothing on my neck but the foam bedtime collar. Walk to the mirror. My head doesn't fall off.
    'Decrease the frame gradually,' Mr Osman said yesterday. 'In a month you should be wearing the collar all the time.'
    I'm in the shower. All alone; nobody helping, nobody watching; I can even sing if I want! My plastic bag leaks, the collar's soggy and my neck's ready for a rest by the time I'm dry, but I don't care. The district nurse has just been fired.
    Even my toast tastes better when my jaw's not propped up by metal struts.
    'But I'm used to you with it on,' Matthew objects. 'This one looks stupid.'
    Dad's sister Lynda's come up from Melbourne this week. 'I love March up here; you feel like you want to get out there and grab the last bit of summer! Do you people realise how lucky you are, having the river right at your back gate?'
    'That's why we bought it,' Dad says dryly.
    What wouldn't I give to go with her, to scramble through the undergrowth to the path, climb over the enormous bleached log whose top branches stretch far enough over the river that you can climb out and jump straight in to swim . . .
    But I can only just make it across the back yard without falling.
    Which Lynda hasn't taken long to spot. That's the problem with having a nurse in the house for a few days—lots of time for her to sit and observe.
    'You're dizzy, aren't you?'
    'Not that bad. You get used to it.'
    'You keep pretending you've just got out of Luna Park? God, Anna, you must be mad as hell about all this! How do you cope with it?
    'I try not to think about it.'
    'Great idea—repress it all and give yourself cancer! Sorry, kid, but you'll have to look at it eventually. I'll leave you a few books that might help.'
    I've phoned Caroline and she's coming over. So simple—I don't know why I wasted time being tense.
    Because now that she's here, she's smiling, laughing, chattering. I'm looking a lot better now, must be great to have that plaster off; have I heard that the Year 10 boys all shaved their heads to go on camp? Look like dags, can you believe it? And she's trying out for the production of Oliver; thinks she's got a good chance of getting the part of Nancy. It's a fair commitment, but she's sure she can handle it without letting her grades drop.
    'Though they don't slack off the work requirements or give you any special help if you've got in-school commitments, not like when you're having a sickie.'
    It slides in and out like a knife; slipped in so sweetly, in the same breath with the gossip, that it takes me a moment to feel the sting. The savagery.
    I'm numb. I don't think I can speak—but as she leaves I hear my automatic, 'See you later.'
    Caroline pulls out her school diary and flips through it; the mask has slipped, she's frantic, panicky—'I don't know what I'm doing next week.'
    So am I supposed to make an appointment?
    But now I know for sure—the viciousness wasn't a slip of the tongue. She hates me.
    She was my friend. A friend who shared secrets; who brought me flowers; who wiped the blood from my legs.
    I always knew that if I ever started to cry I'd never be able to stop, and now I've started and it's true, there's so much sadness, so much misery inside me and it won't stop till there's nothing left of me. These tears aren't coming from my eyes, they're pouring out of my soul, out of every bit of my body, my blood and my muscles and right down to my bone marrow where the deepest, harshest grief has been buried. I didn't think I could feel like this and still live, but the misery, the tears, and the terrible wailing noise keep on going, and I think maybe this is what hell is, to know that your life is out of control and there's nothing you can do about it.
    Ben's howling outside in echo; Matt and Bronny are peering round my door, Bronny clutching Sally so tightly that the cat's yowling