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"My Friend", by Karina Reilly
Copyright © 2000, Age 20
When people ask you what a friend is like, how do you describe them? How do you say in three words all the times shared and jokes said that make you so fond of that person? How can you answer, "She is pretty, fun and kind", about someone so complex? If I wrote down a million words, I would be happy if I achieve to capture just one small part of her personality.
Imagine a girl who loves football. A girl who spends her Friday nights sitting amongst the boys yelling and screaming at the Newcastle Knights to get their bloody arses into gear because she wasn’t going to lose this week. She doesn’t like to lose. A girl who is struggling to pay the rent each week, but owns every piece of Knights memorabilia available. She has the car seat covers (but can’t drive a car), and the bar mat with no bar to put it on. She owns the thermos, the mugs, the jacket, shirt and boxers. Even the rubber, pencil, ruler and stickers. She was given the official watch for her birthday – it was her favourite present.
This is the girl who, when watching a movie, suddenly sits up in excitement because on a TV in the background, a blurred re-run of a Newcastle Knights football game is playing and she just might catch a glimpse of Paul Harragon.
Imagine the girl who walked into a mobile phone shop inquiring about the $60 Newcastle Knights phone cover. When asked about what type of phone she has she nonchalantly replies, "Oh I don’t own a phone". The girl so obsessed with Paul Harragon that she will plead with you to drive a half hour to a tiny little run-down card shop where the owner, who knows her by name, greets us with a smile and a $10 Paul Harragon football card he ordered in especially. This is the girl who, when finally given the chance to meet her idol (after waiting an hour in the rain behind the football stadium) freezes up with nerves. It is her boyfriend and not her who gets the beloved autograph which is now framed on her wall.
Imagine a person who, quite justly, takes great pride in the feeling that she does not care what other people think of her. A person who openly and honestly declares Xena: Warrior Princess to be one of her favourite shows on television. Who, at the age of seventeen, ran around her school posing for photos in a home-made Callisto outfit, staging sword fights with a friend dressed as Xena. Think of somebody who will chew a straw to a pulp and then shove it in your face, or when given body chocolate for her birthday immediately tries it out on herself and any willing participant in the near vicinity.
Imagine a girl who pierced her tongue because she wanted to and shaved her head because she felt like it. Somebody who will wear a pair of $300 black leather pants to school because she liked them and had nowhere else to wear them.
Picture in your mind the sleeziest pub you’ve been to and then multiply that by ten. See the old men in singlet top and stubbies, drinking beer, burping and ogling the lingerie waitresses in from 5-6pm every Thursday. Now imagine the 5’8” girl with a size 8 waist and 10E bust who will walk in there clad in nothing but a small pink bikini and a tiny see-through sarong to eat dinner with her boyfriend. Not once batting an eyelid at the comments she aroused, firing back dirty remarks faster than lightning.
Imagine that this very same girl will then turn around, look you straight in the eye and very seriously say, "Does this skirt make my bum look fat?".
Imagine a friend who likes all the same things you like. A friend who doesn’t mock your interests, but becomes enthusiastic about them just because you are. She is the friend that went to see Nicolas Cage’s new movie with me when nobody else would...just because it was about crime and hard-core porn. She is the friend who was just as scared as I on the way home from seeing it. Think of a friend who will take you shopping because she likes the outfits you pick out for her and then humours you by buying the accessories to match...even when she can’t afford it.
Imagine the friend who, when you say, "Thank you so much, I owe you big time", never dreams of collecting the favour. And imagine the friend who can make you laugh through your tears when you’re at your lowest point. This is the friend who shares all your secrets, as you share hers.
Imagine a girl with a temper so strong she will kick and punch a tree for half an hour when she’s angry. A girl who threw her phone against a wall, smashing it into tiny pieces, during a fight. This is the girl who, when mad, jumped from a second story balcony, seriously damaging her ankle. The girl who then told everybody she tripped on an uneven footpath because she was too embarrassed to tell the truth.
Now imagine the girl who, in order to have the last word in an argument, stepped from a moving vehicle onto a gravel road. The girl who didn’t roll over and stand up, deciding on a story to tell about the graze on her arm. The girl who never stood up again.
This is the girl who only grudgingly agreed to become an organ donor after a friend lectured her on the lives she could save. Neither one suspected that at the age of nineteen her organs would save the lives of five people...
Imagine the person who can walk into a room packed full of people who are all segregated into small groups, not one mingling with another. Imagine this person who will not say a word and within moments be surrounded by those same people. People from every group. Just because she was who she was. She was Harley.
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