Ten years earlier…   I plucked up my courage and stepped in front of Alison as we filed out of the Year Nine Civics class on the last day of term before the winter holidays. In my hand was a handwritten note, folded up. I called for her attention and thrust the note into her hand with a half-ways smile. “Hey,” I said with a slight quiver, “read this when you get a chance.” Alison was my first real, big crush. Smart, sop...

Eve. A name that, for three years, had sent my head and my heart on a rollercoaster. The simple mention of her would evoke a flurry of emotions in me, of joy and of pain. How could a girl of such sweet disposition have me cursing her existence, other than the fact that I had such strong feelings for her? We first met when I was sixteen and she was fifteen-and-a-half. We didn’t go to the same school, but we had friends in...

  Affairs began to hit their stride between Emma and me after that Queen’s Birthday long weekend. We had spent much of the remainder of that weekend either in or around my bed: we made love a few more times, but much of the time was spent just cuddling up under my quilt. Eventually on the Monday I dropped her off at her mother’s house, our parting kisses taking even longer than ever. While her and her sister Amber’s livin...

I first met Jessie when we were eight years old. My family and I had not long arrived from interstate when my mother got a job working alongside her mother and soon became friends, and we had been invited to Sunday lunch at their place. I remember seeing a red-haired girl with glasses, playing with Legos in their lounge room. I immediately joined her in her building, and we soon became friendly towards each other. In the...

  That May weekend of the full moon was a turning point in my growing up, and not just for the events of Emma and I on that frosty Friday night. The Saturday afternoon saw me do the one thing many Australian teens do not long after turning eighteen: buying their first car. It might have only been a small three-door hatchback with a few too many kilometres on the clock for its age but it was in good condition and, as I pro...

A call on my mobile at about ten in the evening was how things would normally start. A withdrawn voice, possibly infused with tears, would ask a simple question: “Can I come over?” It would be the advisory that I should expect a girl and her bicycle at my window within the next twenty minutes. It had become something of a routine over the past few months… ---- I had first met Emma the previous year when she accompanied he...