Touching Earth Lightly by Margo Lanagan

table. And Janey in crisis on the doorstep.
    ‘Cole …’
    ‘I’m in a rush. It’s full dress rehearsal today. I’ve got to go
now
, I’m running late—’
    ‘I need to talk to you.’
    ‘Come too. We can talk on the train.’ She deadlocked the door and shut it, hoping the rush to the station would distract Janey. She didn’t like her hunched look, her rubbed eyes.
    Sweating inside her coat, she led her up the hill and through the shops to the station. Whenever she glanced back Janey had that strained, whitened look. Chloe kept waitingfor a joke that never came. She felt she was dragging her along on a string. Waiting to cross the thundering intersection, Janey said, ‘It didn’t work—none of it worked!’ And looked at Chloe, tears welling, her face bare, pitiful and lost and small without the hair.
    The lights changed. Chloe took Janey’s hand and dragged her across to the station, punched out two tickets from the machine, nearly carried Janey down the long, steep steps to the waiting train.
    She found them a seat at the back of the half-full carriage, took Janey’s other hand. ‘Now, what? What’s going on?’ Her mind was still hurrying, running for the train.
    ‘Nathan—’ Janey got out; then her head went down and Chloe felt tears on her hands, felt Janey shudder all through.
    ‘He found you.’ Janey nodded. ‘Worse.’ Another nod. ‘Oh, bugger him.’
    Janey said something.
    ‘What?’ Chloe feared to hear more.
    ‘I said, please—don’t—
swear
!’ Janey wrenched her hands free and fell against the seat, weeping uncontrollably.
    Chloe’s face was hot and slippery. She took off her coat.
Stuff Nathan
. Stuff
him. I hate him. I could
kill
him
. She felt wilted and exhausted. She lifted heavy arms and laid them around her friend. She was getting anxious looks from other passengers. The train slowed towards the next station and several people got up—to move downstairs, Chloe thought sourly, not to get off the train. She shut them all out, glaring across the suburbs, Janey’s unfamiliar blonde skull in her shoulder.
    ‘He said—’ gulped Janey when the train moved off again, ‘he said—’d
always find me
.’
    ‘That’s just intimidation; it’s a standard tactic. It’s not true.’ Janey cried on, not believing her. Did she even believe it herself? ‘It’s not like he had far to look. Those guys who did over your room could’ve told him, hey.’ Janey curled up against her, and Chloe saw briefly, in the crotch of her blackjeans, a small circle of wetness; the tan stitching had darkened to red. ‘Did he hurt you?’
    Janey nodded, worked herself to a pause. ‘He’s been working out. He’s really strong. And he was angry, and—and—and …
rough
.’
    ‘This isn’t your period, then, this blood?’
    ‘Don’t know,’ Janey hiccupped.
    ‘Where was Bette?’
    ‘Ouch—ouch—out shopping! Oh, Cole, I’ve got no one else except you, man! I’m so sorry!’ And she was gone again.
    ‘God,
you’ve
got nothing to be sorry about. And there
isn’t
just me—’ She wished it were true, knew it ought to be. ‘There are people who’d know exactly what to do for you, who deal with this every day.’
    ‘Oh, the
caring professions
,’ Janey spat. ‘They aren’t what I need! To go through all that
talking
again,
explaining
, watching their faces change—like, “This is disgusting but I’m too professional to show it.” I’ve seen them. I hate all that. I hate seeing that my whole life disgusts people, that it’s a big dirty
hole
I’m always having to be dragged out of. At least you
know
, and your mum, that I’m not—I’m not
all
—’ She put her head down on her knees again and shook with sobs.
    Chloe held Janey’s unyielding shins, laid her hands on the knots of her fists.
    ‘I don’t know, maybe I
am
!’ Janey’s voice fluted high with despair. ‘I can’t see—’
    Chloe held Janey’s head in her hands and pressed her own forehead against