6/11/2023 0 Comments Innocents by Cathy Coote![]() ![]() Before me, a row of girls perched on the rickety wooden bench. I sat cross-legged on the grass, nibbling at my thin vegemite sandwiches. I met my friends for lunch behind the library. The recess before I met you passed like any other. My whole life was geared around avoiding it. A ring of empty space would start to form around me as the people shrank away, and I'd be left standing on my own, irrefutably alien. I kept assuming that eventually, inevitably, I'd be standing in a crowded place and suddenly everyone would start shifting uncomfortably and turning their heads at the smell of other. I was, as always, amazed at my ability to blend in with the masses of us. Red trim pointed like an arrow at our bellies. We also had semi-transparent V-necked white shirts. They were off-red, and looked the way the name sounded. The little shorts were called ‘scungies’. They showed your bum when you bent over, so you had to wear little shorts underneath. They were horrible, scanty, red-pleated things, obviously designed by a pervert. I'm not for one second suggesting that my legs were what you were after. I suppose, at the very beginning, you must have seen my legs. ![]() ![]() The very beginning seems so long ago, though. I know you think you're to blame for what happened. ![]()
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