Kenny - He was divine; a smooth, creamy caramel colour from nape to toes with perpetually perfect hair and brilliant blue eyes. My girlfriend JB kissed his friend at a beach party and when he discovered we were friends, Kenny asked her to give me his number. I didn't know who he was, but when horny teenage boys are left to their own devices in a small, regional town, they are awe-inspiringly organised when it comes to scoping out chicks. Kenny drove a little, white four wheel drive and was terrified of blood. We were together for six months. In the end he cheated on me with a girl who came to be known as the girl with which all our high school loves cheated. Her name was Karolien. He has a really cute girlfriend now called Kim. I don't know her but I bet she's lovely.
'Chard - My best friend's cousin. He was a handsome rouge with a golden heart. He was the good guy - reliable, and trustworthy. It was impossible not to like 'Chard, and he was the best friend I ever loved, although he had a violently jealous streak. We were inseparable for five months. He moved to Sydney to be with me. We broke up a few weeks later. It took me a long time to understand why I didn't want to be with him anymore. He's married to one of my high school girlfriends now, and every time I see them together it makes me smile.
DC - DC was the most breathtakingly beautiful man I had ever seen. I met him through a friend at The Palace in Coogee. We were 18. He told me I was pretty and called me "LL". He lived in Belmore in a boarding house presided over by an old matriarch called Mary. Mary didn't allow girls in the house. DC would unscrew the screen on his front room window to smuggle me in and he'd stroke my hair and whisper sweet things in my ear until I fell asleep. But he was troubled. Despite the unwavering smile and the irresistible charm, DC was desperately fighting something that I couldn't fully understand. DC had darkness inside him; a powerful, destructive energy that would suck him under for weeks at a time. I became obsessed with fixing him, like nursing a wounded animal.
Cam - Cam was the love of my life, once upon a time. We would have gone to the end of the earth for each other, striking down anyone who dare suggest perhaps we weren't right; that perhaps all the sadness and anger and frustration and fear and heartbreak bubbling beneath the surface was the Universe's way of telling us this was a bad idea. But fuck you, Universe, we weren't going to listen. We thought we could move mountains. We were mean and cruel to each other out of hurt and sadness and desperation and exhaustion. In the end, we were so entangled it took us two years to break free completely. I look back on our relationship as though it was a period of somebody else's life; there is such discord between who I am now and who I was then that I find it difficult to feel anything but empathy for that broken shadow of a girl, as though it wasn't actually my experience, but somebody else's story I once watched unfold. Cam changed the trajectory of my life. I used to resent him for that - now I'm in awe of it. If it weren't for Cam, I wouldn't be where I am or what I am. For that, I thank him.
Si - Light of my life, darling of my days, Si is the kindest man I know. A gentle giant with a brilliant smile and hypnotising, icy-pale blue eyes that belie his precious soul and shine with warmth and love and beauty despite his steely stare. Si is worldy and clever, with an open mind and a beautiful heart. He has a temper - a family curse. I think he'd like to believe he's stone cold, that nothing can hurt him, but I ain't buying it. I still don't know where or how I found him but I plan on keeping him. (Bigger than the world, bigger than the whole sky... xx)
