The good book tells us about people like Mick. It says, "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Coming from my dysfunctional and abusive childhood home, that wasn't difficult, but Mick was all the friend I ever needed and then some.

We met in my last years of school, transition time, when other teenage girls were focused on fashion and makeup. All I wanted to do was crawl under a rock. My mother calls it my 'refugee phase.' When I wasn't in school uniform, I was bare footed in disposal store army greens with a pocket full of conte pastels. Wherever I went I filled sketchbooks full of doodlings.

I was a good student in that I topped my grade, though with very hit and miss study habits. Mick was a battler, trying hard to pass English and most of the time missing the mark. It was only natural our teacher eventually put us together.
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Mick found I was good at passing on knowledge. I've always had a knack for breaking things into digestible pieces. He also found I lived just around the corner from the home he shared with his single mother and three younger siblings. We always walked home together after that. He was head of his household at fifteen years old and took the job really seriously. That impressed me, though having to look out for his bratty little brother was a trial.

At his place, we'd sit on his bed and go over grammar, spelling, literature, you name it, sometimes for hours until one or both of us had to go for tea. Now I know nice girls don't spent hours unchaperoned in a boy's bedroom, but honestly, the thought it could be dangerous to my virtue never occurred to me, and much to his credit, if it did occur to Mick, he never let on.

His grades improved and we continued our habit of chatting for hours at a time. Talk turned to motor bikes. Then when we weren't talking motors, we were out bush bashing our 125's along the bush edges of our developing suburb. Sometimes we got hopelessly lost and had to retrace our steps, or should that be tyre marks? Mick taught me to tinker with the motor and make it purr. He was always good at practical things like that.

I started to experiment with the usual suspects that get teens into trouble, and found out I have a low tolerance for alcohol. I swear I could get drunk on a piece of rum pudding. Mick held my hair back from my face as I threw last week's lunch into the gutter and gave a cheeky disbelieving grin when I swore I'd never touch the stuff again. He never drank when he was with me, though I know he did his own experimenting at other times.

He was with me when I started dating boys too. We talked like girlfriends over the virtues and otherwise of prospective candidates. I took him along on first dates in case I needed an escape. I wonder what my dates thought of my male friend come body guard? I went to muso meets which can get really rough, but Mick kept me safe. I never for a moment doubted he would. It never occurred to me the danger I put him in. He got in more than one scruff in my defence. Lucky for me he was a tough nut and handy with his fists.
Eventually I fell in love for the first time, and Mick was there to let me go. In the way of the young and foolish, I became utterly obsessed with the object of my desire. Mick started dating that year. I often wondered why he didn't have a girlfriend; tall, tough, tender, funny.... The truth was, with me around, the poor guy didn't get time. With me removed, there were quite a number of contenders.

Mick dropped everything the day my boyfriend died. He came to my door early one morning to tell me so I wouldn't read it first in the newspapers. It was him that caught me in his arms so I could not fall, and him that held me until I stopped crying.

Our school graduation came and went, and we took off to north Queensland, bean picking through the school holidays before we started more permanent work. He'd bought a bigger bike by then and took me pillion though it meant less room for his luggage. He was right though, my little bike would never have made the trip, much less kept up with his.



I stated to date again in the resilient way of the young, and promptly got dumped. I guess I wasn't quite as good a catch as I'd thought. I asked Mick what was wrong with me. I remember his reply as if it was yesterday.



"Absolutely nothing! The guy's a jerk."



This is exactly what a woman wants to hear in those circumstances. What a friend.



Eventually work commitments took us in opposite directions and we lost contact. I got married. After a lot of years I tracked down his mother. She told me Mick was offshore, working on an oil rig. He was dating a postie. I just knew it would be someone who loved bikes. We laughed about our growing up years and I mentioned how I'd often despaired Mick would find a girlfriend. She went really quiet.



"You never worked it out?" Her eyes looked old and sad.



"How could he find someone else when he loved you so passionately and completely?"



I sat back in shock. I'd never known. I'd never even considered him in that way. All the secrets and experiences we shared started flitting through my head like a slide projector, only this time, without the shutters. I must have put the boy through hell. I'd even asked him to kiss me once, just to make sure I was doing it right. I realised then, I'd not been a very good friend, certainly not what he deserved. I never asked him the secrets of his heart.



What a self controlled, insightful boy. Knowing the innocent love I held for him, knowing I did not feel that way about him, knowing it would change our relationship irrevocably, he never once told me how he felt. I only hope the woman he found recognises and appreciates his qualities. I know he found a friend who will never forget him.

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