My problems all started just over five years ago. I will never forget my first day of high school. It was a warm summer’s morning, the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky. Everything seemed perfect. Just metres from the school gates I suddenly felt a sharp crippling pain in my chest. I began to panic and struggled to breathe. No matter what I did I couldn’t seem to get the air I needed into my lungs. I was coughing and wheezing uncontrollably and felt a wave of light-headedness come over me. I didn’t know what was happening and was utterly terrified. I collapsed in a heap on the grass.

The next thing I remember is coming to on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on my face as they wheeled me into the back of an ambulance. The rest of the school looked on in the background.

“You’ve had an asthma attack,” my specialist told me later. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep you in here for a few more days until we have your asthma under control.” Everything seemed so overwhelming. I had never had to take any medications in my life before and now I had four different asthma puffers to use! Two in the morning, one at night and another one for during the day if I needed it.

Little did I know the worst news was yet to come. My parent’s marriage had always had its ups and downs. They seemed to argue an awful lot but according to my friends this was normal. My Dad finally decided that enough was enough and made the decision to leave. By the time I arrived home from hospital he had already gone. I was absolutely devastated! I felt like my whole world had come to an end.

Returning to school was hard. I felt like a bit of an outcast as I wasn’t able to participate in any school camps or sports as a result of my condition. I was shy and had made few new friends. I struggled with my school work and was depressed about my parents’ separation.

For the next couple of years I was in and out of hospital with chronic asthma. Every time I would have a bad asthma attack my parents would draw close to each other for support. Each time I would pray that they’d get back together again and that things would go back to the way they were. On occasion my father did come back home, only to leave again a few days or weeks later. My heart would break all over again.

Over time I began to resent my father and decided that I wanted nothing more to do with him. I had made my mind up that he was to blame for everything. I stopped talking to him and no longer went to visit him on weekends. Secretly it killed me to do this but this was my way of dealing with things.

Before long I was in Year 12 and studying hard to complete my HSC. I was just weeks away from sitting my final exams when more bad news came. One day after school while studying, a quiet knock came on my bedroom door. It was my mother. She sat down on my bed and started to cry. “Your father and I have decided to finalise things,” she told me. “Darling, I don’t know if you realise but it’s now been 12 months since we first saw our solicitors. The divorce will be finalised within a month.”

She paused for a moment and then continued, “I know that you and your father are not close anymore and it saddens me more than you will ever know. He’s respected your wishes and has not contacted you but he wants to see you one last time. He wanted me to tell you that he has gotten a new job. Your Dad will be permanently relocating overseas.”

The news was like a knife in the heart. I was absolutely shattered. My dreams of my parents getting back together were now over. I hated myself for how I had treated my father. I didn’t want my Dad to relocate overseas. Some drastic action had to be taken!

In the days leading up to my final exam I stopped taking my asthma medication. I had noticed that I was coughing and wheezing a lot more than usual but had suffered no serious side effects. Then on the morning of my exam as I slipped out the door I grabbed two cigarettes from my mother’s briefcase. I fumbled around in the school toilets not knowing what to do. After attempting to smoke the first cigarette I was coughing and wheezing so heavily that I flushed away the second one. My plan was working.

I barely made it to the exam room without collapsing. I never made it inside as my teacher led me to the front office and an ambulance was called.

Once again my family reunited while I was in hospital. My father was due to leave the country less than a week after my final exam. He decided not to take the new position overseas and remained in his old job. I longed to wrap my arms around my father and tell him how sorry I was for everything. We’ve been working on our relationship and have gotten to know each other all over again.

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Lil and I had been friends for ages. We spent most of our schooling years together. We were very close and as all friends have their differences, we used to work through ours and they made our friendship stronger. So when I started sleeping with her brother I felt like the worst person in the world.

I started sleeping with Brad about nine months ago — this was all kept a secret at first due to the long term relationship he had been involved in for almost three years. We would meet up secretly and indulge in each other’s company, even though we knew it was wrong. Then the affair became more then just sex. The “L” word was exchanged and as soon as that happened, I was totally intoxicated by the passion that we both shared for one another. I wanted everyone to know! But I knew it wouldn’t be that simple as Lil was my best friend and Brad had his girlfriend.

One night, however, too much vodka made telling Lil seem easy. In a drunken confession I told her that I was sleeping with her brother. Even though I was drunk I could still see how hurt she was by what I had done. I felt even worse then I already did. After I had told her, things stopped with Brad. After seeing the way she looked at me when I told her, I couldn’t put her through that any more, so I ended it with Brad and promised Lil I would stop seeing him.

It was easy at first; I would see him out and only say hi and that was it. But one night we both could not control what we felt and I went back on the promise I had made to my best friend. For the last two months Brad and I have been sleeping together again without anyone knowing. And the thing that puts the icing on the cake is that I found out that I’m five weeks pregnant. I haven’t even told Brad, let alone Lil.

I’m planning to relocate in the next month before I start to show and have no plans on telling Brad that he is the father just yet. I know that he has a right to know that he is going to be a father but I just don’t think that it is the best time to tell him. I will tell him eventually but just not now.

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I’d already had quite a gruelling year. I’d travelled overseas, had a good dose of measles, turned eighteen and there was the sudden death of my best friend — so career choices certainly weren’t on my list of priorities.

Once things settled down I began seriously thinking about what I ought to be doing — earning some money. I plumped up my resume and began to write to local businesses, as well as perusing the papers in search of a stimulating ‘real’ job. I must have written in excess of seventy letters but no one seemed willing to take on anybody without experience. I wondered how on earth I was going to get experience if no one wanted to hire me.

Then, flipping through the newspaper for the millionth time, I came across what I thought might be the job of my dreams — “Dental Assistant Required”. I read on eagerly and to my delight I saw the magical words “no experience necessary”. I wrote a charming cover letter and attached my resume. Three days later I received a phone call from the dental receptionist who informed me an interview had been arranged. I got the job.

A month into it I began to realise what my employer was really like. The nurse who was supposed to be training me when I working with the boss would spend most of her time writing little notes about the client, literally behind their back — scathing comments about their dandruff, nasal hair, or their shoes — and the boss would chuckle behind his mask, and sometimes even write a reply. It didn’t sit well with me.

I was shifted between three dentists in such a way that I was barely able to absorb what each one expected from me. I always seemed to be in trouble! My wage was laughable, a stingy $370 for an eleven-day fortnight — it might have been justified if I was to be formally trained. The job itself was pretty boring and quite revolting. Every day I would watch the eight hours slowly creep by on the clock. Mouths are loaded with bacteria so I caught every cold and flu under the sun — no fun when you have to wear a surgical mask!

When I had to work in close proximity to my boss it was worse. He intimidated me and I could not eat my breakfast on the days I had to face assisting him. Even my rumbling stomach mid-morning would annoy him. Should he be feeling particularly nasty, he wouldn’t hesitate to belittle me in front of his clients. My presence simply irritated him.

The breaking point came when my boss approached me one Friday afternoon and suddenly announced I had two weeks in which to clean up my act or I was out. I was in tears by the time I got home and didn’t want to go back to the clinic. My parents persuaded me to stand my ground and see out the fortnight. I returned on Monday filled with unease, my boss said nothing and the day seemed to go as smoothly as it could, given the circumstances.

When I walked past the front desk on my way back from lunch, I saw in plain view, an advertisement for a new assistant! I was outraged but kept quiet about my discovery. I stewed over it for the better part of a week, wondering what I should do. My parents still maintained I wait, and armed me with all the know-how for when it came to the crunch. It didn’t seem to help how I was feeling, though — waiting calmly for the end to come somehow didn’t seem right. I had to do something to make me feel better about the situation. The opportunity to do so arose sooner than expected.

Over the course of three months I had come to realise many things about my boss that I did not like, the main one being the fact that he was so stingy. There were only two high-speed drills between three dentists. As I finished another awful day in his company and stood to collect the instruments for sterilizing, I accidentally dropped one of these on the floor, snapping a small part of the top clean off. Not wanting trouble again I said nothing; I just pocketed the damaged bit and sterilised the rest of it.

My final week was filled with fun and games. The hunt for the broken drill part had everyone — including my boss — hunting through bins, the sterilizer, and in every corner of the clinic. Had I seen it? No, I lied. I knew he’d love to blame me. A replacement cost around $400. Wow, that’s more than my wage, I thought with glee. Ordering another would take a month. There wasn’t a scrap of remorse in me for his lost tool.

My last day arrived and I wasn’t sorry to go. I told my boss I knew what was coming, that I’d already seen the advertisement for my position. Walking past my now ex-boss’s office I considered leaving the drill part on his desk as a farewell present, but chickened out at the last moment. I’d just got a tiny severance pay and wasn’t at all interested in the prospect of having to dip into it to pay for a replacement drill — no way. Instead, as I made my exit I had a secret moment of satisfaction as I surreptitiously dropped it into the depths of the aquarium in the waiting room.

I later heard that I was not an isolated case; apparently he hired and fired girls regularly. I could have taken him for unfair dismissal but I didn’t have the energy. Besides, I like to think a small piece of revenge lies at the bottom of a large fish tank and Karma can take care of the rest.

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