New Beginnings

by Megan Keith

  I thought I’d moved on from Emma but her being here confirms it. Rather than the pangs of jealousy and hurt I would’ve expected, I only feel happiness. For her. Joy that she’s found her special someone. Looking back at Bianca I know that I’ve found the same thing. B is my special someone. I just hope she feels the same way. I grab hold of her hand and pull it to my lap, placing my fingers between hers and giving her hand a squeeze. She catches me staring and smiles at me briefly before turning her attention back to the conversation. She seems rather impressed with Nick’s song, though I have to admit I haven’t ever heard it.

  “Wow. I still can’t believe we bumped into each other like this,” Emma says to me.

  “I didn’t even think you were in the country,” I reply.

  “We’ve only been back a week. Nick’s doing a two month tour of Europe soon so we thought we’d best come back to Oz and catch up with everyone while we could. A friend of ours’ lives near here and is meeting us for lunch. Speak of the devil…” Emma’s eyes light up as both her and Nick stand to greet a woman.

  “Nick!” the woman shrieks as Nick lifts her in the air and squeezes her in a bear hug. “I’ve missed you.” She pecks him on the cheek before struggling to get to the ground and turning to Emma for another hug. “Both of you.”

  “Hailey, it’s so good to see you.” Emma offers a quick round of introductions and then Hailey pulls a chair from a nearby table to join us.

  “So guys, what have you been doing since you came back?” Hailey questions them.

  “Catching up with family, mainly,” Emma answers.

  “Oh, Nick, your parents must be so proud. Your song is doing so well!” Hailey gushes. “I actually heard it on the radio again about ten minutes ago.”

  “Yeah? That’s so cool! Ma heard it on the radio the other day too, she turned it up full blast and was boogying away. We were all in the kitchen at the time. The look on Dad’s face was priceless.” Nick laughs and shakes his head.

  “Not as good as when he saw the figures on your contract though.” Emma laughs too. “Now that was priceless! I’ve never seen a man go so red!”

  “Yeah, he had no idea how many extra zeroes my ‘hobby’ could bring in. I may have left it in plain view on purpose.”

  “Serves him right, he’s such an arse.” Emma gives Nick’s hand another squeeze. “Underneath it all though, I could tell he was proud, babe.”

  I notice Bianca has been quiet and as the conversation continues without the two of us I realise it’s past time we leave.

  “Well, we should get going. Nice to meet you Hailey.” I stand and wait for Bianca to do the same.

  “It was so good to see you Seth.” Emma says her goodbyes but remains seated and I’m glad - I don’t need another awkward hug from her.

  No, what I need is to have Bianca all to myself again.

  Bianca

  I’m relieved to be out of there. What are the chances? I can’t believe we ran into his ex like that. Or that she’s dating a famous musician. And I also can’t believe how stupid I’ve been. Seth’s not over her. I thought … it doesn’t matter what I thought. I just have to accept that Seth and I won’t be together much longer. He doesn’t feel for me what he does her. He’ll be moving back here soon and I have to make the most of the time we have left.

  Surprisingly, I’m even looking forward to the bike ride I was dreading earlier. It will be good to clear my head.

  “Have you ever wanted to travel overseas?” Seth asks on the way to the garage to get the bikes.

  “I guess I’ve thought about it a little,” I answer with a shrug.

  “Some of the places Emma and Nick have been to sound amazing!” He starts wiping the dust and cobwebs off the bikes while he talks about all these places in Europe that Emma told him about. I guess while I was speaking to Nick, and trying to ignore the hurt I felt at seeing the two of them together, they discussed a lot. I turn away from him, not wanting to see how much he’s glowing while talking about everything Emma has done.

  “Bianca?”

  “Sorry? What?”

  “Are you ready to ride?” He gives his eyebrows a suggestive wiggle as he stands beside the bike in front of me. All of the madness of the day subsides. I can do this. I can enjoy this fine specimen of a man for the little time we have left. I just need to stop thinking so damn much.

  “Yep, let’s do this!” I smile at him genuinely. No matter where my thoughts are leading I can’t stay mad at him.

  Seth

  I don’t push myself too hard as I ride down the path because Bianca looked so scared when she first hopped on and lost her balance in the driveway.

  “You doing okay?” I ask over my shoulder.

  “Yep!” she calls back. She’s wobbling behind me on Tahlia’s bike. She looks adorable.

  When I stop at the street corner she comes to a grinding halt beside me. Her feet quickly fall to the ground to steady herself.

  “You sure you’re good?”

  “I’m fine. Stop fussing.” She huffs. Her face is flustered and red. “It’s slowly coming back to me.”

  “Okay.” I point to my right. “See that big tree over there? That’s the entrance to the park. There’s a really good path that loops around it. That’s where we’re headed.”

  “Okay.”

  I take off down the road with Bianca following. When we reach the beginning of the park I can’t help but speed up a little. I’ve missed this. I love the feeling of the wind in my face and the sun on my back. Bianca catches up and falls in beside me and I turn my head to find her smiling.

  “You’ve got the hang of it now!”

  “Yep!” She gives me a grin. “It’s just like riding a bike!” She laughs and then speeds up. I quickly catch and overtake her. We meander along the path under the huge trees and I feel free. Able to tackle the world. All my worries just fly away with the wind. I hear an angelic laugh on my right. I turn my head just in time to see Bianca flash past me. She looks over her shoulder and throws me a wide grin, her hair getting in the way.

  “Catch me if you can!” she yells and then speeds up.

  I pedal faster and faster but she’s faster still. I’m starting to pant and I call out to her but she doesn’t slow down. I hear the sudden bang of a car backfiring in a nearby street. A man jogging past me has Kings of Leon blaring from a portable speaker hooked to his arm - the song, ‘Sex on Fire’.

  “SETH! C’mon!” Bianca yells and I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I lose my momentum, my foot slips from the pedal and I fall to the ground. Pain shoots through my knee and I see that it’s bleeding but that’s not what’s freaking me out.

  It’s my dream.

  This is my dream, the one I’ve been having all this time. It’s here and brought to life.

  It wasn’t Emma.

  It was never Emma.

  Bianca

  “Are you alright?” I push the kick stand down and remove my helmet. “What happened? Oh shit, you’re bleeding.”

  “It’s you,” he whispers, his fingers reaching for me as I squat beside him.

  “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?” I ask with a laugh.

  “You have to marry me, Bianca.”

  He blinks at me and I know I’m scowling when I ask, “What?”

  “Marry me.”

  “Um. Did you hit your head, Seth?”

  “No.”

  “You must have. You’re not thinking clearly.”

  “No. I didn’t hit my head. I’m thinking the clearest I ever have.” Then he lifts himself up onto one knee, the bloody one pointing my way. “Bianca, will you please marry me?”

  Unwanted tears instantly spring to my eyes. “No. What is wrong with you? Seth, we only just started dating and you … you must have hit your head. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He grabs hold of one of my hands.

  “No.” I feel the anger starting to take hold. I pull away from him and start p
acing. “You just saw one of your exes get married to your best friend. Then the next day, you saw the other one, Emma, the one you wanted a future with, happily having that future with someone else!” He tries to speak over me but I don’t listen. I pace and my words come faster, louder. “That’s where your heads at. You’re suddenly wondering where your life is going. You’re worried that you’re being left behind and you want what they all have. You’re confused.” I stop. My eyes search his for … something … anything that proves I’m wrong. “You don’t want me, Seth.”

  “I do. I’ve never wanted anything more.”

  “Yes. You wanted Emma more.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “We’ve only just started dating. We’ve hardly even got a relationship here. We’re, we’re …” We’re not even in love, I think, but I know it’s not true. I do love him. Oh my god, I’m in love with Seth!

  That doesn’t make a lick of difference. I have to protect myself. He still loves her. He may be happy enough to settle, but I’m not. I don’t want to be someone’s second prize. I deserve to be someone’s first choice!

  “We’re what?” His confused expression and the following silence make it impossible for me to look him in the eye.

  “We don’t even love each other! Why the hell would we get married?”

  His eyes search mine for a long while. “You don’t love me?” he asks, his vocal chords sounding like he’s being strangled.

  I shake my head. The hurt in his eyes cuts me to the core. Yes! I want to scream. Yes, I love you! But I can’t, my mouth won’t open to allow the words to escape. If I thought for one second that he was serious right now. If I thought he loved me back, in the way that I deserved … that he wasn’t in a world of pain after seeing Emma, and feeling desperate that his life needs to move the next step - in the direction of marriage because society wills it - then yes, I wouldn’t hesitate in telling him how I feel. But that’s not the reality of the situation. I don’t love him? Of course I love him, the problem is he doesn’t love me. He loves the idea of love and the thought of marriage and family, and a ‘happily ever after’ future, but I’m not the one he truly wants.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asks, but I’m so lost to my own thoughts that I’m unsure of what he’s referring to. “Because I’m fairly certain that you do.”

  “I do what?”

  “Love me. Bianca-”

  “No Seth. You need to stop with this nonsense. You’re feeling confused.”

  “I’m not confused! I know what I want.” He’s on his feet trying to reach me but I back away from him.

  “Oh yeah? You are so desperate to have what Emma and Nick, and Kev and Beck have that you’re willing to settle on me? Just so you can attempt to be where you expected your life to be by now? Well, guess what Seth? Life doesn’t always go according to plan.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Oh really? You want to marry me?” I know I’m shouting now but I can’t seem to stop.

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t even told me you love me!”

  “I love you.”

  “Not now Seth,” I lower my voice when a man walking his dog steps past me. “Don’t say it when you don’t mean it.”

  “I do mean it. I love you!” He grabs hold of my hand but I again pull it from his grasp. “God, Bianca, why are you being like this? Why are you making this so difficult?”

  “Me? You’re the difficult one! Everything was going fine until you brought me here. I should never have come with you this weekend!”

  “You don’t mean that.” The hurt on his face is palpable.

  “I do!” It’s a lie, because I really don’t feel that way. As much as I’m doubting his feelings and hating his kneejerk reaction to what went on this weekend, I don’t regret coming. I enjoyed my time with him, meeting his family, making friends with Beck, the trip to the lake, the cottage-oh god, that house! I could never regret that. But the future I was thinking of on the ride down from Sydney is like a distant memory. It’s a future we can’t have and this weekend also proved that to me. Our lives are in different cities. He’s hung up on his ex and hung up on rushing to make the next expected step in life.

  Not on me, though, he’s not hung up on me.

  He can’t ask me to marry him on the spur of the moment like this. Perhaps if we hadn’t come to Melbourne and been thrust into facing these realities, perhaps we could have made a go of things. Maybe he would have fallen in love with me and, in time, we could have had the future that he’s talking about, the one I envisioned, but now I can’t see myself getting around the fact that he wants to push something that isn’t natural. He wants to force marriage on me now to secure some sort of distorted future out of pure desperation.

  “Are you okay to ride?” I ask, grabbing my helmet from the ground and putting it back on. “I’d like to go back to the house now.”

  Seth

  Pain shoots through my knee with every pedal of the bike, but I welcome it. The sting is nothing compared to the feeling in my chest. I did it again. Just like last time, I tried to rush things. I got ahead of myself and put too much pressure on our relationship. I fucked it up. The dream did crazy things to my mind, tricked me into thinking it was the right thing.

  No. It was the right thing. Bianca is the one. I know it. And I don’t need some stupid recurring dream to tell me that. I knew it before that moment. I just … I just spoke too soon. That’s all.

  She’s wrong about me. I didn’t just ask her because I was pushing to follow some life plan. I asked her because I know she’s IT. Bianca is it for me. I don’t believe that she doesn’t feel it too. She has to love me back.

  Bianca

  I beat Seth back to the house, quickly leave the bike in the garage and make my way inside. I slip past his family and go into his room, shutting the door behind me.

  Minutes later, it reopens and a murderous look overshadows Seth’s face when he sees me packing my bag.

  “I, um … I might find my own way home.”

  “What? You can’t be serious!”

  “Seth, the last thing I want is to spend eight hours in the car with you.”

  “B, please. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m being ridiculous? You’re the one suggesting marriage!”

  “Well excuse me for thinking you’re the girl of my dreams, the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with-”

  “Stop! Please stop!” I feel the hot tears rolling down my face as I beg him to end this. “I can’t believe a word you’re saying. You. Don’t. Love. Me.”

  “I do love you!”

  “No. You’re still in love with Emma! I saw it today with my own eyes.” I shock him with my confession, hell, I shock myself with that little outburst. That’s when it hits me that I really believe it to be true, that’s the real reason I’m reacting this way. He remains silent, the pained look on his face is all the confirmation I need. “I’ll be damned if I’ll be your consolation prize. We’re done here and I’m leaving.”

  I grab the last of my things and tuck them into my bag. The loud sound of the zip slices through the silent room and I give Seth one last look before I head for the door. He remains silent, sitting on the edge of the bed, his arms resting on his thighs and his head hung in defeat. I let out a shaky breath while my legs take the necessary wobbly steps to leave the room.

  “How will you get home?” his raspy voice catches me when my hand reaches the doorknob.

  “I’ll take a train home or something. I’ll figure it out.” Though my mind is made up I instantly worry about how I’m going to do that. I have no idea of where I’m situated in regards to the nearest train station, I don’t know the costs involved, the train timetable or anything about this city.

  “I wish you wouldn’t.” He finally lifts his head and catches my eye. The look on his face is utterly devastating. He looks so broken. I remain rooted to the spot while I wait for him to speak. “Please
Bianca, let me take you home. I … I need to do that.”

  We stare at each other in silence for a while. My decision has more to do with appeasing him than it does me being scared about finding my way back to Sydney, when I relent and say, “Okay.”

  He looks relieved when I drop my bag back on the bed and slump down at the other end of it.

  “I’m sorry I pushed you towards something you’re not ready for.” Me? I want to argue. It’s he who isn’t ready for this. He’s the one that needs to reassess why he asked something like that.

  “You really should get that knee cleaned up.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll do that and give you some space.” He quickly leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. “B’s not feeling well,” I hear him say to someone outside the room. “She’s gonna have a bit of a rest.”

  “Can I get her anything? Oh! What happened to your knee?” I hear Roxie ask and then more mumbling as they walk away.

  I curl on my side and cry.

  Seth

  I spend most of the night, tossing and turning without trying to wake Bianca. I’ve never felt so alone whilst sharing a bed.

  We wake the next morning before the break of dawn because we have a lot of driving ahead of us. You can cut the tension with a knife as we move about my room and pack the last of our things. The silence between us is unbearable. And I just hope I can manage to concentrate on the road today when I’m feeling so tired from lack of sleep.

  I said my goodbyes to Mum and Tahlia last night, but Dad’s awake and eating his breakfast in the kitchen when we’re ready to leave.

  “Set to go?” he asks, around a mouthful of cereal.

  “Yep,” I reply.

  He puts down his bowl and follows us to the door.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks Bianca.

  “I’m okay,” she answers quietly. He gives Bianca a warm hug. “Please apologise to Roxie and Tahlia. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to them.”