I turned my head sharply towards it; was that what I thought it was? I reached out and experimentally tried the door again. This time, the handle turned all the way. My heart lifted, maybe this was an olive branch…?
Completely terrified of the conversation I might be about to have, I walked in and followed the numbers on doors upwards until I was standing in front of a big ‘13’. My heart still racing, I knocked.
I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know Gemma very well. She didn’t seem to be the kind of person who would hold a grudge, but then again, I’d liked Sean Frost, hadn’t I? Just in case, I should open up with how sorry I was, and how much it was all my fault, and—
—her door slowly opened, and I took a deep breath, ready to blurt everything out.
But instead of being faced with a pair of accusatory eyes, or a frown or, well, any sort of anger, Gemma’s eyes were puffy, her nose was red and the fingers of one of her hands were wrapped around a half-finished bottle of champagne.
God, she—she looked really terrible. She was still dressed in her pyjamas—I had a feeling she might have been like that for a while—and she had that broken look of someone who was barely holding together by a thread. I forgot what I was about to say.
She followed my eyes down to the bottle of champagne and held it up so I could see. “It’s the one I bought to share last month, remember?” she asked quietly, her voice wavering. “Sare and I used to drink it in uni, and I thought it would be fun for us to drink it again because the taste is really nostalgic for me. It reminds me of finishing exams, summer house parties, and getting drunk at Bondi while we checked out the lifeguards together...” When she looked back up at me, her eyes were swimming. Her voice broke as she said, “She used to tell me everything, Min. Everything. Her hopes, her dreams… Now she won’t even tell me when her whole life is about to change because she’s pregnant.” With that, her face crumpled and she began to cry.
I stood there for a second with my mouth open, paralysed, before I managed to pull myself together. I glanced both ways down the hall. I couldn’t just stand here and gape at her, no matter how much of a surprise this was. With Sarah’s instructions to hug girls when they cried at the front of my mind, I walked her a few steps back into her apartment, closed the door and pulled her in a big, firm hug.
That made her cry even harder. Completely stunned, I just held her against me, staring wide-eyed over her head at her messy little kitchen and the little metropolis of empty alcohol bottles gathered beside her recycling bin. That was how mine used to look.
“This is so ironic,” she murmured into my chest when she’d relaxed a little. She was still heaving little breaths.
I hesitated for a moment before beginning to stroke her hair, not sure if I was crossing a line. “Because you’re angry with me?”
She leant into my hand. “Kind of, yeah.”
I flinched. I knew it. “I’m sorry,” I said, slumping, “I just didn’t know what else to say when you started talking about the holiday. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
I felt her frown against me. After a few moments of being completely still, she pulled back, giving me a strange look. “What?”
I stared blankly at her. “Um, when I lied about not knowing what was going on with Sarah.” She was still frowning at me. “That—that is what we’re talking about, right?”
She stared at me for a moment and then laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “Oh my gosh,” she said, wiping her eyes again. “No. No, that’s not it…”
I’d done something else? “Then what…?”
Wiping her eyes on her wrists, she considered me a bit critically like she was trying to make a decision. Then, she sighed. “You want to come in?”
She led me through into her cramped, little living room and to her old, worn couch. I sat in the part with the least amount of orange cat hair, and she flopped down beside me and offered me the bottle. When I declined, she looked even more miserable and drank deeply from it herself.
I glanced around her living room while she did that; it had the usual ‘chick’ décor, hair ties on door handles, charger cords for everything everywhere, the odd plush toy, and a photo mural on the wall. I squinted at it. Lots of the photos were of her and Sarah, and in some of them, they both looked like teenagers. It was disorienting seeing them both so young.
After Gemma had swallowed the champagne, she rested the bottle on her lap and gazed across at me. I turned stiffly back to her, bracing myself for a redress. My palms were practically sweating; I had no idea what I’d done. “Sare sent you here because she’s on business?” she asked, and I nodded like I was in a job interview. “Like, she just called and told you out of the blue?” She looked hopeful.
I made a so-so movement with my hand. “Yeah, she called me. Not really out of the blue, though: Bree was worried that you weren’t replying to her, so I texted Sarah to ask if she knew why.”
It was like deflating a balloon. “Right,” she said. “Of course.” She had another long swig of champagne. “She didn’t even notice that I haven’t texted her for two weeks...”
I winced. “She’s just busy.”
Gemma closed her eyes for a moment. “I know…” she said. “I know she is. I know she’s in love with Rob now, and she has other friends—she’s always had other friends, she’s Sare—but it’s like… with this.” She held up the bottle. “Drinking it just brings everything back, the way things used to be.”
I listened, still at a loss as to what I’d done.
“We had all these plans for after we graduated, everything was mapped out. We had a list of countries to visit—the plan was to see one every year—a list of companies we were going to apply to together for work, all this stuff. We wanted to take a year off and volunteer abroad before we turned 30. We even agreed to have our children at the same time, so they’d grow up together and always be best friends like we were.” She gazed up at the ceiling. “One night maybe three or four years ago, we were getting wasted on her decking after her old boyfriend had left her, and she turned to me with her makeup everywhere because she’d been crying and said, ‘Move in with me, Gem’. And I was like…” She took an eager breath. “I was so excited. I was already trying to figure out how I’d get this place rented, and how I was going to get my cat used to her house, I could hardly even sleep at all that night because I was just, like, bursting with how much I was looking forward to it… But in the morning she didn’t even remember she’d said it.” She looked across at me.
Suddenly, the penny dropped and I understood exactly what she was saying. “And now I’m living with her.”
I’d hit the mark, and her face crumpled. “And she’s always talking about you. It’s always Toyboy this, Min that, and she took you up to Broome—she’s been telling me for three years that it would be fun for me to visit there. And you say you discovered she was pregnant by accident, but that’s crap. Sare’s not like that. She would have hidden it if she didn’t want you to know, so she wanted you to know,” she told me. “She wanted you to know. You. Not me.”
I was probably white as a sheet; I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t mean to steal Sarah. That wasn’t what had happened, was it?
She saw my expression and looked momentarily horrified at herself. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I sound so jealous and awful. Gosh, I’m so drunk,” she said, holding up the bottle to eye level so she could see how much was left. She choked up again when she saw the label. “It’s just that I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t think I did do anything wrong. It’s like everything was fine and now suddenly she doesn’t need me anymore. I just wish—” she began, struggling to say it, “I just wish someone could tell me what changed.”
This was all beginning to sound very familiar to me. “Sarah did,” I realised aloud. I reached out and put a hand on her back. God, this was so, so familiar. “Not because she doesn’t care. She does. It’s just things have happened to her rece
ntly: she’s pregnant with an unplanned baby, she’s just been promoted at work. She and Rob are serious, they’ll probably get married soon, I guess. She hasn’t forgotten about you, she’s just at a new stage in her life, and—”
“—And she’s going there without me,” Gemma finished in a small voice. “Even though she always said we’d do it all together.”
I rubbed her back. “Sometimes things don’t go according to plan.”
Gemma digested that for a little while, taking another mouthful of champagne and swirling the rest around in the bottle as she thought. Eventually, she heaved a sigh. “She got promoted?” she asked me, for clarification.
I nodded. “She’s leading a huge team right now. They’re off in the Blue Mountains for a couple of weeks, setting it all up.”
Gemma forced a smile. “That’s great,” she said, but her smile immediately wavered and fell. “I just… Well, you want to know something really stupid?” she asked. I listened intently as she told me, “Last November I got offered a big promotion based in the New York office. It was a big pay increase, working with some of the top risk management analysts and statisticians across all of our brands, and networking with others from other big energy companies.” She exhaled at length and then laughed once, humourlessly. “I didn’t even consider it, not for a single second. Stupid, right?” She looked up.
Oh, god. “You didn’t tell Sarah, did you?”
She shook her head. “She would kill me for saying no to it. I don’t even know why I did say no. It was so stupid, and if I’d known all this was going to happen anyway…” She looked across at her TV cabinet; there was a photo of her and Sarah in snorkelling gear in front of a brightly coloured reef, beaming at the camera and holding up starfish. It looked like it was taken a lifetime ago. “I’m losing her,” Gemma murmured, gazing at the photo. “I’m losing my best friend.” She put her head in her hands and cried.
I sat with her while she did, rubbing her back and staring across at all those photos of the two of them together. There were so many memories there. So many holidays, study binges and Frost Christmas parties. They both looked so happy; it gave me a secret window into Sarah’s life that I'd never had before. Part of Sarah’s struggle with her pregnancy made a lot more sense to me.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as losing her,” I told Gemma eventually, when her tears had subsided. “If her life is suddenly changing, it’s as hard for her as it is for the people close to her.”
Gemma looked up from her hands. “Did she tell you that?”
A gave her a wry grin, gesturing to my body and my clothes. “No. I just know from experience.”
She half-smiled in appreciation of what I’d said. “I forgot about that,” she admitted, and then watched me for a moment, her smile fading. “’For the people close to her’,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Did you lose people when you transitioned?”
Henry. Thinking about it was like a punch in the stomach. “One person,” I said, and then reconsidered, thinking about the persistent flashing LED on my phone. “So far. But I’m the world’s worst hermit, so I really only had one person anyway.”
Gemma held up her bottle. “Hey, I’m drinking at home by myself. This is day four. I think I win the prize for the world’s worst hermit,” she told me, and then lowered the bottle again, getting back to what I’d said. “So, what happened with your one person? Was it really awfully painful trying to get over them? Did you drink yourself half to death, too?”
The way she’d put that made my blood run cold. “I was the one who changed, and I don’t know how my one person got over me.” I paused. “Assuming he has.”
Her lips parted. “Oh, right,” she said, and slumped a little.
Something occurred to me while I was thinking about Henry and gazing across at her slumping just like he’d been the last time I saw him in the restaurant. It took me a moment to ask it. “Tell me,” I began, “would you want to be a part of Sarah’s new life? Even if it’s different?”
She nodded, still looking down at the bottle. “Yes,” she said, with feeling, “so much. But I just don’t know how I’m supposed to fit anymore. It’s like she’s got all the positions in her brand new life already filled, and where am I even supposed to fit now?”
That answer… God, this was too close to home, too close. It reminded me of how Henry’s voice broke on that late night phone call about the meeting, and of how much he’d struggled not to hug me at the restaurant, even though he’d turned away from me afterwards. Maybe he thought he didn’t fit in my life anymore, either.
“I bet she wants you to,” I said, swallowing down emotion of my own. “I bet she really, really wants you to fit.”
Gemma must have noticed, because she nudged me with the neck of the bottle. “Are you sure you don’t want some of this?”
I took it from her, sighing. My mouth was really dry. “Maybe one glass.”
While I was drinking it, Gemma took me on the tour of all the photos of Sarah and her, animatedly telling me all about the crazy adventures that had led to some of the weirder ones. It was interesting hearing stories about the two of them, and also sad to think that their shared adventures were on hold for a while. Maybe forever.
Gemma put the last photo frame back on her mantelpiece. “After this holiday here, next up was Thailand…” she said wistfully, and sighed.
I made a face. “I’m sorry about that holiday you had planned for the two of you.”
Her eyes were veiled. “Me too,” she said, and nodded at some travel brochures on her coffee table. They featured elephants, and palm trees, and beautiful pristine tropical beaches with crystal clear water. There were also annotated Post-Its all over them. “I spent so long planning it. It was going to be amazing.”
I bent forward and picked up one the brochures, leafing through it. She’d put so much effort into it. Something occurred to me. “You probably wanted to do some of this stuff too, right?”
She knew exactly what I was onto, and shook her head. “I can’t go without her, Min. Besides, she’s due in December, which is when I planned it. However she feels about me, I’m pretty sure it would be a massive dick move to be away when she gives birth to her first baby.”
“Well, she’s away right now for two weeks…” I pointed out. “You can move the dates, right? If you want to do some of this stuff, you definitely should do it, even if you have to do it by yourself. Besides, maybe taking a break from her would make everything a lot clearer.”
She was silent for a moment, and I saw possibility glimmer in her eyes. It was quickly gone, and she shook her head. “No, I don’t want to go without her.”
I shrugged. “Okay. It was just a suggestion.”
I left her place somewhere around midnight. I didn’t drive home straight away, though. Sitting alone in my car with the rain pouring down my windshield, the conversation I had earlier with her was stuck fast in my head. I couldn’t shake it.
I ended up with my phone in my hands, staring down at the bright screen in my dark car. I dismissed all the notifications and opened up text messaging.
“Now that I’ve spent the evening with Gemma and she’s okay,” I texted Sarah, “can I get you to do something for me this time?”
She replied immediately. “So she IS okay? Thank god, I’ve been checking my phone every five seconds for hours. My team is giving me some weird looks, let me tell you. At this point, I’d pretty much do anything for you. Ask away.”
I wondered how she was going to receive it. “Have you seen Henry lately at work? How does he look?”
“…funny you should ask that. He’s up here for a couple of days with the HR interns doing our project contracts for us. At least I heard he is, I haven’t seen him because I’ve been in meetings forever. I can probably snoop around at lunch tomorrow if you want. How much info are you after, though? Because it’s kind of unhealthy to be getting friends to stalk your ex. Do you just want confirmation he’s okay, too?”
&nb
sp; I tapped my thumbs on my phone for a moment. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. “Yeah, just tell me if he looks okay.”
“Okay, can do, Mister!” was the quick reply. “Thanks for taking care of Gem. It means a lot xx”
I smiled. I had a good feeling about those two. I was just starting the engine when another message came through. I wasn’t sure what else Sarah had to say to me, but I checked before I pulled away from the kerb anyway.
It wasn’t from Sarah, though, it was from Gemma. “So maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to do this while I’m really drunk, but I did change my tickets after all... My plane leaves tomorrow at 8:10am, Sydney to Bangkok. I decided to upgrade to first class. I’ve never flown first class before!” Another message came through. “Since this was totally your idea, you’ll feed my cat, right?”
I chuckled. “I’m happy to.”
“Thank you so much! The keys are in Sare’s hall table. I’ll bring you back a big present for doing it, I promise!” There was a pause, and another message came through. “Thank you, Min. Really, I mean that. I haven’t taken my suitcase out of the cupboard in a long time.”
I bit my lip: she was going on her adventure after all. “Anytime :)” I replied, smiling like my emoticon, and then headed home.
TWENTY-SIX
Bree wasn’t asleep like I’d expected her to be when I tiptoed back into the bedroom. She wasn’t just awake, either: she was sitting up in bed in her pyjamas, knees to her chest with the bedroom light on, watching me tensely as I closed the door.
I glanced at my phone; it read 12:13am. She was normally completely passed out by now. Then again, I wasn’t normally over by myself at Gemma’s. “Are you waiting up on me?” I asked with a grin, turning to face the wall so I could start getting undressed.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She was completely serious.
I frowned over my shoulder at her. Did she actually think I’d cheat on her? “After what I did to Henry, I’d never—”
“Not that,” she told me. “I didn’t think you’d be over there having sex with her or anything. It was just that I was going over all the Maths homework because we’ve got a big test coming up next week and, like, it’s supposed to just build on what we learnt last semester, but I literally don’t understand any of it. The word problems are the worst, I don’t even know which formulas to apply to them. So, I was just kind of…” She made a face. “Like, did you make up with her? Are you guys okay?”
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